"Shut Up And Let Me Have My Way"

Okay, what the eff happened to good manners? Where's Miss Marple or Manners or whateverthefuck her name is when you need her? Who's teaching people not to chew with their mouths open? That the street at my feet isn't your personal fucking spitoon? That while there's nothing at all wrong with having fun, the people at the next table don't necessarily want to listen to every fucking word of your "hilarious" anectdote about the black guy salting his watermelon?!?

I never thought I'd be this guy, but there's no getting around it: When I was young, if we weren't being considerate of the people around us, we got a good knock upside the head. And while I'm not entirely sure that didn't contribute to my own spectacular brand of fucked-uppedness, at least we let people be their own crazy selves in privacy.

Alas, those days are long gone, and I never thought I'd be a crotchety old guy pining for days of yore, but things have gone just waaay too far.

What are you people doing glued to American Idol? Why do you care about the human train wrecks on Big Brother XXIII? And someone please explain to me: The Surreal Life?!?

I've been turned off of "reality" TV since the moment Julie and Kevin had their first misunderstanding about race on The Real World way back in 1992. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's wonderful that we can address these very real problems we have in a public forum. But that's not the way to do it; shouting at each other, rather than talking to each other?

The only good thing to come out of reality TV is the chance to see Eric Nies in various states of undress. It almost makes the whole thing worth it.

Ouch

I have to say, I'm sure enjoying rehearsals for The Underpants. It's so incredibly different from the last time I'd done it, that it's becoming a whole new play for me. I'm even forgetting my lines -- things are that different; I'm not falling back on what worked before.

Today was my longest rehearsal day this week. All of six hours. Let's face it: I've had it easy. Today was kinda physical, too. I'd forgotten that my role offers the opportunity for a lot of physical comedy. I suspect that -- whether or not they make it into the actual finished product -- I'm gonna be doing prat falls out my whazoo. Which is actually kinda cool. I'm getting to an age when people don't ask it of me as much as they used to, so it'll be fun to stretch those muscles again. Both literally and figuratively.

Alas, I'll need to start doing warm-ups.

Interlude

Sometimes a song says what you're thinking far better than you ever can:

Some people never say the words
"I love you"
It’s not their style to be so bold
Some people never say the words
"I love you"
But like a child
I’m longing to be told

- Paul Simon
Something So Right

Filial Love

So, have I told you that I'm staying with my sister, Sue and her family while I'm in town? I love these people. They're the salt of the earth.

I don't know about your family, but I just don't think it's all that kosher to just crash with your family for six weeks -- they have to be pretty special to agree to it, and near saints to put up with the interruption to their daily routine.

But Sue and her husband Tom -- and their daughters Rachel and Maggie -- are the nicest of people, and they've really welcomed me into their home.

So I'm doing my best not to be a free-loader.

So, I'm back in Pittsburgh and, as ever, have really mixed feelings about it. I know I go on about this ad nauseum and y'all are sick of hearing about it, but the other day I actually said to someone, "I'll give up acting before I give up New York."

Which wasn't entirely true. It should have been, "I'll give up acting before I move back to Pittsburgh."

Which, I know, is going to be a bit of an insult to my loyal friends who make their home there -- including the beloved Lagemæ -- and who think of it as a lovely, homespun, friendly little town. But the fact of the matter is that, although I'm sure there's a time when I was -- if only briefly, I don't remember ever being happy in Pittsburgh. Maybe for the first couple years with Gavan, when things were going well with him and my career (such as it was) was taking off.

But now when I think about Pittsburgh, it's hard not to associate it with the later years of my relationship with Gavan, and the decline in the amount of work I was getting.

As is typical, of course, the amount of work I got in Pittsburgh exploded after I left. Which, frankly, I've never gotten. But hey, I'm hardly complaining.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe one of my real reasons for not living in Pittsburgh is that it allows me to avoid dealing with some family things with which I should deal. For instance, the perceived conflict between my late-blooming social "liberalism" and my mom's growing conservativism. I mean, it's easy to just let it pass when my mom makes an offhand comment about gay marriage being wrong when I don't have to listen to them all the time.

See, that's how my family both engages in and at the same time avoids conflict. By making offhand comments or jokes about subjects that are (or we will assume will be) devisive or inflammatory. That way, when someone calls you on it, or challenges your beliefs, you can claim it was just a joke, or use the ever-popular "well, that's just the way I feel."

We're a crafty bunch. 'Cuz you can argue facts, but you can't argue feelings.

Tres Zen

I had a first today: A blowout while driving. Well, not a blowout, but a flat.

It was kinda interesting - it didn't feel like I would have expected it to feel. It felt kinda like the wheel was just wobbling. So I pulled over to check what was going on, only to discover that my tire was flat. Not unlike my love life, actually.

So get this: I'm feeling all manly man, so I decide to put the spare on myself. 'Cuz, you know, I'm a guy's guy that way. There's only one problem. If you're gonna change the tire yourself, it helps if all the lugnuts on the wheel are the same size as the lug-wrench in the trunk.

Three outta four ain't bad, right?

So, yeah, I ended up having to call the theater and be rescued by someone with more than one size lug wrench.

I'm such a divo.

What's really knocked me out over this whole experience has been my reaction to it. I didn't turn into a fretting madman. I didn't freak out. I got out, I looked at the tire, called the stage manager to tell her I might be a few moments late to rehearsal, and set about changing the tire. Once I realized that my lug wrench didn't fit one of the nuts, instead of cursing and jumping up and down like a spaz, I simply called the company manager at the theater and asked for suggestions. She and one of the guys from the shop who has more tools than God has good intentions hopped into his truck and came to my rescue.

It all worked out. No one died from it, so what's to get worked up about? It was a little adventure.

Does this mean I'm achieving some sort of zen calm in my life, or just that I'm too damn tired to sweat the small stuff?

Can't decide.

I'm not sayin'...

... I'm just sayin':

Dance, Little Monkey. Dance!

Had a lovely first rehearsal today for The Underpants.

Looks like the director, Tracy has assembled a top-notch cast of comedians for this one -- every one a comic gem. All in all, a really great day -- we had a general meet & greet, saw design presentations, and read through the script a time and a half; I think the whole process is gonna be alot of fun. And I get to work with a number of old friends. I'm really looking forward to the rehearsal process.

