Moore and More

Coming Up for Air

2011-05-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

I'm re-surfasing. I can't believe it's been almost two years since I've posted. Wow.

Everything you saw (or will see, if you scroll down into the history) is true. The past two years have been filled with nothing but my capabilities to cope with my life in NY, and "The Estate." My NY friends think I'm defecting to MA; my MA friends assure me that's not an option. Meanwhile, it's nothing but business, business trips, and trips up to MA two weekends a month in order to keep it all together.

More later, I promise.

(I've always promised, it's just a matter of when "later" is...)

Love,

So How Am I?

2009-10-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

Yo:

I've been asked a lot, of late, "So, how ARE you?"

I appreciate the interest. I appreciate the inquiry. But, my friends, you'll have to excuse me if I don't respond with an answer that is anything within the realm of "typical."

For you, of all people, as my friends, must understand that -- despite my having appeared, of late, to have assumed a lifestyle that might be construed as "typical" -- I remain a soul that is anything less than (more than?) typical.

So how AM I?

I am fine. I am functioning. I am addressing all of the needs (and confronting all of the demons) that my New English, Lace-Curtian Irish upbringing might have led us all to expect me to eventually have had to deal with.

There. There was no other way to end that sentence than with a preposition. I suppose that says it all. How am I? "Well, I'm fine, thank you very much -- but, of late, I've been ending my sentences with prepositions. Do you suppose that means anything?"

Do you suppose? Do you suppose anything? Well, then, good for you. Because I, of late, have not been able to suppose anything. Anything at all. For, you see, being confronted with grief the likes of which relates to the loss of a parent -- I dare say -- renders one incapable of being able to suppose anything whatsoever. Oh, one might suppose this and that, but eventually (and quite suddenly), one must admit that one's parent is gone.

Gone.

Forever.

And because one's parent is gone, then the rest of how one related to the world (most often based within how one related to one's parent) is gone.

Regardless of what kind of relationship there was, and regardless of which expectations might have been raised and then realized, or (more often than not), not realized -- the eventual and sudden realization that the relationship between one and one's parent has ended emerges.

So, in case you're still wondering, that's "how I AM."

I'm still reeling in the shock that is having lost the 2nd of both my parents, within 2 years. I'm deep within the depths of discovering what life with real estate, property taxes, attorneys and financial planners is like.

I know that ultimately it doesn't sound like much. But when you factor in the fact that I never intended for this kind of thing to happen (e.g.: I perceived "their" mistrust of me as a reason to cut me out of the will), then it takes on a whole different meaning.

I'm a bourgeois kid from the suburbs of Massachusetts who was raised to be one thing, then rebelled against it (all the while still acting like it) -- who then finally wound up doing exactly what he was raised to do. I was raised to market myself. And that, my friends, of all things, is one thing that you can always count on me to do.

So how am I?

I'm fine.

I'm coping as best I can, and I'm continuing to market myself.

What else is new?

It Finally Came to This

2009-05-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

It finally came to this, where "my" tenants here at 92 Moore St. are concerned. After several of the semi-privileged idiots called 311 in order to file complaints against the landlord, several City Inspectors have since shown up. And that is NOT a good thing. To learn why, read on. This is the pseudo-anonymous letter I just left under their doors:

The Thing About Calling the City

The thing about calling the city, here where you live, is that: Even though it might appease your feelings of frustration about the circumstances under which all of this building’s tenants live, it ultimately threatens everyone’s ability to live here.

Each time a complaint about the building is called in, and subsequently filed, the city builds a case against having ANY tenants live in the dwelling.

That means, every time you call the city in order to fix whatever your apartment’s current problem is, the Landlord gets hit with a fine AND the city becomes more and more curious as to exactly what is going on here, as far as dwellings go.

You were all informed, at the time of your lease signings, that this building is in transition as far as city codes go – and that the only reasons you were allowed to rent here were because: a) you acknowledged that fact, and b) you had less than the standard personal/professional backgrounds that would have been necessary to rent any of the majority of other New York City apartments. (E.g.: There was no credit check, no background check, no calling of your previous Landlords, and no Guarantor required.)

Yes, this is written evidence that you could possibly use against the Landlord if you really want to choose the legal route to getting your immediate needs met while you live here. But lawsuits take years to process. The odds are you will be far gone from here by the time any lawsuit you file meets its docket date. That means it will be years from now before any Judge will listen to your complaints.

So you options are:

Either keep calling the city every time something goes wrong with your apartment, thereby eventually having everybody in the building evicted; or, cooperate with the Landlord in finding more immediate solutions to your problems.

If you want all the tenants in this building to wind up on the street, keep calling the city.

If you are truly unhappy with your living situation, the Landlord will let you out of your lease at any time without incurring any penalty. Please don’t make your problem every other tenant’s problem.

And that's how I left it. We'll see what results from it...

[Ed's Note:]

2009-05-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Editors of Moore and More would like to apologize for the printing of the mere first draft poem in the last post's poem. Somewhere between when Suzy, our Summer Intern, dropped off the submission and when she finally left, there was a mix-up ... G&Sp

The Father, Son an' The Music's Ghost

2009-05-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

OMG...

You: You who've been readin'
Thus far;
Thus far int'a' m'readin'
Of matters thus far

You: Who've b'een a'long w'ith me
Ever s'much;
S'much as s'much's might'a 'been
A'llowed as t'come
Along jus' s'far.

S'far as s'far's been allowed
T'be...
S'far's 'been allow'd t'be's
'Been allowed t'be.
S'far.

You: who doesn't know much
About m' journeys
B'fore here;
M'journeys heretofore,
Or 'm'journeys here t'date..

You' jus' don't know..
Y'don't KNOW;
An' f'er that,
I can't help but f'er ya,
I can't help f'er ya

Not hate.

F'er t'hate ya'd
T'mean...
Mean 't'meant ya'd,
Quite mean.
An' I can't yet quite
T'mean ya...

'T mean ya
So mean.

And Now, for the Next Step

2009-03-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

"You only call me when you're high," a friend of mine just told me over the phone. And he was right. I've taken to Drinking and Dialing. You've all been on the receiving end of it, if you're on my celly's call list.

Sorry.

I've taken to drinkin', snortin' and dialin'. Sorry. But it's how I line up all the personal calls I want to return. As the weeks progress, and as I work (and work and work), and as the personal calls that need to be returned pile up, I wind up scheduling time on the days when I "partake" to return those calls. See, I want to enjoy them. I want them to not feel like the kind of calls I have to make 5 days a week at work. I want the calls that I make when I call my friends to not feel at all like the calls that I make when I'm calling on prospects for business.

That's why you don't hear from me until late at nite. When I've been drinkin', smokin' and snortin'. I know I must not come across at that time as altogether together. I know I must sound fucked up. Well, that's because I am.

Friends: I'm fucked up. I'm riddled with fear. I've allowed myself to slip back into the bourgeois sensibility I was raised to have. I've let myself go back to the pseudo upper-middle class consciousness that I was bred to live and replicate. In a nutshell (and wouldn't it be great if I could indeed harbor myself in such a place -- in such a safety cone as a nutshell), I've regressed from a consciousness-raising self-employed San Franciscan to a Live-by-the-Clock, "Attend Multiple Meetings and Schedule Yet Even More" New Yorker.

Thing is, I don't think this transition is all that bad.

I don't think it's all that bad, although it is defintiely scary to me. That's why I drink and dial. You see, when I drink and dial, that's when I'm most vulnerable. As much as it must suck to be on the receiving end of those drunken calls, I beg you to understand how lonely a place I'm coming from when I make them.

I'm lonely. I'm alone, with the exception of having a loving dog, and I'm scared. True, I've managed to carve out a domicile in the curious up-and-coming roughneck neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn. I'm doing the best I can, and indeed, some certain forces can be said to have been working in my favor. I can't ignore that. In a lot of ways, things have gone very well for me since I moved here 6 years ago carrying a suitcase and a bunch of unfinished business from L.A.

But now I'm plateau-ing. All the emergencies have faded into just plain middle class responsibilities. I don't know how most folks do it. I don't know how you guys with middle-class lives -- replete with middle-class kids -- do it. I was raised middle class. I always thought I'd escape it. For a while, I did. But lately I haven't been able to.

I'm relatively content in the life that I've worked so hard over the past 6 years to create. Even if it does involve living in a ghetto with a live chicken store in my back yard and crack heads and junkies smoking and shooting up in my hall. It's not at all the middle-class existence I was raised to have. But I've managed to make it as middle-class as possible.

There's no mistaking it. I'm a Bohemian. No matter how much or how little money I bring in per year, I'm still a Bohemian. My goal, socio-economically speaking, is to earn middle-class earnings whilst retaining a Bohemian lifestyle. So far I'm doing that. And that's why I'm so depressed.

I'm getting what I wanted, and realizing I need to want a heck of a lot more in order to get more of what I need. I need to raise the stakes, even though my middle-class job leaves me exhausted each week. I hate -- I simply hate -- that the answer for us working-class folks always seems to be, "Work harder."

Well, I'm going to work harder. I'm woring hard right now, and it sucks, and it's depressing me, but I'm going to work harder nonetheless. Until or unless somebody presents me with something more worthwhile, that's all I can do. So if you're worried that I'm too busy right now, working, you can be assured it's only going to get worse.

And so, the drinking and dialing might continue. I'll stop it at your request, but in the meantime, it'll go on. It's all I've got to connect with you. If you want to arrange some other way to connect, by all means, let me know and we'll arrange it. All I want is to connect.

I'm staring down the barrel of 45. My stage and writing career snuffed themselves out when I hit my mid-30s and settled down in Los Angeles with a man who would prove himself to be emotionally abusive. Yes, of course, I let him be so. I know. I know. But knowing so doesn't bring back all that lost time...

All this moving about. All this relocating. It has to stop. I have to put down some roots. And so I have. In an up-and-coming neighborhood in Brooklyn called Bushwick. But it's come with a price tag. A hefty price tag. 6 years, from age 39 to 45, have been sacrificed in order for me to merely start pushing out some roots.

I don't know how many of you have had to "go it alone" the way I have. It's not easy. I do my best to refrain from becoming a burden on my friends and family. I grew up young. At 19 I was working 3 part-time jobs and going to college full time. Despite the slacker days in San Francisco (during which I still maintained my own lifestyle), and despite a few slacking months here in Brooklyn, I've always worked. I've always, with a few exceptions, been my own man. And the time whe I wasn't were miserable for me. Absolutely miserable.

All I'm asking for is some understanding. It I call you late at night, drunk or buzzed or high, well -- can ya just cut me some slack? You don't have to pick up. And you can tell me how fucked up I sounded on your voice mail. That's all part of the deal.

But the deal is, I gotta hear your voice. Even if it's your voice mail.

I've Lost My Voice

2009-03-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

OK, Truth be told? I've lost my voice.

I've lost the voice that was once the source of my musings. See, once upon a time, I used my voice to articulate all that was on my mind -- and in my heart. But somewhere along the line, I lost touch with my voice -- because I lost touch with my ability to articulate it.

Once upon a time, I was a brave young man, fearless and unconcerned with how my words and actions might affect those around me. Once upon a time, I was obsessed with truth -- and how it must be spoken.

And so I spoke the truth. And I made for myself a name that became associated with speaking the truth. But the truth of which I spoke back then was entirely personal. Such was the luxury of being a young man. To be able to speak of truths entirely personal.

You see, for the young man, the truths that are entirely personal are exactly that: entirely personal. But as that young man grows (if the fates would have it) into an older man -- well, then, all bets are off.

All bets are off, you see, as a young man grows into an older man. Because, as a young man grows into an older man, he accumulates relationships. He accumulates relationships that define the transition of his growing from young man into an older man. He accumulates relationships that define what separates his youth from his adulthood. He accumulates relationships that, at first, defined who he was, but then eventually came to define who he was to become.

And it is within this accumulation -- this accumulation of relationships -- that it becomes more difficult for the Romantic young man to continue to articulate his true feelings.

For if this once-young, now older, man were to articulate his feelings in a manner just as he'd articulated his heretofore youthful articulations... Why, then, he'd proceed to offend many, if not most, of the persons who now constitute his heretofore recently acquired adulthood.

In short, it gets harder to remain honest as one gets older.

At least, publicly.

So if you're wondering why you haven't heard my voice lately, it's because I've realized I've lost it. I hope not to have lost it forever, but for the time being -- well, I don't know which of you to praise and which of you to bash.

At least, publicly.

And so for now,

Ta,

I'm a Bit Concerned

2009-01-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

I won't lie t'ya... I'm a bit concerned.

I'm a bit concerned about this Generation Y (and beyond). On the one hand, they have the world at their fingertips (or, at least, the world according to Google) -- yet on the other hand, that's all they rely upon. Google, Yahoo, and Wiki.

Don't make me say it. Please, don't make me say it. I won't say it. Oh, Christ, it would apear as though I have to say it:

Google, Yahoo, and Wiki -- OH MY.

Did you know that the number of Google, Yahoo and Wiki (to say the least) searches are contributing to our present-day unnaturally excesssive additions to the Carbon Dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere? Well, they are.

Exactly what was it you thought they meant when you first read, at the bottom of their emails, "Powered By..."???

Power takes money. And money takes power.

But most often, not for long.

I hope I won't have to continue to kill Polar Bears just to be able to put food on my table.

Signed,
Conspiracy-Theorist Greg

Here's the Thing (Or, at Least, One of 'em)

2009-01-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

OK, so my last post was maudlin.

Know what Webster has to say about that term? Well, here it is:

"Alteration of Mary Magdalene; from her depiction as a weeping penitent.
Date:
1509
1 : drunk enough to be emotionally silly
2 : weakly and effusively sentimental"

Gads. I didn't even know I meant that. But apparently I did. See, that's one of the things my mind does. It refers to references far tucked into the dictionary -- or into the encyclopedia -- of "Modern Man [sic]." Believe me, when my mind talks to itself, it uses all vocabulary: All tenses; all prepositional phrases; and all potential grammatical potentialities, including the past, past-participle, conditional past-participle, conditional past-past participle, and so on. Indeed, my mind utilizes all the potentialities of the English language (or so it hopes), be it scholastic or vernacular, whenever it thinks.

But it isn't always sure of what it speaks. That's how my mind works. It speaks first, somewhat linguistically, or scholastically, or within the parameters of the vernacular -- and then it goes backwards. It re-traces. It, after having spoken, re-traces its steps. My mind, after having spoken, re-traces its linguistic steps -- to make sure it has meant, or at least meant what it's meant, what it's said.

In this case, as I've already said, my said linguistics said exactly that which I intended them to have already said.

So what have I said? Simply this: Once Upon a Time, when I lived and produced writing whilst living in San Francisco, I had given myself the liberty to speak. I'd granted myself the honor of writing honorably. I'd allowed myself the occasion to be -- totally -- myself.

But since I've come to New York, all I've allowed myself are limitations.

I can't (/don't) write about my life as it actually is. Why? Because, as much as I'd lke to think my currrent cohorts would be able to digest where I've come from and where, as a result, I'm going... I know they can't. They simply can't.

How do I know? I know because, as a result of having spent 7 years in LA before I ventured into New York, I've recognized a rather simple formula: Material acquitisition = lack of Spiritual education. And yes, you Angelinos and New Yorkers can argue: Lack of material acquisitition most often = excessive, or at the very least, imbalanced, Pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.

I made my mark (if even it might be said that I even had) in San Francisco by being utterly blunt, and honest with myself. I haven't found the place in New York to be able to be so. I've come close, and I'm coming closer -- but the idea of being really real with East-Coasters has proven to be a scary concept.

And being really real with West-Coasters has proven to be tedious. Sorry to you all. But ultimately, everybody wants validation of their sensibility, don't they? Well, I'm sorry. I can't validate West Coast sensibility whilst travailing amidst the turmoil of East Coast sensibility in efforts to merely stay alive.

To hear it put like that, one might think nobody wins. But I'm here to tell you all, this is duality we're deling with. This is the physical realm. Comprised through the tension of opposites. An entire realm. The physical realm. Comprised of the tension of opposites.

So deal with it, my friends. Just live with it. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you -- whether you're coming from the perspective of materialism or spiritualism -- eventually get to this point?

I'm there. I'm at that point. I'm at the point where I'm no longer going to value any material advice/perspective any more than I'm going to value any spiritual advice/perspective any more than either perspective/argument applies to my current situation.

Because, in the end, that's exactly what both persepctives are concerned with. My situation. Go figure.

You didn't think you were off the hook in this bi-argumentative, doubly-intended argument, did you?

So that leaves me with two options: Either shut up, or keep trudging along. But trudging along means maintaining integrity in what I'm saying.

I'm on the brink. I'm on the brink of falling forever away from the scene, or of falling into the realm of pissing you off.

History will tell.

Heya...

2008-12-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

Heya, Hi-ya, Ho-ya:

I know it's been an awful long time since I posted. Forgive me. It hasn't been for lack of wanting to. It's just that it's been... Well, it's been pretty awful of late.

Sorry to start off with such a dreadful ("dreadful" -- don't you just love that word, in an Emily Dickenson-esque sort of way?) tone, but, if truth be known, then the truth is, things around here have been pretty dreadful for quite a while now. (Well, if you define "dreadful" as "lacking the means to do anything other than that which has been established as that which one must do in order to maintain one's status in life," then yes, absolutely, things around here have been rather dreadful lately.)

Could it be worse? Hell, yeah. Just ask Sarah McLaughlin, or the guy who pleads on behalf of the Polar Bears, or even Laurie Metcalf, who pleads on behalf of the children of Darfur...

Could it be worse? Hell, yeah. It could be way worse. That's what makes it so painful.

If I'm not gonna help out one of them -- If I'm not gonna be able t'make any sort of difference in my life -- then why the fuck am I getting up every day, tryin' t'do anything???

Someone please, answer me.

It's all so overwhelming. So "bigger than thou..."

So what do I do? And exactly how?

Signed,
Deserately Curious

In a Nutshell

2008-03-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

In the past 5 years I’ve:

Moved to NYC with only $3,000
and a suitcase Relocated
and re-acclimated
a 50-pound dog

Renovated
a sub-standard apartment
in a sub-standard neighborhood
Just to be dumped by a Partner of 12 years
for no reason

Worked
a “Devil Wears Prada” job
In order to qualify
for higher-level positions
Obtained said
higher-level positions, and

Worked said higher-level positions
until I b'come numb

Lost my mother
(however unpleasant that relationship might've been)

Then
after all that,

Started t'realize
m'work's
Just b'gun…

G

Bushwick Life

2008-02-28T22:04:00.000-08:00

It's occured to me on more than several occasions that I haven't let any of you in on the visual aspects of life in Bushwick.

Well, that was partially because I hadn't collected any photos and mostly because I couldn't deal with learning how to upload them... But praise be, the folks at Blogger have made it easier.

So here we go, on a virtual tour of the 'hood as Spooge and I now know it.

Here we are at dawn, last April, tripping on ecstacy and making sure our bladders have been emptied before we crash.

Bushwick's aesthetic is as close to LA's as any New York neighborhood can get. This isn't the Upper West Side. This isn't "the village" (either one). Nor is it any part of Brooklyn where you'll find blocks of brownstones. No, Bushwick is something else. Something different. It's a collage. The landscape turns from industrial to quaint row-houses within the space of a football field. There are recently renovated loft spaces next to empty lots, which are next to stray Edwardians and Victorians, which are next to bodegas and L-train subway stops.

We used to be the beer capitol of the country. Hence the reason there is so much industry and why we have "Knickerbocker Avenue."

Last summer, of '07, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Blackout of '77:

The subsequent riots affected this area and the Bronx the hardest. That's part of why we have so many empty lots...

What's happening now is, the real estate whoremongers are building ugly contemporary apartment buildings in many of those lots, some right next to the projects, filling the neighborhood with a visual mixture of past and present -- but not in any historically conscious sort of way. The result is slapdash; happenstance. Very much like Los Angeles. Except here very few of us have the privilege of being able to drive past any of it. The "collage" effect that makes LA tolerable by virtue of its being a car town is lost, unless, ironically, one is capable of standing still and taking it all in.

Believe it or not, this is the view from outside my front door...

And this is the infamous live poultry store next door, featuring "Live Poultry and Polio!"

Blogger is being a pain in the ass, so I'll end this here. But I'll perfect the image skill and keep 'em coming...

I know it looks ugly, but there is such beauty in its cracks.

(My) Life (Or Something Like It)

2008-02-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

Hey.

Just because you haven't heard from me lately doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about what to say next. Indeed, I've been thinking about saying alot of things. I just haven't gotten around to saying them. But rest assured (if there's one amongst you who's even capable of such an act), I've been thinking.

I've been thinking about karma and dhamra and life on this pesky little blue planet in general. I've been wondering exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing with this thing they call "life."

"Life."

My "life."

What am I supposed to do with it?

Sound like an adolescent inquiry? Sound like the kind of thing most folks resolve in their 20s? Yeah -- I don't think so. I think this kind of question pops up again and again in life. And midlife is an especially opportune time for it to resurface. Hence the reason for the popular notion of the "midlife crisis."

Am I having a midlife crisis? Hard to say. So much of my life has been a crisis, how would I begin to distinguish one type from another? No, as a matter of fact, I'd say that at this particular moment in my life, the crises have -- at least momentarily -- subsided. That's what's given me the opportunity to reconsider who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing.

"May you get what you wish for," as the eternal blessing/curse says...

What have I gotten recently? Well, I'm at the 4-year mark here in NYC. I came here in the summer of '03 with a suitcase and $3,000 in an IRA generated from the mother-ship corporation that prints Better Homes and Gardens. Talk about a crisis. The "economy," as we Americans love to refer to it, wasn't doing well. Friends on both coasts considered my move to be "high risk," at best. But I went ahead with it anyway. I went ahead with it because my choices were: Stay miserable in LA, with connections and a home firmly in place; or, Move to NY (where I'd always dreamt I'd eventually live), "upping" the risk factor by only a few notches, when one really analyzed it enough...

I took a huge risk, and it paid off. It took a long time to do so, and in doing so, I had some tremendous support from several of the people whom I love most dearly. Erik (though he is no longer a part of my life) picked up the pieces that I'd left behind as I made my mad dash away from what had been my life. That included a dog, a cat, a car and a motorcycle. Ray helped him do so, AND he threw me one month's rent when I was renting a room in Park Slope and just beginning to figure out how to proceed. Ditto for Susan. I'll never forget how much their gestures -- and their checks! -- meant to my mere survival at the time. It took me over a year to pay them both back. They each get a kidney if they ever need it!

But soon after landing here and boarding with the ex-lesbian in Park Slope, I found my niche. Once I'd secured a "Devil Wears Prada" sort of job (much like I'd had in LA before moving), I made my way to the Williamsburg/Bushwick border. I must've had angels guiding me (cliche as that sounds), because it landed me here, at The Naughty Pine, where I not only enjoy reasonable rent (by NY standards), but I also frequently don't have to pay that rent. I get a month's rent credit for every apartment I lease out for my Hassidic landlord who doesn't own a computer or know how to log onto Craigslist. Talk about a golden goose...

But the golden goose requires feeding. She requires feeding, grooming, health care and exercise. So she's no golden ticket -- please don't confuse the two.

See, I have to feed, groom, take care of and exercise that golden goose in addition to working my full-time sales position in an internet software company. The job should be enough. Lord knows my boss thinks so. But if he were to really think about it, he'd realize he'd have to pay me quite a bit more before I could ever consider leaving the golden goose to her own devices...

All of which is to say, I work all the time. I've become the stereotypical New Yorker who thinks and talks of nothing but work. I sell for the boss and I sell for the landlord. And when I'm not selling for either of them, I'm selling myself and those around me on the notion that I'm here to get something more done than all this peddling.

Nevertheless, I feel as though I've accomplished something. I've accomplished more than just something, and I feel a few more "something's" on the horizon about to be accomplished, too. That's the blessing of subduing a crisis or two. You get to sit back, if only momentarily, and reflect upon what you've just accomplished -- and what you'd like to accomplish next.

Hence my reason for this midlife inquiry. It could've happened sooner; it could've happened later. For that reason I don't think it's a crisis. As I said, the crises have already presented themselves.

But it's an inquiry nonetheless. Once again, I'm forced to ask myself, "Who am I?," and "What am I supposed to be doing with my life?" Trite, I know. Questions so trite as to recently having been reduced to subway poster status. And yet...

In case you're expecting a revelation, or any sort of epiphany, I'll let you down as gently as I can right here and now... There isn't any. But there is -- finally -- a re-examination of what might lead to one.

Fair enough?

Hey -- it'll have to do for now.

So Wha Happa in '07?

2008-01-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

I know how precious your time is, each and every one of you, so I'll condense it -- "FYI."

In '07, I continued to develop the business relationship with the arts-oriented email software company I'd discovered/been hired by in June of '06. It turned out to be a mutually benefcial relationship, so I chose to continue continuing said relationship. 'Nough said 'bout that.

The result was the highest on-the-record, year-end gross income I've ever earned to date.

To which I need to add another $10,000 in net real estate earnings earned via renting out apartments for my Polish Hassidic Jew landlord -- who not only can't work Craigslist, but who can't even pronounce the word "masturbate." (If you want to know why I know he can't pronounce that, you'll have to write in... Sorry... My agent tells me so.)

All of which is to say, Gregory has grown up -- at least, fiscally speaking. But '07 also helped him grow up in other ways.

Don't pretend you don't know how else. How else? How the fucking else?

"She" DIED.

THAT'S "how else."

"She's" dead. She's dead.

So from this point on (or rather, from October '07 on), I ought not further entertain all the thoughts you all know I've had re: How "She" affected me and how "She" fostered my ostensible inability to achive my potential.

Nope. From this point on (or rather, from October '07 on), I no longer have an overbearing, un-understanding mother to blame for my present lot in life.

All that having been said, just let me add that -- after careful evaluation -- I've recently (re-)realized that my lot in life isn't all that bad after all.

Especially now...

Heh.

Don't hate me for being human.

A symptom gone is something to celebrate, no matter how hard one tries to be Politically Correct. Ergo, a dead enemy no longer attacks -- unless, perhaps, from the grave.

But lest ye think she's haunting me from the grave, let me assure you: She was way too narcissistic to linger anywhere near earth. Nuh-uh. An ego like hers ventures off to seek whatever praises it might receive from God as soon as it possibly can. There is no ghost. There are no paranormal echoes recalling her time on this planet. There are only memories, photos, and scrapbook clippings.

God help her get them. The praises, I mean. I mean it. The dear soul. She tried so hard. She deserves something.

As for me? I'll keep meandering, throughout '08, along my own karmic path, imperfect as it is (too).

