Monday, January 07, 2002

A Conversation From the Bar Pub Scene

Mark: If he keeps smiling at you, why don't you go over there and talk to him?

Brad: It's kind of discouraging. While I was at the bar, I heard him introduce the tall fellow as his lover of four years.

Mark: Well, he's cute too. What's the problem?

Brad: True. I certainly wouldn't mind arranging a little menage à...mostly him.

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

London’s calling

In what seems to be becoming a more or less biennial tradition, I'll be making a trip across the sea as a holiday treat to myself. Yes, friends, that means Brad is jetting to London for seven decadent days of theatre, shopping, museums and the pulsating vibe of the city's infamous nightlife. As such, neither The Daily Brad nor Must See HTTP are likely to be updated until after the first of the year.

I know that this site, in particular, has seemed a bit moribund these past few weeks. I can only attribute my slack to a very busy couple of months (opening three shows in four weeks can take its toll) and to a bout of uncharacteristic holiday-time ennui.

The goal of The Daily Brad was, largely, to force myself to write something everyday. It has never been intended as a daily journal or diary, nor should readers take everything here as the gospel truth. Some events are recorded days, weeks, even years after they occured and some names have been changed or obscured to protect the guilty, for none of us is really quite innocent.

Over the holiday, I'll spend a bit of time contemplating whether I want to continue this or whether something else might better serve my muse. Don't fret, for I won't be abandoning writing here entirely on any account. If nothing else, after all, I owe it to myself to be the best damn kudu I can be.

Here's wishing each and every reader of The BradLands a bright and happy holiday, however you celebrate, and best wishes for a safe, happy and healthy new year. Mwah! Mwah!

Monday, December 17, 2001

When I am the owner of a major consumer electronics retail store

• Customers who ask to see the owner's manual, installation guide or warranty card for any product on display will not be treated as though they have just requested the clerk recite pi to 300 significant digits.
  
• When asked if a product will work with a Macintosh, my employees will not respond by saying, "No, USB only works on PCs."
  
• They will also not ask, "Maybe. Are you running Windows 2000 or Windows ME?"
  
• Challenged to describe the differences between CD-R drives and CD-RW drives, if any of my clerks say simply "Well, CD-RW can do a lot more stuff", I shall bop them on the head with a baseball bat (which I will affectionately refer to as "The real Memory Stick") and then, probably, fire them.
  
• All of the PDAs on display will be real working models, not plastic "non-functioning unit" shells with obviously fake displays. I will also not hide every damned stylus behind the counter, forcing customers to scrawl Graffiti with the nail of the index finger.
  
• Each customer who makes a purchase will be asked once, at most, if they also wish to purchase an extended warranty. If they decline, the clerk will conclude the transaction and wish them a pleasant day.

I will also very probably immediately fail and go out of business because, based on tonight's shopping experiences, clearly I don't know a damned thing about customer service as it is practiced in the modern consumer electronics industry.

Friday, December 14, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene: Arcane Semantics Edition

The Giant Queen: OK, boys, I'm heading out.

Erik: See ya later, darlin'!

Jeff: Oh Lord, you're starting to sound just like Brad.

Erik: What?

Jeff: Haven't you ever noticed the way he calls everyone "darlin'"?

Brad: Cool! My meme is spreading!

Jeff: Your what?

Brad: Meme. It's a fancy word for an idea or concept.

Jeff: I see. For a minute there, when you said it was spreading, I thought it was a fancy word for your ass.

Brad: I don't call everyone darlin', you know.

Jeff: Sure you do.

Brad: Not you...bitch.

Monday, December 10, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene: Retro 1998 Edition

Ryan: So, how was your weekend? How was Kansas City?

Brad: Fine. Fine. Say, do you think it would be wrong to sleep with your gynecologist?

Ryan: What?

Brad: Just a hypothetical question. Say you ran into him at a bar, had a few drinks, chatted, danced a little, and eventually decided to go home with him. Would that be wrong, do you think?

Ryan: (blank stare)

Brad: Anything ethically wrong with that, you think? Or morally?

Ryan: Why are we --

Brad: OK, OK, so say at the time you slept with him, you didn't know he was your gynecologist. You just thought he was this cute, funny guy who sort of reminded you of someone. And he didn't recognize you either. And it was just one night. And when you both discovered that he was, in fact, your gynecologist, you were both duly freaked out by it and went your separate ways.

Ryan: Please tell me you don't actually have a gynecologist.

