Monday, July 09, 2001

Well I’ll be darned…

Preparing to teach again has been an eye-opening experience. For the first time, I'll be responsible for a course at the university level, a somewhat advanced topic at that, and the process of preparing the class syllabus and instruction program has taught me more in the past two or three weeks than I probably picked up during my own college years.

The fact that a good portion of those years was spent playing ping-pong and sleeping my way through the available theatre majors may have something to do with that.

Friday, July 06, 2001

In which I Noah few people…

Becca had been enthusing almost non-stop about her new boyfriend and I was trying to be attentive, so I didn't see him until we were nearly finished with lunch. I turned in my seat as I pulled out my wallet to settle the check and noticed that Noah Wyle was sitting at the next table, dining with a woman and two other men.

Judging by the fact that Becca's eyeballs were nearly in my lap, she apparently noticed this at the same time as I. I believe her exact whispered words were, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." And so on.

"I should go over and say hello," I told her and, at that point, Becca gave up any pretense of controlling her optical nerves. She jerked her gaze away from the adjacent table and stared straight at me.

"You should?!"

"Yes."

Although we'd never met before, the young actor who regularly melts hearts as Dr. Carter each Thursday night and I have a couple of mutual friends, one of those odd and non-significant connections in a world where we're all separated by fewer and fewer degrees.

As we got up to leave, I took one or two steps toward the other table, cleared my throat and begged pardon for the interruption. I introduced myself to the actor and asked that he convey my regards to our friends. I then introduced Becca, who was thoroughly charmed when the arguably most famous man in the room extended his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Noah." He then named his dining companions, we chatted amiably for another moment or so, and then Becca and I left.

"Wow," Becca said. "Wow. Wow." That was pretty much the extent of our conversation all the way back to her office.

Upon on recounting this story to another friend, his reaction was equally apoplectic and entirely self-interested.

"Did you ask him out?" Kirk asked.

"No," I said.

"Did you get his autograph for me?"

"No."

"Did you tell him you had a friend who really, really wanted to have sex with him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I imagine, when you're Noah Wyle, you pretty much take that last one as a given, no matter who you're introduced to."

Wednesday, June 27, 2001

Remembering Jerry

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.

Monday, June 25, 2001

A Conversation From the Pride Festival

Terry: Can you believe those lines at the food booths?

Brad: They're not that bad.

Terry: Not that bad? I had to wait nearly 45 minutes just for a Coke and a foot-long.

Brad: I've been waiting 17 years for a foot-long. It's all relative.

Friday, June 22, 2001

…hard to do

When The Actor and Craig split up about a month ago, I was devastated. It was like Hope and Michael, the thirtysomething poster couple had decided to call it quits, or maybe Bo and Hope from Days of Our Lives. I don't know, something to do with hope. Maybe the wounding of it.

After all, even if I hadn't been the one to bring them together I had, at least, nurtured their coupling, encouraging them individually to bring the best of themselves to it and hoping that, through them, I could divine something of the secret to maintaining romance and all the other more practical considerations of being a mid-30s/early-20s pair. When they'd begun to get serious, after all, I was still smarting from the hash of things I'd made with Jason. If I treated them like the control group in the sociological experiment my social life had become, I would like to be forgiven for having only the best intentions.

And that's not to say, of course, that I did anything untoward or unnecessarily interventionist to give love a little nudge; they were doing swimmingly on their own. They set up joint housekeeping in September and began to more deeply explore each other's respective worlds. The Actor schooled Craig in the capricious ways of the circuit; Craig gave his elder partner master classes in pragmatism and, if not responsibility then, at least, decorum.

Naturally, our group took to Craig instantly, and I adopted a big brother posture, inexplicably paternal in my desire not to see him absorbed by the party blob that The Actor and The Twins and their ilk comprise. I don't want to give the impression I'm anti-circuit -- far from it -- but it can be a little overwhelming to a foundling protofag, just dipping his toe into the roiling waves of flesh, pharmaceuticals and fashion.