What I wasn't looking forward to was the dinner to which we were all invited after the rehearsal; it was hosted and arranged by a board member at a nigh-unto baronial house in one of the tonier neighborhoods just outside of Pittsburgh. I was, I must confess, a bit afraid that it was going to be one of those things where rich people are pumped for money and actors are expected to prance about entertaining the rich people so they feel less resentful about having their wallets emptied.

Happily, it turned out to be nothing of the sort.

What it was was a nice evening of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and dinner with a number of friends of the theater. It was -- as advertised -- a very nice way to welcome the actors to the theater by feting them with a nice evening. Thoroughly classy, if you ask me.

I didn't feel the need to cavort like a dancing monkey at all.

In Case You Were Wondering...

...this is why I love Wonkette, and you should too:

Old Stomping Grounds

It certainly feels odd to be here in my old stomping grounds -- I decided to have a little lunch at Tuscany Cafe. It's true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. But I'm beginning to think that actually you can go home again -- if you're willing to accept that it's not the same place you left. Not better, not worse, just... not.

I'm getting ready to go off to my first rehearsal for The Underpants, and I'm finally getting excited about being here, and being back to working.

Funny that I don't think of the six months I spent at Time Warner as working, but as more like treading water. The nice part is that I met some really great folks, made a couple of new friends, and got to do some interesting work. But it wasn't my work. It wasn't really work.

I guess now I understand the difference between a career and a job.

Funny that it only took 40 years to figure that out, huh?

The Iliad.

I'm five hours into my trip and there's a baby in the seat in front of me that's not screamed for -- maybe -- fifteen minutes of it. I'm suspecting that maybe I'm some kind of bad person for the thoughts I'm having about the baby and its mother.

I mean, I know that babies are babies, and they haven't really developed the skills yet to clearly communicate their needs, so there's gonna be some crying involved, right? More often than not, a lot of it. But come on, who embarks on a ten-hour train trip and doesn't plan for some spastic-baby contingencies? Favorite toys? Some food? Clean diapers?

All this lady seems to be able to do is to rock the baby back and forth, and that's so not doing it.

There's hope -- scant though it is -- that sooner or later, he'll tire himself out and fall asleep. In the meantime, I've got the old iTunes set to "Party Shuffle" with the volume on my little earbuds cranked all the way up.

The whole screaming baby thing is making me think about making suffering an exercise in compassion. I mean, what's to keep me from trying to find a little buried empathy for the suffering of the baby and thedesperation of his mom to not disturb the people around him?

My friend Amy and I had a discussion not long ago in which she left me with the impression that I'd grown harder since moving to New York City. And at first I was a little offended that she might blow into town and see me after a couple of particularly hard weeks, and make that snap judgment. But the truth of the matter is that I think I have grown a little harder and less compassionate since moving to the city. Maybe more than a little.

I was on the subway the other day and was doing that thing where you read over the shoulder of the person sitting next to you? Usually it's the Daily News or the Post -- you know, papers for which no self-respecting liberal would actually pay money, but which still have a
train-wreck kinda appeal for all their outrageous jingoism.

Anyway, my subway neighbor wasn't reading the News or the Post, he was reading The Power of Compassion by The Dali Lama. It proved a nice reminder of my own need to be mindful of others sufferings. And it wouldn't be a terribly big stretch to look at the ten hours trapped on a train with a wailing tiny person as an exercise in patience, compassion, and mindfulness of others' suffering, no?

And by the way: Maybe given my present circumstances, I ought not make jokes about "train wrecks."

I'm just sayin'.

8:30 p.m. Two hours left on the train. My ass hurts. My ass hurts baaaaad.

Once More Unto the Breach

Two people asked me yesterday if I was excited about going to Pittsburgh. Both had two different ideas of what it meant to me -- one assumed that I'd be excited at the prospect of getting back to work, the other that I'd be dreading going back to a place that's the scene of some of the biggest heartbreak of my life -- but I had the same answer for both of them.

I'm not excited, but my feeling that way has nothing to do with the reasons you'd think.

I'm just too much of a worrier to be able to think about enjoying myself. 'Cuz you know I will enjoy myself when I get to work. But I've spent the whole weekend fretting that I was gonna cleaning and packing in time to get outta here, and I'll spend all of today fretting about getting to the train station and getting to Pittsburgh without mishap, and I'll spend the whole train ride fretting about whether my ride'll be there to meet me.

I'm a worrier. So I'm just sitting here thinking, "When did I turn into my mother?"

The good news, though, is that I have no doubt I'm really going to enjoy working in the theater again! It's been way too long. Much as I've loved my gig at Time Warner, and made great new friends, I don't ever wanna go six months without acting again.

Next time I blog at you, I'll be back in Pittsburgh!

Double Take

I just literally did a double-take when I walked into the laundromat to toss my delicates and blacks into the dryer.

There was this guy there - I'm gonna guess and say he was maybe 23 or 24, very cute in a I-really-have-no-interest-as-this-is-my-post- chicken-hawk-phase way. The kinda guy I'd definitely go for in the days when I was much more tragic about throwing myself at men who'd have nothing to do with me. You know, like last week.

Anyway, I gave him the once over while I was loading my washer, and he couldn't have been more obvious about communicating either (a) his lack of interest or (b) his heterosexuality (remember, I have no gaydar), so I finished my business, heaved a sigh for days gone by, and ran back to my apartment to finish cleaning out some drawers and closets so my friend Sal has a place to store his stuff while he stays in my apartment this summer.

When I had judged that the washing machines were done, I grabbed my finished Netflix and a book and headed back down to the laundromat. Alas, they weren't finished so I dashed across the street and dropped the Netflix in the mail (the last disc of the five-disc Queer as Folk Season 4, and an absolutely inscrutable sci-fi movie called Primer), and dashed back to the laundromat to move my clothes.

So I stroll into the laundromat and what do I see? This guy has stripped off his shirt and is doing his laundry bare-chested.

Hence the double take.