Brad: Gynecologist? I'm sorry. Did I say "gynecologist"? I meant to say "second cousin".

Ryan: (uncomfortable silence)

Brad: So, um, how was your weekend?

Tuesday, December 04, 2001

Link & Think: Cocktail Conversation

Originally published on May 22, 1999.

Jeff and I are lingering near the buffet, jealously coveting what remains of the hors d'oeuvres. However, since I was late to arrive to the party, what remains is merely a few molecules of hummus, a slice of veggie pizza that no one dares contemplate and roughly 500 mini-quiche of indeterminate content.

Jeff has no qualms about the quiche, and punctuates our conversation by popping them into his mouth at random intervals.

"So I told him I saw the same shirt at Goodwill for $1.25—" (Pop. Pause.) "—and his little shit-eating Mark Shale grin just slid right off his face."

Since I haven't seen him in almost two months, I am delighted by Jeff's company, but not by this particular bit of chat, a litany of fashion-victim reports from the bars. I scan the room in hopes of finding something juicy and gossip-worthy. Jeff knows Everything about Everyone who is Anyone, but just now, I can't unearth any subjects about which I'm curious.

I only vaguely know the host of this party, an A-Gay who made his pile through treachery and smart investing and now, as nearly as anyone can ascertain, sustains his fortune merely by making a few phone calls a day and spending the rest of his day ensconced in a Clayton office, scowling at computer printouts.

More interesting, visually at least, is his partner Darin. A former circuit-fixture, Darin all but disappeared from the scene a few years ago. Buff and beautiful, feckless and charming, his absence was noticed at the very first tea-dance he missed. Gradually, word trickled back that he'd been caught by the aforementioned A-Gay and installed in this very Central West End apartment as the latest Hubby to the Rich and Fabulous.

News also reached the party set, through a somewhat more convoluted set of correspondents, that this was no short-term romance. The A-Gay and Darin were set up for permanent housekeeping. Oh, and by the way, rumor had it, the A-Gay is dying.

"Sweetie, could you peek behind that fern stand and tell me if there's an electrical outlet?"

I turn back to Jeff, and he repeats his request. Trying to balance my drink and the piece of salmon-encrusted filo I managed to snag from a passing cater waiter, I bend slightly to my left. "Yes," I say, "there is an outlet back there. Why? Do you have a set of hot curlers in your pocket?"

"No," Jeff replies. "I'm just happy to see you. Did you happen to notice, when you went to the john, if there were three bedrooms or four?"

"I didn't notice, and what's with the sudden interest in the local architecture?"

Jeff momentarily contemplates scarfing another quiche, decides against it, sips his rum and coke and whispers conspiratorially, "There are rumblings that there may soon be a vacancy at the Hotel Set-for-Life."

Two thoughts occur to me simultaneously. The first is that, absurdly, with gaggles of gorgeous men present, Jeff is spending his time cruising the apartment. The second is that Darin is nowhere in sight.

"Two words," explains Jeff. "Separate vacations." Darin is in Mexico for two weeks. The A-Gay is headed for France just after his lover's return.

"Really!?" I say. This certainly qualifies as Good Dish, primo stuff. Darin and the A-Gay, once they had transcended the jealous rumblings wherein were mentioned terms such as "boy toy" and "sugar daddy", seemed to constitute a model of stability.

"Mmmmm," says Jeff. "I hear they're headed for a cocktail divorce."

An image of a well-sauced Elaine Stritch, robed up as a Sondheim-inspired Judge Judy, flashes through my mind. I shake it, then ask Jeff to explain the term.

Apparently, so the grapevine has it, the miracle of protease inhibitors—mixed into pharmaceutical "cocktails", coupled with prescription steroid therapies and the very best personal training money can buy, have both rescued the A-Gay from the brink of mortality and rendered upon him an outrageously wonderful body to match his outrageously wonderful bank balance and lifestyle.

Thus equipped, A-Gay suddenly finds himself beset with offers of, well, shall we say, companionship from boy toys with which the likes of Darin can never compete. And, Jeff further elaborates, the A-Gay has accepted many of the offers. Many, many of them, it seems.

"I am thinking," Jeff says, "of tossing my hat into the ring."

Jeff is joking, of course. For his gossipy bluster, he too is appalled that the A-Gay's vision is blinded to Darin's long-standing loyalty and obvious affection. From what I know of the pair, though that is precious little, Darin loved—loves—the man, not the money. And the A-Gay, so most believe, loves the Darin, not the Adonis.