Love, G

A Poem of Ancient Recollection (In Not-So-Perfect Metre)

2007-11-18T21:48:00.000-08:00

I've fought 'midst the soldiers of Mycenea.
I've fought 'gainst the soldiers of Rome --
I've fought 'midst m' brothers from Athens
All f'er th' sake o' callin' home, "Home."

An' since then,
War's repeated.
It's repeat'd itself
Through and through--

From Spartan,
To Roman,
To Red Coat
To Nazi:

Ain't no Enemy
I ain't ne'er seen,
Nor confronted,
'Nor murdered. All f'er you.

All f'er, among other things,
The sake o'callin' th' likes o'you, you --
A'n th' other likes like you
All of 'em, somehow, th' likes of y', too --

You who have stumbled
'Cross the remnants o'our past
You, who've rec'gnized, recognition
That'd better soon pass...

Oracles?
Lotus leaves?
Exotic Princesses from whose cunnilingus
We achieve higher consciousness?

Mantras?
Meditations?
Escapes from our duality?
Other forms of the drugs I continue to do daily?

There is not one den,
One lair,
One depth
Into which I haven't dwelt

There isn't one chakra
One soul
One echelon
Into which I han't sail't.

Call me Jason
Call me Isis
Call me Persephone
Call me mere Hell

But there isn't one soul you'll soon meet
Who doesn't know you so well.

--- G. ONeill, Nov 18, 2007

"So What're You Feeling?"

2007-11-16T00:09:00.000-08:00

I've been getting that alot lately.

Ever since the event.

The "melancholic event," as my ex-In-Law Mormon family used to refer to it. I actually always liked that. I liked how my ex-In-Law Mormon family used to refer to it. To death. As the "melancholic event." It showed that even they, the supposedly most utterly stoic amidst the Christian and Post-Christian faiths, still had a sense of humor about life.

And death.

And so, when I'm asked, "What'm I feeling Lately?," or, "How's It been Goin'?," I've been tending to fancy an approach much like that. Of my ex-In-Law Mormon family's. Coupled, that is, with a version of my father's response to such questions. He can't stand being asked, "How are you doing?" He thinks it's superfluous -- stupid.

"How the hell you think I'm doin'?," he retorts, which silences any conversation from that point on.

I fancy such a retort, but I never deliver it. To me, there's a difference between how one feels and how one responds... In this sort of case, I mean. Lord knows I've never been the sort to refuse a conversation stopper. But within this scenario -- within the scenario of my mother's death -- I've learned to deliver the lines that folks most want to hear.

"Oh, I'm relieved She's at peace," I say. Or, "So long as her sufferin's ended, I s'pose it's all we can ask for..."

You wouldn't believe the points a comment like that can score. Especially if you're wearing a suit when you deliver it.

"So what am I feeling?," as the true friends tend to ask? I won't lie to ya. I'm feelin' relieved.

Try to put yourself in my situation: For over 20 years, every time the phone rang and you saw a particular number show up on the Caller ID, your stomach dropped two floors. You knew, at that point, you had two options: either not answer the call and pray for a time when you'd be "in a better place" to deal with it; or to answer it and listen to all the reasons why things weren't right in your mother's life -- the majority of which could be traced back to you, and your inability to live up to her expectations.

I know I possess a performative sensiblity. I know I have a flair for drama. But I am no drama queen. Truth be told, when it comes to my personal life, I fear, loathe and detest drama. Because drama between individuals is ultimately pettiness being played out on the everyday stage. I prefer my everyday stage to be clean, functional, and drama-free. Yes, as a dramatist, I value drama. But only within its truest context. In its truest context, drama is an art that conveys a theme or a message which exists for the ostensible benefit of humanity. As for the everyday, I prefer directness. In everyday life, I long for direct, honest communication.

So it as this -- the queen who can asure you he's not a drama queen -- that I can assure you: My mother's life became unglued the moment she realized I was a homosexual. That happened over 20 years ago. It became official in 1987. And since circa 1987, my relationship with my mother has been nothing less than contentious. Contentious because she was convinced she could change me ("back"), and because I was convinced that who I was -- however offbeat and different it might have been from anything my parents had ever considered as a legitimate sensibility -- was not only legitmate, but downright natural.

Such became the nature of what would become the 20+ year battle between my mother and myself.

I have been lectured numerous times as to the "Eastern," the "New Age" and the stripped-down psychological reasons why I should not have engaged in battle with my mother. But this battle, as far as I was concerned, was too valuable to risk losing to mere theory. This battle dwelt within the realm between mother and child. True, this battle lived under the rules of Maya. It was illusion by technicality, I will admit, but it was as real as any illusion that emerges from our birth into the material world as any illusion could be. For what is more real in the real world than the birth that brings us into it?

I exercised. I meditated. I got as "centered" as I could possibly get. But still, as calm and as centered as I thought I could make myself, whenever the phone rang -- if it was she who was calling -- then all centeredness fell by the wayside, and I prepared to defend myself. To fight.

What was I fighting for, even though I had recognized she was the proverbial "hot stove" from which I was obligated to withdraw my touch in order to remain unharmed? Why did I "engage" with her, despite my having been taught that engaging would only lead to the inevitable "dangerous dance," which -- even if I did temporarily succeed in leading -- would never become a dance between equals who respected each other? Why did I continue to fight a war against an insane person?

To justify my own sanity, plain and simple. Not many of you have been in direct contact with me lately, personally or via phone. But if you had been, you most likely would have heard me utter these words: "I know I'm not going to change her. I know I'm probably not going to get through. But sometimes I just need to hear myself say it -- to her -- just to assure myself I'm not the crazy one."

I might have my problems. I might be "classifiable" in some manner, shape or psychologically disorderly form. But I am not insane. I'm just a little bit crazy. Ma couldn't handle that. She couldn't handle anything that didn't fit within the narrow parameters of her socially-acceptable, Pre-Civil Rights, Pre-Feminist, Pre-Queer paradigm. And she was REALLY vocal about that inability.

Oh, well.

If she'd have suffered in silence, things might've been much different between us. But she chose to become a soldier. She chose to fight, for the sake of her beloved bourgeois aristocracy. She chose to struggle to maintain her bourgeois status quo rather than work to have a valuable relationship with her one and only child. And how did she fight? By choosing to repeatedly let me know what a disappointment I was.

So I chose to remind her that disapointment was a two-way street.

It's one thing to "Honor thy Father and Mother." It's quite another to believe that taking their abuse is the same thing.

By the way, today would've been her 72nd birthday.

Delaware, A Scallop Wrapped in Bacon, and Driving Home with the Boss

2007-10-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

If there's any one (well, composite) image that I shall forever and heretofore associate with receiving the news of my mother's death, it will be that. Or should I say, "these." Or, more precisely, "those."

Those images of Delaware, with a tooth-picked scallop wrapped in bacon, which, after eating, resulted in driving home with the boss.

You see, I received the news of my mother's demise while I was in Delaware, with the boss (who was only there because yet another employee's grandmother had just died). We had just finished presenting our respective quasi-infomercials to the greater Delaware Division of the Arts' representatives who were ostensibly interested in learning more about email marketing. Which is to say, we had just wrapped up our "pitches" to our then-presently assigned audiences.

We had just wrapped up our "pitches," and we were feeling quite good. Quite good about ourselves, and our product, which is how we were supposed to feel. But we hadn't yet reconnected, amidst the happiness of Happy Hour, and so I was expecting his call.

Which is when the call came.

It wasn't his call, at first. At second, yes, it was. But at first, there was a message from my father.

My father has only called me three times in my life. Once, to tell me that his mother "had passed," twice, to inform me that he would not be co-signing for me on a Manhattan apartment, and now -- now.

Now, he was calling me (as I poked at and attempted to chow down a scallop wrapped in bacon), to tell me my mother had just died. I looked up from my cell phone as I was retrieving the message and lo, and behold, there was my boss. I told him what I had just heard. That was all he needed to hear. He told me to get packed and to get into the car.

The next few hours were surreal, to say the least. We had to reschedule all the rest of my week, which was supposed to be spent touring Minneapolis and Duluth with more seminars. We had to call the Office Manager and another other Sales Rep who was on the road, to get her to cover my calendar. We had to make several months' worth of planning re-arrange itself within one night. It sucked.

But there was never any doubt on my boss's behalf that I needed to go home and take care of family business, despite my offering to find some sort of compromise. I hadn't had a good relationship with my parents since 1983, I told him, so they could wait. That didn't fly. He wanted me home as much as my father must have... So we drove back to NY together, in a Hertz rental, stopping off for family-style seafood at a cute greasy spoon somewhere between Delaware and Pennsylvania.

So, neither Delaware, nor scallops wrapped in bacon, nor greasy spoons along the way between Dover and Philadelphia will ever be able to remind me of anything but receiving the news of my mother's death.

News, by the way, that was met with immediate relief. Yes, I've grieved since then and I'm still indeed grieving, but I've always believed that the first reaction one has upon receiving the news of someone's death is usually the strongest, most "real" reaction one is going to have. So far the hypothesis holds true. Especially because it's also been my father's main reaction!

My point is this: Watch out for significant signifiers. You'll never escape them. Delaware, scallops wrapped in bacon, and driving from Dover to New York will never lose their meaning in my head...

What're the signifiers in yours?

Love,

Ma’s Eulogy

2007-10-08T04:33:00.000-07:00

{Ed's note: I had one day's notice during which to come up with this, or anything like it... Neither my father, nor any cousin; not even the funeral director himself called me to tell me I was responsible for this element of the funeral Mass... The only crack within the sequence of events -- wake, wake, ceremony, procession, Mass, further procession, and finally burial -- during which to write it came at midnight, after the wake, and after having had held myself up over pizza and Martinis with certain loving friends and family.}

Good morning, everyone. I stand here before you having to undertake one of the most difficult writing assignments I’ve ever had to complete. I must deliver to you a eulogy. A eulogy not for a business associate, nor a dear friend, nor a cousin, nor or sibling, nor even a spouse – but for a mother. My mother. I stand here before you, this morning, having undertaken this, the most difficult writing assignment I have ever had to complete: writing a eulogy for my very own mother.

I won’t make it long. I won’t provide you with chronology. I believe the obituary did an excellent job at that. If you’re interested in learning more about the course of events that comprised my mother’s life, then I refer you to that. The obituary. This is not an obituary.

This, as a eulogy, must not summarize the course of events that comprised my mother’s life. Rather, it must capture the essence of that life. As soon as I recognized this differentiation – this difference between an obituary and a eulogy – I felt as sense of liberation. For upon first hearing the news of my mother’s wish that I write her eulogy, like most people, I panicked. Truth be known, I didn’t stop panicking until I looked up the definition of eulogy, and then compared it to the definition of obituary. Once I’d learned what distinguished the former from the latter, I overcame my panic, and I was ready to proceed.

So if the purpose of a eulogy is to capture essence, I asked myself, then what is essence? That answer came to me without the help of any dictionary. For essence is word that, as precise as any definition might attempt to make it, relies upon intuition in order to completely understand. Essence is less than logical. Essence comes not from the mind, but from the earth itself, and before that – from the spirit.

In having known and interacted with many of you here today, and indeed with many who might not be able to be here today, I have listened to and observed many words, thoughts, notions and feelings that would compete to encapsulate my mother’s essence. She was intelligent, beautiful, kind and generous to others, a spitfire, a gadfly, and the life of the party. She had wit, she had charm, but she was nobody’s fool. She could whip up the best Irish stew you’d ever tasted. She could organize a fantastic event, and dance with you until dawn, but still be there to hold your hand if you were having a bad day.

What, I’ve asked myself, encapsulates all theses terms? These thoughts? These notions? These notions that so many of you have had and expressed about my mother. Well, I’ll tell you what encapsulated my mother’s spirit. I’ll tell you what summarizes her essence: will. If there is one word, one notion, one concept that I had to use in order to summarize my mother’s essence – if I only had one word with which to do it – it would be that. Will.

My mother had a will of iron. A will of steel. A will of the strongest alloy that NASA has yet to develop. She had a will and determination that would have put the likes of such Hollywood divas as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, or even today’s diva, Madonna, to shame. Indeed, she could have held her own at a tea party consisting of only those women. Maggy Thatcher and Hilary Clinton wouldn’t even have been invited.

So if you’re ever in a situation, be it social or merely within your own thoughts… When you have to find one word to encapsulate the sprit that was Patricia Ann Theresa Hurley O’Neill, let me suggest that word: will. It was her will that helped her become a Supervising RN. It was her will that aided her, alongside her loving husband of 50 years, Martin, in transforming the house at 124 Riverview Ave from a quaint structure with “good bones” into a home that was consistently referred to as “lovely” by all of its visitors. And, in more recent years, it was her sheer will that enabled her to not only endure, but temporarily remit, the cancer that would eventually claim her body.

I guess the Lord and the spirits in the great beyond now need that will more than we do. I suppose it’s now our time to let go of the great spirit that was Pat O’Neill. But rest assured, her will lives on. Not only in me, her only child, her only son – but by its very own volition. A force like that never dies. As the physicists tell us, energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it simply changes form.

If you loved her, then I love you. Thank you.

10.05.07

12:12am

G. ONeill

Fade to Black

2007-10-04T01:50:00.000-07:00

So now it's happened. And this time around, I can't promise poetry.
I can't promise poetry because now, we have a few facts to establish.

Let me start by saying, I love and appreciate each and every one of you.
Each and every one of you who is either on my email list or not;
Who has received my emails or not;
And who has expressed any sort of response to said emails -- or not.

I am a very, very lucky human being.
Because I have many, many human beings who care enough about me to either
Reply to my emails or call whenever I make an announcement
The likes of which I have just announced.

This isn't cliche.
This isn't trivial.
This is how I acknowledge my status in life
And how I feel about (all of) you.

It is a lucky man indeed,
In this day and age,
Who can elicit any response
From his fellow human beings.

Being that response
Via email, via postal,
Phone call,
Or physical presence.

You have all provided me
With all the aforementioned,
And for that, let me mention,
That I love you, and appreciate you.

So hear ye,
Hear ye,
Hear ye --
Because if you do, then you'll actually hear me.

All that having been said, let me now say this:

UNDERSTANDING is one thing. AGREEING is quite another.
Just because I understand, it doesn't mean I agree.

FORGIVENESS is one thing. FORGETTING is yet another.
I shall do my best to accomplish the former,
but I will not even embark upon attempting the latter.
(I have my Jewish friends to thank for this creed.)

RESPECT for what one has given is one thing.
I ACKNOWLEDGE said respect in this instance.
But RESPECT is a two-way street.
Eventually, if not reciprocated, it vanishes and dies.

That's it.
That's all I have to say.

In regards to my mother,
Whom we are finally laying to rest,

It's all I have to say.

Please don't ask me to understand her,
For I already have.

Please don't ask me to forgive her,
For I already have.

Please don't ask me to respect her,
for I always have.

Most of all, don't ask me to like her,
Because understanding, forgiveness, and respect have nothing to do with affinity.

There.
I've said it.

And I don't care if my metre's off.

It's the truth, plain and simple.
I loved her, understood her, forgave her and respected her.

But I never really much liked her.

Ma's Dyin'

2007-08-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Ma's Dyin'.

If words be believed,
Then the words say, "Ma's dyin'."
"Ma's Dyin'," th' words say,
An' I think this time -- words're true.

An' frankly, this time (if time be believed),
I believe my Ma's dyin'.
"Y'er Ma's dyin'," time tells me,
An' we all know time's true.

She's dyin', pure an' simple. She's been givin' way.
She's slippin', she's been slippin', an' she's been givin' way.
She's dyin', pure an' simple, an' she's been givin' way.
Givin' way, plain an' simple -- least as long's'fer't'day.

What more's meant'be said 'bout somethin' so blue?
So basic, so simple, an' yet -- in th' end -- so, so true?
What more's t'be said 'bout a woman done fightin'?
Fightin' forces -- 'tween herself -- 'tween m'self -- an' e'en you?

She's goin',
Crossin' over --
An' I hope t'Hell she makes it.
Dear Lord, I hope she makes it,

That she makes it back t'you.

So What Now?

2007-08-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

What now? Whattya do next? Once the carrot's been got? Once the goal's been a'-goaled?

Well I'll tell ya one thing. You stop putting forth any and all affectations. You stop trying to be something you're probably not. Much as you'd like to see yourself as it, if you're to be truly honest with yourself, you have to admit -- it's not you. Oh, sure, it's cute and it's clever. Perhaps it's rhythmic and a little bit lyric. Maybe you thought it was something that was worth somebody's time -- indeed, at one time it was worth your time. But if you're to be truly honest with yourself... In the way you set forth to be when you set forth to pursue it... Then you have to admit, it's a sham. It's veneer. It's surface, through and through, and beneath it lies a more genuine you.

That wasn't supposed to sound clever. That wasn't meant to rhyme. But I had to do it. So there. I did it. I did it again. I did something trite, so we could get it out of the way. Masks take on so many layers. So many forms. I want to transcend triviality. I want to connect.

I don't want to hide behind format, behind tense, style, or meter, or anything that comes across as brogue. I just wanna tell you what I'm feeling. I just wanna show you I'm real. Really here, really feeling, really wanting to reach out -- really wondering if my language is capable of doing anything more than tying itself up in knots. Verbal knots. Linguistic knots. Worded, spoken, come-across-as-text-ed knots. Text so textual it's self conscious beyond belief. Self conscious like a college student's musings. Self-absorbed like the prosaic prose of a deadbeat.

It would be easy to be a deadbeat. I should know. I've been one before. In many ways, I still am one, and my sleeve still flutters from the tugs I still tug on it, begging for attention. The attention of a life with no intention, save recklessness. Save escape.

But I think I'm growing up.

There. I said it. I'm growing up. I'm growing up, and I'm growing out of the phase where I've stuck myself. I've stuck myself in one phase far too long. And I'm glad to have been there but I'm wondering what lies next and I'm still enjoying but I'm wishing it away. I'm wishing it away but I'm wishing it could stay. I'm wishing it could stay in the way that a kid wishes he doesn't have to start using deodorant. His mother is telling him he needs to start using deodorant and he screams, "Nooo!!!" It's a boyish response. It's perhaps one of the last boyish responses he'll be allowed to legitimately have. Sure, he can have more, more boyish responses, but from that point on -- from the point where his mom tells him he needs to start using deodorant -- whatever boyish responses he has will be perceived as boyish in the eyes of the world. In the eyes of the world, he'll be a man. A man having boyish responses.

That's how I feel. I feel like that boy. That boy who's been told by his mom that he stinks, and that he now needs deodorant. Like that stinky boy, I now need something. I need something that shows me and the world that I've moved onto the next step. I need the equivalent to starting to use deodorant when you're pubescent, and your mom tells you you have to.

I stink. I stink and my approach to life stinks and it needs deodorant. I need deodorant and nobody's had the nerve to tell me. Nobody's told me because it's probably nobody's job, except maybe my mother's, and she already did it. She did it when I was 12. She did it, and I fought it. I fought it, I fought her, and I made a stink. I made a stink that stank more than I did to start with. And eventually I realized it. Eventually I realized I stank. Eventually the stink overcame me, and then suddenly I didn't need mom to tell me I stank. I just stank. I needed deodorant. I needed deodorant because I stank. So I picked up some deodorant. I picked up some deodorant, and I put it on.

I'd love to tell you I stank no more, but that would be fallacy. Indeed, I still stank. I still stink to this day. That's what I've been trying to tell you. I stank then, and I stink now, as does my approach to life.

I worry there's something stinky about my style. I worry I'm trapping myself in the very trap I began telling you I wanted to escape. But I also worry that, in not using my style, I might be forgoing myself. So the style emerges. It re-emerges. It emerges, and re-emerges, and surfaces to serve. Can I be honest with you and still use a style? Does my style stink? Should I abandon it forever and replace it with a sturdy stick of Old Spice?

Well, all fragrance aside, there's one thing I know: I've been fighting adulthood for a long time now. Let's face it. This whole blog has been about my contention with maturity. But I knew maturity had to set in, sooner or later. I knew, the second I proclaimed myself "an irresponsible homo hipster," that the journey depicted within these posts would be that of a young man -- an aging young man -- reveling in his resistance to grow up.

Eventually all resistance ends. All force, be it action or reaction, has to end. And so I'm here to tell you -- the resistance has ended. This resistance to the force that is aging has ended. I'm growing up. I'm getting old. Despite myself, I'm getting old. So I'm deciding now what matters. Should I keep on fighting? Resist as long as I can? Or should I just accept that I have the same needs as my cohorts? Should I accept that I'm just another guy who needs cash flow, health benefits, and a 5-year plan?

And is there, perhaps, room for everything? Is there room for a Bohemian's hope while he whittles away his hours in the work force? Is there still a remote chance? A remote chance he'll find time to scribble down a poem, and then read it at his local bookstore or cafe?

I suppose I'm still clinging to that hope. To the hope that I can somehow still do it all. Do all the bourgeois bullshit, and the bohemian bullshit, too. Christ knows I "have the time," relatively speaking. When speaking in relation to my cohorts with kids. My cohorts with kids, or with high-profile jobs, or with parents who've turned terminal (if they get along enough to justify the effort).

But I thought you should know. I thought you should know, I'll be irresponsible no more. No longer shall I play the insipid Peter Pan (with a gay twist). I won't play the part of the fool anymore. I need to grow up. I need to go gray. I need to experience love, responsibility and life's inescapable decay.

(And I need to do so with the occasional rhyme. That's just the way it is. Hey -- a brogue's a gift, plain and simple. Far be it for me to squelch it completely.)

Now that I'm here, where I've worked so hard to be, it's time to move on. I'm finally sick of irresponsible endeavors. I've grown tired of escape. Oh, sure, I'll still party for release -- but I won't continue to make partying a lifestyle. There has to be more to life, and it's my turn to find it.

Caught Myself a Carrot

2007-07-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Heya:

It's been a while, I know. A while full a' whiles full a' whiling the whiles away, whilst I chased and chased a carrot on a stick. A stick that I'd made damned well sure I'd well carrot-ed, and then well stick-ed, and then very, very well stuck-ed out before me.

But I caught said carrot. I caught said carrot, on said stick, that I said I'd stuck out before me. I caught the carrot that I'd stuck on a stick and then chased and chased 'til my chasin' skillls damned well near wore out. Near, that is. 'Til they near wore out.

But wore out, they didn't -- said skills. Said skills might'a near worn out, but they didn't. They didn't wear out. Instead, they got me said carrot, which hung on said stick, which -- as I've already said -- I stuck out before me.

I caught it, motherfuckers. I caught the carrot on the end o'the stick that I so well hung before me.

See, heretofore, I've had problems. Previously, I had problems the likes of which precede pre-production. Because production, I've recently come to see, requires pre-production. It requires pre-production, production, and post-production. There's more -- I've recently come to see -- to bein' productive than merely pursuing the pursuit of production.

No, if y'er gonna be truly productive in this world, then y'have t' learn the complete cycle of production. And said cycle always involves somethin' much like my heretofore mentioned carrot, and it also involves my previously -- alongside with it -- mentioned stick.

It's as simple as this: If you want something (an' I mean truly want it), then it's worth planning for. Therein lies y'er pre-production. If y'really want it, then y'er gonna figure out how t'get it. Make sense? There's very little in this world worth having that's available for the immediate grab. Grabs only work when y'er a toddler, a teenager, or a dirty old man. An' even then, whatever y'er grabbin' for is fleeting. Indeed, it's often accompanied by a slap in the face! So then let's just agree right there an' right now: Everything that's worth having takes planning.

Now... The thing about planning is, it requires you to accept y'er present position. It mandates a complete recognition of where you presently stand (or sit, or lay... however pathetic y'er present circumstances have led you to become). This is without a question the most difficult part of the production process. Most folks can't face it. Most folks can't face their lots in life. They'll run circles and jump through hoops and even dig holes -- holes that'll soon serve as their graves -- before they ever admit their lots in life. 'Cuz to admit one's lot in life means to admit one's station. And t'admit one's station means t'admit one's true social standing. An' t'admit one's true social standing means that one needs to most likely accept that s/he's not standing at all... Because let's face it: 99% of us are downright without means, plain and simple.

Only the upper classes have anything resembling a leg t'stand on, loves. The rest of us are either keepin' up with the Joneses, as the Americans say, or tryin' t'get t'that point. Subtract two paychecks from "the lucky ones," as the lower classes say, an' you've got more members of the lower class.

What's that y'say? OUCH? There y'go. NOW y'er learnin'!

So. If y'er still with me, then I'm hopin' you'll see the reason why the stick's so important. Because y'see, the stick's y'er pre-production. The stick's what you go out and find y'erself (out in the back yard, or while y'er on a 3-day weekend away from home, or perhaps after a strong rainstorm -- it doesn't matter) once you've realized there's no way past y'er present status without it. The stick is the rock of Sisyphus. And as any Post-Freudian/Jungian therapist worth his or her salt will tell ya, Sisyphus was no victim. He chose his fate pure an' simple. (What, y'think a plain lad like m'self isn't familiar with 20th century analysis?)

Like I said, the pre-production's the hardest part. The hardest part's realizing y'er not one of the privileged few. The hard part's recognizing your familiarity with the familiar classes, regardless of how you were raised to perceive y'erself. Once you've done that -- once you've walked out into the yard after a strong rainstorm an' picked up y'er stick -- the rest is quite easy.

Easy, that is, if you've got gumption. 'Cuz it's gumption, y'see, that translates to orange. Orange, the color of alert. The color of the hunt, of the chase, of pursuit. There's nothin' subtle about orange. Orange results from the combination of the two loudest primaries -- yellow and red. When yellow and red get together, they can't do much less than shout.

And so you shout, when you find y'er orange. When you pick up y'er carrot, and you attach it t'y'er stick, you shout. Of course you shout. You can't do anything but shout. There's nothing any human being, in the history of humanity, has ever done when she or he touches the color orange but shout. 'Cuz when you get to th' point where y'er touching orange, y'er touching y'er very goal itself. Y'er touching it, an' y'er hangin' it on y'er newfound stick, an' y'er shouting at the top o' y'er lungs, 'cuz y'er handling the very thing that y'er vowing t'chase. It's a fleeting moment, this moment I'm describing right now, but you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about like every other human being who's ever lived knows what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that we already have what we choose to chase, but we damned well choose to let it go so that we can chase it anyway. That's why it's orange. That's why it's loud. It has t'be loud to drown out the sound of our shouts. The shouts that we shout when we pick it up. When we hang it on the end of our sticks. When we gaze at it from not quite so far, just after we've hung it, far at the end of our sticks.

THIS is production. Everything else, my friends, is Post-. It's Post-Production.