I needn't have worried. Craig took what he liked and left the rest, and he had a much needed moderating effect on The Actor. They became, for a short while, a rarity: The sane circuit couple, pretty men, devoted, head over heels (and vice versa) for each other, buying into the party scene but sensible enough not to go for the second mortgage with points for the Black Party.

They adopted a golden retriever. They shopped together in the Michael Graves section at Target. They had (by The Actor's reports -- Craig was characteristically circumspect on this matter) fantastic sex. The Actor's mother adored Craig and even more importantly, so did his chosen family. The Giant Queen pronounced them a "smart fit."

I meddled a little, yes, but only benignly, warning The Actor over brunch not to fuck it up with this darling boy, cautioning Craig on what became our Thursday night Will & Grace tradition not to take any of The Actor's smelly, posturing macho guy guff. I was pleased to be constantly reassured by The Actor that he had found "the one," and by Craig that they were happy together, carelessly discarded socks, insipid puns and all.

Three weeks ago, two months to the day after the party where I'd given the boy a Donald Duck cookie jar to mark his 22nd birthday, Craig moved out, The Actor moved on, and the rest of us were left to muddle out who, in this to-all-appearances amicable and no-fault divorce, gets custody of the friends.

There is a vague tension floating over our little family right now, unknowable but palpably real. There is a story here, and no one is ready to tell it. But it involves, I think, the wounding of hope, and only time will tell if it has been given a glancing blow or a mortal injury.

Thursday, June 21, 2001

An excerpt from the autobiography of an anonymous author

The sweetest thing he ever said to me was this: "I guess I have to thank you for showing me it was possible to love again, to feel again. I know now what it means to trust another man, to trust completely and without reservation. Your compassion and your...passion are a gift, and I am so lucky you have given them to me."

And we sat there in the light of the flickering candles, and we cried a little, and I said, for the first time, "I love you very much" and he sniffed and said, "I love you too" and we held each other for a very long time.

And then he left that night, just walked out the door and never really came back, although we saw each other every day and talked on the phone for hours at a time and said absolutely nothing of consequence to each other. He walked out the door and took with him my trust, compassion, passion and ability to love and feel without reservation, and to say "I love you very much".

And I've only just begun to get them back, a little at a time, without anyone's help. Because the only gifts that really count, that you can really count upon, are the ones you give to yourself.

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Jeff: Sometimes I look around and think of all these different types of men as elements on the Gay Occasional Table.

Brad: You mean periodic table?

Jeff: Whatever.

The Giant Queen: That would explain the heavy metal twink you took home Saturday night then.

Jeff: And you would be a noble gasbag.

Brad: OK, what about that guy over there?

Jeff: Bearium. You can tell by his mass.

Brad: And him?

Jeff: Trolline. Bitter, acidic.

The Giant Queen: He's given this some thought.

Brad: And the blond number by the bar?

Jeff: I'm not sure, but I'd bet if I bought him a drink, I could convert him to Trickium.

Tuesday, June 19, 2001

All growed up

Immediately after it happened, there was a long, vast silence. My mother and I both stood there, frozen on the steps. I looked into her eyes with the horrible realization that when she looked back at me, she no longer saw me as her little boy. I had just offered evidence to the contrary. I was now -- and irrevocably -- a man, and this prospect saddened her, a little bit or a great deal, I couldn't be sure. The moment passed like a hot, humid summer night: slowly and with no comfort whatsoever. But it passed, and we went about our task and we never, ever talked about it.

It was the Sunday afternoon before Memorial Day, I was 32 years old, and I had just said the f-word in front of my mother for the first time.

We had been moving redwood furniture from the basement to the patio, just two chairs, three small side tables and a chaise. This last was my undoing, since it required mom to take an end while I navigated the light but unwieldy lounger through the basement door and up the narrow concrete steps ascending to the surface. "Don't pull," I cautioned her before we began. "Just guide it up. I don't want to go too fast and have you fall over backward." My mother tut-tutted at my concern, but seeing my scowl and obvious concern for her safety agreed not to pull.

I hefted the chaise and began to maneuver it through the door, up one step. Two. Three.