So, a "cocktail divorce," then. Neat as you please.

The party is starting to wane, the complicated algebra of an open bar in a swank apartment balanced against gyrating flesh on a dance floor somewhere in the city beginning to work its way through the brains of the circuit set and effecting departures.

As the crowd thins, I notice finally the host, the A-Gay, surrounded by a worshipful crush of bedmate-hopefuls. I note, with no surprise, that our Jason is among them. As a relatively fresh face in town, he may triumph tonight.

I finish my beer and amble with Jeff to the door, mentally adding "temporary insanity" to the list of noxious side effects the current regimen of AIDS drugs entails. I think of Darin, who went south of the border as his relationship, beyond his control, simply went south and hope that it is, indeed, temporary.

Jeff is making a comment about the size of the coat closet in the foyer, and how there's scarcely room for two furs, but his heart isn't in it.

Monday, December 03, 2001

Link & Think: Thanks, Jerry…

Originally published on June 27, 2001.

Ten years ago today, my friend Jerry — a true smartass and one of St. Louis' greatest fabulists, then or since — died after living with AIDS for nearly a decade.

The day before, I sat at his bedside and held his frail hand and asked him what I should say at his memorial service. He had specifically asked me to give the eulogy and, knowing his temperament in this life, I thought it best to consult him, lest he be unsatisifed and haunt me in the next one. "A bitchy kaftan-clad ghost is the last thing I need following me around," I told him.

He laughed at this and there followed a long period of hacking and wheezing. His lungs had been filling up with fluid faster than they could be drained. Jerry was a skinny-dipping hippie from way back, an expert and elegant swimmer. The irony that he would be drowning now, at the end, was a source of some amusement to him.

When he found his breath, he turned to me and said, "Remind them that life is a fatal, sexually-transmitted condition."

When I repeated that line a week later, half of the mourners gasped and the other half tittered at Jerry's parting shot. Jerry's mother who, before the service, had been at least stiffly polite when introducing me to his delightfully droll granny as one of Jerry's "...er, friends" glared at me from her seat and never spoke to me again.

A tight clutch of Jerry's "...er, friends" adjourned to Clementine's after the memorial for an ersatz wake.

"Leave it to him to come up with such a kick-ass version of 'carpe diem'," said The Giant Queen.

"Latin was never Jerry's style," said Norman.

"Well, there was that one comely thing from Brazil," the GQ shot back. We laughed and laughed and told dozens of stories about our fallen friend.

We closed the bar that night and the next day, Paul and I called over to Sparta and signed up for skydiving lessons, something we'd talked about often but never made time for. A doctor friend had told me it might ameliorate my intense fear of falling and Paul just loved a thrill. When the instructor asked why we were interested in learning to jump, I told him we'd just been diagnosed with chronic life and didn't know if or when we'd have another chance to do it.

I miss you terribly, Jerry. Come back and see us sometime. I promise not to make a crack about your outfit. You always did look good in feathers, and I know you've got some damn fine wings. Thanks for helping me find mine.

Saturday, December 01, 2001

Link & Think

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day, and The BradLands is participating in Link and Think, a global observance of World AIDS Day in the personal web publishing communities. Formerly "A Day With(out) Weblogs", the project involves hundreds of webloggers, journalers, diarists and other personal website publishers, each linking to resources about HIV/AIDS or publishing personal stories about how the AIDS pandemic has affected them.

There are links to several news sites, St. Louis area resources and other HIV/AIDS-related websites over at Must See HTTP. Beginning Monday here at The Daily Brad, a few stories about my experiences living with HIV and AIDS.

AIDS is not over, but 20 years of AIDS is enough.

Tuesday, November 20, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Brad: You know, I've been wondering —

Twin A: If you should have worn that sweater with those pants?

Brad: No. I've been wondering —

Eric: If Mariah Carey will ever find the perfect movie role to showcase her vast and unique talents?

Brad: No. C'mon now! Lately, I've wondered if —

Jeff: You'll ever be capable of forming a stable relationship with another man, considering your inability to honestly express your emotions, dubious sexual prowess and utter lack of fashion sense?

Brad: (smoldering glare)

Eric: We're sorry, sweetie. What have you been wondering?

Brad: I forgot. But right now, I'm wondering if I'll manage to make it through happy hour without cracking this bottle over Jeff's head.