The chase, the chasing, and th' rest of the chase. The running, the mis-steps, the tripping o'er our own feet, the unexpected twists, the turns, the plot changes, the stopping to catch our breath, the whining, the complaining -- they're all mere technicalities. Technicalities along the road. Along the road of the chase.

But in order t'have all these blessed curses, my friends, we must've already chosen what to chase. And it's in the choosing, not the chasing, when the magic occurs. It's when we choose what to chase that we're the most like God. That, my friends, is when we create. Everything else? Polishing. Everything else? Varnish and gloss.

Nevertheless, my friends, I'm writing to tell you that I've just had myself a chase. I've had myself a pre-production, a production, and I've polished off the post-. I won't get into the details, 'cuz the details in this case are too broad. But I've had myself a job, that I'll tell ya. I'll tell ya that I've had a job, and that I've done a job, and that now that the job's done, I'm gearin' up t'do another one.

But fer the meantime, I'm floatin'. I'm floatin' in between jobs, lookin' down at myself. I'm lookin' down at myself, thinkin', "Dear God, lad, I'm so glad you've still got it in ya."

I'm Not Sure What I'm Doing

2007-06-29T00:21:00.000-07:00

I'm Not Sure What I'm Doing, but I haven't given up on whatever that might be.

Setting goals is one thing.

Achieving them is another.

Well, I don't care how simple a goal it was. I set it, and I achieved it.

I achieved a new bathroom.

Laugh if you will (don't you always, anyway?), but I'm proud of myself.

The reason you haven't heard from me since winter is, I set a winter goal for myself and I accomplished it.

It took longer than I thought, it cost more than I expected, and it totally took over my life. My life, since late winter, has been my job and my "project." And not much else.

All of which was a test, you see, to see if I'm capable of holding down a "job" and pursuing a "project."

Well, I am.

I am, but it takes a lot. It takes damn well near everything I've got.

So that's why you haven't heard from me lately.

'Cuz I've been busy.

I've been busy getting around to unfinished business.

Now that said unfinished business is finished, I'm gonna start to look around for the next bit a' unfinished business.

You should see my bathroom. If you could, you'd understand that I'm not just another wanna-be. No, I'm not just another wanna-be.

I'm another wanna-be who can lay tile...

Ar!
G

River 124 Monologue: I’ve Got a New Hobby

2007-02-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

[Ed's Note: This is all preliminary, remember? We know these scenes need to be condensed and that this is all really rough. That's the reason we're posting it now, instead of after it's been edited. Enjoy the rawness. We're told it's one of the author's strong points...]

GREG: (on phone) I’ve got a new hobby. Uh-huh. Yeah. A brand new hobby. No, it doesn’t involve sex. Silly. Why would you think that? No, it doesn’t involve sex, it involves getting lit. (Pause) Getting LIT. Yeah, Getting LIT, and calling Ma. That’s right, calling MA. Dear Ol’ Ma.

See, as it turns out, I’ve been putting up with Dear Ol’ Ma calling ME throughout the ages, when SHE was lit. Strange how it took me so long to figure out the right counter-attack: Call HER when I’M lit.

See, when y’er lit, you tend to focus only on y’erself. That is, yourself; the things happening to you, and how you react to them. That’s all SHE’s ever been doin’. Givin’ me th’ REPORT, y’see. When she was LIT. AS she was lit. Like I said, I can’t believe it took me this long t’figure out… And how ironic is this? I figured it out when I was LIT.

So whatoo I do now, now that I’ve discovered my favorite new hobby, and now that I know I should only talk to her LIT, as often as she talks to me LIT? Well, what I do NOW, to answer y’er question, is: I call Ma LIT. I save the items on my “return phone calls” list that just happen to deal with HER to those TIMES when I just happen to be LIT. It works out well. It works out quite well.

Because when I’m LIT, y’see, I’m incapable of holding my voice back. I’m incapable of holding back my voice, my conclusions – and my opinions. That’s right. I’m utterly incapable of holding back my opinions. And my opinions, mind you, aren’t exactly the same as hers, or as any average American bourgeois opinion. Which, mind you, are one and the same. That is, HER opinions and those of the average bourgeois American are the same. They're one and the same. Look up "Average American Bourgeois Opinion" on Wikipedia, and you'll find my mother's definitions. Well, those aren't MY opinions. MY opinions, mind you, are the products of careful examination and THOUGHT.

So when I’m LIT, y’see, I’m incapable of holding back my products of THOUGHT. Fancy that. Products of THOUGHT. Streaming forth, from someone who’s THOUGHT about them, but who can no longer hold them back. Who can no longer hold back his thoughts. That’s why I can’t believe it took me this long to get around to this. To get around to only calling Ma after I’d gotten LIT. ‘Cuz God knows SHE's always been. So why shouldn’t’ve I???

Two wrongs? Look again.

I like my new hobby.

I know I’ll never win. I’ve been told I shouldn’t even fight back. But that just goes against my nature, y’know? I wasn’t put on this earth t’let power-mongering motherfuckers – even if they are my parents – coast through life unquestioned. It’s one thing to fight back. It’s another thing to expect to win. I don't expect to win, but I just can't lay down and act like there's no battle.

Sometimes the battle is its own reward.

River124, Initial Draft

2007-02-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

Act I
Scene 1:

(Enter Gene and Pat, the former escorting the latter as she hops along in misery.)

GENE: C’mon, c’mon, Pat. We haven’t got all day.

PAT: (Clearing her throat) Well, it isn’t as easy as it used to be, my love.

GENE: It used to be pretty easy.

PAT: It used to be. But it isn’t anymore.

GENE: Pretty easy.

PAT: It used to be.

GENE: But it isn’t anymore. Isn't it anymore?

PAT: No, it isn’t anymore.

GENE: It used to be pretty easy.

PAT: But it isn’t anymore.

GENE: Will you let me be the judge of that, fer Chrissake?!? C’mon!

Scene 2:

GREG: (At home, on the phone) Her condition? Who the fuck are you, the Department of Health? (Laughs.) Well, her condition is “serious,” if you go by her reports. According to her, she’s on death’s doorstep. Which reminds me – I painted my doorstep. Did I tell you?

Scene 3:

PAT: (Lifting the phone and clearing her throat, addressing offstage) It’s alright. He’s busy. He has a good job now. We shouldn’t interfere. (She dials.)

Scene 3:

GREG: (Still on the phone) She’s probably trying to get through right now. If you hear a “beep,” then you lose me, that’s why. It’s because she’s finally gotten through. (Pause.) Mmm-hmm. Can’t wait to hear what the problem is this time.

Scene 4:

GENE: Couldn’t reach him?

PAT: I got his machine.

GENE: What’d I tell ya?

PAT: Oh, be quiet.

Scene 5:

GREG: (Still on the phone) I mean, 15 years. It’s been 15 years that’s she’s been battling cancer. So we’re supposed to be surprised when she gets another bout?

Scene 6:

PAT: (Leaving a message) Greg… It’s Ma. I don’t mean to burden you, but it’s not looking good. It’s not looking good at all. They’ve postponed my surgery and scheduled another biopsy. It’s higher. Much higher. It’s higher up on my lung, near the thorax and all the lymph nodes that surround it. It doesn’t look good. Even if they can get at it, they’re pretty sure it’ll have spread. Call me. Call me when you can. I understand that you’re busy, but I need you to call me. We’re pretty sure it’s spread…

Scene 7:

GREG: (Still on the phone) If we had any sort of relationship other than fighting, I’d do something. But what can I do? What can I do when all we do is fight? She’ll find a reason to fight, if I call, and then all of a sudden we’ll be in a fight. Even though all I did was call. (Pause.) Well, thanks. Thank you for understanding. You’re right. Ultimately, I don’t owe them anything. Does that sound cruel?

Scene 8:

PAT: (On phone, and "A-hem," and "a-hem"-ing…) Well, yes, I suppose he’s a little bit cruel. But between you and me, that’s what I hear about them.

GREG: (Still on the phone, on another part of the stage) Are you sure? It’s not cruel?

PAT: That they’re cruel.

GREG: Like a bitchy queen? Cruel?

PAT: Them. Gays. They’re like women. They’re cruel.

GREG: Do I sound like that? Like a woman? (Pause.) Like a woman acting cruel? Of course I know the difference between how a man and how a woman act cruel…

PAT: Not that women have the corner on cruelty, of course…

GREG: I’m just asking, do I come across as cruel?

PAT: But you know what I mean… There’s a difference. There’s a difference between the way a man and a woman act cruel.

GREG: There’s a difference, of course, but I’m just asking.

PAT: And sometimes he comes across…

GREG: I’m just asking if I come across…

PAT: As cruel.

GREG: As cruel. Because if I do, then I got it from her.

PAT: Because he does. And I think he got it from me. He’s just cruel.

GREG: I don’t know. There’s something about her. Something absolutely cruel.

PAT: He’s cruel.

GREG and PAT: (Together) Absolutely cruel.

Scene 9:

GENE: Are you ready?

PAT: Well, what do you think?

GENE: What do I think about what, Pat. What?

PAT: About what you just asked?

GENE: About what I just asked?

PAT: About what you just asked.

GENE: What’d I just ask?

PAT: You tell me.

GENE: You want me to tell you?

PAT: Yeah.

GENE: You want me to tell you what I just asked you?

PAT: Yeah.

GENE: Yeah?

PAT: Yeah.

GENE: You want me to tell you what I just asked you?

PAT: Yeah. Uh-huh. Tell me.

GENE: Tell you?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GENE: Tell you what I just asked you?

PAT: Yeah. Tell me what you just asked me.

GENE: I can’t tell you something I already asked you.

PAT: Why not?

GENE: Because. It’s not the same.

PAT: Oh, so you’re Mr. Rhetorical all of a sudden.

GENE: All of a sudden?

PAT: Well, at least now.

GENE: At least now?

PAT: Now.

GENE: Now?

PAT: Now, and often.

GENE: Often?

PAT: Are you really interested in whether I’m ready yet?

GENE: Ready?

PAT: Ready.

GENE: Yeah. Are you ready yet?

PAT: I’ll be ready in a second.

GENE: A second?

PAT: Close to a second. Now scoot…

Scene 10

(Greg, still on the phone) It’s like… I’m ready. I know it sounds cruel, but I’m ready for them to be dead. Yeah, there’ll be technicalities, but let’s face it: either they’re gonna die or I’m gonna die. I don’t think they know how much experience I’ve had with death. When I was in San Francisco, it was a different ceremony every Sunday. It became part of our schedule. Monday through Friday was work, but we had to calendar the funeral or ash-spreading ceremony that was happening during any given weekend. Oh, sure, we would gym-gym-gym and then party-party-party until said ash ceremony occurred. That was our life. That was our life in SF between the late 80s and the early 90s. Back then, that was our life. Our lives consisted of working, going to the gym, and then going to brunch and funeral ceremonies. That and – of course – the obligatory vertical sex in clubs and the requisite “I can’t believe how drunk I was” fucking that inevitably followed Happy Hour and Saturday night. Yeah, we still had a Saturday night. We had Saturday night, but the fever had long since died… And in its place grew a fear that we would, too. None of us expected to make it this far. Do you know what I’m saying? I’m not kidding. I never expected to make it this far. I can’t believe I did. And my folks think California is easy living. If they only knew…

Scene 11:

PAT: (Also on the phone, and clearing her throat) Oh, Cindy, it’s so nice to have you on my side. Thank you for cleaning the kitchen, and for the manicure, and for everything else you’ve done. Lord knows my son isn’t capable of such acts of kindness. He’s too wrapped up in his California lifestyle. You know California. “The land of the fruits and the nuts,” as they say…

Scene 12:

GENE: (Picking up the phone) Hello? Who? Greg? Oh, Greg hasn’t lived here for years. Where’s he live now? Oh, in California. Cal-i-for-nia. You know, the land of the fruits and the nuts? What? What’d I just say? When? What’d I just say WHEN? Oh, Greg? He doesn’t live here anymore. He lives in Cal-i-for-nia. That's what I just said. And I meant it. Bye-bye, idiot...

River124 (1)

2007-02-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

Listen.
Today, my mother almost died.
My mother, who’s presently entering a living room somewhere in New England, and who’s presently “an armful,” almost died.

There.
I’ve done it.

I’ve repeated the words that so many postmodernists wish to repeat. Repeat, that is, within the context of their own subsequent “masterpieces.” Well, I can’t worry about whether this is gonna be completely postmodern, nor whether it’s gonna be a masterpiece. I can only worry about when I’m gonna get it out, which is now.

Now. Now is the time when this story should be told. This story should be told now. But I warn you:

This is not a time-deleniated story about a war hero.
This is not an Existential exercise.
Nor is it an attempt to adapt the family drama of the playwright whose name my father just happens to bear into a contemporary format.

Well, if truth be told, then I guess it would most closely be linked to the last item listed in the list above. But that’s the end of the precocious postmodernism. I promise. (For now.)

Frankie’s Back

2007-01-20T05:33:00.000-08:00

Frankie’s back. Yeah, Frankie. Frankie, the guy who comes and goes. Mostly, he goes, but when he comes – boy, does he come. Or rather, he tries to. When Frankie comes, it’s usually after he’s spent 4-6 months on Riker's Island. See, Frankie’s got this cycle. First he’s here, smoking crack in the hall and asking for a shot of tequila. But then, a couple of weeks later, he’s asking if he can come in, (“t’chill – y’know?”). Then, all of a sudden, he's gone. He's gone right after he asked you for that hit you didn't have time to deal with. Where'd he go? Back to Riker's, of course. Back to the place where guys like him don't take as much risk asking the things they always ask...

Frankie’s short. He’s short, he most often stinks, and he doesn’t have a lot of teeth. More specifically, his teeth are scattered throughtout his mouth, in a manner that makes me obsess over whether it would be possible to replace only what’s missing or if it’s just plain necessary to remove everything altogether – to make a clean slate. I know this obsession is a distraction. I can see Frankie watching me obsess over his teeth. I can see that he knows I'm distracted by their crookedness. And I can see how he works it.

He works it by asking if he can come in. This only happens when he’s just gotten back from Reichers. When he’s just come back from Reichers, he comes to me. He comes to me – hard – and he asks for everything a Puerto Rican crack-head who’s just gotten back from Reichers can ask for. First he asks for a shot, then he asks for a hit – and then he asks me if I’ll buy him a hit of what he really wants.

What he doesn’t know is that I know what he wants is more complicated than he thinks. I know he wants more than he says he’s wanting. I know it because he can’t step out of my personal zone and he can’t stop sniffing me like I’m some sort of bitch in heat. He’s in my face. He’s in my zone. He’s standing in front of me, posing his just-out-of-Reichers bod as if there’s no way any homo on earth could resist him, trying to stare me down. Down onto the couch…

I stare back at him. I stare right back at him – right back in the eye, my eyes whispering, “I know what you’re up to, and a Reichers-buffed bod isn’t enough.” I don’t care what he’s up to. I don’t care what he wants. Yeah, it’s cute that he’s playing me. But not cute enough to get myself played.

So I give him his shot, and maybe I let him take a hit or two. Why not? I’m doing my bumps. So why not give the motherfucker his hits? And maybe I take a hit. Or two. But that’s all. ‘Cuz I don’t like his hits. He knows it. He wishes I would, but he knows it. He knows I don’t like his hits. He doesn’t like my bumps, and I don’t like his hits.

And we both know this. From the moment this dance starts, we both know it, but I let him lead anyway. ‘Cuz he’s been at Reichers for the past 4-6 months. And he’s gotten used to mansex, whether he admits it or not. So whether he admits it or not, he’s the one coming onto me. And I’m the one saying no.

Christ, but that pisses him off.

So You Wanna Know What Goes On Here, in Bushwick, do Ya?

2007-01-20T03:48:00.000-08:00

Then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you even though you already know. Or, you already have a good idea – which is to say, a very, very bad idea. Because what goes on here in Bushwick is very bad. Very, very bad. It’s so very, very bad, it’s downright good.

But you expected that. That’s why you’re reading. You’re reading because you’re expecting the very, very bad. And even though the very, very bad has been told many, many times before – you’re still waiting to see how the very, very bad lives and thrives in today’s society. In today’s society outside Manhattan. In today’s society outside Manhattan, in Bushwick. Because in order to outlive life in today’s New York, one must venture beyond today’s Manhattan. One must venture all the way to Northeast Brooklyn – to Bushwick. One must venture to where everything that’s been done before dares to be done again. (And again, and again…)

“Is there anything special about Buswick?,” you might ask. No, there’s nothing particularly special about this neighborhood where all of America’s beer once flowed, and all of America’s beer-es-tocracy once dwelled. Yeah, that’s a made-up term. We’re gonna encounter a lot of made-up terms along this path. If you can’t handle made-up terms, then switch to another blog – one that has nothing to do with reality-based fantasy… Then we’ll all be all set.

All of which is to say, “Of course, idiot – there’s plenty that’s special about Bushwick.” Do your own fucking Wikipedia. You’ll see. (If, that is, Wikipedia has the balls to call it like it was.) Bushwick is not only the place that kept America drunk throughout the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s – it’s the place that held onto keeping the country as drunk as it could while White Flight affected it, and its ability to do so.

Imagine. The fleeing of a neighborhood that affected its ability to maintain a virtually narcotic hold upon those who wished to flee it. And upon those who’d grown accustomed to fleeing the day-to-day hum-drum of their lives through the consumption of what that neighborhood had, up until then, produced – regularly.

In other words, “What happens when the source of the drug stops producing the drug – all in the name of no longer being worthy of producing that drug?”

That’s what happened in Bushwick. That’s what happened in Bushwick, about forty years ago. And 40 years ago is long ago enough as not to warrant further description as to exactly what happened then. At this point, and at this time, all that matters is that – long ago – Bushwick was transformed. It was transformed because it stopped producing its drug. It stopped producing its drug of alcohol. It stopped producing the drug that was so common at the time that it pretty near devastated most of our grandparents. Most, that is, of our readers’ grandparents. That’s right. You. Our readers. It – alcohol – probably almost wound up destroying your grandparents. If it didn’t, then consider yourselves lucky. If it didn’t, then your grandparents were probably Jewish or Morman of Seventh-Day Adventist. If that was the case, then good for you. (And, simultaneously, I’m sorry for you…)

But we were talking about Bushwick. We were talking about Bushwick, in Brooklyn. Bushwick – that peculiar neighborhood where blue-collar immigrants and Blue-Bloods co-existed, for the sake of producing that which would intoxicate them all. You see, Bushwick was – at the turn of the 20th Century – the hub of America’s beer production. That’s why we still have Knickerbocker Avenue. That’s why the area is sprinkled with factories (which have recently been turned into lofts), interspersed with ornate Victorian homes. That, and the blackout of 1977, are the reasons why Bushwick has an aesthetic unlike so much of the rest of Brooklyn. Bushwick isn’t picturesque like Park Slope. It isn’t anywhere near as adorable as the cobble-stoned Brooklyn Heights. And it has nowhere near the self-imposed kitschy charm of the far-away Coney Island. No, Bushwick’s aesthtic – of it can even be called that – is much more like that of Los Angeles. It’s scattered, and full of flotsam and jetsom. To understand Bushwick is to drive or ride through it – if only by imagination. In order to appreciate Bushwick, one must look not at it, but along it. For it is only through glancing at Bushwick’s appearance – as it appears as we coast alongside it – that we are able to understand it.

Why, do you ask, do I go into so much extraneous description about the place where I ask you that you ask about? My apologies if you think my premise is too verbose. But I need you to understand: What goes on here – even though it might seem identical to what goes on in so many other places – is special. It’s unique. It’s unique in the sense that it’s happening here and now, in one of the only parts of New York that will allow it to happen. One of the only parts of today’s New York that will allow this kind of scenario to go on in – to use poor grammar, as eventually I must – is here, in the scattered neighborhood known as Bushwick.

Ready to hear?

I’ll bet you are.

A Letter to My Fellow New Yorkers: Greetings from Bushwick!

2007-01-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

[The following is presented as though I was writing for a local publicaton, as an exercise, per a dear friend's advice... Even tho' it's directed towawd New Yorkers, everyone can get a feel for it...]

Hello, readers.

I’m assuming most of you are New Yorkers, so I won’t go into detail about exactly where I am. You know where I am, even if you’ve never been here.

Even if you’ve never been here, you’ve heard about it. You’ve heard about Bushwick. All of you New Yorkers have heard about Bushwick. If you haven’t, you pretend you have.

Don’t lie. You know you do. You know you pretend you’ve heard about Bushwick, even though you haven’t.

Except that you have. You have heard about it. You have heard about Bushwick. You’ve heard enough about Bushwick to know that you want to hear more. You want to hear more about Bushwick.

So what do you want to know first? How seedy it is out here on the outskirts of gentrification, or how dangerous? How grimy, or how insidious? What’s that, you say? Neither? Both? None of the above? All? Well, then, let me tell you…

But just for the record, let neither of us forget: You are the reader, and I am the storyteller. Yeah, that’s right. I’m the storyteller. That means I tell stories (as if you needed to know). But for some reason -- some strange silly reason – I felt the need to remind you of our dynamic. Because that’s all it is. A dynamic. And if you’re still reading, well then, you’re more of a voyeur than I expected you to be. ("Nice dynamic. Gooood dynamic…")

So welcome, my dynamic voyeur, to my dynamic world. To Bushwick. To Buswick at the turn of the New Millenium. The Late Turn of the New Millenium…

Don’t forget – you’re watching. You’re reading. I never asked you to. See, so much of the here and now in Bushwick has to do with our exhibitionistic tendencies (and, simultaneously, so much of that same here, and that same now, is dependent upon your tendency toward voyeurism), that it suddenly becomes difficult to decipher exactly who’s getting off and who’s getting them off, if y’know what I mean.

So don’t forget. That’s a big part of it. That’s a big part of Buswhick: Not forgetting that somebody is watching; that they know they’re watching, and that those they’re watching know they’re being watched. That’s a big part of it. A big part. Probably the biggest part of all of Bushwick. The biggest part of Bushwick is that it knows its Renaissance – if it can ever come near being called that – must occur under the microscope of the microcultural gaze. Shit, too much has happened already not to make it so. Too much. Too much history. Too much history, claiming its place in history, leaving only those cracks in history that know full well they’re nothing but cracks fruitlessly attempting to justify their existence. To live out their lives. Their lives amidst the other cracks. Their attempts at cracking into the cracks of history.

Come. Witness it. Witness life admist the cracks. It isn’t as bleak or banal as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it’s rich. It’s rich with richness… The almost earthen richness of a territory paved over for glory but then left to succumb to the whims of urban decay… Left, crying in near vain, for its original earthen richness to return.

What does one do with such territory? How does one revive the earth beneath an industrial park? It’s simple, really. One must merely show up, and then one must merely proclaim said territory to be his or her own. His own, her home.

So let’s talk about Bushwick, dear voyeur -- since you seem so interested. And I’ll be that one…

I'm Still Here

2006-11-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

Hello, whoever's left...

I don't mean to be maudlin. I just mean it. I know I've been neglecting my blog.

Oh, well.

I just wanted you to know that I'm still here. I'm still here, and I'm still a blogger. Just because I don't post every day and just because I don't go into detail about how every drop of semen that ejaculates from my penis lands -- whether upon a partner or just myself -- doesn't mean I'm not still a member of this electronic "community."

Yes, I've been too busy with corporate life to post. But why do I get more comments when I don't post than when I do? You guys aren't all that much better about this whole arrangement than you say I am...

No, I don't mean to be nasty either. Just honest. Which is the basis of my writing. So I suppose that when you don't see much of my writing, you can assume I'm not "in a place" to be fully honest with myself.

Any horny teenager can write about his cum drops. I thought I was seeking more than that.

A lot's been brewing on the back burner of my mind, which means something creative is going to emerge soon. That's how I work. I'm not an "every-day-at-5:00am" kind of writer. I'm a sprinter. And that's just gonna hafta do.

Lots of artists are sprinters. I've been doing my homework. I know. No, I'm not going to tell you who else. All that matters is that I know my creative process isn't unique to me, and that it's valid.

No need to validate this corporate queen's ticket. Between the company and myself, we've got it covered.

Write to ya soon.

Mean it.

Bye for now.

Why

2006-09-11T18:34:00.001-07:00

Why You Haven't Heard from Me Lately, In a Nutshell:

in May, the Mortgage job fell through, and I was out of cash and out of rent credits (I earn a month's rent for every one of my landlord's other units that I rent out to other over-paying, "pink-cheeked ((his term))" tenants)
in June, a day after my birthday, the LoveofMyLife emailed me saying, "I don't even like you anymore. Good-bye."
all through June I temped for a bunch of Corporate-Level Indians in the Park Ave office of Dell Financial, logging in the minimum payment checks that desperate middle- and lower-class Americans sent in via certified mail in order to prevent having their accounts go into collections
in July, I finally landed a job I can live with, so I started it -- and I'm only just now hitting my 60th day. 30 days to go and I'm hard to fire...
on July 31st, a slimy law firm from Long Island siezed my checking account, demanding $1,600 for a credit card I defaulted on three years ago in order to make my move to NY a reality

In other words, I've been in crisis mode. Level Red on a bad day, Level Orange on a good one.

Hey, if a guy can't use a 9/11 metaphor -- no matter how lame -- on 9/11, then just when can he?

Don't lose faith. Lose patience, maybe, but I beg of you, please don't lose faith.

Cheers,

Hang in There, 'Cuz Lord Knows We're Hanngin'...

2006-07-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

To those y'all who been waitin' 'round so diligently for an update, "Hat's Off!" For yours are the "those" whose expectations will soon 'nough be fulfilled...

And to everyone else, rest assured: STORM'S a' BREWIN'!!!

G

I Got Clocked!

2006-05-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

MotheraGod, I can’t believe it. I jus’ can’t believe it. It happened. It finally happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally happened. It finally fuckin’ happened. It just happened t’ happen. It just had t’ fuckin’ happen. To me, finally. It finally fuckin’ happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally fuckin’ happened. It happened. To me. Finally. Fuck.

I was walkin’ the dog. Of all things, an’ a’ all times. I was walkin’ the dog. It happened when I was walkin’ the dog. I was jus’ walkin’ the’ dog when it happened. I was fuckin’ walkin’ the dog. That’s when it happened. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it finally had t’ happen. Of all things, an’ a’ all times, that’s when it finally had t’ happen. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it happenend.

I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. Broadway & Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. And Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Tonight. On Broadway and Cook, right outside McDonald’s. That’s where it happened. Tonight. It happened tonight, of all nights, right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook.