And then she pulled.

She negotiated walking up the steps backward with aplomb. My mother was never in any real danger, except from the knowledge that at some unknown time between potty training and this day, her son had developed a sailor mouth. Her unexpected tug on the end of the chaise caused me, holding tightly to the other end, to lurch forward. There was the briefest of moments when my head and the concrete doorframe of the bunker-like basement tried to occupy the same space at the same time and failed.

The laws governing matter thus adhered to, I saw stars and, almost simultaneously, said "Fuck!!!"

There may have been four exclamation points. Perhaps five. Despite the rapidly rising goose egg on my noggin, I was coherent enough to hear the word carom off the other houses in our neighborhood and echo faintly for an instant or so before the silence began.

My mother's mouth described a small O-shape and we held each other's gaze -- mine likely slightly more unfocused -- for that long, long moment. I looked down, away, my head throbbing, my brain still vibrating within my skull, with both pain and horror at what I just had done. I gathered my breath, looked up and slurred, "Lesh try sat again."

Up and up we went, while I replayed the last minute in my possibly-concussion-addled mind: In the same situation, rapping her head, my mother would have uttered a quiet "Damnit." It was her curse of choice, infrequently invoked and almost dainty coming from her lips. My father would have been more colorful, likely letting loose with a "Hell's bells" or "son-of-a-bitch". I never heard anyone in my family use stronger language than that, and certainly not the f-word, which polite people such as I were raised to never say.

To her credit, my mother did not pull and the chaise emerged from the basement without further incident. She went inside to begin fixing supper. I went to the bathroom to dab the blood from my head and the tears from my eyes, crying just a little not for the pain but for losing the last vestige of my childlike innocence.

After supper, while we cleared the table, my mother said, "The patio stuff isn't holding up well. The basement is too wet. We should store it in the garage this year." She gave me a small smile.

"Yeah," I said. "That's probably a good idea."

Monday, June 18, 2001

Alpha Male: G

Grocery Stores: I love grocery stores. Not shopping, per se, but just wandering around the aisles marveling at the quantity and variety of foodstuffs can entertain me for an hour or so. The cereal aisle alone is good for 15 or 20 minutes.

My dad was in the grocery business, 40 years with IGA mostly. At one time, he owned three small grocery markets in our county, plus two dry goods stores and a restaurant. He thrived in these endeavors, and strongly discouraged his son from ever becoming a grocer. Such was the dichotomy of my father's pride in his profession and his love for me: he loved the grocery business but knew my feet were on a different path.

So I come by my affection for grocery stores naturally, almost genetically, and although I generally prefer to shop in small neighborhood markets like the one in which I practically grew up, I share my dad's fascination with the trappings of the modern supermarket: the massive butcher department and meat cases, the produce section with automatic water spritzers, the wine and spirits section as large as my first apartment, the latest in automatic price scanners and cash registers.

As a child when our family went on vacation, my dad treated regional variations on these themes as destinations as exciting as Sea World or Yosemite. Many is the hour we passed in strange cities, oooh-ing and ahhh-ing appreciatively at the manifold variety of Von's, Ralph's, Kroger, Piggly-Wiggly.

Dad's IGA store in my hometown was tiny: three aisles of canned goods and bread delivered twice a week, plus one check lane where shoppers' orders were rung up on a hulking, brass-encased register with thin metallic numbers that popped up and displayed the total when you turned a crank. There was a stockroom in back that seemed cavernous to a five-year-old and a tiny office where my father fretted over inventory and ran a successful business without once balancing his checkbook in four decades.

Near the end of his life, even ten years or more after he "retired" and sold the store, dad thrilled when he and mom came to visit me in St. Louis and I took him to the newest and ever more elaborate incarnations of Schnucks or Dierbergs. He regarded Sam Walton as a genius businessman and, at the same time, recognized that Sam's success was going to be the death of small stores like his own. He got out on his own terms, before it came to that, and truly enjoyed visiting our area's first Super Wal-Mart, prowling the soulless aisles of produce and packaged dinners, awed at the efficiency and inevitability of it all.