Monday, November 19, 2001

Expo-sition

I spent almost two hours yesterday wandering the aisles of the new Expo Design Center out in Manchester. It's an upscale decorating warehouse, a division of Home Depot. Good gravy! If I thought the Home Depot was tres gay before, the indoor lumberyard has nothing on the Expo Design Center.

First of all, I've never been much of a decorating guy. I apparently didn't get that feature in the Homosexual Genetic Assortment Pak I was assigned at birth. But walking amid some two dozen display bathrooms and kitchens, I found myself giddy at the prospect of a $4,000 subzero freezer. I think the eight-nozzle shower and steambath assembly with coordinating claw tub and marble two-basin lavatory actually gave me an erection. I know I was happy for the 64-page sale circular to hold over my belt buckle.

I had only one impulse greater than the one to open a line of store credit and completely redecorate our house ("Twin convection ovens and a granite-topped island with an under-counter 98-bottle wine refrigerator, you say? Sure. Why not? Put in on the card.").

Shadowing me throughout the store was a young couple shopping for their new home with twin 11-year-old boys in tow. At display after display, the boys cooed appreciatively over brass drawer pulls and fancy bathroom faucets. In the lighting department, one of them actually exclaimed, "That chandelier is divine!"

I managed to supress my desire for a new stainless steel dishwasher or a $5,250 patio set. What was really hard was not rushing out to my car to dig up a P-FLAG brochure for the parents.

Monday, November 12, 2001

I got yer midday segment right here

I spent 20 minutes on the phone today, pitching dates and times back and forth, trying find a mutually agreeable period for my friend Paul and I to get together for drinks or lunch or dinner or something to celebrate my birthday.

Twenty minutes on the phone...with his secretary.

In my circle, it's usually a joke when someone says "Have your people call my people; we'll do lunch." Usually. I'd bumped into Paul leaving The Complex a couple of weeks back and he'd said he'd be in touch. "Gotta catch up," he said.

His secretary administrative assistant, Janine, called around 11 a.m. and, in clipped tones, explained that she had Mr. Decker's book in front of her and would Tuesday the 27th be good for me, say around 2?

It wouldn't, actually, and there the negotiation began, hampered only somewhat by my incredulity that my convivial celebratory glass-lifting with my friend of ten years had been reduced to an action-item for his staff.

We finally settled on a luncheon date, three weeks after my birthday, after much effort on Janine's part to dissuade me from "the midday segment."

"How about 10:30?" she had asked.

Yes, I said stiffly. 10:30 a.m. is just what I had in mind when Paul suggested we get together for lunch "or something". "Something" at 10:30 would have to be a PowerBar and protein shake, I imagine.

I know he's busy and out of town and I know Janine was just doing what she was told and I'm probably being a little petty bringing the whole thing up since the end result is that I'll get to spend time with a good friend.

But so help me, if I ever have my assistant call you to schedule an activity not directly related to our business, you have my permission to march directly over to my office, bop me on the nose with my to-do list and insist that I reorder my priorities.

Thursday, November 08, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Eric: Did you see that they're testing Ecstacy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder?

Brad: I'm going to regret introducing you to MetaFilter, aren't I?

Eric: Can you imagine? Club drugs as a treatment for trauma. What do you think?

Brad: I think it explains rather neatly how I managed to put up with most of your bullshit at The Complex throughout the early 90s and avoid strangling you.

Wednesday, November 07, 2001

Words matter

Wherever the blame lies, the postal system is a little more fluky than usual right now, so my Hallowe'en card from mom just arrived, a goofy bit of Peanuts sentiment that only really works when you finally figure out it's supposed to be Snoopy under the sheet who Lucy is talking to and not Linus.

Affixed inside with a pumpkin sticker is a crisp $20 bill, under which mom has written "I thought you'd prefer a 'treat' to a 'trick' this year!"

I love her, but I've really got to start acquainting mom with the vernacular.

Tuesday, November 06, 2001

Our place in the world

Sometimes I think that the reason midwesterners exist is to explain things, in words of three or fewer syllables, to everyone else. We're awfully good at it. Just look at Walter Cronkite: he was one of us and, even after years out of the daily public eye, is still revered for his ability to make a complex world understandable and a little less scary.

If we can't explain something, we have a failsafe fallback: an arsenal of folk stories and homespun maxims, learned at the knees of our fathers and grandmothers. We can spin them out with considerable vigor and animation and, by the time we reach the climax, you will have forgotten why you considered the matter important in the first place.

