Last week, several of us schlepped Uptown to a small-ish indie-ish bookstore to hear Dan Savage read from his latest book. Honestly, I’m not much of a fan–his work is nice and forthright, though it doesn’t really do much for me–but everyone else wanted to go, and I was the only one with a car, so we went.

In person, Mr. Savage was, of course, charming and cute and well-versed in his subject matter. He was also clever–in the mildly deprecating, vaguely envious British sense of the word–and occasionally glib. In fact, although he was discussing topics of wider import than his usual sex column fare, his tone remained the same.

Which led me to wonder: is this why the anti-intellectual Right doesn’t take liberal logic seriously? Can Lefty, iconoclastic authors like Mr. Savage ever compete in the national dialogue with vehement adherents of conservative values like Ann Coulter? Is this why we’re always fighting an uphill battle–because it’s so much harder to “think outside the box” (a phrase I despise) and develop new paradigms than it is to stick to the status quo?

Not that I want to lay blame for the failure of liberal ideology squarely on Mr. Savage’s shoulders. I mean, the Louisiana governor’s race demonstrates all too clearly the inability of Democrats (i.e. today’s liberals) to articulate new political and social strategies–all while conservatives simply trot out the same old chestnuts they’ve been harping on for the past 20 years.

Clinton represented a great middle ground: a thoughtful intellectual and an affable good ol’ boy. Who’s next?

Reasons to Celebrate

1. Wendy Cope is alive and well, which means she can continue to pen verses that get stuck in my head for weeks on end–verses like the following, which the boyfriend used to recite to me when we was a-courtin’ (I should have known something was up):

Higgledy-piggledy

Emily Dickinson

Liked to use dashes

Instead of full stops.

Nowadays, faced with such

Idiosyncrasy,

Critics and editors

Send for the cops.

2. It’s the feast day of St. Josaphat of Polotsk, who suffered a visually interesting martyrdom but was otherwise a dullard of a saint, brought down by nothing more sinister than bureaucracy–despite the intervention of some very noble Jews.

Woo-hoo! My boyfriend becomes even more famous this week with the launch of Mr. Denton’s beautiful, sexy, and so totally not work-safe FLESHBOT!

I’m sure someone in the media is going to laud it as “porn for the thinking man and woman” or–even worse–as “hyper-erotic hypertext” (which sounds, like, really lesbianesque). In point of fact, though, it’s just reviews of and links to really interesting masturbatory material. As Mayor Quimby’s buxom spokesmistress once said, “Gentlemen, start your whacking!”

To paraphrase Jerri Blank: If Aguilera and [Vanilla] Ice were Rumsy and Rice, Saddam would have been a non-issue.

Yeah, I admit it’s a little weak–is there anyone else from the MTV set whose name rhymes with “Rice”?–but as this article explains, the point is valid: infiltrating countries via music and culture may be slower and less predictable than sending in the troops, but it’s a great way to effect significant, long-term change. In fact, a couple of years ago, I toyed with the notion of taking a position with the Department of State as a cultural diplomacy officer, where my job would have been to lead such covert operations. Unfortunately, I had to decline the offer once I learned that Colin Powell goes positively nelly for Rogers and Hammerstein and would likely have me pushing Oklahoma in drought-stricken communities where the thought of corn as high as an elephant’s eye would bring not applause, but salivation.

Still, I’ve said it before (but I’m not browsing my archives to find it): if we’d thrown Brittney in a burka in the late 1990s and sent her on a tour of Afghanistan, the world might be a very different place.

In the past week, I have…

• lost two pounds and gained one.
• endured no end of phlegm thanks to some sinus mishegas.
• decided I’m finally going to read Jane Eyre.
• rewritten and begun rehearsals for our annual holiday extravaganza.
• succumbed to peer pressure and done that whole tribe thing.
• remembered how much I like Bartlett pears.
• been passed over for the position of spokesmodel for Chanel No. 5.
• decided I really, really need an honest-to-yahweh vacation.

Which, I guess, is another way of saying, “what else is new?”

The internet can do many things for us. It can bring us closer together through email. It can spread news and other useful information with ease. And, as demonstrated by one particularly well-developed, non-work-safe heteroporn engine that allows users to search titles by fetish–including agalmatophilia, missing teeth, roller skates, ugly women (though not, unfortunately, ugly men), and vomiting–the internet can also reassure folks that there are lots and lots of freaks out there that make some of us look stable by comparison.

You may not know it to look at me, but I’m pretty anal. I recently went through a pile of photographs dating back to junior high and arranged them chronologically. I then dove headlong into a stack of our theatre company‘s reviews and organized them by production, then subdivided them alphabetically by media source. And last night at 10pm, knowing that my car was running on empty and that I’ve got traveling to do later this week, I put on some shorts and schlepped to the gas station for a fill-up.

But that’s not why I’m writing.

