Monday, September 11, 2000

Sarah wins

While my dreams -- when I can remember them at all -- seem generally to be meandering free verse packed with Freudian (and, in some cases, schadenfreudian) imagery, my friend Sarah dreams in commercially-viable sitcom pitches.

"Last night," she said, "I dreamed a comedy about the misadventures of a crew of nutty Ku Klux Klan members on the high seas. It was called Percale's Navy."

Friday, September 08, 2000

Thrills in the basement

If ever you need a thrill, there's an emotional roller coaster in my laundry room.

Happiness is finding 50 dollars tucked into the pocket of a pair of blue jeans just before you pop them into the washing machine.

Disappointment is realizing that the blue jeans in question do not belong to you and, by inference, neither does the 50 dollars.

Confusion is further realizing that you have no idea to whom the aforementioned blue jeans belong or, for that matter, how they found their way to the floor of your closet, waiting to be laundered.

Contentment pretty much arrives when you have made your peace with the foregoing facts and added to them the supposition that, at some unknown point in the past, a person with a 28 inch waist joined you for activities undefined and departed, apparently so satisfied with the outcome of said activities that they were unconcerned to have left your home without both their trousers and 50 dollars.

Thursday, September 07, 2000

Some random but related thoughts about movies

I saw The Matrix for the first time tonight. It isn't as good as everyone says it is.

Last week, I bought the DVD of Clerks and watched it for the first time since I saw it in the theater when it was released. It isn't nearly as good as I remembered it to be.

I have never seen the film version of Gone With the Wind, although I have read the novel twice. I have promised myself that the first time I see the movie, it will be in a theater on a large screen, as God intended it to be seen. However, in the past five years, I have passed up two such opportunities.

I am vaguely concerned that, while I believe myself to have a very rich and vivid imagination, it does not easily withstand assaults by the mass media and the ubiquity of hype. I have carefully avoided any press coverage of the inevitable movie adaptation of the Harry Potter novels, and I have resigned myself to not seeing the movie for several years, if ever. I have a very clear and infinitely detailed picture in my mind of how Hogwart's School appears. I can see the awkward Harry, the bookish Hermoine and the freckled, impetuous Ron as I imagine the author herself imagines them. If I glimpse the child actors the media has lionized as "perfect" for the respective roles, or if I am made privvy to the details of locations that will stand in for the sites in the books, I fear that my imaginings will dissipate like morning fog and with them, my enjoyment of the books will vanish as well.

Wednesday, September 06, 2000

Unexpected pre-coital comedy

"Wow, that's a cool nightstand."

"Actually, it's an 'occasional table'."

"Why do you suppose they call them that?"

"I don't know. I sometimes suspect that, at night while I'm asleep, it becomes an armoire."

Tuesday, September 05, 2000

Of course, my sex life is all outtakes so…

I just ordered a big box of pornography, my first fresh batch in quite a while, including one feature on DVD. Among the special features they're touting on the disc is "digitally remastered sound" (presumably so the cheesy 70s wah-wah music can be presented with maximum fidelity) and "bloopers and outtakes". How embarrassing must it be for an adult video actor to find one's performance included on a porn "blooper reel"? Are these things going to start showing up on those Dick Clark and Ed McMahon specials? How odd is it that, despite expecting several cassettes chock full of sweaty man-on-man action to arrive on my doorstep in a few days, what I'm most anxiously anticipating is the DVD bloopers?

Friday, September 01, 2000

Hot, heavy and wet

This has been one of those weeks. You know the kind I mean?

First of all, it's hot. Really hot. You know, how Bette Midler says in the prologue to The E Street Hustle, "the air is hot and heavy and wet, and you just can't get high."

Secondly, if there were a theme to the week, it would be "Reversal of Fortune," for me at least. It's weeks like this that make one marvel at how quickly one can traverse from goat to golden boy and back again in other people's esteem.