Thursday, November 01, 2001

An excerpt from personal correspondence, November 1, 1994

...I am making a beginning, a recovery and reconciliation of my heart and mind that will take all of my strength and will to accomplish. I have to do it.

I keep reminding myself — as you’ve more than once advised — that there was a time before I felt this way and that there will be a time, however distant, when I will regain some of what it seems I have lost or misplaced of myself. That it has taken me this much of my life to feel — to be able to feel or to allow myself to feel — this way about another person is frustrating and a little sad to me.

But I guess it’s also a bit like opening Pandora’s proverbial box: now that I know I can really, truly feel this way, I can hope that someday I will again and for another who actually feels the same in kind.

I'm not quite ready to declare "mission accomplished," but I am pleased to say that, albeit seven years later, I feel fit enough to return to active duty.

Wednesday, October 31, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Danny: I heard Steve was moving to Australia. Is that true?!

Brad: Yeah, he said he felt as if his life was going down the drain here and he wanted to make a fresh start.

Danny: Knowing Steve, his life will still be going down the drain in Australia.

Brad: Yes, but in the other direction.

Monday, October 29, 2001

This is now…

They stand there by the door, the campus crowd moving around them. They are close together, but not too close, talking quietly, frankly, laughing now and shuffling feet, moving here and there but always close.

They are young, 18 maybe, 19? All blond and baby fat and backpacks and baggy pants and I wonder: Is it obvious to anyone but me that these two are in love? Well, not in love, maybe, but definitely doing it, shifting awkwardly and naked in a twin bed, ironically named in this case because except for their respective heights, these two could have shared an egg.

I've seen the tall one before, late at night leaving the computer lab and on his way to the library. Lithe and lanky, he's a head above his friend, who is always in motion and who, if I had to guess, was probably on the lacrosse team in high school so long ago, six months, maybe eight in the past.

And the tall one throws his head back suddenly and lets loose a laugh. He moves his hips as he does, in a motion that is 51 percent swish and 49 percent swagger or maybe the other way around. I've straddled both sides of the cocky/nelly ratio too often for too long to retain my objectivity on the matter. But he laughs and puts his hand on the shorter guy's shoulder and with a brief backward look, they part company and go in different directions across the quad.

I watch the little one for a moment, his back and his head bop and his Jansport loaded with Macroeconomics 100 and Honors Seminar precis notes receding as he walks with a decidedly more lopsided butch/fey equation toward the student center. It's 2001 and they barely touched each other and yet it was so, so clear that, for the semester at least, these two would be sharing secrets, revealing pasts, mingling presents, imagining futures, bumping uglies and being boyfriends. Clear to me, anyway, and I seldom call that wrong.

Fifteen years ago, they would have been Eric and me, brown instead of blond, with tighter pants but still the same young lust given new lease. We would not have been satisfied with a touch and a laugh, that guy and I, though. We were about getting out there, making it clear, producing public displays of affection with the alacrity of Busby Berkeley given a newly built pair of staircases. We kissed in public a lot, I remember, very in-your-face and in love for a semester or two, and in his pants and in my twin bed.

Fifteen years ago, I guess we had something to prove and we held hands when we walked through the mall and we went country line dancing because that's what you did then and I made sure that everyone knew we were in love.

Everyone but him, as it turned out, but the point is that we were flamers, flaunters, 51 percenters who showed off. A declaration of esteem. A demonstration of love. A money shot in the last battle of the waning hours of the sexual revolution.

We did it with a kiss and a lingering touch, and everyone noticed and none dared call it wrong. They do with the a laugh and a passing embrace, and everyone knows and none care. What will it be like, I wonder, 15 years from today?

Thursday, October 25, 2001

Things I Had Planned But Am Unlikely to Have Done Before My 33rd Birthday, One Month From Today

(A partial list)

• Acquired "abs of steel"


• Figured out how to fund my holiday trip to London


• Finished writing a novel


• Begun writing a textbook


• Waded through a sea of anxious ankle-biters to see the Harry Potter movie


• Re-read Ulysses


• Received a birthday kiss from the only man I've ever really truly loved


• Been to paradise


• Been to me

I thought Debbie Harry promised this century would be much better for a girl like me. Once again, I have been seduced and rejected by the myths of popular culture.

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

Catching up with that old gang of mine

Maybe it's the sudden unsure footing on which we all find ourselves emotionally these days, when planes crash, building crumble and little, if anything, seems permanent anymore. Maybe it's just the annual turn in the cycle of death and rebirth that attends autumn, intensified on this particular circle by some unseen or, at least, unheeded force. Maybe my moon is in a bad house or my stars are falling (astrology is not my long suit).