We used to joke that at one time or another, everyone living in our tiny little town had either worked for, stolen from or traded in my father's IGA store, and that was damn close to the truth. I know I did all three myself. I love grocery stores because they remind me of my dad.

Friday, June 15, 2001

Nine True Things and One Blatant Lie: The Lie Revealed

1. I have been arrested twice for trespassing.
   
   True. Both occasions came during protests of the Gulf War, one in Atlanta and one in St. Louis, during sit-ins at Army recruiting stations. In both instances, the charges were later dropped. The only other transgressions on my rap sheet are a few parking tickets and a speeding ticket.
   
   
   
2. The first time I ever ate sushi was on a date with Majel Barrett.
   
   True. Several years ago at a Star Trek convention in St. Louis, I was waiting on line to get her autograph for my mother, who is a big fan of her character on Star Trek: The Next Generation. As I neared the table where she was signing, she mentioned to her assistant that she wanted to get sushi for dinner and asked her to find a good restaurant. When I approached, I mentioned that friends had told me that Ted & Teiko's was the best sushi restaurant in St. Louis. "That sounds delightful," she said. "Will you join us?" That night, I tasted my first sashimi in the company of the daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx and Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed.
   
   
   
3. I had a small walk-on role in a fifth season episode of Frasier.
   
   False. I have never appeared in Frasier or any other NBC sitcom. Such a role was offered as one of the "celebrity items" in a charity auction at a professional conference I attended, but sold for several thousand dollars more than I was willing to part with. At the next year's conference, a second walk-on was up for bid and raised a near-record price, all for a good cause.
   
   
   
4. I have never fired a gun with live ammunition.
   
   True. Various amateur and professional stage roles have required me to fire pistols and rifles loaded with blanks but I have never fired a gun loaded with real bullets, nor do I have any desire to do so.
   
   
   
5. I paid for part of my college education by writing pornography.
   
   True. Under a pseudonym, mostly for cheap chapbooks and a few glossy magazines, and largely forgettable stories. My "stash" of these stories was lost in 1995 when my basement was flooded. No big loss.
   
   
   
6. I am missing the tip of the middle finger on my right hand.
   
   True. My mother accidentally closed my hand in a car door when I was in the second grade. We were only minutes away from a hospital at the time and fortunately, an excellent plastic surgeon was able to sew up the wound and graft skin from my right arm to cover the missing finger tip. I had to wear an enormous bandage bundle on my hand for nearly a month, but the injury healed far faster than my mother's nerves.
   
   
   
7. I was once threatened with suspension for coming to school in drag.
   
   True. During homecoming week in my sophomore year, the Pep Club sponsored an "Opposite Day". Several of the football team -- including me, as manager -- came to class dressed as cheerleaders, while the cheerleaders donned football uniforms. The principal (who was also the athletic director) ordered us to change our clothes. If we did not, the team members would not be permitted to play in the coming game and I would have received a one-day academic suspension. We caved, but later exacted revenge through an ingenious prank.
   
   
   
8. I have visited every American state except Alaska and Hawaii.
   
   True. I've also been all across Canada and hit some of the high points of Europe. I really want to go on a cruise to Alaska. I am ambivalent about visiting Hawaii, except for a sense of completeness.
   
   
   
9. I have performed on stage completely nude.
   
   True. In the 1998 New Line Theatre production of David Dillon's Party. I played Ray, the smart-mouthed, showtunes-lovin' priest.
   
   
   
10. I missed being valedictorian of my high school class by one-tenth of a percentage point.
    
    True. My choral music instructor claimed he never gave anyone a perfect grade because no one was perfect. In my senior year, that meant the difference between first and second place in my graduating class. One of my best friends became valedictorian. I got out of having make a speech. It was a win-win.
    
    

Thursday, June 14, 2001

A BradLands Flashback

Originally published on pre-permalink June 14, 1998

Sitting out on the back deck last night, communing with nature in the detached way that urban dwellers without the wherewithal for a visit to the country must, I saw my first firefly of the season. First one, then another and then a handful more. It reminded me of when I was a little boy growing up in New London, scampering about my backyard after my playmates -- always neighbor boys older than me, since I was the youngest on the block -- had gone in to supper or ridden their bikes across town to other diversions.