Thirdly, there's been a lot of silly shit going on. On Tuesday, out of the blue, a total stranger e-mailed me 37 pictures of herself, naked. Wednesday morning, I woke up to find a soccer ball in my bed that had not been there the night before. And just yesterday, I swear I saw ducks and wolves dancing the Lindy together.

Yes, friends, it's weeks such as this that lead me to wonder how much longer our alien overlords are going to permit this sort of whimsy.

Thursday, August 31, 2000

Leather pants?!

It's 97 degrees today, and there's 100 percent humidity. Just stepping outside feels like being wrapped in a wet woolen blanket. And some guy just walked past my window wearing tight leather pants. Leather pants! You know, nature gives us little pointers about correct behavior from time to time. I'd like to think his lesson for the day is why cows always look so uncomfortable.

Wednesday, August 30, 2000

In which I feel like an action hero

Today on the way to work, I felt like an action hero. I left the house with plenty of time to arrive at the office for my staff meeting. Before I could get on the interstate, however, my path was blocked by a passing train. No worries, until the train stopped on the tracks and showed no signs of moving again soon. I whipped around the steering wheel and zoomed back the way I'd come, all the while wracking my brain for a suitable alternate route. Deciding to navigate other surface streets to the interstate, I wove through alleys and backstreets, sending litter flying and small animals scurrying, only to confront a three-car pileup on the on-ramp. Refusing to be daunted, I again reversed my path and, with a cunning demonstrated by so many leading men on the trail of elusive bad guys in a hopped-up Chevy, I ferreted yet another alternate route from my memory and, although slowed somewhat by street repairs and a funeral procession, made it to the office with seconds to spare.

As I pulled into my parking space, however, I reflected that perhaps my journey hadn't been so spectacular an accomplishment after all. I hadn't been pursured by relentless villains hellbent on my death. I was not fleeing the police. I didn't feel so much like an action hero after all.

So I shot out the tires of the car parked next to mine, grabbed a skateboard from a passerby, sailed nearly to the door of my office and leaped off, executing a perfect forward roll to dodge any unfriendly gunfire that might be zinging overhead. Now I felt like an action hero. And there were jelly donuts at the meeting!

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Ten Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos

Be careful when wandering into unfamiliar sections of the video store, or you may end up coming home with something altogether different than you intended. For example, consider these Ten Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos:

• Schlong Blade


• With Sex You Get Eggroll


• As Tim Goes Bi


• My Best Friend's Wetting


• Juice Bigbelow: Latin Gigolo


• Good Will Humping


• Guy Hard, With a Vengeance


• Everybody Does Raymond


• Shaving Ryan's Privates


• American Booty

Monday, August 28, 2000

A Survivor I’d watch

Except for the last five minutes of the finale, I didn't watch Survivor, and I probably won't tune in for the Australian version next year. If they really wanted to get my attention, they'd put Sherwood Schwartz in charge of the show, get back to the island and, using the same rules, put on a competition among Gilligan, a skipper too, a billionaire and his wife, a movie star, a professor and Mary Ann.

Alternatively, lock up The Village People in the Big Brother house and tape the wacky antics that follow. I'd tune in for that too.

Friday, August 25, 2000

Mothers say the darnedest things

Mothers say the darnedest things. My friend Michael tells a great story about traveling to San Francisco with his mom. They passed some time waiting for a table at a restaurant by examining framed pictures of the devastation left in the wake of the Great Earthquake. "Just think," his mother commented reverently. "It was all started by that cow."

Several years ago, shortly after I moved away from home to attend college, I was chatting with my mother on the phone. Our town had only recently been hooked up to cable television and mom was becoming a movie junkie. When I asked if she'd seen anything good recently, she replied, "Oh yes, last night your father and I watched Children of a Lesser Corn."

Unfortunately, I was biting my tongue so hard to keep from guffawing, I didn't have the strength to ask her about the plot. I imagine it would have made a damn fine Hollywood pitch on its own.