What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened, right then and there, when I was walkin’ the dog. When I was walkin’ the dog, tonight, across from McDonald’s, on Broadway & Cook. I’ll tell ya what happened. Y’might not be as int’rested as I’d like y’t’be, but I’ll tell y’ jus’ th’ same. I’ll tell ya, ‘cuz y’must be wonderin’. Y’must be wonderin’ by now. If, by now, y’er not doin’ anythin’ other’n readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else, then y’er wonderin’. If y’er not readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else by now, then y’er wonderin’. Y’er wonderin’ what happened. So I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened tonight. What happened tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s. McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. What happened then, and what happened there was... I got clocked. I got clocked tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Yup. That’s it. That’s what happened. I got clocked. I got clocked but good. Here in my own neighborhood, where I’ve lived for two years. Where I’ve lived for two years, an’ where I’ve never had a run-in with any of “my own kind,” so to speak, it happened. It finally happened. It finally happened tonight. Tonight, of all times, it finally happened. Tonight, I got clocked. I got clocked but good. An’ the weirdest part is, I didn’t even know it ‘til long after it happened.

A few hours after it happened, a beautiful young boy said “Hi” to me in a bar. He said “Hi” to me. Long after it’d happened, he said “Hi.” Like he knew me. He said “Hi” like he knew me. So I gathered that maybe he did. I gathered maybe he did know me. So I was game. I said “Hi” back. I said “Hi.” And then I asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “I saw you walking your dog tonight. Right outside McDonald’s. I saw you walking your dog. And when I saw you, I said to myself, 'Oh, there’s gay people here. Cool.'”

Clocked. Fuck.

After all this time here, alone with my dog, I’d gotten used to not being visibly gay. Sure, I was white, I was male; I was even middle class and artsy. But I hadn’t been “tagged” yet as being gay. The racial and socio-economic circles around here don’t have much time for sexual politics. They presume everyone around them is heterosexual. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re too busy surviving to even ponder it. Anything else, that is. Sexually speaking. They don’t have time to ponder anything else sexually. Even if there are a hundred men fucking each other on the “Down Low.” Even if there are a hundred women living together because “their men have all left them…”

But if one gay boy in one gay bar in Brooklyn was able to clock me as being a homo, in my own neighborhood – well, that means the end of my anonymity in that neighborhood. I suppose I should feel good about being recognized. I suppose I should feel “proud.” But I don’t. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel good, or warm, or fuzzy, or proud to have been clocked by another gay in my neighborhood. Instead I feel sad. I feel sad that my escape is no longer an escape. I feel bummed that other queers have started moving in. I can’t stand that I might be starting the next queer hip neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I wanted was to get away from the gay ghetto. But it seems I’ve just started its next charter.

There’s nothing to repeat here. There’s nothing to wax poetic. Apparently I’m the proverbial self-loathing homo. Apparently I can’t stand my own kind. Why else would I try to move away from them? Why else would I pride myself on living in seclusion? Why else would I hate the appearance of others like me in the area where I’d established myself as separate and un-needing of them and their like?

Getting clocked isn’t good. It’s not a desirable thing. It’s not like getting recognized, or acknowledged, or rewarded. Getting clocked is a bad thing. Gettin' clocked sucks. You don’t wanna get clocked. Trust me. You don’t. I wish I hadn’t been clocked. I wish that boy’d never seen me, no matter how beautiful he is. What’s his problem, anyway? Doesn’t he have anything better to look at?

(Me an’) Bobby McGee

2006-03-26T05:30:00.000-08:00

(I meant to tell y’all ‘bout this before, but I never got around’a it. Well, here’s t’ gittin’ ‘round…)

FLASHBACK, 1998: “The Lot” in LA. I’ve just begun to feel settled-in amidst the other artists, the ‘70s leftovers, and the boho wanna-be’s who constitute my new SoCal alterna-digs’ total residence. The apartment’s been spackled, it’s been painted, and it just been carpeted. The garden’s been sown, and the life force that is Spooge has manifested himself – presently in the form of an uncut adolescent pup.

It’s dusk. I think it’s wintertime. (It's not as easy to tell in La-La Land... You have to look for what's in bloom and ask yourself if you need a sweater.) I’m hosing down the parking lot. (Martini in left hand, nozzle in right. Yeah, I switch hands from time to time, in the name of trying to avoid Carpal Tunnel, but for the most part, this is the stance.) I’m stoned. (What else is new? These are the CA years.) Spooge is doing his thang. So are all the cats. So are all the other dogs. The other dogs all bunk down with Jerry, the “Potato Sack guy,” we call him – a 40+ queen who values the gym about as much as I value monogamy. All these animals are sniffin’, scratchin’, and piddlin’, each according to his or her immediate needs. All of which is to say, it’s just another typical night on the Lot. The sun’s gone down, as it always does, past the edge of the parking lot and past the tops of the Magnolia, Pine and Palm trees aligning the streets that fall between us and the beach. (There’s about 20 minutes worth of ‘em, in Angelino miles. We Angelinos like to describe distance in terms of how long it’ll take you to drive there… We're a "Rate x Time" kind of folk.)

The artists who are lucky enough not to need a day job are busy working in their studios. Those who are in “job phase” are sipping Merlot and listening to Pat Sajak drop cryptic crossword clues. Vanna White patiently awaits illumination. (She will NOT act until she receives her Pavlovian cue. THAT's what got her the job, way back when -- did I ever tell you that? But I digress...) As for Myself? Categorically, I dwell somewhere within the strata of my subculture. I’m a slacker who’s just re-realized he needs to get back to work. So, I work harder than I have to, on The Lot itself, y’see, to make up for my inadequacies.

“Heck,” I tell myself (each and every day I do it), “it’s not like it doesn’t need doin’.”

Anyway, it was on just this kind of day, at exactly this time of night, while I was doing this exact sort of thing – when I first met Bobby McGee. He was a large dog, by the Lot’s standards. By our Lot’s standards, Spooge was a big dog. Spooge was the first big dog who had succeeded in earning permanent residence on the Lot since Catherine, the crazy dyke who'd made and subsequently lost a small fortune via a T-shirt and novelty enterprise called "Flying Fish," had lived there with her ever-rotating population of Pit Bulls. Catherine now lived three doors down, doing God knows what, while her T-shirts and novelties rotted away on gray metal shelves. ANYway, before Spooge, all we on the Lot had, in terms of canine compansionship, were little, “yappy” dogs. And they all shacked up with Jerry.

But picture if you will: Myself, almost 10 years ago… Martini and garden hose in hand(s); proud father of the first full-sized dog to have recently landed residence on the Lot. And then picture, if you will: Myself, meeting – for the first time – a Border Collie/Sheep Dog mix (who’s only recognizable to me as such because I grew up with a father who bred dogs and who familiarized me with the appearances and inclinations of many hunting and show breeds). And THEN picture, if you can: The simultaneous combination of delight and despair I experienced when I: a) recognized that another large-sized dog had made his way onto the Lot, and b) realized that the reason he’d done so was because he was crippled to the core – the obvious victim of a car accident.

Whether on human or canine, cat or canary, I had never before seen such injuries. I had never before witnessed such raw, open, dripping wounds. They were puss-ridden; fur-mixed-with-skin-mixed-with-flesh-mixed-with-sutures, CATASTROPHIC symptoms. Never before had I viewed in real life such obvious consequences of nature and industrialization colliding, VIOLENTLY. But I was witnessing them then. Martini in one hand, garden hose in the other, there I stood, under the LA sunset, witnessing it. And it was disgusting. "Such, "I tried to assure myself, "is the nature of life in LA." "Such is the rare yet predictable outcome of a certain unlucky percentile who have to live a flesh-and-blood existence under the utterly unforgiving reign of mechanism." More precisely, I thought, mechanism met with speed. For it is the marriage of mechanicality and motion that makes up the make-up of Los Angeles. Ride with it and everything’s fine. Floating and jetting, the flotsam and jetsom move along quite smoothly, providing an aesthetic that predates and predicts the visual effects of the internet. Southern California long ago raised surfing to another level; it just needed Microsoft Windows to teach the rest of us how to recognize it.

But for this borderline Border Collie whom I came to deem Bobby McGee, surfing hadn't helped. Surfing hadn't proven to be a conduit. Unlike the rest of us who surfed LA traffic daily --negotiating stop signs, traffic lights, hair-pin turns and multiple intersections -- Bobby, apparently, hadn't made it home safe one night. His was an unlucky number. His was a number representing collision. Running the numbers hadn't helped Bobby; it had hurt him. That's what the numbers dictate. That's what the numbers require. The numbers require that in order for 95% of us to make it home safe, 5% of us -- be we human, canine, or of any other life form -- must suffer. We must suffer eventuality.

So I suppose it was my own particular form of eventuality that eventually led to my having to witness the likes of Bobby McGee. But nothing could've prepared me for the moment. Nothing could’ve helped me witness what I witnessed that night while I was watering down the Lot in LA – that night when I first met him. That night when I first laid eyes upon Bobby McGee. No Martini, no bong, no drug could’ve prepared me. Nothing, except perhaps a glimpse of death itself, could’ve prepared me to glimpse what I glimpsed that evening, right around twilight. I don’t even know how he walked. I don’t know how he walked up to me. And I'm not really sure why. The rest of Jerry’s dogs always scattered whenever I sprayed the hose. But not Bobby.

Bobby, that night, hobbled right on up t’ me, even tho' I was sprayin’ full throttle. He hobbled right up t’ me. He hobbled right on up, introducin’ himself, 'spite th’ fact that no other dog who’d’ just been through what he’d just been through would’a ever cared t’inroduce himself t’anybody… An' I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never seen anythin' like it. It was like lookin’ at half a dog. Half a dog sliced right down the middle – and not from belly t' belly, but from head t’ toe! Right down the middle! A perfect half a’ dog! He was a perfect half a' dog. Cut right down the middle. Like the Invisible Dog from the ‘70s. Like the friggin’ Invisible Dog. Cut right down the middle. From schnout t’ tail, Ol’ Bobby was a perfect half a' dog.

One side of him looked like the dog he was – or at least, the dog he’d once been. But the other side of him looked like a science experiment. It was flat, it was transluscent, and it had no fur. I don’t think it even had bones. (Looking back, I realize it must’ve, but at the time, I couldn’t even see them.) The one side that was him was pretty. It was full. It was black, it was white, it was long-haired, and it was full. It was full of life. But the other side of him – the one that was damaged – was so damaged I couldn’t imagine how any dog would've been able to get along without all the stuff he was missing.

Aside from Jerry, I guess, I was the only other human who took to Bobby. Everyone else ignored him. I can’t say as I blame them, because during our time on the Lot, we all witnessed many a damaged animal. It was just part of being there. I mean, c’mon – there we were, living where the city had forgotten itself, and in so doing, allowed the desert to reclaim itself. There were plenty of wild creatures to contend with, mostly in the form of feral cats and pack dogs. But because Ol’ Bobby’d made the effort to introduce himself to me that night, I couldn’t help but wanna get to know him. So I got to know him. And in getting to know him, I came to name him. Yeah, I’m the one who named him. I’m the one who named him “Bobby McGee.” At first, no one asked me why. But as time passed – as he healed and grew back into the cute sheep-herding collie dog he’d been before his accident – people grew curious as to why I called him what I did. And when they asked, I told ‘em, “I call him Bobby McGee. ‘Cuz when he first showed up here – he had nothin’ left t’lose.”

Maybe that’s why he'd hobbled up to me that evening. Maybe he recognized that we had something in common. And y'know somethin'? He was right. Because on that particular evening, on that particular Lot, in that particular corner of the world, Me ‘n’ Bobby McGee – as the illustrious Miss Joplin herself would’ve attested, had she been there to witness us – were just about the free-est souls in the Southland.

CGU* III (Episode 1): Just What Have I Done Now?

2006-02-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

(*Career Girl Update, Series III)

If I never accomplish anything else during this whacky incarnation I’m having, at least I’ll be able to return to the Great Void knowing I’ve amused just a few of you along the way. I know I’m silly. Really, I do.

So what am I up to this time? Just what sort of career has this Career Girl who’s notorious for not being able to hold down a career landed now? As many of you have read, and as bizarre as it sounds (even to myself, still), I’m now a Mortgage Broker.

“Mortgage Broker.” What sort of image does that title conjure up in your heads? Go ahead, be honest. I won’t be offended if it’s offensive. Lord knows I’ve come too far in the world of offensiveness to fear the offense people might take in my occupation. Does it strike you as “smarmy?” Does it come across as the Used Car Sales echelon of the real estate industry? Yes, I believe it does. I think, whenever I tell people I’m a Mortgage Broker, that I sound like the guys you see on late-night TV. You know, the ones peddling last year’s Ford Explorers and Toyota Corollas at bargain prices – “Not to be beaten anywhere, or [they’ll] pay the difference!!!”

All I know is this: Three years ago, I was financially stable but emotionally and artistically stagnant in Los Angeles. Two years ago, I had just acquired my present apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was busy slapping up my first coats of paint and searching for a microwave and Toast-r-Oven. And last year I was living the High Life, collecting Unemployment and young Brooklyn boy-toys alike. I brought both home to said East Williamsburg apartment, spending the former on all the drugs I was doing with the latter.

All of which is to say, I’ve looked at NYC from both sides now.

I’ve been the newcomer with the demanding day job and I’ve been the Brooklyn slacker who proves that it is, indeed, possible to survive in NY on less than $100,000/year. Way less. Way, way less. I’ve been the guppie and the boho. I’ve made it here (which means, if you’ll remember, that I can make it anywhere) “with” and “without.” From surfing couches to earning an Executive Assistant’s salary and back to surfing a couch again (my own, mind you), I have acquired close to three years’ life experience here in the Big Apple. And some said it couldn’t be done!

I’m no stranger to taking big risks in moving to new cities. At 23, soon after taking my sweet time to graduate from college (spent a semester in France just for the hell of it), I packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and left Portland, Maine, forever. Folks said I’d be back, but I never have been, except for one quick visit sometime during ’89. (I’ve been meaning to get back there, especially now that I’m back on the East Coast, and I will always love my dear friends there, but I haven’t made it back yet.) After living in SF for close to 10 years (and after experiencing a major shift in sensibilites – from uptight New English preppie to hedonistic SF clone), I decided – mostly for the sake of love, mind you – to relocate to Los Angeles. I remained there, with the quasi-communal, eternally familial group of artists with whom I’d recalimed a filthy parcel of South Central turf, for almost seven years. But I was unhappy. Despite having surrounded myself with other artists in the hopes of living the Creative Life, my creativity dried up. I was too worried about maintaining the homestead to take time to write. I wound up smoking too much pot while I continually clipped ever-growing garden blossoms and stems. That’s what led to my taking the next, most recent risk – moving to NYC on a shoestring.

Throughout the processes of taking all of these risks, I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve learned to go ahead and take big leaps as long as my heart tells me it’s OK. That’s what’s happening with this new job. It’s a crazy job. Given that I now possess far less than the infamous $3,000 I had when I first arrived in NY, it’s an insane proposition. It’s commission only. It’s a high-pressure, low-benefit sales job. In other words, I’ve signed up to sweat in a boiler room.

But y’know what? I love it. I don’t just “like” it. I’m not “settling” until something better comes along. I think this job is an opportunity – the opportunity I knew I’d need once I’d gotten established in this city and was ready to move to the next level. I’m sorry I portrayed the company as appearing to have “mob” connections in my previous post. (Well, I’m sorry, but not to the point where I’m willing to take back those initial impressions. They will have to forever remain what they were. Many people, if they were to meet my new boss, would get the same feeling from him and his associates. They are loud, aggressive Long Island natives. They are Italian beyond belief. They could give Brando a run for his cotton-stuffed, mealy-mouthed money. And I love them.)

I have a feeling about this new job. It’s much like the feeling I had when I moved to SF; when I launched my one-man show there; when I packed up and left the Bay Area when it would’ve made more career sense to stay; and when I decided to make the move from LA to NYC. It’s a feeling of surety, despite all apparent reasons to cast doubt. I can’t explain it any further than that. I’m having a gut feeling about this new job. A good gut feeling. And that's all I can say about it.

But I will tell you this: Through this job, I have consciously challenged myself. I have chosen to face some serious demons. You see, early on in my childoood, somewhere around first grade, I was diagnosed as being “bad at math.” My teacher told my parents that I was linguistically talented but mathematically deficient and we all accepted the diagnosis. I proceeded to go through the rest of my education, all the way through grad school, believing I just didn’t have the aptitide to comprehend numbers, arithmetic, percentages, and all else that comprises the vocabulary of business. Consequently I was raised to believe I “didn’t have a head for money.” Heck, I was an artist. I was creative. I could write a hell of a Christmas letter, but God forbid I shoud be expected to do my own taxes.

Well, recently, after having taken as much time as I apparently needed to slack in Brooklyn – after having finally saturated myself with the bohemian/party lifestlye – I have decided that a guy who can maintain a 3.7 GPA in a graduate program (even if it is just at a state school and in an arts program) can certainly wrap his brain around the principles that enable people with far fewer intellectual faculties than he has to accumulate wealth in a capitalist system.

So THAT’s what I’ve “done now.” THAT’s what I’m up to. As usual, Greg has motives far beyond the petty and the apparent. Greg is up to something big. Greg is battling his demons, and he’s determined to come out of the battle armed with the knowledge that will help him land the best fucking mortgage possible on that Goddamed Anna Madrigal-esque brownstone he’s always dreamed of owning. This is New York, for Chrissake. If a New Yorker isn’t at least a little bit curious about how the local real esate market works, s/he’s not a real New Yorker. S/he’s a tourist.

I have a lifetime of sales under my belt. As complex as the mortgage industry is, it’s still sales, plain and simple. The man who’s just launched the Manhattan office of a firm he’s worked with since 1997 on Long Island took one look at me and decided I was capable of learning the ropes. That’s my new boss. I don’t intend to let him – but more importantly, myself – down. It takes time but the money one can earn in this field is hefty. Living on commission only brings me back to my Patrick Murphy days. I have never been happier with my work than when I was living from job to job. It always came together then, and I’m sure it’ll come together now. Meanwhile I’ll be learning all about the mysterious phenomenon known as New York City real estate. Not bad party chat, eh?

I made the move and I painted the apartment. I celebrated my 40th birthday with all my best friends. Then I took a year off to rest, play, and inquire as to exactly who I wanted to be now that I am here. Now I’m greasing the money wheels so that when the muse visits and helps me put together the next creative urge, I’ll be ready and able to produce it.

There’s a connection between productivity and creativity, and I’m gonna work it.

Ta-Daaaa!!!

2006-01-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

It’s time to shift gears again. It’s time to make another run for it.

No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”

It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?

I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.

No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.

So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.

Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.

I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."

So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.

I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.

And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.

I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.

“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”

When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.

Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”

When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.

His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.

There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.

But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”

On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.

One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.

“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”

“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”

“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”

“That’s me.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.

“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.

“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“

“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”

Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.

I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.

It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.

That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.

Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?

Re-Velveteened

2006-01-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Oh, My Friggin’ Christ.

I think I’m losing touch with reality. Or, more specifically, bourgeois reality. But then, even having to clarify something as basic as reality reassures me I’m only further experiencing my own reality – which, contrary to popular belief – isn’t bourgeois. So I guess all I meant to say when I introduced this entry via, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” was, “I’m obviously having another wrestling match with bourgeois reality.” There. That’s more like it. Hope you get what I mean.

‘Cuz I mean it anyway – I’m losing touch with reality! Again! See, that’s the thing about life in the Velveteen Rabbit zone. It’s not like the moral would have you think. It’s not enough to get real just once. In order to keep being real, you have to keep getting real… Again, again, and again… ad infinitum…

Tell me, please: Am I real?

I’d like to believe so. I’d like to believe I did my homework, way back in San Francisco in 1992. But that was over a decade ago, and, well, here in New York – on the verge of 2006 – I’m getting a liitle impatient. I’m impatient for some Return On Investment. I’m lookin’ for that ROI. I’m waitin’ for the payoff for bein’ real.

But so far, the only payoff for bein’ real I’ve experienced is more reality. Of my sort, that is… Which ISN’T the sort I started this passage off talkin’ about. Argh!

One friend told me to re-visit Death in Venice. I’m sure that’s worthy advice, but I’ve just finished revisiting SlaughterHouse 5, Siddartha, and Steppenwolf, so I think I’m covered as far as the eternal artist’s struggle against the bourgeois sensibilty goes… At this point, I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to contribute my own slice to that pie?

Anyway, I’ll pick up a copy of Death... Just to be sure.

But this business of being “informed so that one might create deeper literature” – I’ve gotta tell you, it’s what’s got me in a stand-still. It started with Grad School in Theatre way back in ’94… Learnin’ ‘bout my craft just sucked the wind right outta my sails. THAT, if truth be told, is the real reason I don’t pursue Theatre again. Or writing, or performing, or anything literary.

We got us a bit of a problem. We got us a writer who doesn’t wanna write – much less read or perform. UGH.

And I don’t know where to begin, when it comes to analyzing that problem. When it comes to breaking it down and recognizing the reasons why I’ve chosen to remain stagnant within the realm of “just getting by” and failed to continue to follow my artistic path. No, I might not know where to begin. But I do know which clues to drop…

Take, for instance, the observations I’ve accumulated from my functioning-alcoholic parents and their approach to life. I’ve come to emulate them almost down to the wire. Sometime during my 30s, a voice went off inside my head. It said, “Hey: You’re not getting any younger! Isn’t about time you started that drinking habit?” And so I did. As my Irish Catholic cheeks began to lose their blush of youth, I made damned sure it was replaced by the blush of blossoming (functioning) alcoholism.

Martini, anyone?

And then there’s the eternal obsession with “the steady paycheck.” Just how many of you have I bored to tears in recent years with my litanies of chasing profit? I’m sorry.

Real estate. Long distance telephone services. Gym memberships. Advertising. And then real estate again. And soon, perhaps, more advertising! When will these distractions cease to be distractions? I’ll tell you when they’ll stop: WHEN I HAVE SOME SUITABLE MEANS OF INCOME TO REPLACE THEM.

It’s the eternal artist’s paradox. You work because you have to pay your rent and bills. The time and energy you spend working takes away from your ability to produce your next work, which could hypothetically (finally!) land you in a position of being able to support yourself by your “work.” The awareness of this sick situatation renders you less than fully capable of performing your “work,” which triggers an ugly cycle vacillating between your potential self-satisfaction (in that you’re able to support yourself through working) dissipating into your self-loathing (in that you’re unable to support your “work”).

And I’m stuck thick in the middle of that paradox, here, in NYC – one of America’s most expensive cities.

But I’m gonna battle the paradox, through and through. I always have. I don’t care if it looks as though I’ve bounced from one fiscal failure to another. Those fiscal failures all supported me for a while, and got me to this point, which is here – now.

If I’m still alive and questioning then there’s still hope.

How’s this for a dose of reality: Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been too preoccupied with JUST GETTING BY to allow myself the luxury of pursuing higher goals? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve been trapping myself in a cycle of perpetual (REQUISITE) bohemianism by not allowing myself to assume some of my upper middle class white privilege. In other words, maybe a professional job and salary might pave the way for me to consider taking future artisitc risks. Lord knows not having any money certainly has prevented me from taking any. Even though I’ve had the time to pursue an artisitc lifestyle, I haven’t had the money. After all, even a bohemian career requires some start-up capital.

So don’t hate me if I tell you in my next post that I’ve just become a Mortgage Broker. I hear the money’s killer in that field.

Career Girl Update: Back Rubbin' the Saddle Sores Again

2005-11-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

It' so flattering when y'all complain that I haven't posted in a while. Really, it is. But if you think you're gonna make me pull a Sally Field, well, you're wrong. (Wink.) I'll just settle for saying, "Thanks for reading." And I mean it.

It's been a month since my last post, so I thought I'd drop a quick blog note to apprise everyone of just what I'm up to. As many of you know, I've been living the high life for a year now. The first six months were funded by Unemployment Insurance. Over the last six months, I've lived off a combination of savings, brokering apartments for my landlord (a free month's rent for every unit I rent out -- so far I've rented three since June), and teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). AND I've temped in various upscale corporate setting, as those of you who've read the "Pippypoo" entry well know. And oh, yeah... the massage thing pops up every once in a while, so to speak.

Christ, reviewing that list makes me realize what a busy little bohemian I can be when I put my mind to things... Such a litany of pursuits, however trivial, is enough to make me reconsider whether I remain qualified for slacker status.

Anyhoo, today I'm plunked in front of yet another Hearst Corporation computer, filling in for some "lifer" Executive Assistant who works for some coot who's apprently so old and important that his business cards no longer contain a job title. John Mack Carter's resume includes having been chairman of American Home Publishing, Editor-in-Chief of Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's, and Associate Editor of my alma mater, Better Homes & Gardens. (I know an alma mater is a school from which one has graduated -- that's exactly what it was for me, since it was my official introduction to the School of Hard Knocks.) Well, how nice for John.

If I hadn't seen the man the last time I was here (temping for the Corporate Treasurer), I'd have no idea what he looks like. He's in Florida today. Just like he was yesterday. For the past two days I've sat at his secretary's desk, answering his phone (which only rings once an hour) and taking care of my personal business both via phone and internet.

Now THIS is a job I could handle.

I love lending a helping hand to the aging icons of industry. I love seeing how major corporations will keep people on salary and fill their lives with perks and benefits simply because they were, once upon a time, productive. It's almost contrary to basic capitalist principle, isn't it? I can't decide if I want to criticize the waste of company dollars or praise the sheer humanitarianism of the situation. So I settle for "sticking it to the man" by wasting some of their dollars myself, and by taking care of all my home office supply needs while I'm here. Anyone need some Scotch tape? A pile of Post-It's?

Meanwhile, I'm back in the FT job search. I'm ready again, not to mention broke. No more savings to live off, save for the precious little IRA I started a few years ago and that I've vowed not to touch. Much.

This time around I'm targeting sales, especially ad sales. If I'd been an eager little advertising beaver when I was at the last FT gig with Veranda magazine, this is exactly the career path I'd have been on. So I've decided to get on it again. My experience qualifies me for it; I'm "priced out" of considering anything new (e.g.: I can't settle for less money), and I actually think I could handle it for a while. The main emphasis is that I would NOT be anyone's "Assistant" anymore. THAT's what made the last two jobs such hell for me. My ego has suffered enough blows. I refuse to put myself in a subservient role again. True, sales is as kiss-ass as jobs come, but in the ad world, Ad Reps are respected. No assistant is respected. Don't even try to get PC on me now. I've had three years of humbling experiences to back up my argument.

What about the ESL, you ask? I'm teaching every weeknight from 7-10pm. It's a great gig but it only pays $12.00/hr!!! I'm paying dues in that field. I need a year's experience in it before any day school takes me seriously. Hence the reason to return to FT sales work while I continue to gain ESL teaching experience PT.