I would roam around for an hour or so, capturing the glowing insects in an empty Miracle Whip jar with airholes punched in the lid with an icepick. (I remember I thought that was the intended use for the implement; I'd never seen anyone use an icepick for another purpose.)

Maybe that's a useful demarcation for when childhood ends and adulthood begins, that time when we stop thinking about containing the glow of fireflies and other gentle creatures and are content merely to have them swirl around us.

Wednesday, June 13, 2001

Sit .com

I sometimes imagine that I am the star of a situation comedy. I picture myself in the opening title sequence, driving down the highway to a bouncy, optimistic theme song...kind of like Bonnie Franklin, escaping to the big city of Indianapolis in One Day at a Time with Mackenzine Phillips and Valerie Bertanelli in tow.

I am the star and in my sitcom, I have changed my name to Lucky.

I have changed my name because all of the great sitcom leads have two syllable names and Brad just doesn’t cut it. Think about it: Lucy, Mary, Rhoda, Phyllis, Alice. Then again, all of the great sitcom leads I worship are also women, but I am only willing to go so far to secure my fame.

Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Observed

Sexually-oriented chat rooms are perfect for guys who find that phone sex involves way too much intimacy.

Monday, June 11, 2001

Nine True Things and One Blatant Lie

1. I have been arrested twice for trespassing.
   
2. The first time I ever ate sushi was on a date with Majel Barrett.
   
3. I had a small walk-on role in a fifth season episode of Frasier.
   
4. I have never fired a gun with live ammunition.
   
5. I paid for part of my college education by writing pornography.
   
6. I am missing the tip of the middle finger on my right hand.
   
7. I was once threatened with suspension for coming to school in drag.
   
8. I have visited every American state except Alaska and Hawaii.
   
9. I have performed on stage completely nude.
   
10. I missed being valedictorian of my high school class by one-tenth of a percentage point.

Can you spot the outright falsehood? Answers on Friday.

Friday, June 08, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Jeff: What about that one? He's cute. What do you know about him?

Brad: Why do you always assume I have a mental dossier on every man you want to take home?

Jeff: Because you usually do.

Brad: I think he goes to Wash. U. His name is Mitch, or maybe Mike, but I usually hear people call him "Trooper" or "Troop." I don't know why.

Jeff: Mmmm. Maybe he's in the military?

Brad: You're picturing dog tags on your nightstand right now, aren't you?

Jeff: He's adorable.

Brad: He's very young.

Jeff: So? He could be chicken Troop for my soul.

Thursday, June 07, 2001

Observed

It's a sure sign your date is not well-versed in pop culture or camp when you mention Peaches and Herb and he thinks you're talking about a Clinique facial scrub.

Wednesday, June 06, 2001

Embarrassing Photographs of Brad on Official Documents

SIXTH IN A SERIES. COLLECT THE WHOLE SET. TRADE THEM WITH YOUR FRIENDS!



I ran across this a few weekends ago while sorting through a half dozen boxes of old files cluttering the small upstairs room that has been destined for five years to become a gloriously large walk-in closet and is finally fulfilling its destiny.

My friend Michael and I traveled to England together in the winter of 1997, staying in a little hotel in Brixton and tubing into the city or other points of interest each day. Our leisurely stroll to the Underground each morning took us past The Fridge, an imposing gay nightclub, and -- to my Anglophilic delight -- several of those red cylindrical post boxes, the likenesses of which grace die-cut postcards sold for 75p in the shops.

Because we would be there exactly one week, we both took tourist passes for the Underground, allowing us essentially unlimited travel for a modest price. The pass kit consists of a green TravelCard -- indicating its valid dates on the front and with a magnetic strip on the back permitting it to be fed into the automatic turnstiles -- and a photo ID card, pictured above. The TravelCard, we were assured by the earnest, blowsy and balding gentleman who sold them to us, was not valid unless accompanied by the photo, to be produced upon demand.