Driving home last night, I was listening to the radio, and I heard this song…. I don’t know who wrote it, and ultimately it doesn’t matter: what’s important is the feeling it evoked. It had a dreamy, soothing, Cocteau Twins kind of sound–the very sound I found so engaging when I first became fascinated with New Orleans a decade and a half ago. Back then, I’d drive into the city with friends, and we’d cruise up and down St. Charles Avenue, windows open to the humid night air, listening to gauzy alterna-rock. I wouldn’t say that those were golden days or even that they were carefree; in fact, it was a fairly difficult time for me, trying to reconcile my (somewhat) straight frat rat facade with my evolving awareness that I really, really like to kiss boys. It was, however, a memorable time in my life–one filled with rituals and comfortable routines.

Last night, it wasn’t just the music that struck me: the song coming from the radio, the time of night, the temperature of the air, all combined to effect a flash of recognition and remembrance. Every so often this happens, like an intense physical/emotional recall, and for a split second, I’m Uptown, hanging out with an early crush. Or I’m back in junior high, on my first day at a strange, new school. It’s a fleeting experience, and try as I might, I can never hang on to it for very long.

Let me reiterate: what I felt last night was not some smarmy, wistful, weepy-eyed, Bruce Springsteen-inspired “glory days” moment. It was not nostalgia. Nostalgia is a warm and fuzzy thing–literally translated, nostalgia is “a returning home.” This was not that. This was the shock of the deja vu, as disorienting as time-travel. This was visceral and breathtaking and significant and disturbing. This was reliving, not remembering.

“Brian, the Power-Bottom Bear”
(previously published as “Brian the Poo and His PlayStation 2”)

from my forthcoming book of gay bedtime stories, Night-Night Sodomite

Brian was angry. “How could Teddy say no?” he wondered aloud. He looked at Jerry the Gerbil, sitting quietly in his cage, nibbling on a piece of arugula. Brian stared at Jerry, waiting for him to answer, but it didn’t happen. It never did. Sometimes Jerry made Brian feel more alone than he already was.

Brian went to his bedroom and stood in front of the mirror. ‘Why, there’s nothing wrong with me at all!” he thought to himself. “My head is tan and my hair is short, just like Teddy likes.” Brian turned around and craned his neck to see his behind. “Firm and fuzzy like always.” He leaned over and peered into the mirror from between his own legs. It was funny to see the world upside-down! “My woo-woo couldn’t be any cleaner,” he said, “so it’s not that, either!” Brian stood up too fast and got so dizzy, he fell on the floor. Whee!

Laying there on the shag carpet, Brian thought about Teddy. He remembered seeing Teddy at a birthday party the week before. It was a fun party–there was cake and ice cream and a pony and a sling! And then everyone went into the basement, and someone turned out the lights! Brian was sitting next to Teddy, and he got that funny feeling in his special area. He reached out to touch Teddy, but then someone turned the lights on again, and Brian saw Teddy kissing a girl! Ew!

“Maybe that’s it!” Brian said as he sat up. “Maybe Teddy wants me to be like a girl!” Brian ran to his mommy’s closet and took out one of her old housecoats. He put it on and pranced around in front of his bedroom mirror. Gosh, he looked funny! But he looked kind of good, too! After dancing a little while, Brian got that special feeling he sometimes gets. He knelt down and pulled an extra-large bottle of AstroGlide from under his bed and touched his ho-ho ’till it made a mess. Then he was tired!

In another minute or two, Brian had forgotten all about Teddy and how he slammed the door in Brian’s face that afternoon. Brian took off his mommy’s housecoat and rolled around on it until he was cleaned up. Then he played Space Channel 5 all afternoon, ’till his daddy called him downstairs to dinner.

THE END

Inspired by–who else?–the one and only Frank Green.

Odes to Unlikely Lovers
or
In Praise of Gutter Love

There is a young artist named Bob

whose medium is wattle and daub.

His demeanor’s a dud–

he’s as exciting as mud–

but he knows how to slobber a knob.

An impoverished young lad on the dole,

tired of dining on Marmite and vole,

said, “Blast and confound!

I must earn a pound!”

so he learned to take poles up his hole.

A dental assistant named Young

had a queer fascination with tongues–

his own was so long

that some thought it a schlong

when he rammed his hung tongue up their bung.

TRUISMS

• Fischerspooner is okay, but the best part of seeing them perform live is knowing that 90% of the men in the audience want to be as fabulous as the dancing girls onstage.
• That whole angsty-art-school-petulance thing is so very done.
• House of Blues works much better as gay bar.
• It would be interesting to create a line of underwear emblazoned with the words “3-inch cock.”
• Photos of people covered in beads and wearing masks may be fine for Fleetwood Mac publicity shots or as the cover of the latest installment of Girls Gone Wild, but as art, they’re awful.
• In semi-tropical climes, October is kinda like picking up a really hot trick, taking him back to your place for some non-stop erotic power-fisting, then waiting for his inevitably clumsy, abrupt departure.