So the slacker is awakening from his slumber. I won't say "the party's over," however. I know myself too well. But I apologize if the blogging slows down. Studies show that when Greg has a FT job, his creativity wanes. Believe me you, I've made it a long-term goal to establish a lifestyle that is balanced between money-grubbing and creative endeavors. But that requires a short-term commitment to wage slavery.

Don't give up on us, baby.

One of These Days

2005-10-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, Mr. DJ – put a record on, I wanna dance with my past… If I can’t do anything else, then I’ll dedicate my artistic mission toward describing what it’s like to grow up somewhere between the bourgeoise and the rebel… If I can’t seem to make it through to the populace; if I can’t make it to the print presses or the airwaves; then maybe I’ll just have to settle for letting the folks who surf the ‘net know how I feel about how I was raised to feel…

I’m not the only one. Neither are you. If you’re alive enough to read this right here and right now, then you’re one of us. You’re one of those who was raised on the Myth of A Star Is Born. It doesn’t matter of it’s Streisand or Garland you associate with the role. The truth is, if you remember either (or worse, like myself, if you remember both), then the Star in question is none other than yourself.

Rising to fame is the late 20th/early 21st Century equivalent to an immigrant’s arriving from another land, after passing through Eillis Island, onto streets paved with gold. It is the current American mythos. It is the umph upon which the majority of several industries have been thrust, and then built.

Don’t know what I mean? Then take a look-see at American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, or even at the mothers of all “Reality” TV: The Real World or Survivor. They encapsulate, in less than 60 minutes (gotta reserve ample time for commercials, after all), the sheer reductivist version of Darwinianism that America likes to call its own.

It’s survival of the fittest, that is. Which equates, in camera-ready terms, to an unspoken unilateral agreement to put to contest only the most beautiful of people. Hence the first line of Darwinian deliniation, in American terms, equals beauty – according to how the camera sees it. (Beauty has, after all, been determined differently according to various variables throughout Western history; i.e.: how one looks whilst lounging along a riverbank or on a chaise, or how one appears on stage.) Don’t tell me Richard Hatch isn’t handsome. True, he might not look like Tom Cruise, but if his nose had cast any unnessecary shadows on that, the first of the screen tests before any of the contestants had landed on the first of the Survivor islands, then you can be damned sure he’d never have gotten the opportunity to saunter around, however robustly, in his birthday suit.

See, these days (ever since the dawn of Hollywood and the utterly critical aspect called depth-of-field), beauty has been determined less by one’s facial features and more by the lack of them. Because features cast shadows, and shadows – in the film/video world – are problems. It started somewhere around Garbo and has continued right up to Pamela Anderson. The former had no features whatsoever, other than what the camera gave her, and the latter? Ditto – except for her “titto’s.” You see, bodily features are just fine. It’s the close up that’s the problem. Unless, of course, you’re utterly featureless. Then it’s no problem at all.

Which is not to say that one can’t possess any physical features whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Coloring is critical (no matter what any make-up or lighting “artist” wants to tell you), as is the shape of one’s head. Lash length is a factor, as is one’s ability to raise one (and only one) eyebrow. And of course, there’s the ever-important head width, and forehead hieght, and jaw structure, and chin size, and then the eventually adjacent neck length. These factors work together in an indescribable and transcendant ability to suggest meaning and context when framed within any of the industry-standard Pythagorean ratios. (“Letterbox” and “pan-and-scan” are the primary two – have a ball looking up these terms, among others, those of you who’ve magically managed to avoid encountering them).

Factors that no longer matter include but are not limited to: height, stature, strength, endurance and – let’s certainly not forget – intellect (the capacity to which one would need in order to memorize an entire script so that one might perform it from beginning to end without ceaseless interruptions and/or retakes). (Note: WEIGHT remains a critical factor, as in, “the less the better.”) Otherwise, today’s cinematic standards of beauty remain identical to that of previous generations.

So, if you’re “on board” for the pursuit of the current American mythos, sooner or later you’re going to have to evaluate yourself on this beauty scale. If you’re lucky enough to be honest enough with yourself not to try to compete with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas (don’t know why I jumped immediately to the pseudo Latin American talent pool for that comparison, so in the interest of racial equality, let’s also throw in Halle Berry and Denzel Washington; and then Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrel), then you’ll be immediately prompted to recognize yourself as a “character actor.” Good for you. You’ve just joined the ranks of Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito (who happen to have been married at one point – don’t know if they still are).

I don’t care if you’re an actor, a musician, or even a writer or a fucking painter – at this point in history, America wants all of its celebrities to be pretty. If you’re not pretty, then you’d better be friggin’ funny, like Marty Feldman. Or you’d better be rich. You can be as ugly as you want as long as you’re funny or rich. But no one ever got rich by being ugly (Feldman is no millionaire – he’s not even still alive), and getting rich AND famous is what we’re talking about here… So if you’re ugly and rich and famous by now, that means you’ve been working at it for a good 30 years or so and your time has just come… Kinda like “The Donald.” (So fire me already. I wasn’t even gonna apply.) If you’re just ugly and famous right now, just wait a few months… (Case in point: Every day I see “de plane,” but when’s the last time we saw Tattoo?)

Still willing to pursue today’s American dream? Then you must be talented.

Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!

How nice for you. So one of these days, as they say, your ship will come in. If you just keep plugging along, despite all the odds against you and despite all the cosmetic surgery that your “younger-than’s” and “lesser-than’s” are currently undergoing (not to mention the subsequent contacts that their surgeons will be able to put them in touch with), then you might just be able to make a name for yourself. You might just get through to the populace. And then maybe – after all that work and if the Good Witch of the North just happens to meet you at an art opening or a movie or theatre premiere after she’s downed a few too many Cosmopolitans – you might just become a star. Well, then, of course I apologize for sounding too cynical. Of course you were right in persuing the mythos of our time. Good for you. You beat the odds.

I’m sorry – just who are you again?

September Mourn

2005-10-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

While June, July and August of 2005 will forever in my mind be remembered as one of the best summers I’ve ever had, I must confess, the ensuing September was one of the worst months I’ve ever had. Call it anticlimax if you will, but there’s more to it than that. Much more.

I’ve alluded to and even discussed to some extent my tenuous relationship with my parents. Well, I suppose the time has come to elaborate. And I suppose I’ll start with the terse clinical description that sums up so much of the dynamic: I’m the only child of two ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts. If that doesn’t paint some sort of image, I don’t know what will.

I went to visit said parents during the last week of August – supposedly for a “vacation” from the vacation I’d been indulging in since late May…

If there’s a delicate way to put this, I can’t find it. So I’ll just come out with it. My mother has been sipping her way into a steady, sustained, self-destructive stupor since I came out to her way back during the barely post-Cro Magnon era of the Reagan administration (e.g.: 1987). Yeah, it’s been that long. Grudge much? If you ever feel the need to look up the term “false expectation,” then by all means, do. When you do, you’ll find pictures of both my mother and myself next to the definition. She’s the progenitor and I’m the result.

At first the situation was (pardon the pun) relatively easy to deal with. I’d taken care of that. I’d moved all the way from New England to California. I’d put distance between us. Not just physical distance, but cultural distance, too, as I knew my parents perceived California to be “the land of the fruits and the nuts.” Whenever I heard that experession (as I did, many thousands of times over Walter Cronkite’s delivery of the evening news, TV trays in place; TV dinners upon them), I had two – apparently opposing – reactions. On one hand, I immediately understood my parents’ undercutting reference; but on the other hand, deep inside me, a semi-latent fascination with all matters radical perked up and took notice… I suppose that’s largely how I came to equate California with my eventual freedom.

So, when the proper time came (yes, it had to be the “proper” time, as I was still very much New English on the outside), I annouced to my circle of college friends, shortly after graduation, that I was going to move to San Francisco. (Would now be the best time to mention that graduation came with a few thousand bucksaws from my parents, which, I’m sure, they’d envisioned my banking until I needed to buy an engagement ring or put down some money for a home? OK. Consider it mentioned. Yes, I understand how my parents might have come to view this as “insult to injury.”) Of course, the rote repsonse in parts New English back then – and probably still is – “Oh, you’ll be back.”

But I never came back. Even now, almost 20 years later, I still haven’t come back. While I might have returned, finally, to the east coast, I have in no way returned to New England. And despite my disinclination to ever say “never,” I’m pretty sure I can remain honorbaly inclined to say I’ll never go back there. NYC is as close as it gets, baby.

Instead of coming back, I came further out. My 10 years in San Francisco resulted in my evolving from an uptight Irish Catholic prick, albeit an already quite homosexual one, to a radical leftist queer sexworker. (Yes, “sexworker” – that’s what we whores are referred to in more civilized social circles.) And as my consciousness soared, that of my parents remained stagnant at best. Actually, I think it digressed, because I wasn’t there to be “in their face” enough to whittle away at their defenses.

It was easy enough to hide my true self from them whenever I mad my bi-annual trips “home.” After all, I’d been hiding myself from them all my life – and they’d come to expect that – so what difference did it make? But there was a difference. There grew between the three of us an undescribable, inescapable tension. It was as if we lived constantly with the impending threat of an Irish Catholic denial implosion. (No, of course it couldn’t have been an explosion. That would’ve been too explicit.)

By the time my decade in SF was coming to a close, I was coming into my own. I’d broken away from the bourgeois strings of 9-5. I was supporting myself as a sexwoker so that I could write, produce and star in my very own one-man shows. I worked one show to death, playing it at venue after venue until finally I landed a gig at “THE” venue and was written up in several of the Bay Area weeklies – and favorably, I might add. Soon after all this happened, I felt the chill of San Franciso’s glass ceiling, so I knew it was time to move on. It didn’t matter that the rest of the Bay Area had become a warm an nurturing womb. What mattered most was my progression, for better or worse.

So I progressed to Los Angeles, for several reasons, not the least of which was love. Yes, indeed, the cynical whore had found love, in the form of a visual artist from Salt Lake City who’d taken to homesteading in South Central – right around the time of the Rodney Kind riots. How cool is THAT? (Heh.) I rationalized the move in as many self-interested directions as possible, but whenever I got (amidst all the moving and shuffling and sanding and scraping and prepping and painting and repainting and touching up and re-touching) a moment to myself, I realized I’d moved to that god forsaken lot in Los Angeles for love, plain and simple. Hell, I had entered my 30s, so I figured that’s what it was time to do. Settle down and all…

Yeah, I was there to find an agent and maybe do some commercial work. Yeah, I was there to continue playwriting and launch gigs at venues in a bigger pond. And yeah, I did some of that. But most importantly, I was there because I’d found a soul mate.

When I told Mom and Dad about my newfound interest in domestic bliss, they were actually happy. Even if it couldn’t be a wife, I’d at least found a spouse. That’s how they saw the situation. So for a brief while they changed their icy New English tune to one of almost veritable support. In that area, at least. But as for the artsy-fartsy bohemianism? That they still couldn’t handle. See, I’m what most conservative parents might call a “double whammy.” Not only am I gay, but I’m also a bohemian. For real. This ain’t no adolescent phase (much like the queerness wasn’t, either). This is my life. This is moi. This is who and what I am. I’m the rare statistic that parents dread. I didn’t outgrow either phase.

Now, in the interest of ostensible fairness, let’s then hear some sympathy for my folks. All together now: “Awwwwwwww…”

See, the funniest thing about my folks (“funny,” as in deep-dark “weird,” that is – it’s nowhere near funny “ha-ha,” except in the deepest and darkest of ways) is this: They have never been able to think of my gayness as something that has happened to me; they can only perceive it in terms of how it has “happened” to them. For all the “It’s just not a lifestyle I would’ve chosen for you” and “If there was only something we could’ve done to prevent this from happening to you,” notions they might have sent my way, I’ve never once heard from either of them any statement remotely resembling, “Well, if that’s who and what you think you are, then I suppose I’ll have to support that.” Their most compassionate explanations and descriptions have been replete with prejudice and blame. And I don’t, at this point, think I need to spell out exactly against whom they are prejudiced and whom they blame.

So: in a nutshell… Ever since the fall of 1987, immediately after I’d packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and driven across the country to move to SF, my mother has been depressed. She has been so depressed that she developed not only one, not even two, but three types of cancer – each related to her sex and maternity: breast, cervial, and uterine, respectively. And a few years after she’d had several surgeries and “beaten the odds,” dear ol’ Dad came down with prostate cancer.

Now, I’m not one to victim-blame, but am I the only one who sees a weird sort of subconscious, repressed Irish Catholic poetic justice in this picture? Which is not to say, in using the term “poetic justice,” that I think it’s just that my parents have fallen prey to these diseases, but I do – especially as a writer – see a literary pattern of sorts.

Flash forward to the August just passed, the final week during which I visited my parents on “vacation.” Not only did I once again have to face the living image that has become my alcohol-soaked, post-chemo’d Mom – who’s taken to sleeping until 4pm so that she might stay up until 5am sipping white wine from a box and watching Nick at Nite – but I also had to listen to Dear Ol’ Dad’s justifications as to exactly why I was honor-bound to nod and smile whenever she dished out one of her insults (a/k/a, in their heads, “truisms”). In their heads, there’s nothing wrong with our relationship. As it turns out, even though homosexuality never factored into their personal equations, they both hated their mothers. For them, hating one’s mother is status quo. I think that’s the thing they ultimately believe is most radical about me – that I refuse to accept continued abuse from my mother.

But that doesn’t stop her from dishing it out. And it doesn’t stop him from supporting her in doing so. That’s what I learned, during a one-week stay last August back at the homefront. After all these years and after falling under the false assumption that moving “back east” would bring me closer to the parents I’d abandoned almost 20 years ago, I finally came to the realization that I wasn't the only one responsible for our alienated dynamic. In fact, my parents were not only equally to blame for setting up the dynamic, they are apparently quite content with keeping it intact. So when I returned to Brooklyn, after a somewhat longer than brief escape to Party-Party/Never-Never Land, I eventually came (down) to the point of recognizing all this.

Mom hasn’t recovered and most likely never will recover from realizing that I am gay. And her response to the matter has been to take what we Irish like to call “the low road” – denial, anger, and blame. Dad plays the part of the codependent in this case, silently supporting Mom’s behaviors through not making any attempts to change them. Why? Because ultimately he agrees with her position, so he can’t muster up the strength to argue with it.

I am a faggot in my parents’ eyes. As ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts, that’s the only perception available to them. To question that perception would open them up to questioning every other perception that contributes to their sensibility. Like the Roman Catholic church, they espouse to love the sinner but hate the sin.

And that’s a sin I can’t even begin to love any sinner for.

Therein lies the conflict between me and my parents. That’s the reason why I fall into 30-day depressions after each visit I make to Massachusetts. I do my best to recognize that their reaction is not my responsibility; that how they feel about who and what I am ultimately has nothing to do with the essence of who and what I am. But it hurts to visit them. It hurts to see the devastation that the unwillingness to reconsider a sensibility will do to a body (or two, or three, or more – all the way up to a society). THAT’s what pushes me into a chasm of depression. That’s why September was such an awful month for me. And that’s the demon I need to battle next.

“Next!”

Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!

2005-09-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

As some of you know (but most of you don't), I occasionally indulge in fiction. Well, here's a smattering of something that's been needing to come out of me for quite some time... The emergence of my character, Garby 'Tretch Gaberdine, of whom I've been muttering for the past -- what? -- 12 months or so... I hope those of you who've had to endure my utterances will appreciate the solidity of her character as depicted herein.

Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!

Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine is not what you’d call a popular girl. At 13, with an overbite that makes beavers jealous -- coupled with an inexplicable series of skin allergies to any fabric known to humankind as “natural” -- Garby’s kamra could hardly be described as anything desirable, much less optimal. Nevertheless, Garby must attend public school, along with the entirety of the upper-middle class, bourgeois progeny that currently exists amidst the Las Vegas populace. (Her mother is a Vegas showgirl, and her father, a successful partner at a law firm -- also Vegas-based.)

She can’t wear Mark Jacobs. She can’t even wear GAP. No, the plight of our heroine, the anti-“anygirl,” is that of outcast. She’s the outcast who has to report to homeroom every morning donning nothing less than double-knit polyester -- or “stretch gaberdine," for short.

It’s not easy to find stretch gaberdine these days. Especially in these days’ styles…

Coupled with her physical issues is Garby’s saddening speech impediment. She’s unable to pronounce either the letter “D” or the letter “S.” No other two letters of the alphabet could have proven more fatal to the girl, whose birth name is “Darby Garby.” (That’s right, “Darby Garby.”) But as our heroine, who mis-pronounces her “D’s” says it, this comes across as "Garby Garby.”

Let me make this easier for you. Picture, if you will, an ugly prepubescent with an overbite that would make beavers jealous, sitting in a schoolyard, wearing nothing but ‘70s polyester (it's the only form that's reliably double-knit), and being approached by the “popular” girls, only to be asked the following:

“So, like, who are you?”

“(G)arby.”

“Garby?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that your first name, or your last?”

“Firt.”

“You mean, your firsssst?”

“Yeah, my firrrrt.”

“Well, then, what’s your last name?”

“Garby.”

“GARBY?”

“Yeah.”

“Your name is Garby GARBY?!?”

“No, no – my name’(t) (G)ARBY Garby.”

“That’s what I said! ‘Garby GARBY?!?’”

“No – no – “

(At this point I hope you’re getting the picture.)

It isn’t long thereafter before anyone at school who asks the poor girl her name runs into this exact sort of frustration. And so, one sunny September afternoon on the playground not that much later than when the previous conversation occurred, the same “popular” girl approached our heroine and pronounced:

“Y’know what? I don’t care what your name is. I’m gonna call you GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE, ‘cuz all you wear is poly-es-ter!”

(To which there were numerous giggles from the gaggle of girls who followed this popular one…)

Our heroine was caught slightly off-guard. She asked, “Huh?”

“You heard me. From now on, your name will be GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE. 'Cuz all you wear is stretch gaberdine!”

“’Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine?’”

“No, SSSSSS-tretch. SSSSSS-tretch Gaberdine!”

“’T-t-t-‘Tretch?’”

(To which, as you might expect, there arose utter hysteria amidst the gaggle of schoolgirls.)

“That’s right,” their leader concurred, albeit in not a very polite fashion. “’Tretch Gaberdine.’ I swear, can’t you even say, ‘S?’”

But at that point our heroine’s fate had been sealed...

More later... If you can stomach it...

Emerson vs. Me

2005-08-18T04:20:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I keep an old Underwood typewriter on the shelf above my writing station. It isn't just decoration, it's an icon of my raison d'etre, and it's there to remind me of what I came here to do.

Next to it I've hung a postcard that's a transcription of an Emerson quote. It's printed in old-school typewriter font, so it fits not only visually but thematically, since the theme reinforces the motivation for displaying the typewriter. It reads:

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intellegent people

and the affection of children,

to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,

to appreciate beauty,

to find the best in others,

to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child or a garden patch...

to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded!

Well, as much as I love that quote, I couldn't help but update it to suit my own circumstances and needs. True, there's much overlap, but I feel the distinctions are distinct nonetheless. And in so being, they separate me from Emerson; they clarify the subtle differentiations between his modern era and my own postmodern:

To have taken ACTION on at least ONE of your dreams...

To have proven "them" WRONG at least once...

To have KNOWN that you proceed from an INTELLECTUAL yet SPIRITUAL standpoint...

To have LOVED deeply and often...

To have ATTRACTED people from all walks of life without trying,

Yet to have remained FASCINATED with all walks of life all the while...

To see BEAUTY in absolutely EVERYTHING that IS...

To COUNT ON others exhibiting their BEST at SOME POINT...

And to see someone's BEST when they are indeed exhibiting their WORST...

To have chosen to IMPROVE WHAT YOU HAVE rather than CHASE WHAT YOU DON'T...

To have at least ONE person say, "I love you"

who DOESN'T WANT TO GET INTO YOUR PANTS...

THIS, in MY OPINION,

is to be SUCCESSFUL.

"Pippypoo" (or, My Summer Break with Helen)

2005-08-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I have been “temping” a lot this summer as a means of bringing in cash flow while I study to teach ESL and basically strategize my future while simultaneously really living it up during the hottest months we get here in the boroughs of New York City. I’ve also kept the cash flowing via various other endeavors, such as the tried-and-true “naughty” massage, tutoring inner-city kids who are suffering through summer school, and brokering apartments in my neighborhood. While this list might sound cumbersome to some, and while yet others would perceive the endeavors as downright contradictory (“How could he make all that work?”), I must tell you: I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.

Greg learned this lesson before, in San Franciso, but apparently Greg has had to learn it again. Greg likes doing several different things at the same time. Greg thrives off variety and the challenge of being self-employed. Greg likes doing many things Part-Time. But Greg does NOT like doing ANYTHING Full-Time. Nothing. Not one thing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not even sleeping, eating, drinking, drugging or masturbating. If it has to occur “all the time,” I don’t want any part of it. The only things in my life that I want to occur “all the time” are the basic, primal, involuntary reflexes that keep me alive such as breathing, heartbeating, digeseting and all healthy matters cellular…

Point taken? Good. I’m sure more than half of you are muttering to yourselves, “Well for Chrissake, I knew that!” I know. I know you know. I know you knew. Because I knew. And I think you knew that, too. But my process is my process, and this is how I’ve processed it. I guess I wasn’t destined to learn the lesson only once, swiftly and without sway. Apparently my process involves swaying. And so I swayed.

But (for the time being, at least – and let’s hope this time endures) I’ve swayed back into a position of optimism. I feel as though my basic Maslow Pyramid’s bottom tier, for the NY incarnation, has been solidly laid. And so now we venture on (once again) toward creative fulfillment and self-actualization…

What does this have to do with temping? It’s simple. I’ve rediscovered that I’m happier when I’m juggling several balls (so to speak). And temping, for the time being, is one of those balls. The irony with this ball is, I get most of my temp work from the very same coprporation from which I received last winter’s severance package, which included six months of uncontested Unemployment Insurance. See, I never got “booted” from the entire Hearst Coorporation; I only made “an agreement” with one of their divisions – a magazine called Veranda. As of November 30, 2004, I remain in good standing in the eyes of Hearst’s HR Department, which renders me continuously hire-able – as a temp, a freelancer, or once again as a FT employee.

For some strange reason (most likely my "old school" office etiquette and ability to feign interest in the lives of the white collars), the Hearst Corporation likes having me around from time to time. Since June (when the UI ran out), I have temped for several of the Hearst Corporation’s major muck-a-mucks, including the Treasurer of the Magazine Division (he had a fabulous black-and-white photo of Grace Jones dancing at late-era Studio 54) and none other than Ms. Helen Gurley Brown, founding Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. I now address you fresh from having returned from her office.

That is where I learned the term “pippypoo.” It is one of Helen’s creations, along with “mouseburger” and “Pussycat.” She knows she didn’t invent “Pussycat,” but she did revolutionize the realm of fabulous salutations when she incorporated it into her everyday nomenclature. She calls everybody “Pussycat,” from her husband (film and theatre proudcer David Brown) to the UPS guy – and she gets away with it.

Helen is now in her early 80s. She remains physically striking, taking tremendous (justifyable) pride in her ability to remain slender and fit. A classic, secure fashion sense ensues from this comfort Helen retains in her own skin. She’s not afraid to still don the stilettos, even of they are of reduced height. But even when she doesn’t, the lines of her dresses remain “A-line” and proper; modern to the core. Helen, like Nancy Reagan, is one brunette who has figured out how to work her assets. (And as she would tell herself, if she were writing this description, “Bravo!”) Red is one of her favorite colors, whether it be represented by her lipstick, her dress, or her accessories.

Ms. Gurley Brown (a/k/a Mrs. David Brown) continues to report to her job as Editor in Chief of the International division of Cosmo. (My high school and college friends might, at this point, be interested to know that we’re not the only ones turning 40 – this year, so is Cosmopolitan.) Her office, modest for someone of her historical stature, is pink, with leopard-print wall-to-wall carpet. There are two original Georgia O’Keefe paintings on the wall, above a loveseat upholstered in pink and pastel florals which houses two embroidered pillows. One of them reads, “I like champagne, caviar and cash.” The other simply states, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.” At the entrance to her office is her assistant’s office, where I sat. It houses a copy of each of Helen’s best-sellers. They rest on a display stand, right next to the manual typewriter on which she pounded out her debut, Sex and the Single Girl. Fresh cut flowers abound, in both Helen’s realm and within the realm of her admin, and the folder entitled “Temp Instructions” includes an entire page as to how to keep them watered.

Helen’s office day starts around 10:00am. This gives her assistant ample time to get settled, check Helen’s email (she’s on more lists than she can keep up with, including former Mayor Guliani’s and present Mayor Bloomberg’s), and open her mail. The Cosmo icon receives all sorts of paper postage, mostly consisting of fan letters. She makes a point to respond to each and every fan. If she doesn’t have a lunch engagement, she loads up the Dictaphone with “one-pagers” and critiques of the over 50 International editions of the magazine. (Yes, there is a Croatian version of Cosmo, and a Brazilian/Portugese, and an Indian… Even though the matriarch can’t read any of these languages, she can still provide feedback to her posse of editors based on what she sees in the photos and within the format.) At approximately 3:00pm, after ensuring that her assistant’s workload is sufficient enough to prevent her/him from slacking off, Ms. HGB proceeds to shut her office doors, take off her A-line dress and slip into a robe, and then take a nap on the loveseat. (She removes the cushions for some reason that I was unwilling to inquire about…) She awakens around 3:30, at which time she “plops” an exercise video into her office TV so that she might get as close to 30 minutes of “cardio” and “floor work” as she possibly can before duty recalls her! When she’s finished exercising, she re-opens her doors and resumes business as usual.

While she readily admits that Hearst basically retains her as a figure head, Helen could never be accused of taking the perfunctory route, even though nobody in the world – much less at Hearst – would think any less of her if she did. No, HGB (as we admins so quickly come to refer to her, a by-product of typing it so many times in ALL CAPS followed immediately by our own, lesser-than initials typed in lower case) is the classic workaholic. Just today I had to transcribe in a letter to the legendary ‘50s songstress, Sheila MacRae, the follwing quote: “I am just so happy that I work for a company like Hearst which allows me to continue to report to the office every day. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t work. Probably throw myself out the window or into the river.”

But at 83, Helen is forced to admit that the bulk of her workload is – can you guess? – “pippypoo.”

I adore the word. As a writer, as a queer, and as an overall idiosyncratic nut who forms crushes on sounds, words and utterances – I became immediately enraptured with the term. How blessedly succinct. How utterly descriptive. And how it borders so flirtatiously with the sultry realm of onomatopoeia! A perfect relationship, considering the source.