Look, I'm not saying I didn't appreciate the aesthetics, but who does that? What ever happened to taste and decorum? What ever happened to showing a little compassion for the sad old fellow you've just snubbed?!?

Jeez-o-man, people.


[Update] Okay, I had a chance to think about it, and it occurs to me that I'm hardly in a position to give this guy any grief. We live in an age where people strip all the time. And, really, am I (and a hundred thousand other bloggers) not doing the same thing -- psychologically -- every time I post to my blog?

Besides, he was pretty hot.

This Is Why We Have Friends

I've long lusted after the Tempurpedic Matress -- that delightful swiss invention that guarantees a night of pure, unadulterated sleeping bliss. A thing I've not had in a very long time, and for which I'm beginning to suspect my evil Sealy® Mattress is to blame.

That, and I live on the loudest intersection in Brooklyn.

But, see, I've been sleeping with earplugs ever since I moved to New York, so I can't complain about the noise. Besides, this area has nothing on the first place I lived in NYC, a blisteringly loug six-way intersection. Ah, the good old days.

Anyway, I was chatting with my friend Michael a few moments ago, and he casually mentioned during our conversation that he'd had a Tempurpedic matress but had had to sell it to move to New York City; that he'd gotten it on eBay. Cheaply.

At which point I nearly fell off my chair. 'Cuz it would never have occurred to me to search eBay or (as Michael later suggested) craigslist for a used mattress. But apparently you can get them (relatively) inexpensively through these alternative methods! Who knew!?!

Not me.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized -- this is the reason we have friends! They're the people who teach us how to make life easier; how to survive the obstacles that life throws us. In the early part of your life, you have your parents, your family -- but we also generally accept that to be alive, to be a fully realized person, you never stop learning and it came to me that as we grow older, the family we create serves this function.

Once again, I'm proven to be the Emperor of the Obvious. My tax collectors will be dropping by soon.

I am Samson

Gah. It's a little early for me to be feeling this way, but I want a haircut. It's been nearly a month, and I'm way overdue for one. I'm a firm believer that no man over the age of 40 needs to be sporting long hair... especially when one has the hairline I inheirited.

Here's the rub, though. And no, I don't mean that really tasty Cajun rub you put on your meat the night before you're going to barbeque it. I mean the "thorn in my side" rub: The theater I'm about to go work for has asked me to stop cutting my hair.

If I ever give up acting, it's gonna be because someone made me stop cutting my hair. There's a reason I don't wear long hair, my friends. It's because I look awful in it. I look like a shaggy dog. Or at least I used to look like a shaggy dog, way be before my hairline reached the arctic circle. Now I just kinda look sad and wispy, like a crazy orchestra conductor who's seriously lost his leonine shit.

US Scareways

This is truly amazing.

I knew...

...there was somthing suspicious going on up north.

"Wil is Life. Wil is Hope."

Lawks 'a mercy, but I've been drinking too much lately. In the effort to get in visits with all the important friends before I head out for a five-month absence, I've been going out a lot, and consequently drinking more than I'm used to. I'm such a lightweight.

As we've discovered before, I have no shut-off valve when it comes to alcohol. Since I don't drink much, I tend to drink it like other refreshing beverages.

Too quickly.

So last night Topher and I went to what's becoming our accustomed hang-out: G Lounge, on 19th Street in Chelsea. It's not that we particularly like it that well (I loathe bars in general, and loud bars in particular), but we're both totally crushing on the cocktail waiter there. And last night we actually went to the trouble of introducing ourselves.

The evening started out as a one-drink-then-dinner affair, but we ended up staying at G because, well, we were having a really good time. Like, belly-laugh good time. There was this one guy in the most amazing outfit -- straw hat, black sleeveless shirt, painted-on striped white pants, and large, dark sunglasses -- who was just stalking around the bar, taking up a position against the wall where everyone could see him, and showing all the world how big his, er, "member" was... by becoming -- how did Topher put it? - "refulgent" inside those diving-suit-tight pants.

In a word: Train wreck. Or, two words, actually.

We had the most fun watching everyone else in the bar doing double takes. 'Cuz, really, G isn't really that kinda place. It's a place where yuppies go for an afterwork drink, even if the thumping music is a wee bit oom-thah oom-thah oom-thah oom-thah for my tastes.

Anyway, that was good for some laughs, in an "I'm horrified by that but can't look away" kinda way.

Anyway, in the process, we stayed longer and drank more, and laughed more and more. Eventually this young couple sat down near us and we learned more than we should have about them. One kept abandoning the other to smoke and take cell phone messages, so during the caesuras (caesurae?) we learned that this guy -- we'll call him Bobby -- was meeting his ex for a drink, after having broken up badly a year ago. It went downhill from there, as he was nervous about meeting this guy he was still seriously into, and the guy was clearly a cad. As the evening went on, Bobby got even more drunk than we did.

To keep ourselves from getting depressed over the young derailed love before us, Topher and I kept on in the jovial vein by opining about our beloved cocktail waiter -- and we finally got up the gumption to introduce ourselves. His name is Wil. Dreamy, dancing Wil.

We were liquor-filled laughing monkeys by the end of it. At one point, we were both watching Will glide about the room attending to his duties, and I turned to Topher and said, "Will is..." but he cut me off with a fervor that can only be born of three glasses of wine: "Wil is Life! Wil is Hope!"

I nearly peed myself and fell off the sofa.

It was at that point we decided it might be wise to get some food.

Food was at Mary Ann''s, on 8th Avenue between 15th & 16th. Great Mexican food, yo.

'Course, the fact that I was well-oiled by three mandarin & cranberries (or, as I like to call them, "manberries") might have something to do with it. But I've eaten there sober, and loved it.

On our way back home, Topher decided he had to pee, so we stopped in at G one more time to use the potty. This is where our happy evening takes a bit of a sad turn. As Topher was passing through the bar, he found "Bobby" alseep at his table, liquored up and having been abandoned by his cad of a date.

Alas, men. Just remember:

Wil is life. Wil is hope.

Well, duh!

I'm sure this is gonna sound like sour grapes; as if it could sound like anything else coming from a lapsed gay Catholic: Does anyone else feel a sort of groundwater disappointment at the selection of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI?