Naturally, in seven days, we were not asked to produce a photo corroborating our identities even once.

I'm ambivalent about this photo, although as quickly processed photobooth style pictures go, it's really not half bad. My hair is much longer than it's been in some time, but I still manage to display The Enormous Forehead of Doom. Four years later, my hairline is still receding at a pace on par with the dollar against the pound.

That's not a mullet style, by the way, just the shadow produced by the flash, I swear.

Tuesday, June 05, 2001

Alpha Male: F

Falling: I am afraid of falling. From great heights, I mean, not stumbling and landing on my butt. And I am not afraid of heights. I can visit the very top of tall buildings or mountains, so long as there is not the possibility that I will actually plummet from them.

For example, I can come to a party at your penthouse apartment in the Empire State Building but do not expect me to saunter out onto the balcony and gaze placidly over the edge. Do not, under any circumstance, expect me to walk over a high bridge, particularly one that carries vehicular traffic, thereby increasing the possibility that a car will nudge me over the side. After just a few floors, glass-walled elevators make me woozy and I will insist on standing right by the doors because if I am near or -- God forbid -- leaning against the glass wall, it will pop out and the last thing I will hear in my life is a loud splat, I just know it.

In Spring Green, Wisconsin, there is an amazing museum called the House on the Rock. It's this odd, former private residence of a man who created amazing sculpture and retained some of the most exhaustive collections -- dolls, carousel horses, antiques of every sort -- you'd ever expect to see. I've been there many, many times.

The last time I visited, in 1993 or 1994, there was a new attraction called The Infinity Room. Essentially, the Infinity Room is a corridor constructed of over 3,000 glass panels (top, bottom and both sides) that juts out 200 feet over a seemingly bottomless wooded valley. You can walk all the way to the end of the room and back, marveling at the 360 degree view.

You probably could. I couldn't. I walked out, and made the mistake of looking down. As nearly as I could tell, the only thing preventing me from a sudden and sharp plunge to the unseeable forest floor was a thin layer of glass. I panicked. I could not make myself turn around and walk back to the room's entrance. I could only look straight ahead and will myself to breathe.

After what seemed like an hour and a half but was probably only a couple of minutes, another brave visitor wandered out. Seeing what must have been a pale, stricken look on my face, he asked if I was okay. "I. Am. Afraid. Of. Falling." I said this to him, as evenly as I could.

"Well, if you weren't when you started out," he said, almost jovially, "you would be by the time you got here. I'm feeling a little queasy myself. What say you and I go back?" And with that, he took me by the arm and, keeping up a pleasant conversation about where I was from and what brought me to the area and oh-my-wasn't-the-carousel-wonderful?, guided me back to terra firma.

Monday, June 04, 2001

A Conversation From the (Piano) Bar Scene

Brad: Wow, I haven't heard this song in a while.

Chuck: It's the very definition of a standard, something that can be done over and over again in many different styles and still hold up.

Brad: Yes. Like you.

Chuck: Precisely.

Monday, March 26, 2001

Our day in the park

The weather was gorgeous, though, and thousands upon thousands of homosexuals (including a couple hundred with cute pooches in tow) flocked to Tower Grove Park for the doings. After four years in this locale, they've finally gotten the layout right: booths lining a shaded walk, mainstage in the sunny circle of the park, necessary services off to the side.

I must admit to skipping the parade (call me when they start calling it a "march" again, please) and I will also skip my rant about the fact our St. Louis festival was organized, in part at least, by a marketing company based in Seattle. In the end, the manifold corporate sponsorships were appropriately played down, and I guess if it keeps the festivities free, I can't grouse about the rare event held open to everyone in town, regardless of their pocketbook.

It was a decidedly non-political day all around, save for fine speech by Barbara Smith, with the obligatory reminder of the interconnectedness of oppression and the moral necessity of "all for one and one for all" in political organizing. Other than that, even the folks getting ready to launch the whimsically named MONA (Missouri Non-Discrimination Act) stayed in their booth and waited for folks to ask them what's up. I practically had to beg the sole referendum huckster I saw on the grounds to show me his petition. The gay agenda, it seemed, had adjourned for the day.

