Me: Why do barber shops use that spinning red and blue sign?
Andy: I think that originated before people could read.
Me: [Convulsive laughter]
Andy: I meant immigrants who couldn’t read.
Me: [More convulsive laughter]
Monthly Archives:
June 2012
10
June
2012
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June
2012
Pride Overload
I am writing this a few minutes after returning to Albany. It is 9:44 AM and Kiera and I just did Boston Pride yesterday, so the thought of another Pride Parade and Festival, for Albany no less, is not quite as thrilling as it once was. However, I know once it begins and I start seeing those smiling faces, all doubts and dreariness will be a thing of the past.
That’s sort of how my ambivalent relationship with Gay Pride works. The bitchy side of me believes (and not wholly unrightly) that Pride is something I have every day. Living openly as a gay man in upstate New York is its own statement – one that, fortunately, means less and less as more and more people accept equality. Being that I surround myself with friends and family who don’t see me as just a gay man, I tend to forget how important these days are for those who are just coming out, and for those who don’t have acceptance in their lives. It always strikes me when I’m standing there watching the beginning of the Boston Pride Parade.
It kicks off with the motorcycling ladies, who sit on their hogs beaming with joy, rainbow boas intertwined among the chrome handles, exhaust streaming from their pipes – and when they rev their engines and beep their horns the crowd cheers, and always, without fail, tears come to my eyes. Not enough to fall, nothing to wipe away, and I fight them back for fear of looking foolish, but that is my moment of Pride. Construction workers pause in their drilling, hotel staff filters out to the curb, waiters and cooks line the street, and in that beginning there is all the hope in the world. It seems such a silly thing, a trifling bit in a chaotic universe of more pressing and real concerns, but for some of us, it means everything.
09
June
2012
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June
2012
A Very Gay Parade
This weekend, in what may be a completely foolish move, I’ve committed to attending both the Boston Pride Parade (Saturday) and the Albany Pride Parade (Sunday). Last year I only made it to Boston, and recuperated on Sunday (not really necessary, but a nice buffer). This year I’ve agreed to judge the Albany Pride Parade floats (I assume) so I have to be there. No guarantee on my status or outfit (I haven’t had time to do up two pride costumes, so the Albany one is decidedly simpler. In fact, it’s probably the simplest thing I’ve ever worn in public – and those are usually the ones that make the biggest splash – think Madonna at Cannes circa 1991.)
The parade always reminds me of a story I’ve told here before. While working at the Rotterdam Structure over summer break, I encountered a co-worker who had only met one other gay person in all his life. He was well-built, wore tight t-shirts and gold chains, and had the Italian guido look down pat (and I mean that in the best possible way.) On our first shift together we were folding shirts when he asked me if I liked parades. It was out of the blue, not related to anything else going on, and I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly.
“Umm, not particularly,” I answered. “Why did you ask me that?”
He proceeded to explain that his Uncle, who was gay, always liked parades, and he wondered if all gay guys did. His genuine and earnest, if slightly stereotypical, question touched me. He was not saying it any derogatory or mean way, he was genuinely curious and wanted to expand his understanding. I will never ridicule anyone for inquisitiveness.
I do still have a chuckle at the whole exchange, but that’s the sort of thing that brings people together, bridging our differences and forming a bond beneath the common joy of laughter. In the same way that I lumped him into what I viewed as a classic Italian Stallion stereotype and had to reconsider my views when he turned into a sensitive person, so too did he manage to reconfigure his take based on his limited experience with gay people.
We were young and foolish then, but we had hearts and open minds. Has the world changed so much, or have I?
07
June
2012
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June
2012
The Gay Religious Experience
This is one of the very first songs I danced to at a gay club in Boston. It was at Chaps, which was still on Huntington, right across from the Copley Marriott. A few retail co-workers (shout-out to the Fanueil Hall Structure crew) were going, and having recently turned 21 I decided to join them. (Aside from a one-time-only chalked-license night at the Branch one previous summer, I was never one for under-age drinking.) Once I turned legal, I didn’t go crazy, so I had been of age for a couple of months before really utilizing it.
My poison then was the White Russian. Yeah, I was once that kid, but at least it was better than the amaretto sours I started on. (We won’t mention Boones here.) After my third, I was relaxed enough to join my friends on the dance-floor. I had been to one or two gay dance clubs before, but had watched the dancing from a distance.