I mean, let's face it: It was practically a done deal. John Paul II appointed some ridiculous percentage of the cardinals who were gonna vote for the next pope-- every one as conservative as he was, so it was pretty much a given that some uber-conservative prelate was gonna end up as Pope. But that didn't stop me from having a tiny bit of hope that someone in Rome might come to their senses and not drive a nail in the coffin of progressive spirituality in the Catholic Church.

Ah well. Welcome to the Age of Aquarius. Religious orthodoxy is in its last gasp. In a hundred years, we may not even have popes, or presidents who're born again, or snake charmers, or people who think the bible should be read literally. As far as I'm concerned, they're all the same thing.

I don't even particularly need to live to see it. It's enough to know that it's coming.

One can hope, can't one?

PS: I think I deserve a lot of credit for not making jokes about Benedict XVI's birth surname and the relation of his countenance to the ill-loved creature that makes up part of his name. I just don't trust this guy. Color me quick to judge.

Finally!

I finally got around to updating my pictures page. I know those of you who love me will forgive my tardiness.

Hmm...

A thing of beauty, or further proof that we're moving toward having just one big Company? Discuss.

Place your bets

Listen, y'all: Make sure you place your bet with your local bookie as quickly as possible. I mean, who knows when the damn white smoke is gonna go up?

Envy

Why can't I be this clever?

Oops.

Okay, so I quickly had to correct and repost that last entry, 'cuz somehow I managed to write "It's a rare weekend when I don't have time to blob."

Pardon me, Mr. Freud, but your slip is showing.

Whirlwind

It's a rare weekend when I don't have time to blog, my friends, but this past one was one such. All in all, a pretty amazing couple of days.

Friday night is a bit of a blur. I met Chris for a couple drinks at G Bar after work (note to self: Must stop drinking in bars just because you have a crush on the cute cocktail server) and we had yet another of those discussions I love in which we range in topics from old Looney Tunes cartoons to solving our problems with meeting quality men. Sadly, I didn't show some sense and go home directly afterward, but instead went to Total Wine Bar and drank lots more wine, and got blottoed. I don't do that very often, and Friday is the perfect cautionary tale as to why I shouldn't: I ended up spilling most of a glass of red wine all over my shirt. Grade A disaster. As Chris said when I told the tale later in the weekend, "Were you wearing your customary white shirt?"

I was. And when did I get so predictable?!?

Saturday morning, I got up and showed my friend Sal my apartment. I think he might be staying in it and taking care of it for my while I'm away -- or at least from June on. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. He says he wants to get away from his roommate and wants to look for a place of his own in Brooklyn, so being able to stay in my place while he looks should be a help. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it works out, since the subletter I'd hoped to have lined up didn't work out.

After meeting Sal (with, yes, a full-on hangover) and having a spot of lunch, I dashed back to my apartment for a shower and a shave, and dashed off to meet Ken Bolden. We were going to see Ashes and Snow, an amazing art exhibit on Pier 54 that displays these large-format photos of humans interacting with wild animals. This exhibit is absolutely astounding. I found the still images most moving, but there's also a thirty-minute film that plays at the end of the exhibition that shows the same interactions. I found it less compelling than the still images.

On Sunday morning, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and grabbed a train into Manhattan, where I met my gay.com friend Christian, and we had a little biking adventure. On our last adventure (last year, sadly -- with my working out of town so much, we haven't had many opportunities to do long bike rides), we did a 30 mile bike ride around Jamaica bay.

This time, I decided -- despite not having my passport handy -- to cross into New Jersey and ride on his home turf. We met in Manhattan at West 4th Street, and took the A train up to 175th, where we biked across the George Washington Bridge, and then south along the Palisades to Hoboken, where I caught my first-ever water taxi back to Manhattan.

It was an impossibly glorious day, and although the Jersey waterfront trails are pretty spotty -- we mostly had to ride on the streets -- some of the views of Manhattan are pretty spectacular. I took a bunch of pictures with a camera I borrowed from work, and I'll post 'em as soon as I have a chance.

Finally, I rushed home and had just enough time for nap before scrubbing down in the shower and heading back into town for Badomi DeCesare's show at Helen's, in Chelsea. It was a CD release performance for her latest CD, A Foreign Affair with Badomi DeCesare. I can't recommend her albums enough, and the real surprise is that I really loved the live show. I generally find myself disappointed by singers who I've learned to adore through their recordings -- the live experience rarely lives up. But not this time. She had an amazing band behind her, and they sounded every bit as polished in person as they did in the music I'd heard.

You really should check out her stuff.

So, anyway, that's why you haven't heard from me in three days. Forgive me?

Whoa:

This kinda rocks, compliments of Ken B:

Happy Birthday, L.

I love Google. I do. I know that some people out there think they're an Evil Empire or something like that, but I just plain love their sensibility. I especially love that they sometimes change up the logo on their search page to celebrate special occasions. Can you guess what today is? And I like the idea of celebrating this, rather than focusing on the fact that it's tax day.

"Time, she is a cruel mistress."

Thinking about Jessie's children yesterday put me into a bit of a reflective mood, which is always a chance for me go to a more melancholy place than is particularly healthy for me. Well, maybe "healthy" isn't the word I want; maybe "useful."

As I'm sure you've noted in the past, I tend to spend too much time analyzing the past, and and entirely too much emotional energy on regretting things I can't change. One of the great themes of my life, when it's written, will be the abundance of regret; the longing to go back and change things.

I'm not as bad as I used to be, certainly, but I'm not exactly the live-in-the-moment ideal that I'd like to be.

Anyway, the new photos of the kids put me in mind of some old family photos of ours, and I was sorting through them last night. If ever there was a pastime that screamed "oh, if only..." that would be it.

There's nothing quite like torturing yourself with if-only-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now scenarios, and I'm well and truly the king of that shit. Last night, most of them were revolving around my "innocent" youth, and how I'd like to have dealt with the nuttiness surrounding my brother's death.