The "-fest" portion of the event, though, was very much in evidence, passable cover bands, a decent DJ in the dance pavillion and enough rainbow-encrusted crap available for purchase to keep me stocked for the next 365. It certainly warms the cockles of my cynical fag-activist heart to see gayboy larvae gyrating to the sounds of Labelle, even if they do recognize "Lady Marmalade" only from the recent Moulin Rouge movie remix. Giuchie, Giuchie, ya ya dada, boys, "Hello, hey Jo, you wanna give it a go?".

There should probably be some sort of rider in the contracts of mainstage performers spelling out a limitation on how many covers of "I Will Survive" and "We Are Family" are permissible in a four-hour period. I danced or at least wiggled a little whenever they were played, anyway. An anthem is an anthem, after all.

As always, I ran into people I hadn't seen or dated in ten years, and others I had hoped to avoid. I caught up with friends I see only once or twice each year, and made some new friends besides.

I used to believe that the only way gay people were going to be accorded civil rights and respect were if we collectively began to act as though we already had them. That isn't the case, of course, but it certainly felt like it on Sunday.

How delightfully distressing. How distressingly delightful. What a swell party it was.

Wednesday, March 21, 2001

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Brad: He doesn't have much of a personality, does he?

Tim: Well, as personality goes, what he lacks in quality, he makes up in quantity.

Tuesday, March 20, 2001

Look at these jazz hands!

The touring company of the musical The Civil War -- or, as I like to call it, "Up With All People Being Created Equal" -- opened tonight in St. Louis. This led a couple of us to wonder, "What might a show tune based on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address sound like?"

We decided it would be something akin to the theme song from Gilligan's Island. No, really. Try it...

"Fourscore and seven years ago

our fathers brought forth on

this continent a new nation..."

...and so on.

OK, perhaps it works better after a few beers.

Monday, March 19, 2001

Departmentalized

The sign near the grocery door apologizes for the dust and says they're "remodeling our store for your shopping convenience." As it turns out, this does not mean they're moving the beer closer to the entrance or training the bag boys to be more receptive to amorous advances. Instead, they're installing a mini-branch of a bank at which I do not have an account, a florist, a coffee bar, a one-hour photo lab, a video rental department and an booth where I can get fitted for glasses or contact lenses while the seafood department steams a lobster for my dinner.

This is happening everywhere. A once-cozy bookstore I used to frequent has expanded to three floors in a massive building occupying a whole city block. Now, in addition to books and newspapers, there's a smart bistro on the mezzanine overlooking a vast selection of specialty clothing, adjacent to sections where they sell cards and overpriced gift items, videotapes, computer software, DVDs and compact discs.

Not to be outdone, the store where I buy compact discs has begun stocking t-shirts, assorted leather clothing, magazines and books. They also have a coffee bar...but so does my dry cleaners. No, seriously.

Yes, the record store sells books! The bookstore sells records! The Sam's Club store down the street sells a case of Comet cleanser -- more than anyone could possibly use in a lifetime -- for $14.99, underpants by the 144-piece blister-pak and radial tires that they'll install for you while you have your hair done at their in-warehouse salon.

I don't want to come off sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, but I plainly remember when bookstores sold books. Just books. At music stores, you could find records and tapes without tripping over a tapas bar on the way the jazz section. And what might you expect to find at a food market? Food, as astonishing as that might seem.

There were stores that sold more than one type of item. I recall it distinctly: they were called department stores, huge structures looming over the urban landscape -- two, three, sometimes even five or six floors of clothing, music, appliances, even radial tires.

But such old-fashioned merchants were outmoded, we were told. Specialization, m'boy! That's the wave of the future. Why settle for a small selection of books here at Sears when you can patronize this gleaming monument to literature down the street? Every title you could possibly want and more! Why choose from only one or two leather jackets on display at JCPenney's when The Leather Barn has racks and racks and racks of just leather jackets?