It certainly isn't wedding bells, as the old refrain goes, but something sure seems to be breaking up that old gang of mine.

The Actor finally resurfaced. I got a call late Monday night from him, sounding only mildly contrite for bringing me and all of his old friends to the edge of worry and leaving us perched there for weeks. Frankly, among my motivations for visiting New York — his last known whereabouts — last week was an optimistic hope I'd bump into him on the street.

Why, he'd been in London, he enthused! Having a perfectly wonderful time, doing a part in a small film, taking in the sights, filling up the nights, luxuriating in the city's life while we all, figuratively at least, sat by the phones here and chewed our nails. Seems he was swept off his feet (no mean task, considering whatever substance he can claim is not in his performances but in his frame) by another devotee of the craft and followed his new romance across the Atlantic.

By the sound of it, he's going to ride out the remaining few weeks on his Chicago place and flee across the ocean for good. Ordinarily, a new adventure with the opportunity for both romance and career advancement would have me cooing encouragement to him right and left. Instead, the abruptness of his decision — coupled with his self-imposed communications silence these past many weeks — left me able only to mutter a brief "I'll be thinking good thoughts for you" and hang up the phone, wondering who is this person I've known for over a decade. Who was he?

People change, I know. Craig certainly has. After he broke it off with The Actor, he dipped his toe into the "being single" pond and, apparently deciding the water was just fine, cannonballed right on in. Our at-least-bi-weekly movie dates have gone by the wayside and I receive periodic updates — although never from him directly — suggesting that the boy I'd once praised as a level-headed, temperate influence on his older boyfriend has become...oh, let's not put too fine a point on this — Craig's having a slut-rific life these days.

I bumped into him a couple of weekend's back, while Danny and I were lifting a beer at Clementine's. He was wearing a leather harness and sporting two more piercings than I remembered him having or wanting when he first came into our fold. (He hinted at a third, available for private viewing, which I declined.) With his crop-cut and cocky swagger, I must say he wore it all pretty well. "Let's catch a movie sometime, eh?" I said.

"Yeah," he shot back, "let's do that", and slipped along the bar, draping his arm across the back of a man I recognized as one of Jason's regular "clients" from a few years back.

The Twins both got pink-slipped recently, early casualties in a spate of retail layoffs hereabout. That's bad timing all around, since the duo who were once my favorite circuit fixtures were just beginning to get serious about adopting a kid. They bought a house back in June, too; the inaugural post-decorating party was set for next weekend but now no one's heart is really in it.

And the Giant Queen, of all people, is talking about retirement, world travel and a migration to San Francisco. "Honey!" exulted Jeff when that little bit of news came out. "That's wonderful! They'll just eat you right up out there." Cupping his hand over the phone's mouthpiece, he turned to me and muttered sepulchrally, "He's over 50. They'll eat him alive."

Jeff? Well, Jeff's life is getting ready to change too, but he has no idea how and I, for the moment, have been sworn to secrecy. I have a role to play here, and an opportunity to knit together what bits remain from the gang.

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Save the date

It says something, I think, about the resilience and elasticity of the American economy that, even in these uncertain times, there is an entire store in the shopping mall devoted to selling nothing but 2002 calendars.

I would think this is a unique corner of the American mercantile, but there are also stores in the mall which sell only socks, only neckties and — I am not making this up — only decorative faceplates for light switches.

But the calendar store represents an opportunity to do some real good. When you've finished reading this, I want you to go to the mall, the office supply store or the bookstore and do two easy things:

1. Buy a calendar. Not only will your purchase stimulate the economy, as our leaders are urging us to do, but you'll also brighten your own life with the zany antics of Garfield, the grinning gobs of those milquetoast *NSYNC boys, or the still sublime Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoons. (Hell, go out and buy one of those handheld computer calendars or Palm devices or overpriced Sony geegaws. That'll be even more stimulating.)

2. Remind yourself to give. Pick a day, say Thursday. Make plans to give blood on that day. When you get back from the donation center, having spared a pint and noshed on some juice and cookies, take out your previously purchased calendar. Mark the same day eight weeks in the future, and then eight weeks after that, and so on. Plan to give blood on each of those days. Everyone got excited and rushed to give blood when there was a perceived, urgent need a few weeks ago. But the need never goes away, and the excitement and urge to help shouldn't either.