Thursday, August 24, 2000

In which I’m a bit distracted

Classes have begun and temperatures are pushing 100 degrees and it's quite humid and my campus office has south and east facing windows and shirtless boys are walking past wearing cutoffs and backwards baseball caps and toting ragged backpacks and occasionally brief rain showers catch them off-guard and they walk around soaking wet and curly blond locks plastered against a forehead combined with a rippled abdomen, corded calves and crooked grin are very distracting is all I'm saying, really.

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

Big trouble with little laptop

I like my laptop computer a great deal, always have. Something about the design aesthetic of Apple products attracts attention and generally, I'm always more than willing to chat for a bit with an interested passerby about my iBook while I sit sipping coffee and writing in a cafe. Ever the Apple advocate, I'm even delighted to demonstrate the features of what I consider to be a superior machine if the situation permits.

Lately, though, interest in my iBook seems to be at a peak, and the admirers are growing increasingly graceless and intrusive. While I do not feel compelled to apologize, I would like to say to the intensely curious gentleman from the airport: If you were scandalized or otherwise offended by the journal entry I was writing describing my evening of passion with a Jewish muscle boy from Los Angeles in considerable detail, may I suggest you consider next time waiting for an invitation before plunging your nose into my lap to ascertain my computer's screen resolution. Also, yes, that was your father orally pleasuring Ricky Martin in the desktop background picture. It looks as though he was quite enjoying it. Thank you.

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

A Conversation From the Bar Scene:

Jim: How about him? He looks like the marryin' kind.

Brad: Actually, he looks coked up enough to be the Marion Barry kind.

Monday, August 21, 2000

Homosexual panic sells! (Part II)

As you know, since The Daily Brad began publication in the late 20th century, we've been keeping an eye on the trend of using homosexual panic as a commercial tactic to make a product or service seem appealing to consumers. A number of our readers (two, actually) have written in to share their own sightings of commercials that fortify our theory America's fear of going fruity is sweeping the mercantile.

Alert reader Julie describes a commercial for the TiVo personal video recorder:

There are two bored children (oneof each sex) sitting on the couch while dad, full of enthusiasm, keeps up a running commentary on the finer points of all the sporting events TiVo has captured for them/him, oblivious to the children's lack of reaction. When figure skating appears on the screen, dad directs his commentary solely to the daughter who continues her disinterest while the son suddenly becomes animated, jumps up from the couch and begins to (for lack of a technical name) twirl. The father becomes agitated and demands the boy stop. The boy persists in his twirling, the father's annoyance (and is that a hint of panic I detect?) increases, and the demands to stop continue to be ignored. Commercial over. I am quite certain there must be some connection between a father's stupidity about the nature of sexuality and the desire to purchase a hot-rod VCR, though it escapes me at the moment.

Good catch, Julie! It escapes us too, of course, and in the wake of dad's obvious discomfort with figure skating, we're left to wonder "What would Brian Boitano do?"

Meanwhile, alert reader Steve points out a commercial for Kozmo, the web-based home delivery service. In this ad, a male shopper at the video rental store works up the moxie to check out the "adult" videos behind a curtain in the back of the store. Apparently weary of trolling the Internet for the same tired old hetero porn, he browses the racks briefly before being confronted by a fey gentleman clutching a copy of "Saving Ryan's Privates" or somesuch. The homo gives him a cruise more obvious than a Carnival luxury liner, causing the straight boy to freak and rush from the naughty section clutching a randomly selected tape, only to bump into a disgusted female patron. Chastened, he drops the video and bolts from the store.

The moral of the story? If you're hankering for some video stimulation to aid in your self-pleasure, order it in the privacy of your own home. Our friendly Kozmo delivery drivers will drop it off in 30 minutes or less and won't smirk derisively at you, you pathetic closet-case. We promise.

Have you seen a television commercial or other advertisement that blatantly trades on homo anxiety to push product? Let us know! Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

Sunday, August 20, 2000

From the Management

FROM THE MANAGEMENT: Updates have resumed at the happy little weblog that lives in The BradLands, rechristened "Must See HTTP" and moved into its very own directory on ye olde server. The weblog is now a Blogger project and its move paves the way for a variety of new features soon to debut hereabouts.