Pippypoo (n., late 20th Century American Feminist origin, believed to have come from the same woman who informed generations of females that it was OK to insist on having an orgasm during routine heterosexual activity, and who showed them exactly how to do it):
The mundane yet necessary tasks of the aged cultural elite (i.e.: correspondence to ailing Stars from Broadway’s Golden Era; long distance telephone calls to retired diplomats in radically different time zones; posing for photographs with those who can’t wait for you to have a stroke and finally be “out of the picture”).

As many of you who know me well “well know,” upon hearing the word – first from Ms. HGB herself and then on the illustrious Dictaphone upon which she dictates all of her correspondence and from which I learned the exact nature of her current responsibilities – I couldn’t help but repeat it. And repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it… Thank the gods the old gal’s hearing is going. She probably only heard one out of every ten “pippypoos” I blurted whilst fulfilling my duties as a conscientious temp.

Type a letter, say “pippypooh.” Type a label, say “pippypooh.” Answer the phone and – well, you have to behave then, but as soon as you hang up? Say “pippypooh!” Talk about the perfect office helper’s little helper. I had a blast. I had the time of my life. True, it was “pippypooh,” but at least everybody within earshot knew it. Nothing soothes like certainty, no matter how seemingly insignificant. And if there’s one thing of which everybody in the offices of Cosmopolitan’s International Editions is now certain, it’s that, for the past five business days, I’ve been conducting “pippypoo.”

But I was happy to do it. Nay, I was thrilled to do it. I was thrilled to be in the presence of someone so disciplined, so determined, and so accomplished. And every minute of each of those five business days, I held in the back of my head the New-Agey notion (borrowed from some Eastern philosophy, I’m sure) that we only encounter those who we are karmically ready to emulate – if we’re up to the challenge. So I therefore obvioulsy couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the universe was trying to tell me, what with being faced with such presence but yet, at the same time, with such “pippypoo.”

At 5:00 today (Friday), Helen approached my desk so that she might sign my timesheet and say Goodbye. And when she did so, she told me, “Well, Greg, I’m absolutely thrilled at your ability to translate my dictation and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having you here. I think you’re my new best friend.” At which point I shook her hand and assured her that the whole experience had been thoroughly enjoyable for me, too. Then I told her that I was a writer, too, and I was eager to get on with whatever fate New York had in store for me. She told me to send her some pages for critique because, as much as she’d like to have me back to work for her, she had a feeling I had bigger and better things in store.

Not a bad way to spend one’s summer break, eh? Even if it was just “pippypoo.”

Context (from Both Sides Now)

2005-07-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between the fantasy of who I’d like to be and the consequences of behaving as I do lies my true identity. I’m not sure exactly who that is, but I have a feeling I’d be a bit disappointed if I were to see him through the eyes of those around me. I know we’re not supposed to concern ourselves with other people’s perceptions, and I know that to compare oneself to others inevitably results in either envy or a sense of superiority – but, human as I am, I can’t help but do it. I can’t help but compare myself to everyone around me in a never-ending attempt at defining myself.

It’s like when you don’t know what a word you’ve stumbled across means, and you’re too lazy to look it up. So you rely on the second-best method of determining definition. You fall back onto context. Just read all the words around it, you tell yourself, and you’ll get a sense of what that pesky little unknown word means. Read the sentence as many times as it takes. If that doesn’t work, then read the whole paragraph – and maybe even the whole page – again and again. And in the event you don’t wind up with an idea as to what that pesky little word means, keep doing this. Do this again and again until you’re so familiar with everything around your question that you no longer actually question the question, but you start to question everything around it. Such is the nature of identity politics.

Ironically, we poor souls who have to search for self-definition by context are the lucky ones. Since we don’t have a ready-made sound byte that sums up our role in society, we have to look within the cracks. From time to time I’ve had the (mis)fortune of having a label: gay, queer, radical faerie, whore, party boy… But eventually, in accordance with the edict, “As soon as you define yourself as something, you’ve outlived it,” my labels have worn thin.

So I like to joke that “I’ve looked at _____ from both sides now.” (Fill in the blank. Gay, queer, radical faerie, party boy…) Which is to say that, even when I had a label to latch onto, I was still perouzing the context.

I’m not too sure if I can ever adequately describe the deflation that came with my recognizing that queer politics were ultimately identity politics, and that I just plain couldn’t anymore put much stock into a political (sub)structure that was based upon the notion of identity. Sure, all politics eventually boil down to an assertion of some identity (take, for example, America’s beloved preamble, “We, the people…” -- I mean, just who are “the people?”), but minority politics in particular rely on identities that are utterly not self-imposed. Minority politics are the politics of the “others,” and the others couldn’t exist without the powerstructure they’re trying to deconstruct, which defines their very “other-ness.” In fact, as queer politics have been so accurate in asserting, even the powerstructure relies upon everything that it is not to assert whatever it is. (E.g.: heterosexuality, instead of defining itself by what it is, insists upon defining iteslf by what it isn’t – as uttered by the straight male mantra, “I’m not gay.” ) Sleep only with members of the oppostite sex and you're surely hetero. But sleep with a member of your own sex, even once, and you're potentially gay forever -- no matter how much you might want to write it off as an "experiment." Is the converse the same for homosexuals? Hardly. Once gay, forever gay -- even if one starts bopping members of the opposite sex.

Shifty business, this business of identity. In a way, the minorities have it easier than those struggling to exist within the powerstructure. Once declared as black, Latin, Asian, female, gay, handicapped or any other multitude of sub-strata, one’s identity is sealed, as an ostensible “lesser-than.” And what are they “lesser” than? The powerstructure that so precariously defines itself by not being whatever it is that comprises its minorities.

PHEW! Am I the only one who’s getting tired of this misery-fest? Am I the only one who wants to reach beyond complaining about how bad it is to be “us” and strive to be whatever it is we – the human race – might be?

Despite my unfashionable intentions, the fashionable “lesser-than’s” proceed to construct entire identites and subsequent political movements based upon said identities – and for some reason, as far as I can see, they stop looking for any definition (or more importanly, context) beyond that which has labeled them “lesser-than.”

Somewhere between the fantasy of who these people think they are and the consequences of how they behave lies their true identity. Somewhere between the fantasy of who I’d like to be and the consequences of how I behave lies my true identity. My true identity, for now. Within this context. Which is a swimming-pool of minority politics. Which is a cesspool of identity politics.

I’m not destined to be a popular man. I’m not the next voice of the queer movement. I’m just a kooky white homosexual guy who’s been described as being “too smart for his own good.” That phrase fascinates me, because I’ve yet to truly understand what it means. It feels like a curse of some sort.

So if you want to know why I rely on sex, drugs and escapism, maybe now you have a better idea. Somewhere between my ideal self and the essence of my hedonism lies the man I might someday be. If only I could identify him. For a time.

Why Can't I Be THEM?

2005-07-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Successful people have no problem perpetuating whatever it is that makes them successful. Famous people don’t hesitate to create whatever they’re compelled to create. Geniuses, from what I’ve been able to conclude, have no choice but to indulge in obsessing on whatever it is they’re geniuses “at.”

I want to be either successful, famous, or a genius. I want to concern myself with only whatever my talents dictate I should be concerned – and nothing else.

Successful people would tell me that’s impossible – that I’d still have to make time for the gym, the diet, and all the other minutia that make up everyday life. Famous people would agree, but they'd probably be incapable of not reminding me that they no longer needed to tend to the minutia (they only need to focus - and I mean focus - on the gym and the diet). Only Geniuses would understand what I was trying to say, if only they were able to. But they’re too concerned with whatever they’re geniuses “at,” so they couldn’t possibly understand anything other than whatever it is they’re so busy understanding.

So what I’m presently blaming for my lack of achieving more, as a writer, is my bourgeois upbringing. I’ve been fighting it all my life. It’s probably less of a surprise to those of you who know me well than it is to me, because it shows so much on the outside while I continue to battle it on the inside. I’m addicted to comfort. I’m addicted to domestic stability. It’s a comfort and a stability the likes of which probably don’t even register on the “comfort/stability” scale compared to the sensibilities of the people I went to high school and college with, and it’s a comfort and stability that only requires a net monthly income of $2,500 (put THAT in your bourgeois hat and smoke it!), but it’s a requisite comfort/stability element nonetheless. And my biggest problem is that I will not allow myself to indulge in artistic endeavors until that utterly self-imposed level of “security” has been attained. (Thank you very fucking much, Dr. Maslow!) I’ve attained it before, but I lose it every time I move to a new town.

Some artists can live in other people’s homes. Some artists can remain with their parents. Some artists can move to a new city and immediately begin pursuing their art, because they don’t concern themselves with where or to what capacity they might be living. They surf from couch to couch or they land shares with one to several roommates and from that point on they stop worrying about their standard of living. They just live - apparently because they’re alive - and that’s all the attention they pay to the matter of living.

I’m not like that. I’m bourgeois as hell. I’ve gotta have a place that I can call my own. And that place has to look nice. It has to have style, even if that style is 20th Century American bohemian. And most importantly, that place has to be filled with intention. And by “intention,” I mean love.

When I spackle, sand and paint a corner – I’m making love to it. When I spend five hours at the paint store, staring at chips and matching color schemes, I’m deliberating my future. I’m sensitive to my environment. I notice my walls, my ceiling, and my floors every day. That, I suppose, is the bourgeois in me. (Or is it the artist in me? My personal jury is still “out.” But for the sake of this argument, that’s the bourgeois in me.) I was raised in a modest yet impeccable home, and to this day I strive to maintain a homefront – as modest as it might be – that is impeccable.

My obsessions are bi-polar. My obsessions are torn. My obsessions are at odds with each other – until they’ve had enough time to sort themselves out. This is my process. I know this because I’ve lived it four times (Portland [Maine], San Francisco, Los Angeles, and now New York). The bourgeois part of me will not set the artistic side of me free until the apartment has been obtained, the walls have been painted, and every last detail pertaining to the day-to-day living in that apartment has been established. This includes determining where the cleaning supplies go; where the pots and pans are stored; and where the monthly bills are received, paid, and subsequently filed. Once all these aspects of day-to-day living are secured, they are never changed. (One dear friend in LA commented that, during seven years of residence there, I never even moved the coasters on the coffee table once I’d determined where they were to be placed.) Such is the nature of my bourgeois side. I’m too fussy to tolerate surfing couches. I’m too middle-class to endure not having my own slice of middle-class life.

Regardless, I don’t ask for much. As middle-class as I am, I’m not desperate for a mortgage or an SUV. I only desire my own peculiar bohemian corner of the world. And I never fail to get it. But doing so, especially when it comes in the form of moving from one metropolitan area to another, costs. It costs money, time – and effort. The effort I put into putting myself up in a new town always detracts from my ability to crank out the art. That’s what makes me a bourgeois bohemian. That’s why I had to build a bed loft, a bar, and paint all my walls before I could start this blog.

Well, within the definitions I set forth when I began this psycho-babble, I suppose that would place me within the realm of the successful. It’s an eventual "successful," but I think I possess certain present elements of success nonetheless. Successful people are the ones who are concerned with the big picture as well as the minutia. I don’t have any problem "compelling myself into producing whatever it is I produce” – once my domicile has been adequately established.

So I’m probably not going to be famous, and I’m certainly no genius.

Hmm. "Successful?” Guess I’ll take it. In due (bourgeois) time. It’s not as if the famous and the geniuses don’t pay for their lots in life in their own, particular ways. Nobody escapes this life free of the requirements this life imposes on us – even if it’s as basic as wiping our asses. Find me a genius who doesn’t have to do that, and I’ll show you Stephen Hawking. You wanna be him?

I don’t.

(Sorry I even started this.)

Schadenfreude (Ger.)

2005-07-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later this topic had to come up. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten from many of you – both written and verbal – it appears that one of the main attractions to my new blog is nothing less than what is defined and described by one of Avenue Q’s songs: “Schadenfreude.” To those of you who have seen the show, I toss an immediate “Well, then, fuck you...” (Even though I completely agreee.) And for those of you who haven’t seen it, let me preface all this with the exact same statement, just to get it out of the way.

Schadenfreude, as Webster* defines it, is “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” As Avenue Q elaborates, the phenomenon can be illustrated as such:

D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?

Yeah...

And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?

Sure!

And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,Watching people out in the rain!

You bet!

That's… Schadenfreude! People taking pleasure in your pain!

Oh, Schadenfreude, huh? What's that, some kinda Nazi word?

Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"

Apparently, the reason my audience (however small it may be) finds my blog entries entertaining is none other than the same reason these actors like to watch skaters fall on their asses. My “40+-but-still-a-bohemian” life, as astute as I would like to portray its observations to be, is basically nothing more than something that helps those who didn’t make the same mistakes I did feel good about having made the decisions they made. It’s an outlet and a penance all at once. Just click onto it and you can feel guilty and repentant simultaneously.

I kid the audience. It’s not that severe. But you have to admit – as many of you have already admitted – that reading about my life somehow informs your perceptions of your own lives. I don’t mind telling you, that’s exactly what I’m aiming for. If I have to suffer a little bit of, “Christ, I’m glad that’s not me living that way!” to get my point across, well then – So be it.

I have the unlucky karma of being an artist. I call it unlucky not because it’s particularly difficult to identify as an artist, but because, as present sociological influences would have it, artists are not considered to be at all successful unless they achieve fame. You don’t hear folks, at this point in history, referring to doctors, lawyers, scientists or professors as being “unsuccessful” simply because they haven’t managed to become famous doctors, lawyers, scientists or professors. Rather, our present society tends to automatically look upon anyone who pursues and actualizes any of these professions as “successful,” by the sheer virtue of the individual’s ability to actualize the profession. Not so for the artist.

The artist, in our present society, is viewed as a rebel and a virtual derelict. S/he is accused of being “lazy” because s/he is not willing to dedicate the time and effort that it takes to become “sucessful” in another, more “legitimate,” profession. Instead, the artist pursues the virtually insane objective of creating something out of nothing – for no apparent reason other than the will and desire to create. Unless fame is achieved, there is no high-paying profession that justifies the artists’ endeavors. Even if the artist pursues an advanced degree, there is no certainty that s/he will be able to earn enough as an artist to pay off his or her student loans. At least doctors or lawyers can commence payments upon entering their respective fields, regardless of how many other “dues” they must “pay” before attaining full professional status.

So the Schadenfreude for y’all, whenever you tune into Moore and More, is in watching my lazy, crazy artistic life unfold. Part of your interest (and you can’t deny it because many of you have already admitted it) is in reassuring yourselves that you made the “right” decisions in your lives – decisions that led you far away from having to deal with any of the extreme (albeit self-imposed, I know) shit that I have to deal with.

Well, that’s exactly what I want you to do. That’s exactly what I want you to think. Not that you’re superior because you made certain decisions that I didn’t – but that there is an obvious difference between our respective approaches to life. I’m an emotional exhibitionist. I wear my life on my sleeve. I think that’s a big part of my artistic mission. I think it’s a big part of the reason I’m here, on this planet. If we have to trivialize my karma by calling it Schadenfreude, well then – like I’ve already said – So be it.

But bear in mind: there’s a certain freedom a waitress who’s just dropped a tray of dishes has. There’s a particular kind of liberty a skater who’s just fallen on her ass possesses. It’s freedom from the fear of falling. Those of us who have just fallen have nothing to fear; we have only to look forward to getting up and starting over. Those of us who’ve been coasting all the while, however, remain consumed with the fear of falling – often to the point of paralysis. These people just let momentum carry them along, hoping to be able to blame it if ever they happen to fall. But momentum’s a funny thing, because it’s self-imposed. We can’t blame our momentum for anything, because we create it.

At least we sources of Schadenfreude recognize our own responsibility for the predicaments we’ve created. At least our embarrassment allows us to clearly see the exact nature of our situations. And the funny thing is, we’re laughing, too. We’re laughing, and we’re pointing right back at ya’. So if it makes you feel better to read, beloved audience, then by all means – keep reading. It sure makes me feel better to keep writing. After all, what have I got to lose?

*Go to http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=schadenfreude for pronunciation (esp. if you're wired for sound).

I Woke Up this Mornin' and I Got Myself a Beer

2005-06-25T04:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I woke up this mornin’ and I got myself a beer-
I woke up this mornin’ and I got myself a beer-
The future’s uncertain and the end is always near…

-- J. Morrison, with The Doors

I’m sick of listening to people blame addiction for their lack of accomplishment. In my field (which is art, whether that be visual, performative, musical, or literary), addiction has only served to SERVE the most famous artists/writers of the 20th century.

Let’s take pop music, as an example, and from that let's take Jim Morrison -- the first to be quoted herein -- and examine exactly what I’m saying. Jim Morrison. One of the sexiest, shortest-lived pop musicians of the ‘60s. Heavily into drugs and equally into 19th-Century Romantic poetry (or vice-versa), Morrison has gone down in American Top 40 history as one of the saddest icons since Elvis. But despite the fact that he died before (and younger than) The King, he had more to say. We can chalk that up to his fascination with Rimbaud and Verlaine, who managed, in between their volatile attempts at defining homosexual male love, to etch out some pretty raunchy-yet-perfect odes to the nitty-gritty physical aspects of homo-sapiel [sic] existence. Am I saying Morrison was queer? Hell, no. But did he learn about love from homosexuals? Indeed, he did. You figure out what the difference is; I’m too tired of having to draw such distinctions. Funny thing about Morrison, though – despite his reputation for indulging in mescalin, acid and other hallucinogens – his real Jones was for booze, as described by the previously enscribed quote. I mean, of all things to reach for early in the a.m. during the mid-1960's... a BEER?!?

Tired of lying in the sunshine,
Staying home to watch the rain –
But you were young and life was long,
And there was time to kill today…

-- Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

There’s only time to kill, regardless of how despondent one’s adolescent nature might be, when there are drugs around. Otherwise, the adolescent grows bored. Once s/he tires of contemplation and its sister – masturbation – the adolescent needs some chemical compound in order to retain his/her complacency. For early 20th Century generations that drug was alcohol. But as the industrial revolution evolved into the technological revolution, the urge to expand consciousness evolved, relatively. Relativity, even though having been around since way before Morrison's day, caught up with the majority sometime during Floyd's day. In so doing, it relegated the booze buzz to an almost insignificant status. Sure, getting drunk was always a safe option (after all, isn’t that what Mom and Dad did?), but it didn’t exactly provide one with "options." It had become merely a steam valve.

So in order to effectively contemplate post-cocktail generation existence, one needed – at the very least – marijuana. Marijuana led entire generations into the lifestyle of complacency. Pot made “nothing happen.” Heck, it still does… But the pot mindest not only put Pink Floyd on the map, it also put them in the same league as the literary and filmatic masterpiece as The Wizard of Oz. And that was no easy feat. Just try to compare “All you touch and all you see/Is all your life will ever be” with “There’s no place like home.” That’s a pretty deep equation. But to this day, stoners will commence the Oz video with the Dark Side album, in order to compare how precisely each introduces its introduction, conflicts its conflict, and then struggles to resolve its respective resolutions -- simultaneously, if one's audio/visual cueing is right. I don't know about you, but I can't envision any member of the cocktail generation going to such extremes to prove a point that's ultimately not a point at all, but just a buzz. (Nah, that's the kind of thing only a stoner would do...)

She don’t lie,
She don’t lie,
She don’t lie –
Cocaine.

-- Eric Clapton

How much more explicit could he have made our entry into the ‘80’s? As much as his rock fans wanted to proclaim that “Disco was for fags,” they couldn’t help but pick up on the fad Studio 54 made so popular. And it wasn't just popular with the pop artists. It was popular with everyone in search of a higher high. Didn’t coke provide it? (Doesn’t it still, wherever it’s still available?) ‘Nough said ‘bout that... 'Cept that, of course, She still don't lie...

Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don't know where I'm goin' to
Silk suit, black tie
I don't need a reason why
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
'Coz every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

-- ZZ Top

And so came the ‘80s. So what if this song, just like Clapton’s, came out in the late ‘70’s? There’s no difference. All that matters to our present argument is that, somewhere in the late ‘70s, substance left and superficiality entered the scene. How ironic, in an argument about substances. But it's true. Somewhere during the late '70s, between when Led Zeppelin was contemplating "Houses of the Holy" and when Liza was spreading Herpes at '54, the fashionable "substance" became an utter lack of substance. It became superficiality. And it has been ever since, no matter which drugs we've subsequently ingested. (Ecstacy? Speed? -- they only help us stay "in the moment," which, unfortunately, consistently turns out not to be much of a moment at all).

What does this have to do with addiction? Not much, if we’re referring to dependence on some chemical compound. But if we’re talking about the re-direction of more than two entire generations onto the feel-good Jones of Consumerism, then there’s our Hard Rock Genesis. Oh, what a coincidence. (And you thought it was all Calvin Kein’s fault…) It was around the time ZZ came out with their hits that the Hard Rock Café chain became infamous as a hot spot for tourists traveling from just about anywhere in the Western world to anywhere else within. That whole conglomerate happened for the sake of a "sharp-dressed man." Or, in lieu of that, for the sake of "a pair of cheap sunglasses…"

So what am I getting at? I’m getting at the heart of late 20th-Century/early 21st Century American existence, as foretold and described within the confines of its pop musical culture. I’m getting at how we’ve been obsessed – if "we" describes us as one of the many who’ve been living in the first of the “three worlds” circa 1965 – with one substance or another. And even though the substances of fashion have changed slightly as the decades have progressed, the truth is, pop culture has wanted nothing less than to get us hooked on something. Pop culture has led us, as far back as we can trace, to favor one mood-altering path or another. In the long run, that path has proven to be nothing less than pop culture itself.

Well, it’s bungle in the jungle
And that’s all right by me.

-- Jethro Tull

Which eventually leads us to:

This is not my beautiful house!

-- David Byrne and The Talking Heads

So just where have YOU been living? If your domicile is absolutely free of alcohol, pot, mescalin/acid, cocaine/speed, or consumerist label-lust, then by all means, I want to hear from you. If you honestly think your lifestyle doesn’t serve some addiction to something, then I really want to hear from you. ‘Cuz I think that, in the end, we’re all addicted to something. Lately, I’ve witnessed a bunch of folks addicted to addiction. They all sit around in circles made up of other people addicted to their same addictions and talk abaout how they’re no longer going to succumb to their addictions. All the while, they drink coffee and smoke cigarettes – not only like both chemicals are going out of style – but as if neither chemical was indeed addictive. So where do you stand? What are you hooked on?

If you consider yourself “not hooked,” then, like I said, I really want to hear from you. Because I’m willing to toss this entire hypothesis out the window. I really am. Show me a person who's not hooked on something and bam! -- out goes this entire mental trajectory. But in the meantime, as the personal ads say, "ISO addicted individuals. Please be into any sort of chemical dependency and/or be admittedly hooked on commerce. Or in lieu of those things, be hooked on getting unhooked."

Life; addiction. Addiction; life. Would Darwin have defined either without the other?

Personally, I don't blame my addiction(s) for my lack of accomplishment. I just blame fate. If I'd have had Morrison's photogenics, or Pink Floyd's orchestrations, or ZZ Top's long beards, or even David Byrne's RISD pedigree (all at the right time in the right place, you see), I imagine I'd still have been just as much an addict -- only more famous.

Like they are.

[Ed's Note: This was composed, in exact sequence, while listening to New York's "only classic rock station." The author had no idea which songs would be played or within what order; he was merely responding to the stimulus.]

The Matter of Closets

2005-06-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

A blog thing is a weird thing. It brings up many issues. Mainly, “How honest to be?” Or, “How much to recount?” Or if the answer to that question is, “Everything,” then, “How detailed is ‘Everything?’” Sooner or later, every attempt at coming out leads to another closet door.

I’ve been analyzing my own closet structure over the past 10 years, and I’ve come to two main conclusions about it:

1) The more I “out-ed” myself, the more I threw myself back into some closet;
2) The more I tried to eliminate closets from my own life, the more I
created them for those around me (e.g.: those whom I professed to love).

I certainly don’t mean to use these statements as a defense for remaining closeted, despite how it might appear. But the law of opposites, as it would appear, applies just as much to matters of coming out as it does to any other action/reaction. It’s simply a matter of physics.

What do I mean when I say that “The more I ‘out-ed’ myself, the more I threw myself back into some closet?” It’s pretty simple, really. I refer you to Portland, Maine in 1987. The already “out” Greg (that is, “out” to everyone from his lover to his college friends – his parents suspect but will not allow themselves to believe), surrenders the bulk of his worldly possessions and packs what little remains into a 1985 VW Jetta. His sole intent? To move to San Francisco. San Francisco, even to this day, reeks of homosexual innuendo. But in 1987, especially to the New English, it equated to “screaming.”

Was I, at that point in 1987, “out” to my parents? No. But what with having lived with a male lover for the previous three years and taking the $5,000 graduation gift they’d given me (in hopes I’d find a bride and settle down somewhere in Massachusetts) in order to transplant myself in Gay Mecca, it would be safe to say that the writing was on the wall. In other words, I took a gay situation and made it gay-er. Ergo, one closet opened into another. In essence, I “outed” myself onto a higher “out” plane, without ever bothering to actually “come out.” Even if I had told my folks the basics, the mere fact that I was moving to SF upped the ante, to the point where just being “out” wouldn’t have been enough. I could, after all, have remained in New England and pursued an assimilationist gay existence. (The lover. The brownstone. The labradors and the flannel…) But nooooooo,,,

I had to be gay-er than gay. I had to move to Gay Mecca. And would that THAT had been enough, but still it wasn’t.

I never intended – consciously, that is – for my SF karma to result in such extremes. All I remember is knowing I had to be surrounded by my own kind. And by “my own kind” I don’t just mean those who prefer to fuck members of the same sex. No, what – or should I say “whom” – I needed to be around were not only other gays, but other homosexuals who fought for their civil rights and, at that time in particular, their right to self-test experimental AIDS treatments. I suppose the whole AIDS factor was ultimately random, but its randomness never bore out over its reality in the eyes of my generation. Random or not, it was real, and it had to be dealt with. Hence, I was welcomed to my next closet: that of the AIDS activist.

It was around the time I commenced my activism that the dike (pardon the pun) between myself and my family finally cracked. And nowhere around was there a butch with a big enough finger to stop the flow. In 1988, at the dawn of the Larry Kramer/ACT-UP era, I “came out” to my parents.

They didn’t take it well. Dad withdrew into denial and Mom asserted that I could be converted, “If only [I] cared enough to…”

Despite my parents’ reactions, breaking open the preliminary closet door didn’t serve to be very satisfying to me. I had by then already crossed deep into the heart of SF counter-culture. Not only was I an activist, but I was also discovering my artistic sensibility. Sure, I had been creative all through high school and college, but this time, I was declaring my creativity/bohemianism as a lifestyle and not just an adolescent phase. I surrounded myself with other artists who actually made their living as artists. Up until then, that concept had been unimaginable to me. It was utterly liberating to be immersed in the subculture. But on the other hand, the subculture became yet another closet to confront.