Fellow citizens, buy a calendar and use it. It's good for you, and it's good for America.

Monday, October 22, 2001

Satellite conversations

I suppose you could say the date went well, but conversation with Jerrod was a halting struggle. Talking with him was like having a satellite conversation. You know the sort I mean?

A satellite conversation is one where you feel as though your words must first travel across a vast space before reaching your date. You say something or ask a question and there's a pause, during which the other person just sits there absolutely still and stares at you blankly for a few seconds before responding. Several times over dinner, I'd make a comment and there'd be an appreciable lag time while my words were transmitted around the world, and then Jerrod would respond.

I felt as though we were playing CNN. Jerrod was Christiane Amanpour — smart and stylish, a statuesque beauty — standing in the middle of some desert and I was Wolf Blitzer — rumpled but probing and interested — back in the studio. If there's going to be another date, I hope we can arrange to be on the same mental continent.

Friday, October 19, 2001

The first time after

When they tell you to arrive at the airport three hours before your appointed flight time, they mean it. It's better to be safe than sorry, even if being safe means you occasionally have to spend three hours at the airport.

I was scheduled to leave St. Louis last Saturday at 7:24 a.m. for a long weekend of relaxation in New York. I generally operate on the premise that the best preparation for relaxation is to almost completely exhaust oneself. Fortunately, we were opening a play at The Rep on Friday and the post-performance party didn't wind down until nearly 2 a.m.

There was no point in attempting to sleep. A couple of hours at home, packing my bag and playing with a dog who can be frisky on demand any hour of the day, and I was off. I arrived at Lambert Field at 5 a.m. exactly.

To my surprise, the curbside check-in was open for business, so I marched right up with my bag and my itinerary and my ID. The skycap checked all my papers, entered my particulars in a computer and informed me that TWA apparently had absolutely no idea I was planning to fly on that day. "You'll have to get in line for a ticket agent," he said.

This was my first indication that my carefree weekend might not be nearly so free of care as I had imagined. The line to which he pointed was so long — stretching in a zigzag through the terminal, out the door and along the curb — that I could have saved the cost of parking and joined it just after stepping out the front door of my house.

I joined the line at 5:10 a.m. To their credit, the hard-working folks of TWA plowed through the throng with dispatch and I made it to the counter just after 6:30, albeit desperately wishing a Porta-John had been installed somewhere along the circuit. The several sodas and cups of coffee necessary to remain conscious this long were taking their toll on my bladder.

Joe, the friendly ticket agent, again punched my particulars into his computer and confirmed that...he couldn't confirm anything. Although I had a confirmation number, an e-mail outlining my planned journey, and a charge for the ticket on my credit card, he couldn't issue me a boarding pass. "There's no shell in the computer," he said, as if that explained it all.

"Ah," I said, as if I understood. I crossed my legs and waited while Joe punched more buttons.

Herewith, a summary of what Joe and his computer did for the next 45 minutes: Punch, punch, punch, beep, scowl. Punch, punch, scowl. Beep, beep, punch, beep, scowl. Repeat.

Finally, after enlisting the help of someone named Ida, on the phone presumably in some secret ticket agent bunker at a remote location, Joe found the elusive shell (Punch, scowl, punch, beep, beep, "Aha!") and printed out my ticket.

"You're on flight 140, which departs from gate C26 and begins boarding at 6:45," he said.

I looked at my watch. It was now 7:15 a.m.

"And do you suppose," I asked, "I'll be able to get through security, past 26 gates, and — and this is most important Joe — to pee, before the flight departs at 7:24 a.m.?"

Dear, sweet, predictable Joe scowled.

"No," he said. "No, I suppose not. Would you like me to book you on the next flight out?"

Grateful for any eventuality that would put me in front of a urinal in the next quarter hour, I agreed and hoped desperately there were now plenty of shells — whatever the hell they are — in the computer. Sure enough, a few punches, beeps and minutes later, I had a ticket on the 10 a.m. flight.

Nearly three hours away.

The first few minutes of that time I spent happily micturating in a freshly scrubbed restroom across from Starbucks. And then, proud to be part of the eternal circle of life — consume, excrete, etc. — I strode to the counter and bought a tall latte.

Clutching my cup of precious caffeine in one hand and my even more coveted ticket in the other, I joined the line at the security checkpoint around 7:30 a.m. Except for the metal detectors and x-ray devices emitting more beeps and bells than a phlanx of nickel slot machines, the queue resembled, I thought, an anxious crowd waiting to board the Star Tours ride at Disneyland.