Not long ago, Chris and I were talking about his belief that families "freeze" in place when a member of the family dies -- that emotional growth tends to stop or at least slow down for a very long time, and family members get stuck in the particular roles or attitudes that they have at the moment of death. From my perspective, it certainly seems true of my family. It's only in the past five years or so that things in my family seem to be shifting; there's a thaw -- an emotional detente.

I'm getting to know my brothers and sisters again; learning to like the people they've become. More willing, in the case of the ones against whom I've had simmering resentments with roots in that time, to see their side of the story, to understand their journies.

I'm looking forward to the day when we can talk about what happened both before and after Bill's death. There's so much about that time that I either don't know or don't remember.

Growing Like Weeds

Holy crap, you guys. My great nephew Kane (yeah, you heard me right, great nephew. shuddup) is growing like a weed. And man, is he gonna be a heartbreaker when he finally develops an interest in the ladies. Check him out.

Kane is the oldest son of my niece Jesse. Jessie, god bless her, is the most picture happy mother on the planet, and has a mighty fine digital camera, so I get scads of pictures of her kids every time they grow ½ an inch.

I really need to be better about staying in touch with the far-flung Schulz Clan. I've got six siblings, sixteen nieces and nephews, and I can't tell you how many great nieces and nephews.

And, yes, the thought of actually having great nieces and nephews is an appalling thing for a guy like me. I have a hard enough time accepting the fact that I'm growing up, let alone the idea that the babies of my youth are having babies!

It's kinda exciting, though, isn't it?

I'm a little amazed how normal most of my nieces and nephews have turned out. For the most part, they seem to be recoiling from the unmitigated fucked-uppedness that is my generation in my family. Stable families, relatively well-adjusted-seeming children, good jobs. Nice family life. All the things that my brothers and sisters and I aren't. Well, not all of us, granted, but you know what I mean.

I had a nice night out with Topher last night -- we had a couple glasses of wine at G Bar before I headed off to Brooklyn.

As always, he's a great person to talk to about life and what I'm going through. Last night, though, the tables were mostly turned, since yesterday he was the victim of an attempted identity theft. Someone stole his coat and wallet from the locker at his gym, and he'd spent the whole day frantically trying to cancel credit cards and rescue his bank accounts.

He's fine now -- in fact he handled the whole thing with a lot more grace and calm than I could hope to -- and even managed to cancel his cards in time to foil the thief's attempt to get cellular service with his credit card at a place in Staten Island.

Anyway, as the night wore on and we were talking more and more, he said some things that, while I won't repeat them, only managed to reinforce for me that spending too much time contemplating our existence as it compares to others' is just plain stupid. Topher is a perfect example of a person who, to the outside world appears to have everything going for him (and I should point out that he'd be the first person to say the same thing), but our discussion last night just reminded me that everyone has some sort of pain that they carry around with them, and outward appearances really mean absolutely nothing -- so covetousness of someone else's situation is every bit as pointless as too much self-recrimination.

Maybe we have the friends we have to teach us the lessons we need to learn. Or to reflect back on us the things about ourselves of which we most need to be aware?

There's no keeping up.

It's whack, yo.

The number of interesting (well, I guess that's a relative term) people out there blogging is overwhelming. I remember the good old days when people used to say to me, "You keep an online journal? What's that? That's weird. Why would anyone wanna read your thoughts?"

Who knew that it was going to turn into a national pastime?

I'm finding that lots of people have much more interesting things to say than have I. But I'm also finding that a lot of people are going through many of the same things I am -- and it's in this sort of vast, interconnected community of people that one sees best that we're really not that special. But in a good way. Our pain may be our own, but it's not terribly unique, and somehow I find that comforting. And it makes me a little more giving and a lot less judgmental.

I found out recently that one of my favorite authors, Alex Chee has a blog. I also found out not long ago that Adam Robertson is a mutual friend. How interesting is that? I was reading recently in yet another blog I rather enjoy, Chasing Mercury that the author, Chase, is of the opinion that, for gay people, the whole six degrees of separation thing is really more like three degrees, since we're a smaller portion of the population. I guess this connection to Mr. Chee supports that theory.

Democrats Are Sneaky Too

All you Spanish speakers, get the eff outta West Virginia.

Apparently, the Democratic leaders in both the West Virginia Senate and House get to alter legislation right before votes without letting everyone know, and they decided that English should be the official language of West Virginia. According to the Associated Press:

"Two days after the end of the legislative session, state lawmakers are discovering something few were aware of: They voted to make English the official language of West Virginia.

The language amendment was quietly inserted into a bill addressing the number of members that cities can appoint to boards of parks and recreation. Among mundane details about record-keeping, the amendment adds the provision that "English shall be the official language of the State of West Virginia."

Senate Majority Whip Billy Wayne Bailey successfully offered that change to House Bill 2782 amid a flurry of bills moving back and forth between the House and Senate on Saturday, the last night of the 60-day legislative session.

"I just told the members that the amendment clarifies the way in which documents are produced," Bailey, a Democrat, said Monday.

House Majority Leader Rick Staton recommended that his chamber agree with the Senate's changes. But Staton, also a Democrat, said he was unaware of the substance of the amendment until asked about it by The Associated Press Monday evening."

See? And you thought Republicans were the only weasels in government. Turns out pretty much all politicians are sneaky rat finks.

Frankly, I don't have that much trouble with English being our official language. I mean, let's face it; it's the language most of us speak. If I emigrated to France, I'd have to learn French. And our nation was founded by a bunch of Englishmen (after they duly stomped on the thousand-year old civilization of the then-current occupants, and then enslaved a mess o' people from other civilizations and brought 'em in to do the work).

But did we really need to codify that into law? I mean, is West Virginia being overrun by non-native speakers? Have the smugglers stopped dumping desperate Mexicans in Texas and California and selected West By God Virginia as the new destination of choice? Aren't there bigger problems in West Virginia that require some serious thought? Like, oh, I dunno, literacy?

I'm just asking.

By the way, I'd just like to point out that -- as a native Pittsburgher -- I deserve some serious credit for avoiding any snide cracks about all the people in West Virginia who claim they're speaking English but are actually speaking Hoopie, and whether they're gonna be punished under this law.

WTF?

This is just sick genius. I'm both appalled and envious that I didn't think of it first.