My parents knew I was gay. So what? What did that mean, in their tiny little suburban world? The “gay” they envisioned from what they were able to pick up via mainstream media not only didn’t equate with the kind of “gay” I had become, it was downright sugar-coated compared to my reality. And even though it only served to hurt them more, I made damn sure my parents knew what a Radical Leftist Queer I had become. I was trying to make sure one closet phase wouldn’t lead to another. (Heck, being an activist was chic in those days, so it was the least I could do.)

But as fate would have it, one closet phase did lead to another. It wasn’t a mandatory evolution, by any means. In fact, it was pretty extreme, even when compared to the extremism with which I had surrounded myself. To this day, I don’t know which came first – my extremism or my extreme desire to live extremely. Regardless, have I ever “come out” to my parents as a prostitute? Oh, come now. There’s only so much a parent can handle, and believe me you, they haven’t been able to handle what I’ve dished out so far – so why would I dish out any more?

At the time of this writing, I’m 41. That makes my parents 71 each. 71 friggin’ years old, each with their own respective version of reproductive/genital cancer: prostate for Dad, and breast/cervical/uterine for Dear ol’ Mom. Now, would YOU want to tell the proud recipients of such diagnoses that their only son is not only a homosexual, but a homosexual whore? If indeed you possess that cruel a streak in your spine, then God help you. As cruel a streak as I have, and as much as the adolescent in me would like to hurt them, I simply can’t imagine wanting to hurt them that much. I mean, Enough already!

Would they – could they – ever understand that I consider my practice to be a vocation? Could they ever comprehend that some of us view sex for pay as a necessary component to human society? Would they ever be able to wrap their brains around the idea that I am content in my status? Probably not.

I had seen how tough it had been on my lovers, my boyfriends and even my friends to admit freely that I was a whore. No matter how much they wanted to be OK with it (and even though they really were OK with it), I saw how my baggage became their baggage, strictly by association. My justifications became their justifications, and suddenly, by the mere desire of my being “out” as a whore, my lovers, boyfriends and friends were placed in a defensive position. I didn’t like that. I was OK whenever I had to do the defending, but I didn’t wish having to be so defensive on anyone in my social circle.

That’s when it hit me, for sure. As “out” as I proclaimed to be, there was one closet I would have to retain.

And despite over 15 years of struggling to prevent closets, I still remain in one. I suppose there are always secrets we need to keep from our parents. I love the metaphor that is “growing gray.” It’s nature’s way of making us see the grays, after an entire adolescence and young adulthood of fighting to make things black and white. That was the story of my young adulthood. The struggle to live closet-free was nothing less than an attempt to live life either totally black or totally white. It doesn’t matter which, because they’re both extremes, and everyday life doesn’t exist along the extremes. Sooner or later life (like water, or air, or anything in the physical realm) seeks equilibrium.

When I look back on my young adulthood, now that I’m middle-aged, I can see how black and white I made everything out to be. But as much as I hated closets, I never opened to my parents the closet of my sexual extremism. Why bother? As the grays began to emerge in my hair, I learned to see the grays of coping with parents. They’d struggled enough just to come to terms with my homosexuality. As much as I’d rather they’d have come a lot further into acceptance (PS: they didn’t; it was awful), I had to accept that they could only come as far as they could come. There was no pushing them.

After realizing that, I finally realized all I was fighting was MY journey. And I came to realize that just living it is enough. I don’t need to throw it in my parents’ faces to justify it. All I have to do is live it.

That’s not being “closeted,” it’s being wise. Or at the very least, it’s being compassionate.

So Why the Sudden Slip into th' Brogue???

2005-06-21T03:44:00.000-07:00

All I know is this (and I know I’ve said it before): Writing’s hard.

Writing’s as hard as painting. It’s as hard as sculpting. It’s as hard as any language, inculding – if I might say so – mathematics. Sure, all those practices are difficult. But tell me, is there anything more difficult than jottin' down exactly what we’re tryin' t'say’?

Math has something to fall back on. So do painting and sculpting. It’s not that they’re not difficult, but they’re easier in that, if one ha'n’t executed 'em precisely, a flaw shows right then and there.

With writing, even if one hasn’t executed it precisely, well, it can slip past you. It can slip past you ‘til you figure out to back up and not let it slip past you again. Writing’ll slip past you, my friend, ‘lest ‘yer well aware what it’s up to…

And just what is it up to? Well, quite honestly, writing’s up to no good. It’s up to no good a‘tal. Writing, my dear friend, wants t’convince ya. It wants t’convince ya it’s a solid line of reasoning – Nay – the ONLY line of reasoning. At least, the only line of reasoning that matters, at that time, at that place, when and where you’re readin’ it.

Poem, novel, dialogue or historical account – they’re all propoganda in the end. Don’t let the artists tell ya they’re reaching for something higher. Lord knows they want to. They want to picture themselves as something different from the historians, but they’re not. Truth be known, they’re lesser-than. ‘Cuz they’re the ones who wanna trick whole generations into thinkin’ their stories are acutal history. At least the historians attempt such a haughty claim from the start. The writers (God bless ‘em and Satan curse ‘em), attempt it blindly, not recognizing their own guilt. Christ help ‘em, but they don’t see their own sins.

Writers, Lord God have pity on their souls, think they’re speakin’ the truth. But if there’s anyone the lot o' ya should be wary of, it h’aint the historians. It’d be the writers. Writers are evil. Writers want nothing less than your souls. That’s what makes ‘em so sure they’re speakin’ the truth. ‘Cuz the truth, we’ve all been told, is s’posed t’set ya free.

Free y’er mind up to a writer and lose y’er soul. It’s that simple.

Thanks f’er readin'.

A Minor Slip-Up

2005-06-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve done something I didn’t think – post-SF consciousness-raising, that is – I’d ever do again. I pulled a regular “bitch fest” in front of, and directed toward, one of the boys I “dated” during my recent six months of escapist endeavors…

This one is 27. A vegetarian hippy with parents from Santa Cruz or some such Berkeley-esque Northern CA environment. We spent exactly one passionate, coke-inspired night (and subsequent day) together two months ago, during which time we professed our uncanny mutual attraction. I can’t speak for him, but I meant everything I said, even if the coke did make it easier to say. Not only was I genuinely attracted to him, but I was also relieved to run into somebody else with Northern CA consciousness. I thought I’d found a new friend. But he never called me, even after I went through the trouble of looking him up at his trendy Manhattan restaurant job one Saturday night so that I might slip him my number. (He had left me his, but it had been disconnected. Should that have been my first warning? I remember thinking so. So I got busy with my life, and forgot about him.)

But then I saw him tonight on the way home from the Met, quite unexpectedly, as I was walking along Lorimer on my way toward Grand and beyond. Saw him dead-on, with no potential for looking away as if I hadn’t noticed him. Ditto for him. I saw it in his eyes. I saw him, and he saw me, plain and simple. It was startling for both of us. For me, because I’d just shaken off some other boy who wanted me to take him home and fuck him, and for him, well, just because, I guess. We weren’t passing each other, we were walking in the same direction. I had felt his presence and turned around. That’s how I saw him. I wonder if I’d have turned around if it had been anyone else?

“How ya doin’?” he asked as he approached me. He didn’t take the time to stop, and I didn’t take the time to stand still. Suddenly we were walking together. He was on his way to get cigarettes.

“Me?,” I asked, “I’m doin’ fine. Always have, always will.” I waited a few beats. We kept walking. The store was still a few yards away. I felt no need to hold back. I blurted, “Sorry I didn’t return your calls, but I DIDN’T GET ANY.”

He looked at me sheepishly. “I just got a new phone,” he said. “I haven’t had one all this time.”

“Mmm,” I grunted. And I stepped in front of him, and turned to face him – stopping him in his tracks.

I lifted my middle finger to my nose and sniffed it. Then I stuck it under his nose. He didn’t know what to make of the gesture, but he took a whiff anyway.

“Smell it?,” I asked.

“Smell what?”

“That’s someone else’s ass,” I assured him. It was no lie. I had been fingering the boy who wanted me to take him home and fuck him for close to an hour before I worked up the excuse of needing to walk the dog.

He became visibly disgusted. He resumed walking.

I followed him into the corner store. He bought some cigs, quite uncomfortable all the while. When he had completed his transaction he tried to brush me off with a “Well, it was good to see you,” but I confronted him once more.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I asked. “I wasn’t faking when I said I wanted to see you again. How come no call? I went out of my way to give you my number. The ball was in your court. You knew it.”

“I told you, I didn’t have a phone, and I’ve been real busy…”

“Bullshit. I’ve been busy, too. But if it’d been up to me to call you, then you could’ve been sure I’d a’ found a pay phone. Or something. I don’t mean to come across as some needy faggot whining, ‘Why did’t you call?,’ but I need you to know – I wanted to see you again. And I rarely feel that way. I told you that.”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, “but when we parted I felt like you left it as ‘just friends’ and I thought we’d talked extensively about how I’m the marrying kind.”

“You mentioned it,” I told him, “but there was hardly anything extensive about it.”

He disagreed.

“So THAT’s why you did’t call,” I said.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then that’s what you should’ve had the balls to say a few minutes ago.”

I saw the whites of his eyes. He had no way out, and he knew it.

“Look,” he said, “I adore you. But there’s obviously not gonna be any way we can make it work.”

I asked, “Because you want monogamy?”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s all I was trying to get you to say. That’s fine with me. I’ll be alright. Always have been.”

And with that, I turned on my heel and walked away from him, never once looking back. I walked home, thinking the entire time about how weird it had been to see him, right out of the blue, after I’d mentally put the entire scenario regarding him to rest. I couldn’t help but repeat – over and over – my mantra, “Gay male monogamy is not only impossible, it’s superfluous,” but at the same time, part of me was wishing him luck. Christ knows he’ll need it.

Poem for a Commercial Website

2005-06-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Fuck This!

All I did was t’click on t’some link,
But Lo! an' Behold, said link is a FINK.

If all I'd a' wanted was t' spend my eve'
Clickin' more links an' spreadin' 'net seed,
Then I'd a' gone right fer it – right from th' start,
And click'd ont'a some por-no-graphic web's heart!

-- G. O’Neill

Me an' Billy Joe

2005-06-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

{Editor’s Note: Hey, Kids! For a multi-dimensional experience available to you only through this fabulous medium called the Internet, you can click on any of these following links to accompany the prose you’re about to read! (Or not… Or not…)}

[Accopmaniment only: (Best to click it into another window altogether, to start the music before you start reading. If you can get the music to play while you read, you've accomplished the mission. Windows users, right click the link. When music begins, click onto previous window with blog text and let the games begin! Mac users, you should be smart enough to figure this out yourselves...)

And PS, PS: This one's 'sposed 'ta be in an American Southern Accent, not the Brogue of subsequent posts.]

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:9G5NO9c-BmsJ:users.cis.net/sammy/billyjoe.htm++%22Tallahatchie+%22&hl=en

Lyrics only:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:11qft-jvmMEJ:www.swopnet.com/music/ode_to_bj.html++%22ode+to+billy+joe%22&hl=en

More Lyrics:

http://www.geocities.com/odetobobbiegentry/lyric/lotbj.htm]

06/03/05:

Seems like me an’ Billly Joe McAllister’s got a lot in common. Mainly, that’d be today’s date.

See, June’s a funny time f’er me. Not funny Ha-Ha!, but funny strange. Funny strange ‘cuz it’s the time a’ year when I was born. Or should I say, done born… An’ there ain’t no time stranger than the time y’er bein’ born… Save, maybe, f’er the time y’er ‘bout ‘ta die…

But me an’ Billy Joe, y’see, we done both, th’ same time.

No, y’er right: I wa’n’t born June 3rd. But guess’d I did do that day? That’d be the very day in June, 2003, that I done touched down ‘n JFK – t’ start a new life in New York City. Now whaddya thinka that?

That Bill Joe, y’know – he w’an’t jus’ coverin’ up a pregnancy. He was coverin’ up his own self. His own damn bisexual, pregnancy-inducing self…

There’s so much more to pop culture than we can ever imagine. But why imagine? We’re too busy living it. When the music alarm went off this morning at 6:00am, and I heard the Classic Rock DJ announcing that today was, in fact, the anniversary of Billy Joe’s infamous transcendance, well – I jus’ couldn’t help but wonder why I felt such a connection. But now I wonder no more. Birth, death. Rebirth, redeath. Ain’t it all the same in th’ long run?

But y’all don’t need to worry ‘bout me throwing myself off no Tallahatchie Bridge. Jus’ bear’n mind: June’s a prime time f’er folks like me an’ good ol’ Billy Joe. It’s a prime time – f’er either makin’ it or losin’ it alt'gether…

An’ I done chose t’ make it.

Playing Favorites

2005-05-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

Scoff if you will, or mock, or just plain laugh. But I consider myself to be an artist. I know the term “artist” has, for whatever curious reasons, come to pertain mainly to those who work in the visual realms (such as painting, sculpting, or even photography and film), but the fact is: An artist is someone who conceptualizes and then actualizes something abstract.

It’s abstraction that separates the artist from the craftsperson. For even though throughout the ages architects and scientists have occasionally wanted to argue that they, too, are artists, the fact eventuallly surfaces that those vocations result in something concrete – if even in nothing more than a mathematical equation. A building or a bridge, an equation or a formula – all of these are technically concrete in the final analysis of a concrete world. The former might be more obviously concrete, but the latter, after careful examination, proves to be equally sturdy.

What’s the difference between the abstraction of an artwork and that of a mathematical equation? It’s quite simple, really. As abstract as a mathematical equation might be, it represents something actual. It posits itself as a manifestation of reality. It claims to portray, in terms we humans cannot see, something that is real – and which therefore affects (if not dominates) our physical realm. And if there’s anything we humans value to the point of not questioning, it’s our physical realm.

The abstraction of art, on the other hand, exists merely for the sake of its own abstraction. A much simpler way to put this is, art exists simply for the sake of its own existence. The thing about art is, in the long run, there is never any practical need for it to ever be created.

Portraiture is often used as an example against this argument. Portraiture, it is argued, is “representational.” The term “representation,” therefore, is understood to convey an innate realism which is subsequently understood to imply a lack of interpretation or political agenda. But if this argument is true, then why don’t all portraits – from ancient times up until the contemporary – have a photographic exactness? They don’t. They couldn’t. Until the photographic lens was invented, humanity had to rely upon the human lens, which could never exist separate from the politics of its own perception. Even the ostensible precision of the Renaissance grid, despite its revolutionary ability to depict exact perspective, came with its own political baggage. So, too, for that matter, does modern photography, and filmography, and videography. In the world of visual arts, there is no such thing as true artistic objectivity, no matter how precise a medium might be in capturing the proportions of its subjects.

Similarly, performing artists are often accused of not having to create from the abstract. Music, dance choreograpy, actors’ lines and stage directions are acclaimed (from the critics’ point of view) as concrete instructions from which virtually “anyone with sufficient training” could bring to life the composer’s/playwright’s intentions. But it’s a funny thing. We rarely, if ever, see these critics on stage, interpreting what they say is so easy to interpret.

And what of the composers and playwrights? They’re the brave souls who created something from the blank page, just as their musicians and actors must bring to life the music and words that rest upon the pages of those once-blank scripts. Each and every one of these artists, for lack of a better term, is bringing the abstract to fruition. (Probably, incidentally, for little to no pay.)

All of which is to reiterate: Art exists simply for its own sake. This can’t be said about other human endeavors. That is, it cannot be said about intentional, conscious endeavors. The majority of human endeavors are concerned with cause and effect. More pecisely, they’re concerned with survival. Breathing, eating, digesting, sleeping – even impregnation – these activities could technically be, and have been, argued as having intentional components, but as history proves, they are in fact habitual. The same must be said for labor, government and even war. Most human endeavors strive for results. Most of the desired results are physical, monetary, or political. In other words, most human endeavor is practical. But even though artistic endeavor also strives for some sort of result, the intended result -- no matter how practical -- is rarely practical. Art prefers to engage emotion. Art, for better or worse, doesn’t care what it stands to profit; it merely wants to remind us that we’re alive.

Entertainment strives for popularity and profit; Propoganda strives for political influence; but Art strives only for itself.

Within that social context, it’s only the crazy person who persues art. It’s only the dreamer who makes something out of nothing – for nothing. Nothing, that is, other than the sake of creating. Artists want little more than to create. Despite the best of their practical intentions (if they become encumbered by them), artists only wish to make something from nothing. If the feedback they receive sounds like, “Well, isn’t that great?” Well, then, all right! And if the feedback is more like, “That sucks!” Well, then, isn’t that all right, too?

In the long run, is there anything that exists that doesn’t make some sort of statement? Are we so self-absorbed a species that we can’t see meaning in anything? In everything?

That’s what artists are trying to tell us. That’s why I play favorites. I favor the artists. Not because I am one, but because without them, we might just lose sight of our very own God-liness. After all, there isn’t a culture we’ve discovered so far that hasn’t acknowledged this state of recognition; this state of awe; this very concept of existence for its very own sake. If there’s anything we know about humanity, after all this time and all this study, it’s that we all have an inherent appreciation for that from which we came, no matter how we perceive it – and a mutual respect for our own precarious condition.

And the most concise declaration of that realization is, at best and universally, enunciated by art.

I Can't Believe...

2005-05-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe how ignorant men can be. I can’t believe how much insult they’ll tolerate just for the sake of getting their rocks off. I can’t believe what you can say to them and how you can walk away from their hard-ons, and they’ll still come back looking for more. I can’t believe you can tell them, “Look, I’m not in the mood,” but then they’ll try to bump and grind against you anyway. When they rub up against you with their boners, I can’t believe you can ask them, “Just what do you expect me to do with that?” I can’t believe they don’t realize you’re not listening to their answer. I can’t believe you can slap their crotches and spit, “Christ, almighty – are you hard again?!?”

I can’t believe you can take a slug of beer, or Vodka Tonic, or Sex on the Beach, or anything liquid – and spit it into their half-open mouths as they come to kiss you. I can’t believe they don’t understand that spitting into their mouths means you’re not into whatever they’re up to. I can’t believe how men can take anything – literally anything you do – and somehow find a way to get turned on by it.

“Whattya doin’?,” one guy asks me when he calls.

“I’m painting my bathroom,” I say, “and I’m covered in latex splotches.”

“Ohhhhhhhh,” he says, “Sounds hot.”

Hot. Everything’s hot to them. I can’t believe how they can find a way to make everything hot. Everything.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” one guy says to me as I’m giving him the finger and walking into the bathroom, “you’re so hot.” I can’t believe he thinks my giving him the finger while I’m about to take a piss is hot. When I come out, he’s fully hard. He’s jerking off. He says, “You’re so hot.”

“No I’m not,” I say, “I’m an asshole.” And I go to change the music, or to make another drink, or to cut another line, or something…

“No,” he says, “you’re hot.” I’m not even looking at him.

He keeps jerking off. I keep looking the other way. Finally I ask, “You close yet?” (I need to know ‘cuz I need to figure out when I’m gonna walk the dog.)

He asks, “You gonna help me?”

“Not likely,” I tell him. And I change the music, or make another drink, or cut another line, or something… I can’t believe a guy is sitting on my couch and jerking off when I’m not even remotely concerned.

But he’s a man, and I can’t believe how ignorant men can be. He keeps jerkin’ it. He keeps fondling his balls. And even though I’d rather he didn’t, he keeps talking…

“You’re so hot.”

“Can’t you find something else to say?”

“Whattya doin’?”

“I’m (changing the music, making another drink, cutting another line, or something…)”

“You want me to come?”

“I want you to go.”

“You’re so hot.”

“I’m not hot. I’m an asshole.”

“You’re a hot asshole.”

“If it’s that important to you…”

“I’m gonna come…”

“It’s about time…”

“I’m gonna come…”

“You already said that.”

“Christ, you’re hot.”

“Yeah, I’m hot. A hot asshole. You gonna come?”

“I’m gonna come…”

“Thank the Lord.”

“I’m gonna come…”

I can’t believe how many times guys will say the same fucking thing, just because they’re about to come.

“Well hurry up,” I tell him, “and don’t make a mess.” I can’t believe how much of a mess some of these guys can make…

“Uhhhhhhh…..”

It’s always the same thing. It’s always, “Uhhhhhhh…” I can’t believe how boring guys are when they come. It’s like, they’re trying to fill empty space.

And then they shut up. Then, they leave. They wipe off, get up, pull up their pants – and leave. They always leave.

That, I believe.

I Ain't Gonna Beat Myself Up

2005-04-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

It would be easy to scold myself for the way I’ve behaved over the past five months. I’m not gonna deny it: I’ve done nothing but party. Oh, sure, I’ve managed to check a couple of items off the home improvement list. But aside from that, my life since I started collecting Unemployment Insurance last December has been all about sleeping ‘til noon; figuring out where to go on any given night; priming myself with Martinis and pot; meeting cute boys who are way younger than I ever thought I’d be interested in; taking them home; and scoring coke to snort with them before we fuck.

It would be easy to view this binge of hedonism as a waste of time, but I’m not gonna go there. For long, I mean. Or more precisely, that’s not how I’m gonna let it stand on my permanent record.

Sure, I beat myself up every day, now that the golden goose is about to hit menopause and stop laying – but at the end of the day, I’m not having it. I’m not going to look at my first opportunity to live in New York without having to report to a demeaning position as some bourgeois snob’s assistant as a waste of time. In fact, the more I chastise myself, the more I realize how important this whole period has been.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda – how productive is that game in the long run? Ultimately it’s just another form of procrastination. The more I beat myself up for procrastinating, the more I’m procrastinating.

All I know is this: When I finally got a chance to sit in the apartment I’d been working on since February of ‘04, really getting a chance to look at the environment I’d created for myself, I became overwhelmed with how much I’d gone through just to get to that point. And I collapsed. I collapsed into someone who slept until noon and wondered what kind of things he should do now that he finally had the time to think about who he wanted to be now that he was in New York and didn’t have a day job.

Despite the neighborhood; despite the smelly chicken store next door; despite the crackhead in the hall and the dealers on the street corner, I decided I liked my new digs. This was an important revelation, because if I had decided I didn’t like the new digs – if I suddenly started to view them as some sort of desperate measure or mistake – then I could’ve triggered a major depression from which I might never have emerged. Luckily, I liked what I saw, in spite of the obvious flaws, and so I was able to turn my thoughts inward instead of projecting them onto my environment.

Turning my thoughts inward – THAT’s what started a low-grade depression, leading to prolonged partying. I thought I had it all planned. I thought I’d give myself December and January to just “check out” and party. But the party kept going… through February, through March, and on into April. But I have to say, here at the end of April, the partying has tapered down and I’m ready to face whatever’s next.

D’ya hear that, universe?!? I’m not afraid of having to get up at 6:00am again, if that’s what it takes. Of course I’d rather not have to do that, but on the other hand – I’m not so keen on continuing to sleep until noon. And until I’ve wrangled the appropriate connections in NY; until I’ve determined an exact plan of action; and most importantly, until I’ve secured the financial means to do whatever I want – well then, there’s nothing better for me to do than go land another JOB.

It doesn’t have to last long. I don’t have to take it seriously. But I’ve only just begun to establish my NY identity. I have a lot of work to do just to get to the point where I’m launching anything. In the meantime, I need to earn cash flow; I need to wrap up the home improvements; I need to take a writing workshop or two; and I need to apply for grad school.

I have a plan. Just because I didn’t set the world on fire in December doesn’t mean I’m going to fall on my face in May.

I’ve always been the sort of bird who foresees, vaguely, where he’ll be within any given amount of time. There’s always a +/- ratio, to be sure, but my inner voice is pretty dead-on. Truth be told, I knew all the way back in December that I wouldn’t emerge from this break into the long-term “place” I’d like to eventually inhabit here in New York. Instead, I foresaw it as exactly what it has turned out to be – a break, meaning an opportunity to take stock and get back into the headspace I inhabited way back in L.A., before I had to make this sudden move. It would be ridiculous to be hard on myself for not having taken over New York simply because I had six months of bare-bones checks in the mail to live off. Sure, other people might have played it differently, but guess what? At least half of that probable set would’ve partied even more, or watched even more TV, or even succumbed to total drug addiction. There’s no sense comparing myself to others, now is there? Especially if those others are only probabilities…

I played it the way I played it. May hindsight provide me with eventual 20/20.

Ordinary Flashes

2005-04-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard that when we die, our entire lives flash before our eyes. Some of us have even experienced this phenomenon, usually during potentially lethal accidents. And most of us have come to believe in this phenomenon, to the point where we expect it when the time finally comes for us to face the Grim Reaper – or at least when we have a serious accident. I think I believe in this phenomenon. I think I’m planning on experiencing a life-flash during my final moments on earth.

But has anybody else experienced mini-flashes, particularly as they’ve approached middle age? I have. It’s been happening for a while now, and there’s no apparent end in sight. I don’t mean to exclude other age groups. If you’re in your 20s, or even your 80s, or anywhere in between, and you’ve been having these flashes, well, we’ll just have to discuss your case separately. But in my case, this didn’t start happening until I hit my mid-30s. And I have a strong suspicion that it has something to do with entering the middle years.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about having sudden unexpected memories, completely unrelated to any matter at hand as I’m having them, for no apparent reason. Like, I’ll be running to catch a subway so I won’t be late for my 9-5 gig, and although my conscious mind is focused on running for the train, my subconscious mind – for some strange reason – wanders onto the shore of the Connecticut River in 1979, when I was a Freshman in high school. Michael McLaughlin is there. He’s my best friend. It’s 85 degrees on an August afternoon. We’re building a raft out of rusty barrels and driftwood, for no real reason other than we’re looking for an excuse to get naked amidst the mud. (Well it’s hot, for Chrissake, and we’re working in the mud. Nobody’s around. And we’re teenage males. We’ll find any excuse we can to get naked.)

My point is, here I am, 40 years old and living in New York. I’m running to catch a subway but my mind is on the Connecticut River in 1979. Nothing I’m looking at has triggered this recollection. Nothing I’m thinking about has anything to do with Michael McLaughlin or being a Freshman in high school. But for some weird reason, I’m remembering Michael’s akward naked body, splattered with river mud as he hammers 3” nails into a series of 2X4’s. Scrap 2X4’s, as akward in shape as Michael and myself are. I mean, were.

OK, so maybe that’s not a good example. Maybe it’s just a sexual fantasy of some sort. Maybe any memory having to do with naked teenage males won’t adequately describe what I’m trying to say, because anything having to do with naked teenage males can be easily categorized as mere erotic fodder. Fine. Be that way, you Freudians, you.