Thanks to countless choreographed danced numbers practiced in the carpeted world of my childhood bedroom, I could cut a rug as well as the next gay guy, so the dancing never intimidated me. And even the tiers of men watching from the elevated section above didn’t phase me. There was a certain freedom from worry in a gay club that straight people will never understand. Even if they spend a few nights in a gay bar, they can never know what it’s like to have spent a lifetime in a straight world, only to have that oppressive tension (even if nothing ever happened) lifted. Maybe that’s why gay clubs are so much more exciting than straight ones – everyone is just relieved and happy to be there, and we’re going to have the time of our lives no matter what.
I don’t remember all the songs we danced to – just this one – as this was the climax of the night, the song playing when everyone was collectively moving en masse, when for a few brief moments the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It’s the time when even the shy guys will take their shirts off and swing them in the air with gleeful abandon (most, not me). As we moved in unison, dancing and jumping and clapping to the music, I thought surely there was salvation here, surely this was heaven, surely this was the closest I’d come to a religious experience.
I remember that night to this day, so important was it to my initiation into the gay world. While I would never be a regular club kid, I would always enjoy the occasional night out, and when Chaps moved over to the theatre district, it was never quite the same (nor was it as easy a drunken walk home). That moment, and its place in my life, had passed. But we had that time together – all the men and women in that darkened room, with a throbbing strobe light, the pounding beats, and that feeling of shared elation.
06
June
2012
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June
2012
Bravo, Andy Cohen
A number of years ago, when Bravo was first making its mark in the pop culture world, and I was sending out promotional missives to any and all interested (and mostly uninterested) parties inviting them to check out this website, I sent one to an executive profiled in Out or The Advocate (that was the way I networked) and Mr. Andy Cohen was kind enough to write back.
It wasn’t a lengthy diatribe, but it was enough encouragement from a man whom I would come to admire and respect, and whose conversational genius was about to explode on ‘Watch What Happens Live’. For me, it was a simple nod of acknowledgement, something that has often been missing from my insular world.
Since that time I’ve loosely followed Mr. Cohen’s upward trajectory as he landed fun gigs (Hello Miss America) and his reality shows stampeded onto the pop culture landscape. He even got me hooked (to my eternal guilty-pleasure shame) on a few of those Real Housewives (NY, NJ, & Beverly Hills only, thank you). What made him even more remarkable was the fact that he did all of this as an open, if unassuming, gay man. When he announced he was writing a memoir part of me jumped for joy, and part of me cringed.
We all knew he could talk, but too many good talkers mistake themselves for good writers. Luckily, Cohen’s voice translates well to the printed word, and his conversational strengths result in a breezy tome. In fact, Most Talkative may be the perfect summer book for anyone looking for an effervescent, easy-going romp. That’s not to say it doesn’t have depth.
Cohen has always been a rather under-the-radar gay person, not loudly proclaiming it, but proudly owning it. It’s the way of the new gay – aware, self-confident, and matter-of-fact about the non-issue of sexuality today. Reading about the ways he came to this self-realized evolution is the most powerful aspect of his book, even as his humor and self-deprecation sprinkle the proceedings with laugh-out-loud hilarity. (The camp letters to and from his mother are insanely hysterical.)
He doesn’t dwell on his more-or-less happy childhood (admitting that it is the part he likes least about most memoirs), and it is a refreshing attribute that the book does not get bogged down in a pathos-filled past. While his struggles over coming to terms with his sexuality and the coming out process lend en unexpectedly emotional depth to the early proceedings, they are balanced with Cohen’s self-deprecating wit and willingness to make himself the butt of most of the jokes.
A must-read for any gay boy (and said boy’s parents), it is often hilarious, occasionally poignant, and wittily cutting, mostly at the expense of the ‘Jewfroed’ author.
It’s also a good book for anyone just starting out on their career – especially for those doubting their passions and wondering if they’re on the right path – not by giving the blueprint to the way of success, but rather by inspiring anyone to do what they really love doing, and to do it well.
Like the subject himself, Most Talkative is compulsively engaging, riotously gregarious, and wildly entertaining, even when it’s at its most earnest. At the end of it, you’ll feel like you just had the best late-night conversation with a life-long friend, and you’ll want to do it all over again the next day.
05
June
2012
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June
2012
The Madonna Timeline: Song #70 ~ ‘Sorry’ – Winter 2006
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before…
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.
Driving, pedal to the metal, through the cruel winter of upstate New York. I’m upset at something or someone, and it’s a righteous resentment, a wrathful anger. I’m mad at the world, my rage will not be contained, and the only way out is through this song. It is not the first time a Madonna song proves a savior and a means of survival, and it likely won’t be the last.