Meanwhile, we've decided on a more-or-less weekdays-only publishing schedule for The Daily Brad, with occasional special features or pointers to notable personal commentary elsewhere on the weekends. Of course we might change our mind but, as those of us who are fond of speaking in the third person often do.

For a starter, then, we recommend Derek Powazek's tale of pooping in holes and thwarting pre-adolescent muggers on his recent excursion to Italy, and for laffs, Greg Knauss' classic Damp Pants.

Friday, August 18, 2000

North winds bwow! South winds bwow!

North winds bwow! South winds bwow! Typhoons! Hurricanes! SMOG! Thunder, wightning, stwike the wabbit!! Under other circumstances, it would have been the perfect storm. There's nothing I enjoy more than a rousing thunderstorm on a summer night, cooling the atmosphere while providing a wicked light show, during which I can sit on the porch, sip a cool beer and let the heavens roil around me.

Unfortunately, I had elected to make a quick trek to my office and wound up stuck in traffic on the interstate for nearly three hours. The wightning had stwuck not the wabbit, but a bank of high-tension power lines, sending them crashing across six lanes of traffic and shutting everything down. Meanwhile, a horrid gale and horizontal rain (!) punished the pavement. And, having just departed a happy hour with friends during which I had consumed my own good share of beer, I had to "make wet wet" myself. Did I mention I sat there in the car for three hours waiting for the road to clear? Oui.

Consequences of the storm: downed power lines all over town (including sets that shut down traffic for hours on both major interstates running through the city), a few ancient trees along my street cleaved in twain, an interruption of phone and Internet service that left me largely unconnected most of the night and day and, most inconveniently, a deep-fried modem, ensuring that the mental ovens here at The Daily Brad would issue no hot-crossed puns and no bon matzahs (kosher bon mots, for benefit of the goyem in the audience) for the day.

We're back in business, so expect regular servings to resume in short order. We're contemplating closing down The Daily Brad on weekends, since foot traffic in this neck of The BradLands slows noticeably on Saturdays and Sundays and hey, when we said "daily" we actually meant whenever we get around to it anyway. We shall see. As always, though, we appreciate the pleasure of serving you, and we welcome your feedback. Please come again soon!

Wednesday, August 16, 2000

Home remedies

A partial list of things I have done to date which have failed to remedy my chest cold:

• Freebased Nyquil into a crystal, smokable form.
  
• Imbibed large volumes of Bud Light.
  
• Spent total of two hours over four days in the steamroom at the gym.
  
• Engaged in oral sodomy (homopathic medicine).
  
• Prayed for a swift and merciful death should said cold proceed unto the weekend.
  

Tuesday, August 15, 2000

Looking at all of Eric

What was it?! What was different about him? There was nothing to which I could point, no single characteristic that set him apart, and maybe that was it right there. The other men in my life -- the many I had known, the few I had loved -- were a part of my memory as anecdotes, events, single fragments of time that distinguished themselves somehow from others. But looking at him now, after all this time, there weren't any fragments. I saw Eric as whole cloth, one moment in his company inseparable from all the rest. I had only a holistic view of this man, only a single perfect image in mind. Fragments you can misplace or forget. For better or worse, I will never forget Eric.

Monday, August 14, 2000

Annual summer chest cold

Summer is proceeding right on schedule, evidenced by the arrival Saturday of my annual chest cold. For a bit, I'd dismissed Thursday's body aches as the consequence of a new upper body routine at the gym. The tickle in the back of my throat on Saturday morning I was willing to ascribe to...well, overdoing it a bit on Friday night. I was delighted to have a tasty Cuban dinner with Jazzy Jeff and Stinky, convivial conversation, good ale and mole with plantain chips, ample entrees, a perfect way to catch up with two old friends celebrating August birthdays.