What the...?!?

Check it out. This is considerably earlier than I'd really intended, you know:

These are, by the way, the same people who brought us this earlier gem of a test, which kinda surprised me, too:

I'm a supreme nerd, yo!

I feel soiled...

...or that I've done the soiling. Dear Sweet Jesu.

I wish I had seen this review before I ever rented Locked Up. This film is as close as you get to being a porn film without actually being one. And once I watched the special features -- and the deleted scenes -- I realized that's exactly what the director set out to make. No pretension to art, he just wanted to make a porn film!

Lord.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I have any problem with the objectification of unnaturally beautiful men, but whoa! Maybe a little truth in advertising would be in order.

That having been said, the star of this "film," Marcel Schlutt is probably the hottest man I've seen in quite a while. Talk about a human being practically bred to push all my buttons.

Of course, as is often the case in life, if you actually do an internet search and find his personal website, you'll find he's not quite the clean-cut kid he's portrayed as in the, erm, film. I could link you there, but this is a family friendly site. If you actually wanna view the site of this burgeoning porn star, you gotta look him up for yourself.

The review (nicked, as it were, from www.dvdverdict.com) cited above says it best:

"Marcel Schlutt is boyishly Tom-Cruise-cute and hosted a gay talk show on German television. He's personable and very animated in the interview, but in Locked Up, he just looks either sad or orgasmic, with no range between the two. I thought Schlutt was bad, until Mike Sale entered the picture. His performance is awkward, and his line delivery is several notches below the average cue-card reader. They must have named his character Mike so he would have one less word to struggle with. The guards all perfectly cast for their intended look: big, burly, and buzz-cut, but they don't sound 'threatening' at all. Ya just wanna give 'em a great big hug, and tell 'em, 'Find a real job in supermarket security, buddy. Maybe you can intimidate some housewife trying to feed her kid a free donut before checkout.'"

In any case, I'm embarrassed to have this one on my rental history. I'd rather watch The Last Year again than think that Big Brother is seeing this title listed when he uses the (Un)Patriot Act to subpeona my records. God help me.

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

Now will anyone think ill of me if I move to Germany and try to track this guy down? Wowza!

Tee hee hee.

Yeah, so I just took a crazy step. One I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable sharing with the world at large, since I don't know how many of you know my dirty little secrets.

I just completely deleted all of my memberships and profiles in websites (actually, there were really only two) where a -- how do we put it? -- sexually active gay man can go to find... release.

I've just been finding that, as a method of meeting people, even just for getting laid, the online world is just woefully, woefully underwhelming. Disappointing. Lame.

And being rejected by the motley collection of losers and entirely-too- trusting-of-their-own-hype "hotties" is just no way to make any sort of connection with someone.

So I've broken the bonds.

Of course, this leaves me with an overriding question. What am I going to do with all the time and energy I put into the fruitless search for personal connections through better sex?

Guess I'll have to get out more.

Today was the most glorious day I've seen in quite some time. It helps that I was forced to get out and enjoy it, having made plans with my friend Chris from gay.com (yes, one of the sites mentioned above) to bike around Prospect Park. He's in the neighborhood this weekend dogsitting for a friend of his, so we made plans to meet around noon and bike the park loop.

I wish I could say that we went around the park an endless number of times, but I have to report, my dear friends, that your friend Joe is woefully out of shape. I made it once -- allow me to reiterate -- once around the loop and had to rest. I was embarassed, since Chris was the friend with whom I did the 30-mile bike loop around Jamaica Bay last year. Alas. I suck.

I was under the impression that the loop around Propsect Park Drive was 1 mile, but when I got home I looked it up and discovered that it's actually 3.35 miles. So with the ride to the park, the ride around the park, and the ride back, I ended up doing about six miles. Not as embarassing as it could have been, but still.

So, for your viewing pleasure, a couple shots from today:

Gobsmacked.

I was just sitting here watching the special features on the Titus DVD, and Alan Cumming just used the word "gobsmacked."

I think that may be the funniest and most delightful word I've heard in years. It means, apparently, "utterly astonished, astounded."

Clearly, this is a word that screams for inclusion in my world.

How did I miss this little treasure?

Glorious Day.

It's a glorious, glorious day out there! It's days like this that remind me why I love this town so much. The quality of the light in the summer; the vibrancy of the street below me. The energy of the people on the street. I love it. I just plain love it.

Even when I'm ridiculously dirt poor!

Speaking of which, it's rent time again, and I wasn't particularly cautious about watching expenditures. Rent's paid, but the living is not, how shall we say? "Easy." Thankfully, as part of that not-particularly-cautious expenditures thing was some groceries. So the eating, at least, will be easy, 'til next payday, at which point I'll be fine.

Moping.

I'm feeling sorry for myself this weekend (see the earlier entry in re: drink date) so I stayed in this evening and watched two very different gay-themed movies. The first one was The Last Year, about a kid at bible college who's struggling with the "wrong" urges. I give it high scores for being earnest, but man-o-man was it a bad film.

On the other hand, I got to watch A Touch of Pink, in which Jimi Mistry plays a gay guy who's moved to London and found himself a lovely boyfriend, but isn't out to his family. And his mother pays him a surprise visit. The chief pleasure of the film is watching Kyle MacLaughlan channel Cary Grant, who is Jimi's sort of imaginary friend throughout the film. It's not the greatest film ever made, by any stretch, but I enjoyed it. I kinda go back and forth on Jimi Mistry as an actor. Sometimes I find him charming and dead on, and then other times I just don't buy him. Kyle MacLaughlin is great, though. And I really enjoyed the actor who plays Mistry's boyfriend, a guy named Kristen Holden-Reid. Also charming.

Chained.

I'm chained to my apartment until the plumber comes to look at my radiator. Apparently my neighbors have added their complaints about the clanging radiator.

So the good news is that the rain is going to end this morning, and the weather forecast is looking pretty sunny (or at least partly sunny) through the rest of the weekend. I can't wait!

Iam...

...the Patron Saint of Happy Babies.

I was sitting eating my lunch in the park, and this parade of nannies pushing carriages came by. Every one of those babies saw me and started cracking up! Except for the one that was crying. He stopped crying and smiled at me.