You’re not half the man you think you are
Save your words because you’ve gone too far
I’ve listened to your lies and all your stories (Listened to your stories)
You’re not half the man you’d like to be
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.
By the time this song was released, I’d already been with Andy for about five years, so it had been a while since a man had done me wrong, but not long enough to have me forget. Some kinds of pain cannot be forgotten. Most of us have been there at some point or another, whether we like to admit it or not. The more calm people may have a better way of dealing with it ~ weeping quietly to themselves or categorically eradicating that person from their lives ~ while others may thrash and crash and burn everything around them. I’m somewhere in the middle, having done a little of all of the above. Usually though, I’ll put my anger into a thinly-veiled post, or take a ride and play something like ‘Sorry’ at ear-throttling volume, singing (well, screaming) along with the words, until the anger exits my system, or at least dissipates a bit before returning home.
Don’t explain yourself ’cause talk is cheap
There’s more important things than hearing you speak
You stayed because I made it so convenient (made it so convenient)
Don’t explain yourself, you’ll never see.
While the song is clearly aimed at a lover-done-her-wrong (at that point in her life it would likely have been Guy Ritchie), I don’t always use it as the soundtrack for any grumpiness on Andy’s part. More often it’s for anger directed at wrong-doings by the world, or work or something equivocally unimportant. That’s why a relatively-silly song like this works. I save my serious anger and disappointment for the ballads.
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.
This is one of my favorite Madonna songs – maybe not Top Ten, but possibly Top Twenty (the only thing missing may be a sung-through bridge) – and at the time it came out (2005/2006) it was her best since ‘Music’. Nobody throws a dance-floor tantrum better than Madonna, as exemplified by the roller-skating video follow-up to ‘Hung Up’. It prompted a slight resurgence in corsets, and even a bump in Farrah Fawcett feathers. It’s also fun as hell, cheeky as ever, and a reminder of what Madonna does best.
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before.
Song #70: ‘Sorry’ ~ Winter 2006
02
June
2012
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June
2012
My 1st Time Out
My latest adventures in babysitting resulted in the first time I gave my nephew Noah a brief time-out. Now, I really don’t know how to do a time-out. I’ve heard the term thrown around and never paid it much mind. I figured it was this magical zone that only adults who didn’t have a firm hand resorted to when things got a little rough. I should have paid more attention.
Let me go back to how it came about. I can take a lot from my niece and nephew, and I’m not any sort of disciplinarian. I’m their fun ‘Unca Al’, who lets them horse around and scream and dance and do all the things that kids want to do. But there are limits, and one of them is when Noah starts throwing things. I can take a ball or two, or a plush backpack, maybe even a small plastic animal, but when a big-ass heavy toy truck gets thrown at me, that’s the limit. And even then, I let it slide twice, but on the third go, it was time for the time-out.
I looked toward the corner where I thought my Mom said they went for this scenario. ‘Shouldn’t there be some sort of holding pen, or box, or padded cell?’ I wondered. I saw nothing. What was going to contain him? Maybe this was a new sort of open-air time-out for a two-year-old, maybe they had graduated to a corner of the couch. It was the only area I could see. I picked him up and placed him on the couch telling him he had a time-out and had to sit there.
The waterworks started immediately. I thought this time-out thing was supposed to stop the crying? What was I doing wrong? I picked up his sister and we walked to the other end of the room. Noah got up and followed us, crying at the top of his lungs. I put Emi down and brought Noah back to the couch, saying he had one minute left in his time-out. He stayed put for a second or two (literally) and popped right back up, still crying. This was not going well. The time-out was a bust. I tried one last time, putting him back on the couch telling him he had to stop crying if he wanted to end the time-out, all the while wondering how many words he actually understood. “If you don’t stop crying, you can’t finish your time out,” I pleaded, and the weakness in my voice was almost laughable. I was sure Emi was smirking the whole time. Finally, Noah walked up to me and I couldn’t do it any more. I picked him up, held him close and told him it was all right. We sat down on the couch and I rubbed his back until his tears stopped.
“Are you going to say you’re sorry?” I asked quietly.
His eyes looked down, and the faintest little ‘Sorry’ escaped his lips. I hugged him closer, rubbing his back, and told him it was okay.
He said it better than I ever could.
A minute later he was rolling on the floor, laughing as I tickled him and his sister. Maybe the time out worked in some small way after all. I wonder if it would work on Andy?