I'd intended a post-prandial early retirement, but although Stinky had to depart to meet other friends arriving from out of town, Jeff wasn't tired and I was amiably disposed to at least a cocktail or two. Well, two became three and three begat four...it was around 4 a.m. when I wandered home. By mid-day Saturday, it was clear a week spent scurrying from air-conditioned environment to air-conditioned environment with long patches of heat and humidity in between -- coupled with a Bacchanal in a smoky, surprisingly chilly strip club -- had taken their toll on my respiratory system.

I've spent the past two days in cocoon mode: pushing fluids, sleeping a lot and poring over Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. At the rate I'm reading, I'll manage to finish up the fourth Potter book just in time for the release of the fifth. My pace has been, basically, sleep for an hour or two, get up, make a cup of tea, read three or four pages, lose consciousness, repeat. I'm still all achy and drippy, and with my work/sleep cycle now hopelessly askew, the busy week to come is going to be hellish.

Thursday, August 10, 2000

Homosexual panic sells!

I spent a fair amount of time early in my career writing pitches for radio and television commercials, so I tend to keep an eye on developments in the field. I await the annual doling out of awards for the best 30-second masterpieces each year with the same enthusiasm many people reserve for the Oscars. Those hour-long "racy commercials from other lands" television specials that the networks use as cheap-to-produce schedule filler are frequently more entertaining to me than most regular prime-time programming.

That's why it's surprising to me that a new trend in television advertising has, so far, gone unnoticed by the trade press and professional media analysts: the use of homosexual panic as a selling tool.

Perhaps you've seen the spot for the Kia economy car, where a goofy blond guy is seen rapturously zipping down the highway in a sporty red Kia. He hangs his head out the window, the wind whipping through his hair, and then gives the dash of the car a playful stroke with his fingers. Just moments later, the car comes to an abrupt stop and its hapless driver is hurled forward, his cheek pressed against the windshield like some sort of Nordic bug.

It is then that the camera dollies back and we see that the protagonist is, in fact, just riding in the car, perched atop a multi-tiered auto carrier. Enter a barrel-chested, long-haired rough trade type long-haul driver who commands the stowaway to "Get down from there!" There's some fine-print superimposed on the screen about mileage estimate and warranties and price while the announcer continues to extoll the virtues of Kia and then cut to the interior of the truck's cab, where the blond guy sits abashed and clearly dwarfed by the trucker. "So," the trucker says, leeringly glancing at the blond, "you're a Pisces too?"

The implication is clear: At the next truck stop, a horrifying anal rape is in the cards for the guy trying to enjoy the pleasures of Kia without benefit of purchase. Run, don't walk, to the nearest Kia dealership! If you merely covet but don't buy this car, we'll see to it that a predatory homosexual is dispatched forthwith to deal with you!

Why, that's just advertising gold.

Sprite is using homo anxiety to sell sugar water, too. Apparently, they're running some sort of contest where you collect bottle caps or coupons or something to trade for money and fabulous prizes. In this commercial, another blond nebbish is checking out the bulletin board in a high school hallway when a gorgeous female classmate approaches from behind, playfully gropes him and suggests that he and she simply must spend some time together.

The blond, Billy, barely has time to mumble his agreement when a second girl comes up and even more aggressively grabs him. As the camera pans down, it becomes apparent that she's not making a play for his lithe adolescent body but instead executing a methodical search of his pockets, questing for Sprite swag. Another sortie by yet another female cutie leaves Billy so flummoxed he drops his books and bends down to gather them.

Only then, from behind Billy -- dear, sweet, virginal Billy -- do we see another classmate approach, apparently intent on being the next to give him a rough and tumble shakedown for soft drink prize gold. It's a burly, goateed guy, a star offensive lineman for the school's football team, no doubt. "Hey Billy," he gruffly says. "What's shakin'?"

The panicked look on Billy's face easily communicates that he knows all too well what's shakin'. Although he wants only to collect his textbooks and beat a hot path to study hall, his rear flank is exposed and he's just moments away from being dragged into the boy's bathroom and introduced to the taboo world of sweaty mansex. That'll certainly leave you parched! Obey your thirst, Billy, and obey your swarthy high school daddy! More Sprite, please!