What a difference little sun makes, my friends.

I stopped in the Park Cafe at Time Warner Center to pick up a little lunch and went out to the park. It's not as sunny as it was yesterday (damn me for not going out yesterday!), but the temperature is supposed to be somewhere around 70º, and it's just incredibly beautiful.

There was this odd sensation as I walked out the doors of The Shops at Columbus Circle and into the crowds steaming around the building and heading toward the park. I just don't know how to describe it. Almost a lightness -- suddenly there was a big smile on my face, and I'm sure that if I had had a camera I could have snapped a photo of the glow in my eyes. Almost as if a sort of weariness I didn't know I had was lifted.

(What Is) Up With People (?!?)

So, occasionally I'll surf the friendster.com site and bookmark interesting people - sort of a "if I'm ever bored, maybe I'll make a new penpal" sorta save-for-a-rainy-day list.

Well, not long ago, a person on my bookmark list noticed that I had bookmarked him and sent me an e-mail asking if it was some super-sublte way of flirting, to which I responded, "yes." I figured, what the heck. He was cute. We started an e-mail correspondence and after a couple days of that, decided we should meet for a glass of wine. He promised to call over last weekend to set up a time this week.

He didn't.

Okay. I give people the benefit of doubt, right? I drop him an e-mail Tuesday to say "hope you're well" and he responds about how great his weekend was, and why don't we get together for that drink Tuesday?

'Cuz, like, yeah. I'm so pathetic, I never have any plans and I'm willing to jump at the drop of a hat.

As it turns out -- not having heard from him -- I made plans, and Tuesday was out. So I suggested tonight. His response was "I have stuff to do early, but I'll call you and maybe we can get a drink later."

I'm down with that.

Until I end up sitting around tonight waiting for a call. That never comes.

So I called him at 9:30, and he's all "I'm getting ready to go to bed. Tough day."

WTF, dude?!?

Doesn't anyone know that it's just plain fucking impolite to tell someone you're going to call them and then not? I mean, if you're out to avoid going on a date, then just don't make the fucking date!!!

End of rant.

So there is a silver lining to the above story. In the old days -- with the old me -- I'd have just sat around waiting for the call. I wouldn't have gotten indignant and called him. I would have just moped.

Next!

...

This has been a pretty weird week, frankly. I was off sick on Monday, and came back to the office on Tuesday to discover that one of the gentlemen in the office had died over the weekend.

His funeral was today.

So there's a general air of melancholy about the office today. I happen to sit right outside his office, and people have been stopping by all day to kinda just take it in. As was often his wont, someone started up his iTunes player and has had it on random play all day, and they lit the candle he always burned in there.

So I'm a little melancholy too, but somehow reassured. Because everyone who talks about this man talks about how much he loved living, and what a full life he'd had. And I can't help but think that though he may have died with stuff undone, he didn't stint on living the life he wanted.

Which is kinda how I feel about myself. And for the first time in a long time, I think that if indeed I were to die, I wouldn't have any regrets. Except for that "not being filthy rich" thing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in no hurry to check out. But -- warts and all -- I'm living a life I chose.

So, those of you in the rest of the country (hell, the rest of the world) are often appalled at how crazily mean and violent life in the big city is - especially New York City. And we don't blame you, we are too. Recently, there have been a couple of Chinese food delivery men in the Bronx who were robbed and killed for their receipts so the alleged attackers could buy expensive sneakers. And everyone here is scratching their heads, wondering when it was that 16 & 17 year-old kids learned that a human life is worth less than cool sneakers. We've all been horrified and appalled.

Even more so last week when the news hit the TV that another Chinese food delivery guy had disappeared. He left his restaurant on Friday night to make a delivery in a Bronx housing project, and never returned. His friends, fearing the worst went after him and discovered his bike, but he was gone. He'd delivered the food and just disappeared.

Needless to say, the whole city -- myself included -- just assumed some stupid punks had done it again. Sometimes, though, these stories have a happy endings.

Check out what happened to him.

Hmmm....

I've been saving this since I saw it in the amNewYork newspaper on March 29th. It's yet another one of those things I'm not entirely sure how to take.

I must be the most disciplined guy ever.

I'm not quite sure...

... how to respond to this. I mean, really.

No. Really. Chastity pants.

I'm Obsessed

Damn that Topher!

As a "thank you" for being such a pain in the ass last Saturday (by insisting that we not do the "same old thing" by going to see a movie and getting a couple of drinks - which, it must pointed out, turned out fantastically well: Play Without Words), he got me copies of a couple albums from his friend Badomi DeCesare. She, by the way, was a big benefactor of the production of Tartuffe we did in 2004.

Anyway, I'm totally and completely hooked on her album, Almost Texas. I've been listening to it over and over... note the time at the bottom of the entry. I've set my clock for 6 a.m. to do a couple of laps around Prospect Park.

Oh well. At least I can download Badomi to my Shuffle and listen to her while I sleep-ride around the park. Meanwhile, you go out and order Badomi's CDs!

Oh, right! I forgot!

There's something about Daylight Savings time here in New York that I'd forgotten about, having been away all summer last year, and only having come back in time for DST to reset itself and the long dark of winter to descend.

Afternoons in my apartment are impossibly bright. With the added hour of daylight, the sun's arc toward sunset is longer (and, as summer wears on, slower - so it seems to me), and my apartment fills with the most gloriously bright light, especially on cloudless days, into which this one has turned.

It's so bright in my apartment, that I have to take a three or four hour break from using my computer, or watching TV, 'cuz the ambient, reflected light is everywhere, obscuring screens. Just about the only usual entertainment available during these hours is reading with my back to the windows.

I could, of course, buy some blinds or curtains, but where's the fun in that? And anything that drives me away from the TV and computer can't really be a bad thing, can it?

I've already gotten e-mails from a couple of friends who've been teasing me about the impossibly young boy from Play Without Words upon whom I'm crushing.

Come on, people! I never said I was going to do anything about it! Just that I thought he was cute and I pined for him.

So, in answer to my "critics," here are a couple of delightful (age appropriate) men upon whom I also have crushes! George Eads, and Alistair Appleton. Even better, Alistair is openly gay. And a Buddhist. So there.