(With nothing to do but "people watch" at this point, I idly wondered to myself if Disney had closed or renamed the otherwise entertaining "Tower of Terror" rides.)

As I neared the front of the line, I overheard the uniformed guards asking each passenger with a bag if they were carrying cell phones, laptop computers or other personal electronics. I thought about the contents of my briefcase: iBook, PCS phone, battery charger, digital camera, assorted cables, power adapters and dongles. Just beyond the grey arches of the metal detectors, I could see camouflage-clad National Guardspeople sternly keeping watch over the procession.

"Do you have a laptop computer, cell phone or other personal electronics with you?" asked the vaguely distracted guard when I had my turn.

I began to unzip my tote to remove the items in question. "Yes," I said, "I've got the whole shooting match in here."

Note to self: Do not say "shooting match" to an airport security guard during times of national panic. Colloquial banter is neither ignored nor properly appreciated.

After a hand search of my bag, passing through two metal detectors (Beep, beep? Belt. Beep? Watch. Beep? Uh...too much iron in my diet?) and undergoing a personal search during which a heavyset guard with a Joe-worthy scowl swept over my body with a long, flat wand resembling an elementary school principal's instrument of corporal punishment, I was permitted to repack my things.

"Sorry about this," the first guard said to me, while a hellaciously cute Guardsman looked on.

"S'OK," I said. "I've got plenty of time to kill."

Note to self: Do not say "time to kill" within earshot of skittish but cute members of the armed forces at an airport security checkpoint. You'll get another going over with the wand and a stern scowling at.

It's just after 8:30 a.m. and I'm through the gauntlet, headed down the concourse toward my gate with only a backwards forlorn glance at the Burger King where a clerk who looks as tired as I feel has just announced, to gasps and wails from the hungrey crowd, that there are no more Croissanwiches to be had.

I take a seat in the passenger lounge, sip the dregs of my coffee and begin to look forward to taking a nap in the city that never sleeps.

Thursday, October 18, 2001

Observed

It is almost always harder to change a thing than it is to make a new one.

This is especially true of an idea or belief.

Or a person.

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Steve: I think I'd really enjoy working for Microsoft. I read an article that said Bill Gates treats his employees like family.

Brad: You know, every time I hear that, I'm reminded that Joan and Christina Crawford were a "family" too. Sort of puts things in perspective.

Friday, October 12, 2001

Skyfall?!

I wasn't at all apprehensive about boarding a plane and heading off to New York this weekend. Frankly, although I fly all the time and hardly give it a second thought, I've really never entirely believed in airplanes.

Sure, I understand the rudiments of science that make jet travel possible, but I've always operated on the assumption that planes were nothing more than long, metal bumblebees, physically incapable of sustained flight and held up not by lift and jet power, but by faith. They are held aloft, I thought, by our collective belief in them, the same way the national economy is — more or less — held up because everyone seems to share the delusion that little green pieces of paper have some worth.

So, yeah, winging off to New York tomorrow didn't concern me in the least.

And then the FBI announced that they heard from a guy who knew somebody whose brother's second cousin's girlfriend said there might be another attack or two on the United States "in the next several days." The code name they assigned to this tidbit of "information"? Skyfall.

Skyfall! Great mother of Chicken-fuckin-Little, can you imagine being the public relations officer on watch when that beauty hit the papers?

So for most of today, I was as skittish as a hen about boarding TWA 468. More than twice I considered scrapping the whole trip, excited though I was about hugging old friends, seeing a couple of shows and a city I haven't spent more than a couple days at a time in for more than two years.

At 5:04 p.m. today, though, my nervousness vanished and my resolve to live my life unmolested by terror returned.

Why? Because the gods smiled upon me and said, "You wanna see The Producers, eh? Sure, why not? Will third row mezzanine seats for the Sunday matinee be OK?"

"Yes," I answered in humble suplication. "Yes, that will be very, very OK."

I'm going to see The Producers on Sunday afternoon at three. And that means I'm getting on that plane tomorrow. That means if anyone, for any reason, tries to bring that plane down and kill people and cause mayhem and fuck with my vacation and my chance to see the hottest show on Broadway, I'm gonna scream like a banshee and kick 'em hard in the nuts.

Give my regards to Bialystock and Bloom, and tell 'em I'll be there 'ere long.