But what about this scenario: I’m at my desk at the previously-mentioned 9-5 gig. I’m multi-tasking like you wouldn’t believe. I’m on the phone with a hotel in Europe, making reservations for my boss, and I’m simultaneously surfing the web for cheap antibiotics for my dog, who’s suffering from a urinary tract infection. My mouth is enquiring about total Euro amounts but my brain is calculating total U.S. dollars including 8.5% New York State tax. And somehow, even though I would never think I’d have the mind capacity to think about something else at the moment, my mind wanders off to the time when, not that long ago, I ate a Prix Fixe lunch at a local French restaurant – throwing budgetary caution to the wind.

“Well, that’s a work break fantasy,” you might say, leaving it at that. Or maybe you support your argument by drawing a parallel between my being on the phone with Europe and my having recently dined at a French restaurant. I suppose you wouldn’t be wrong, or at all off-base. (It’s becoming apparent to me that you have the easier task at hand in this diatribe. Perhaps it’s easier to draw corollaries when these wandering thoughts aren’t happening to you.)

But how old are you, might I ask? Are you anywhere near middle age? It’s OK if you’re not. I’m not trying to distance you. But I am trying to say this: I think there is a mid-life version of seeing your life flash before your eyes. And instead of happening suddenly, I think it occurs in brief flashes and spurts. If I’m the only one who’s been experiencing this, just let me know, but I think I’m onto something.

I think I understand why, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I suddenly find myself walking the streets of Paris just as I did when I was an exchange student in 1985. I think I know why I can be having sex with a hot man who should for all intents and purposes be the complete and utter focus of my attention, but for some reason I’ll choose that moment to mentally wander back to the day I painted my first apartment in Portland, Maine. I think I know why the past has taken to creeping into my present. It’s because I now have enough of a past to think about.

My ego would like to say I have enough of a past to “matter,” but let’s face it – it’s only enough to matter to me. But matter it does, apparently, as I go about my middle-aged life. My past, now that I’m in the middle of life, wants to matter. It’s craving context.

I can’t say that I blame it. I want context, too, both for my past and for my present.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only chronology fetishist out there? Or are other middle-aged folks feeling the tug of the non-sequitorial personal past tense, too? When I’m having one of these moments, if I have enough time to fully recognize them and then process them, I tend to think a few things. First I think, “Oh, my God, why am I remembering this right now?” Then I think, “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe how long ago that was.” Which inevitably leads to this conclusion: “Lord, Greg, but you’ve got a past. You’ve got so much past, it’s amazing you’ve still got a present.” And this eventually leads to the inner challenge, “So just what’s gonna come of all these experiences?”

Hopefully by now you can see why these recollections aren’t just a minor curiosity for me. I hope, if I’ve expressed myself adequately, that you can see how they lead me to self-questioning. They’re not just passing fancies; they’re attempts at self-understanding. They crave context. But more importantly, they crave meaning. I mean, doesn’t it rattle the brain? What’s the significance of two teenage boys building a raft, naked on the Connecticut River, in 1979? What does it matter that I blew the budget one week in 2004 and dined on a Prix Fixe menu near work?

What does anything any of us does matter, especially after we’ve had half a lifetime to do it in?

The memories are piling up, and they’re all trivial. It would appear that this life – now half over at best – has a multitude of remembrances, but they’re all banal. They’re regular. As much as I would like to believe they’re special, I have to admit that the bulk of my recollections are normal. They’re downright procedural, as viewed within the context of the development of a late 20th century American male. Yeah, they’re chock full of details, but what does that matter? The details all lead to an ineffectual present. They’re the details that make up my curious but ultimately ineffectual life. I can’t believe so much detail can go into so much uselessness.

This is the way I have come to think, now that I am middle-aged. This is how I view the culmination of my experiences as they appear to date. I see myself as the product of a multitude of memories: some wild – but most ordinary beyond need of description. In my youth I thought I was special, but age has shown me I’m just ordinary.

And I keep having these flashes to remind me so.

I Need a New Drug

2005-03-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

It seems as though each new town I move to raises the stakes in terms of which drugs I do. In SF, it was all about pot. I did brownies, mainly. Once I’d made my break from the drudgery of 9-5, I started a marijuana excursion that would eventually bring me up to a brownie a day. Talk about the high life… But it was the way of the Bay Area – the pursuit of higher consciousness and all. Plus it helped me do my job. As a full-time sexworker, regularly ingesting a chemical that increased my sensual awareness and sexuality proved to be an effective career booster. THC was downright motivational. My love affair with pot went further than that, though. It got to the point where, through the lens of the herb, I couldn’t see anything but ridiculousness in just about everything our "Goddamned Western Patriarchal Society,” as I had come to know it, had created. Pot brought me to the brink of camp implosion. I became too cool to be happy, or to do just about anything other than continue being cool.

My getting drunk in San Francisco was limited to once a week and was attained with just a few beers or several glasses of wine. On festive occasions I would hit the hard liquor, in the form of Margaritas at a Mexican restaurant or Scorpion Bowls at the Tonga Room in the Fairmont, but that was about it for alcohol consumption during the SF phase.

In LA, I studied bartending, which put me on a direct course to Martiniville. The brownies persisted in affecting my consciousness, but they took a back seat to alcohol – the infamous curse of the working class. Soon after my stint with bartending, I re-entered corporate America, in the form of being an Executive Assistant for three female Ad Execs. That job steered me onto the course that serves so many of this great nation’s working class. Alcohol, the one and only church- and state-sanctified mind altering device, became my security blanket. Up until then, I had never thought I’d travel the same road as my functioning-alcoholic parents, becoming one myself. All through the years in San Francisco I thought I’d beaten those odds. I figured, “Better a stoner than a lush.” But thanks to the wonderfully isolated and overly critical city of Los Angeles, which provided me with ample time to wonder where a sensitive simpleton like myself could fit in, I was able to uncover a latent Irish gene. By the time I was ready to leave not only the job but also the city, I had been deemed a drunk.

And a drunk I was when I arrived at JFK in June of ’03. A drunk AND a stoner. That’s a California combination quite unprepared to meet the nitty-gritty, “This-is-it-so-roll-up-your-sleeves” New York mentality. But somehow I made it work. Cruising the East and West Villages at night, swaying back and forth from touristy overindulgence, I fit right in. As a tourist, that is. And there isn’t much difference between a new arrival and a tourist. That rule applies to all three cities I’m talking about. So I was able to ride out my initiation to New York via my two previously-established addictions. Pot got me high for the train ride in from Park Slope and booze kept my hands and mouth busy all night long.

Now I should mention here that the previous descriptions are not entire. Or should I say, they don’t list all of the chemicals I had induced up to those times in my life. Indeed, I had tried not only pot but also mescalin in high school; I had dabbled in acid during college and had also done my fair share of it in SF. SF had also introduced me to crystal meth, but at that point the stoner in me found it repugnant. I also felt this way about heroin. When I started losing as many friends to heroin, in the form of “speed bumps” (combination crystal and smack), as I had lost to AIDS over the previous years, I decided to leave SF for LA. I figured at least LA – the home of gay meth – had the ability to handle the vicious compound without rendering it lethal.

And so, right before I left Los Angeles forever, I faced its biggest demon head-on. I got into meth. Not on a weekly basis, or even a bi-monthly. But monthly, definitely. Just about every four weeks I rolled into the mood for a total pick-me-up. I had gotten into sexwork again, after over close to two years of not doing much of it, and the field had become infected with the insatiability of crystal. More and more potential clients were asking, “Do you party?” And that didn’t mean pot, or even cocaine.

I didn’t mind answering, “Yeah,” because I was curious. Despite my having declared a “No Tweeker” policy in San Francisco (and being able to adhere to it), I couldn’t help but notice that the face of the tweeker had changed over the five years I’d lived in LA. Sure, they were still tweeky, but they were more productive and less conspicuous – as messes, that is. In other words, you could spot them but they weren’t being the total hospital cases that they had been in the early years of meth. They looked cagey but not helpless. They had what LA strives to always have. They had style. Was it the town’s influence or was the drug changing? It was a little of both. Even though LA pushes for stylistic perfection, the drug had been noticably refined.

The meth I’d done in SF sent me reeling into a world of unrelenting and insipid thoughts. It was as if my inner Mother Critic (not to be confused with any nurturing Mother figure) had been given the mental floor, indefintiely. Thoughts like, “Maybe we should…” and “What if we…???” prevailed; indeed, they never ceased. It was a state of consciousness in maddening contradiction to every New Age Bay Area platitude I’d learned during my 10 years in the city. I was NOT in the moment. I was NOT at peace. I was NOWHERE NEAR omniscience or Nirvana. I was just busy with petty details. And that was when I was high. When I crashed, I wanted nothing less than escape from this thing we call life.

LA meth, while it did often send me on a similar high, didn’t bring me down to such a drastic crash. The life cycle of the drug had been modified – smoothed out – so as not to leave the participant suicidal (unless perhaps they’d been doing it for days on end and had suddenly stopped). And something about me had changed by the time I was exploring crystal in LA. I was once again performing petty duties on a daily basis, so entering that area of thought had become routine, which meant it no longer posed such a threat to my sensibility. In fact, meth became my task-oriented friend. Whenever I found myself faced with a mountian of filing or a garden that needed hoeing, I found myself wondering if Tina, as she had come to be known, might be able to lend a helping hand.

Damn if she didn’t! With my new friend Tina, I was able to take on any extensive project around the house. All I had to do was factor in two days for recovery (the second day is really just an extension of the first – it’s the day after the day after that’s a downer) and I was all set. But you see, this is because I’m one of what I hear is a minority within the gay male world. I’m one of the task-oriented tweekers. That means I prefer to use crystal for projects instead of for three-day long binges at bath houses. Apparently the majority of gay men find Tina to be more suitable as a dance partner and a sex facilitator.

Boy, but how I do NOT envy the majority of gay men.

Anyway, lest you think my move to NY has rendered me a crystal queen, I should let you know, it hasn’t. While I have embarked on a few crystal trips, it has (almost) always been for the purpose of getting projects done. After all, turning a tiny studio apartment on the edge of Bushwick and next to a live poultry store into something inhabitable – even by bohemian standards – isn’t easy. While the paint is drying, or after the wood has been cut and the sawdust swept up, that’s when I sit in the tub and ponder as only a tweeker can. Something about having been productive for 24-48 hours up until that point makes it easier to come down, so I do, without thoughts of suicide. Because I have the fruit of my labor to keep me content.

No, the drug I’ve encountered here in NYC isn’t crystal – it’s good old fashioned coke. When I started visiting with the intention of exploring for potential relocation, it came as quite a surprise to my West Hollywood conditioning, to be honest, when NY guys would offer me a line. “Oh, cocaine,” I would say, “how retro.” I wasn’t being completely bitchy. I was truly warmed over with nostalgia for the days of Studio 54. It appeared to me, as it still appears to me, that New York doesn’t want to let go of that era.

There’s something precious about cocaine. I can’t put my finger on it. So brief, yet so high. So crisp in comparison to pot. Sure, that’s what the Tina freaks insist about their drug of choice, but Tina is such a commitment. With coke, you can have your intensity and still go to work the next day. Coke is the mocha cappuccino of narcotics. When done in moderation, it lifts you up without rendering you useless. And its reputation for brevity is a myth. If you’re sensitive enough, you can feel cocaine for hours, not just 20 minutes.

Coke puts you in touch with your inner achiever – politely, as opposed to the gruffness of crystal. Coke opens your eyes and enhances your sensuality. Coke lifts you up where you belong. Coke is OK. And when you do it all night, it leaves you so damned horny you can’t think straight. (Or even “assimilationist gay,” for that matter…)

I’m no fool. I know that when I came to New York, coke didn’t find me. I found it. The intensity of the city made me instantly crave a higher high. And like I said: for me, that higher high can’t be found in crystal. I had to have the real thing. I had to have what I’d put off doing the entire time I lived on the west coast. Thank the gods ‘80s retro is alive and well here in NYC, 'cuz I’m ready for it. I’ve been wanting to take this ride for 20 fucking years -- since the '80s themselves.

LA can never come close to NY. Neither can my beloved SF. Here, I have a need that I never had in either of those towns. And I can’t be the only one with that need, ‘cuz I keep getting offers to do more lines…

So I need a new drug. And I’ve found it. Let’s just hope, despite the odds, that it doesn’t dominate my psychological landscape the way the previous fuckers have. After all, I still have them to fall back on.

Time for Timer

2005-03-27T15:24:00.000-08:00

Late Baby Boomers and early X-Genner’s might remember a certain Saturday morning cartoon character who looked like a chunk of cheddar cheese with spindly arms and legs. He appeared in between shows like Scooby-Doo and The Super Friends, filling up what would otherwise have been dead air. I’m sure his producers claimed he performed Public Service Announcements, but neither myself nor my cohorts were ever very convinced that we couldn’t live without his recipe for “Sunshine on a Stick” or the dietary recommendations of his virtually eponymous “Hanker for a Hunk of Cheese.” But this we did know: when the previous show was over and you heard his scratcy voice, it was defintiely “Time for Timer.”*

I never really knew what that meant, but after hearing it a few thousand times, it took on a meaning of its own. I came to view it as a moment of reflection. A time out. A chance to learn something new that I could potentially put to use in my own life.

So even to this day, whenever I sense the need for a moment of reflection, I hear that little bugger’s scratcy voice, and if conditions prove right – I take Time for Timer…

There is less than a week left in March, 2005 and I have no idea what I am going to do with my life. Sure, I’ve got ideas, but they’re muddy. They’re mired in uncertainty, ignorance and self-doubt. The uncertainty relates to my inability to be sure of any course of action, as in, “Do I really want that?” The ignorance pertains to my being new in NY, and not knowing whether I can earn enough per month with any given plan. The self-doubt needs no explanation. It’s the same-ol’, same’-ol’ that’s haunted me all my life. [Insert parent-blaming, pseudo-sociological and/or homosexual oppression psycho babble here? I’d rather not, thank you. I’ve been around all those blocks enough times to realize I’m responsible for my life at this point.]

I realized, during a meth-induced self-therapy session in the bathtub a few days ago (the water having been drained but my naked self still sitting there, pondering out loud… some people sing in the shower; I process in the tub), that I was holding back from even imagining my perfect life here in NYC, as if I’d finally become irrevocably convinced that I didn’t deserve anything remotely close to it. The four months of partying had been my subconscious saying, “Live it up now, ‘cuz when the Unemployment runs out in May, you know you’re just going to have to land yet another crappy Admin job to make ends meet…”

BLECH! Talk about “stinkin’ thinkin’!

Truth is, if I had some sort of plan – one that I actually believed in – to put into action right now, then it wouldn’t be too late to have at least part of my ideal NYC life up and running by the time the UI runs out. The key right now would be to find some form of self-employment (that needs little start up capital) or some freelance (e.g.: 1099’d) gigs. Or something completely under the table. But what do I have to offer?

Say “hello” to self-doubt.

This much I know: between the market being flooded, having recently turned 40 and just plain being over it as a lifestyle, sexwork will not serve any purpose other than an extra $500+ per month. Which is great. I still enjoy it on a part-time basis, and I can mold my lifestyle so that “pocket money” comes from that source.

So, where’s the other $2,000 – the minimum I need to stay afloat – going to come from?

Can you believe I can exist on that little? Can you believe I’m having trouble figuring out how to manifest it??? (Did you already meet my friend, self-doubt? Sorry. Busy party here in Demon-hood.)

The possibilities include: bartending, teaching ESL, tutoring, or taking some 30K per year Editorial Assistant job somewhere back in publishing (10K less than I earned on the sales end).

And what of combination platter options? What about $1,000 per month bartending combined with $1,000 per month teaching/tutoring? Sounds OK, but I think the scheduling would become nightmarish… The thing about bartending is the schedule it throws you onto. I’m OK with it, but only if I’m doing nothing but it and whoring (and taking writing workshops and fostering that aspect of my life).

Hmmm. This is the same conclusion I came to during that bath tub therapy session: bartending is the answer. That + whoring = the lifestyle Greg would really like and could really use AT THIS TIME. It doesn’t have to be a career plan or a long-term solution. It doesn’t have to be the feature show. But for now, it would keep the party going – safely – and it would keep the bills paid. And the party I’m referring to isn’t the chaotic ride we’ve been on these past four months; it’s the steady one that introduces me to NY nightlife and the gay, theatrical contacts I so desperately need to meet.

Wait, wait: I think I hear a scratcy cartoon voice saying, “Hey, kid! Whip up a bartending resume and hit list, before time’s up!”

OK, Timer.

[*Go to http://www.angelfire.com/retro/gartwo/ if you want a peek.]

Look, This Ain't Gonna Be As Neat As We'd Like It

2005-03-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is a journal blog. I could try to get my journal entries all in order and over-edit them before hitting "publish," or I could do what I'm really supposed to do as a writer and get right to it. No perfect chronology required. If one comes up somewhere down the line 'cuz I'm finally inthe mood to get it down, fine. But for now I've gotta sort out my thoughts. So bear with me and you'll pick up the pieces of the jigsaw puzzzle that is my life as we go along.

Nyeah.

It Only Takes a Minute, Dude (to change your ways, to change your ways)

2005-03-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Spring.

Here in NY they’ve got a new radio station, “The Mix,” 102.7 FM. Been listening to it. They play dance hits “through the decades.” They bring out a lot of the stuff I came out to back in ’83. Weird to hear that shit on a NY radio station these days…

One of the oldies they love to play again and again is “It Only Takes a Minute, Babe” (to fall in love/to fall in love). It wasn’t the chorus that caught my attention as I heard the tune last week whilst getting ready to go out, or something. It was one of the first verses. They talk of some girl who’s “spending time in the unemployment line...” Then there’s a line, “Winter’s gonna turn to spring, and still you haven’t done a thing.”

OUCH.

What all that has to do with falling in love, I’ll never know. But the line stings just the same, ‘cuz it’s hitting home right now. Here at 92 Moore St., while love isn’t high on my present list of priorities, finding steady income and getting my artistic ass in gear once again are at the top of it. And at the beginning of winter I had a chance to start, but winter has turned to spring, and – well, you can see where this is heading…

This feels like one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I have to rise up from the over-partied inertia I’ve fallen into over the past three months. 90 days, in business terms. Which wouldn’t be that bad, if I can put an end to it now. That’s the hard part. I can see what I have to do, but I’m resisting doing it. Guess that’s the nature of inertia.

I finally made a schedule the other day, for the rest of March. It says I should be getting up at 10:00 to walk the dog, then journaling at 11:00. Today, the first day of the new schedule, I got up at 10:00; I pissed, and then immediately went back to bed until my regularly-scheduled wake-up time of noon. So now I’m journaling at 1:00 instead of 11:00.

Y’know what? I’m not gonna beat myself up. At least I’m journaling. After this, I’m supposed to shit-shower-shave and then go to the gym. And again, y’know what? That’s exactly what I’m going to do, unless the phone rings with massage biz.

Winter has turned to spring, and yeah, it feels like I haven’t done a thing. But I’m sure if I analyzed it well enough or even resorted to rationalization, I’d find something to claim to have accomplished during the bleak winter of ‘04/’05. Let me put it this way: When I think of what I went through beginning May, ’03 and running up through November, ’04 – I can’t believe I didn’t have a breakdown of some sort. I ran on sheer will that entire time. I made a transcontinental move on a budget of $3,000 plus another $3,000 in the form of a fully-drained, taxable-at-40% IRA. I came here with just a suitcase, surfing friends’ couches until I landed a (and I can’t believe I did this at this point in my life, after living alone and loving it for close to 10 years) roommate situation. Then I landed another 9-5 job, which I hated from the get-go and which would have been viewed as high-pressure and stupid by any sensibility, let alone my artistic one. I slaved away for egomaniacal bourgeois fools for close to a year and a half, after having already done that (and vowing never to do it again) for two years in LA. And while I performed said slavery, I also managed to find an apartment of my own (no easy feat in NY when one is new to town, has bad credit and has a dog), and renovate it to a manageable status via doing construction and painting every weekend for six months. In other words, with the exception of one or two weekends “off,” I worked 7 days a week for over six months. If I wasn’t donning the white collar and tie Monday through Friday, I was donning the overalls Saturday and Sunday. I never stopped. Like I said, I was running on sheer will.

First came me, with a suitcase. Then came the roommate scenario. Then, six months later came the dog (I had left him with my ex until I could get him to NY). Then came an apartment of my own. Then came the renovations. Then came the furniture that I had been storing in LA. Then came my 40th birthday party, complete with folks from the west coast. It was the move that took a year and a half.

And then, mercifully, came the end of the fucking job.

So when I got the opportunity of living off Unemployment for six months, I shut down. What a surprise. It was the holidays, after all, and I had to go to MA anyway (another set of emotional circumstances – also draining), so I argued: why not celebrate? And celebrate I did. All through December and January, and then into February and even into the beginning of March, it was party-party-party. I fell into a party vortex that I am now having some difficulty separating myself from.

Despite my inner critic’s desire to be hard on myself and wish I’d “hit the ground running” in some sort of manner that would have contributed to artistic pursuits or self-employment opportunities, I feel like I’m right on track. Sure, other people might have gotten right to something. And then again, still other people would never have left the bed. I have been processing NY in my own way, which is the only way I have, Goddammit. I needed time in the party realm to learn about the nightlife, which is a big part of my genre and milieu. I still have much to explore. I still have much to do.

During the last days of the fucking job, as we call it, whenever people would ask me what I planned to do next, my retort was: “Well, first I’m going to escape to my own thoughts for a while.” I meant it. And this is how I went about it.

NEXT.

2005-03-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

Same Old Jacket New Year's

2005-03-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Friggin New Year

Too Much Background Info

2005-03-20T02:05:00.001-08:00

I found myself saying to a friend on the phone the other day, "The thing about me is, in order to be understood, I require too much background information." It wasn't as narcissistic as it sounds, because the background info I was referring to has more to do with certain jumps and leaps in consciousness that I consider myself to have made over the years than it does with the obligatory nitty-gritty stats and details that folks tend to spew at each other when they first meet, or when they're referring to others.

OK, I guess that's still narcissistic, to think that people have to understand your alleged development in order to truly understand you...

What I meant by what I said to my friend (if you're still with me -- and I would much appreciate that, not out of narcissism but because I do tend to make a point in everything I write, so who knows? -- maybe you'll get a kick out of my point) was that I have a hard time embarking upon typical introductory conversations. Whether I'm at a party, or a bar, or heck -- even at a job interview, I can't stand having to explain myself.

Whenever I meet someone new, if they express any interest whatsoever in finding out who I am, I find myself sighing and wondering which is the fastest route to the explanantion. Do I laugh myself off and declare, "Shit, I'm just an aging slacker," or do I take a more, "Well, this has been my journey so far" stance, thereby requiring more time -- and effort -- for everybody -- to explain said journey? Usually at that point in the conversation, I look for a distraction. I comment on something the person is wearing, or I ask what they're drinking. Many times I've been know to simply make a beeline for the bar. (Screw whatever they're drinking. They can refill it themselves.)

The truth is, if there was an easy way for me to satisfactorily tell you who I think I am, I would have found it by now. But despite having been rasied on television and radio, and despite having been influenced by the media all my life, and even despite what I consider to be a pretty good ability to slap a sound byte onto just about anything or any situation, I have yet to be able to come up with a reasonable sound byte to describe myself. I guess that's what we have other people for. But I'm not all that eager to hear what my cohorts' soundbytes sound like, because I'm pretty sure they sound negative. They can't help it. My cohorts, that is. God knows the majority of the sound bytes that come out of my mouth are bitchy. Y'think I'm the only one?

On the other hand, there's nothing (or at least, little) my cohorts could or have said about me, however bitchy, that I haven't thought or said about myself. I am my worst critic. Maybe that's why I can't come up with a satisfactory way to introduce myself. Perhaps all that excessive prerequisite introductory information is a crutch of sorts, that I hide behind to keep from presenting myself to the world. I mean, it's not as if I don't expect folks to have some sort of byte ready for me when I ask them about themselves, now is it?

Gee. I guess I see my narcissism and I raise myself one introductory sound byte.

But I'll need some time to reflect on that.

--- end report ---

So

2005-03-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

So:

Just be forewarned that I like to start off entries with either "So" or "OK." Maybe I'll even begin with an "Anyway." Why? 'Cuz these tiny lil' interjections, as they're know in Parts of Speech Land, lend a conversational tone. Or so I like to believe. Hey, if they get me out of my forehead and a little closer to the middle brain, then I'm using them exactly as I should be.

I'm using them just as this 40-yr-old Irish Catholic prick from New England -- turned Castro Clone performance artist -- turned L.A. down-and-out -- turned Brooklyn hipster revitalized --would tend to use them, as predicted not only by the laws of probability, but more specifically, as those laws just happened to affect me.

OK: So,

Do I sound defensive? Well if you were around in the San Franciso law firm where I worked for two years as a paralegal, way back in 1990-92, and you saw all the red edits on the creative writing papers that I was fool enough to let the lawyers see during that tenuous and life-altering life stage -- then you'd understand. It was supposed to be CREATIVE, you see, but they just couldn't wrap their brains around a journal entry that started out with an interjection. My precious lil' interjecs were persistently crossed out -- in red. The comment was always, "Superfluous."

Why was I showing creative writing to the lawyers I worked for? Because they were paying for the course. You see, when they offered to grant me some benefits in the form of writing courses, for the purpose of Continuing Education, I took advantage of their inability to be more specific from the get-go. Fancy that. Lawyers forgetting to be more specific. I'll never forget the look on my boss' face when I told her which course I had chosen from the Berkeley Continuing Ed. catalog: Short Story Writing. She'd already told me, whilst chowing down some Kung Pao chicken somewhere in Chinatown, that I could take "any writing course I wanted." Once I'd made my choice, there was no room within the realm of human decency for her to renegotiate. The Kung Pao had sealed her fate. Perhaps if she'd had ordered Mu-Shu Pork, or something less akin to her gastronomic predilections, she would've caught herself. But as fate would have it, on that day, I had the Kung Pao advantage. Which, for some other guy at some other time in some other law firm, might have been the Beef and Broccoli advantage, or some other such menu-named phenomenon, hence my reason for citing the laws of probability.

OK: All I'm trying to say is, I like to start with "So" or "OK," and I think that should be OK. 'Cuz it lends a conversational tone. OK?

If you're looking for the blatant sex scenes and rowdy shenanigans of an aging disco queen/punk rocker (yes, the two can actually overlap), skip down a few entries. This is the background material that my OCD demands I spew forth. Even if nobody reads it.

So:

--- end report ---

Test-tickle...

2005-03-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

Huh?