The most recent entity to exploit the commercial appeal of suggested sodomy is althletic shoe maker Reebok, which has caused a small sensation with its ad campaign sending up the CBS show Survivor. These spots feature Nate and Brian, a Mutt-and-Jeff duo of dubious intellect who have, it seems, embarked on a series of challenges similiar to those endured by the millionaire-wannabes on that damned island.

Here, we drop the pretense of any sort of daddy-boy dynamic; the Reebok company, we're meant to think, is far more egalitarian than that. No, we are meant to believe, I think, that these two stoner survivalists are dudes, buds, amigos. And so, in the recent commercial where the slighter of the two, Brian, is bitten in the wild by a poisonous snake, it's only natural that his compadre Nate gallantly offer to save his life by sucking the venom from the wound. And here, friends, we are treated to a staple of commercial comedy: the sight-gag. You see, the wound is situated so that, seen from the back, it appears that Nate is fellating his fratboy chum. Kissing the kielbasa. Adding a little Brian beef to his diet.

Brian, grateful to be averting death, becomes belatedly aware of this potential for confusion when a buxom female jogger happens by. Why she is doing laps in what we presume to be a deserted jungle is left unexplored, but little Brian, horrified at the implication he is being orally pleasured by his bro, roughly pushes Nate to the ground, willing to accept poisonous fate rather than be thought less than manly by the passing maiden. Oh, if only Brian had had the foresight to purchase Reebok cross-trainers before venturing into the bramble on his survivalist mission with Nate! Suitably shod, he could have reveled in the ministrations of his chum, savoring the warm, wet sensation of Nate's lips upon his skin while at the same time retaining his masculine birthright and remaining attractive to the fairer sex, even in the throes of man-on-man passion. "Reebok!", the commercial crows, "Footwear for the bisexual in all of us!"

I await other entrants to this advertising genre with a mixture of anticipation and dread. It is only a matter of time, I'm sure, before other companies recognize the opportunities for humor -- and consequently, increased profits -- by trading on homophobia and macho insecurity. Surely Proctor & Gamble can sell a lot of soap with some sort of wacky prison shower scene. And do I even have to point out the potential to the makers of Crisco?

Wednesday, August 09, 2000

Blue ballpoint pen ink

If you're going to be a writer, you really should step away from the computer now and again and practice your craft using pen and paper. There is something truly intoxicating in the aroma of blue ballpoint pen ink as it wafts up toward you from the page, mingling with the scents of coffee and cigarette smoke as it dissipates somewhere near the ceiling of a tres boheme coffee bar on a humid Monday night.

Tuesday, August 08, 2000

Disappointment

Is there anything more disappointing and frustrating than having driven a great distance to a drive-through fast food restaurant, ordered, paid for and received your lunch, then made a return trip to your office, only to discover that your requested condiment -- the very horseradish sauce that defines the sandwich experience -- was not included in the sack? (Aside from the betrayal by a lover or global war and strife, I mean.)

Monday, August 07, 2000

Fuck my G-rated life

I was almost involved in a car accident last night, a frightening near-collision during which my entire life flashed before my eyes. I'd always thought that was just an expression, but it actually happened. I have to say, I was disappointed. If my flashback had been a movie, it would have had an embarrassingly tame MPAA rating. As a result, I've decided to start swearing more. I'm also entertaining proposals for gratuitous nude scenes. Fuck yeah!

Sunday, August 06, 2000

A little sensitive

My friend Jill is one of the funniest people I know, always ready with a rant or a wisecrack appropriate for any situation. I call her a "lip-schtick lesbian."

The other day, The Actor, Jill and I were at Blueberry Hill for lunch. "Where were you all morning?" I asked The Actor. "I was trying to call you to see how your Chicago auditions went."

"I had some sensitivity in one of my back upper teeth," he said, "so I went to the dentist."

Jill sniffed derisively. "That is so typical of you men," she said. "You start to feel sensitive so you rush to a doctor, assuming something's wrong."