Well guess what? The Leather Barn now stocks blue jeans and jewelry and cocktail dresses, none of which feature leather as a component. There's a coffee bar in the back, I just know it, and it's just a matter of days before they wedge some Kenmore washer and dryer sets in behind the belts. Everything's becoming a department store again, but nobody's talking about it.

Friday, March 16, 2001

Happy, really

It's a lazy afternoon, a stark respite in the middle of the glorious, exhausting go-go-go I've committed since arriving Friday. But here we are poolside, smoking and soaking up sun, gazing at the distant hills in a place where fifteen minutes takes about a day and a half to pass. I'm thankful for whatever anti-entropic force has wrapped us up in time and made us the beneficiaries of forever.

Patrick is sitting on the tile poolside, Indian-fashion with his head between my knees, so he has to reach up and behind him to pass me the pipe. I toussle his hair and take a deep drag, then lean back and slowly, slowly exhale into the endless, impossibly blue Texas sky.

"You could move here," he says.

"No," I say. "I couldn't."

"No," he agrees, "I guess you couldn't. It'd take a damn crowbar to pry you out of your safe little happy life, wouldn't it?"

"My life isn't all that safe."

"But is it --"

"Yes," I say. "It's very happy, thank you."

Patrick shifts and wraps his arms around my left leg, resting his face against his clasped palms and staring out on the rippling water. "I love you, you know," he says. "Can you believe that?"

I take another long pull on the pipe, feeling it now, willing myself to relax and pleased to find myself complying. "I do. I believe that," I say. "Of course, I believe in a lot of things that may or may not be real. Unicorns. Santa Claus. Bisexuals."

He turns his face toward me.

"I love you too, Patrick." I touch his face with the back of my hand, feel the warmth of his cheek and wonder how things might have been different had he decided to stay, had I not been gunshy of crossing another line.

We have a complicated relationship, this man and I. A complicated relationship, as if there were any other kind. A long history between us that's really little more than an eyeblink, and a deep, abiding affection that, distilled to its essence, is equal parts longing, need and complementary neuroses, with a soupçon of sex.

Matt returns from the house where he's been involved in a long phone conversation. He takes the pipe when I offer it. He tilts his head toward Patrick. "Is he proposing marriage again?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Crazy Mormons."

"No one's living in the guest house right now," Matt says. "You could move here."

"Don't you start," I say. "No. I couldn't." And, plucking the pipe -- now down to the dregs -- from his hand, I push him into the pool.

Thursday, March 15, 2001

Alpha Male: E

Elevators: I have this attraction/repulsion thing going on with elevators. As a child, I loved elevators, everything about them. I loved pressing the button to call for them and begged my mother to let me do it every time we approached one, even if she had to put down her parcels and hold me up so I could reach it. I loved riding on elevators and I was especially fascinated by the glass-enclosed sort that run outside a shaft and ascend in an office or hotel lobby so you can see and be seen while you ride. In high school, I did an entire history project on the Otis Elevator Company and learned more than most people probably care to know about the technology behind the elevator: how the cabling works, the sophisticated electronics in modern elevator traffic systems, how a relatively crude but effective safety mechanism keeps the car from plummeting to the bottom of the shaft (most of the time) in the unlikely event the cable from which it is suspended snaps.

But, oddly enough, armed with all of the knowledge, my most frequent recurring dream is of being in an elevator car when it begins to descend unchecked and at a high rate of speed. I always awake before the car reaches the squishy-splat-sub-basement, but the next time I approach a lift after one of those dreams, I seriously consider steering away and taking the stairs. It is not a full-fledged phobia; I never wuss out entirely. And -- thank St. Otis -- I have never been trapped in an elevator, felt as though I were in danger while riding in one, even so much as had a car in which I was a passenger arrive slightly out of plumb with the floor and had to step up or down while disembarking.

I accept elevators as a fact of modern life, venerate them as a remarkable invention that enabled majestic mountains of steel and glass to soar ever skyward. But I guess, on some subconcious level, I don't entirely trust them.