I don't know from George. I just know he's impossibly hot.

Stalker.In.Training

So I've got a bit of a new obsession. The lead dancer in Play Without Words is this incredibly cute Brit named Richard Winsor. And, true to form, if I find myself attracted to him he's either (a) way too young, or (b) straight. It's just the way things go with me.

I need to embrace my inner chicken hawk. Or run away from him, screaming. I can't decide which. In any case, someone needs to help me get over this thing I have for woefully unavailable mens.

Anyway, this guy was great in the show, and we all know how I'm attracted to talent. Check him out. Lameness, thy name is Joe.

Flipflop, Thy Name is Dubya

So it turns out that President Bush went to a mass in memory of John Paul II.

Help me out here. Isn't the president an evangelical christian? And don't some evangelical christians think that Catholics (read: Papists) aren't really Christians at all, and are going to burn in hell for all eternity?

Just wondering.

Messing with the Plumbing

Now that I've signed up with Blogger.com (a division, for those of you who either love them or hate them, of Google), I'm being amazed at how easy they make blogging. But from digging around in the guts of the files and subdirectories they automatically set up on my site, I'm finding that this whole process isn't terribly different from what I've been doing all along... it's just more automated. They've got a way of nesting entry pages inside another page, which is something way beyond my ability to do, but aside from that, I don't see a whole lot of difference.

Oh, and blogger is a lot more organized than I am. It makes separate subdirectories not just for each year, but for each month within the year. To date, I've just lumped all my entries in my main subdirectory. Not exactly tidy, but it's worked for me. To date.

So how about me, finding myself nostalgic for Truckstop?!? Go figure. I wonder how he's doing, that little paragon of total evil. I miss him. Or, perhaps I just miss the company.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

So, I finally did it. Instead of posting a new html page for each blog entry, as I've done for years, I'm taking the easy way out, and I've signed up with a blog service. Here's hoping the character of the ol' online journal doesn't change so much that it alienates you long-time readers.

I'm hoping, though, that it'll just streamline the process of getting my thoughts online. If the scenario works out the way I hope it will, then you'll be hearing a lot more from me... just with shorter posts.

Unexpected Joy

Just got in from a lovely evening out with Ken Bolden and Topher.  And it was one of those strange, serendipitous evenings that can only happen in the presence of friends who're a pain in the ass.

We spent the whole afternoon haggling over what we were gonna do this evening.  Kenny had a host of movies he wanted to see, and Toph was just being (his words, not mine) a big pain in the ass about the fact that he didn't want to do the same old thing.  I -- the typical passive aggressive devil that I am -- just wanted the whole thing settled and didn't frankly give a damn what we did, as long as I didn't have to serve as the intermediary between the two of them.  Truth be told, I've been down lately, and would have been just as happy to spend the evening curled up in bed under my covers.

Well, as it often will, The Universe stepped and kicked all our asses.  Not a minute after Toph mentioned to me that he'd like to see Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (and I nixed it, claiming poverty), a friend of his called up and offered him two free tickets to see the show.  I'd resolved in my heart of hearts to insist that Ken and Toph go together (Kenny had missed his opportunity to see it a few weeks earlier when he had to waste the ticket he had after being struck down by the flu on the day he was supposed to see it), when Kenny decided that he was gonna go to the box office and see if he could get a returned ticket for tonight's sold-out performance.

As you may have guessed, he got it, the three of us saw the show together.

The show itself is amazing.  I'm not entirely sure I like it as much as I liked Bourne's famous Swan Lake, but it was thoroughly engaging, and smart, and sexy, and just visually spectacular.  This is high praise from a guy who doesn't love Dance (with an uppercase "D") in general, and Dance As Theater in particular.  Just a great evening.

But it didn't stop there, dear friends.  Oh, no.

 After the show, I exposed the boys to the joys of Total Wine Bar!  It turned out to be the perfect night for it, too, since the driving monsoon that New York's been suffering through for the past two days made for a fairly empty bar when we arrived.  It gave Ken and Toph the chance to meet Adam, Greg, and a new bartender I'd not even met yet, Ryan.  Oh, and they also got to meet -- briefly -- Celestine Heard, yet another fixture at the bar.

And speaking of my beloved wine bar-ians, I finally got a chance to snap some pictures of the folks I love.  Check 'em out:

The delightful Adam Robertson - proprietor extraordinaire, and all-around hottie.

Celestine Heard.  She's the Total Wine Bar's other first regular.

Greg Ed Lalo Moribito - upon whom I rather ungenerously used the camera's flash without warning.

Threes

This whole thing about the Universe working in threes -- you know that thing about how famous people die in threes -- is really playing itself out this week, isn't it?

So apparently Pope John Paul II is next on the list.

I have to say, I've got some very mixed feelings about the demise of this pope.  Actually - they're not so much mixed as conflicted.

There was a time when the only person in the whole world I might have wished would die was John Paul II.  I'm not kidding.  I think he's done more to set the Catholic Church on a path back to the middle ages than any pope in the last hundred years.  Until he came along, the Church was slowly but surely become a more progressive and modern institution.  But in the course of his 26 years as pope, he brought a streak of conservativism that will affect the church for another hundred years to come.  The number of conservative, close-minded, like-thinking cardinals with whom he's stocked the College of Cardinals is staggering, and virtually guarantees that the next pope (and who knows, the pope after that?) will be every bit as backward and close-minded.

Folks like me are destined to be on the outs with the Church for a long time to come, I guess.

Now, all that having been said, here's where the conflict comes in.  I really do think that the world at large is better off without this man leading the church; but I can't bring myself to be happy about anyone being dead.  I can't wish it on anyone.  Even him.  I hope his suffering -- if indeed he is suffering through this decline -- is mercifully short if now's his time.  But it's a measure of how I've changed as a person that I can't muster anger at him anymore; I can't whip up the vitriol for him that once I could.  He is what he is, and I have to accept that.

Is it a sign of maturity that we learn a little charity and learn to pick the battles that are worth fighting, or just a sign that the fight has finally worn us down?  I dunno.  You tell me.