Gay-ja Vu & DIY

Deja vu is the feeling that you have experienced something before. What would be the feeling that something you are experiencing will not happen again? That's a sense I wish I could have had as certain routine events and interesting adventures one day ended with no sign that they would not reoccur.

One routine event was going with a group of people from work every Friday to a local bar. We would play pool and play songs on the jukebox and the evening would be filled with fun, gossip, and storytelling. We did this for several years while rarely missing a Friday out. Other people from work would come to the same bar for a special occasion like a birthday or going away party and they would thank us for coming to their event. They didn't realize we had no idea that they would be there. We were always there.

One Friday it seemed that everyone had something else they needed to do and we didn't go. The next Friday for whatever reason we didn't go again. After that we never returned as a group. To this day I don't know what made it so, but I miss it. I wonder if I had known ahead of time that the occurrences were numbered, would I have acted differently to take advantage of maximizing the enjoyment of every possible moment? Would I have never left early, but rather held out till closing so as not to lose a single moment of such a finite part of my life?

There has been one situation that I have been well aware of its limited duration: the classic one-night stand. In some cases I couldn't have cared less, but in others, where it felt like in some alternate universe it would have been the start of a life long relationship, the awareness of time caused me to capture in my mind what I could in the time available. As what's-his-name would start to drift off to sleep next to me, I would try to memorize every sight in the room, every sound, every tactile sensation, so that I could retain it all as an extension of the experience, keeping it ongoing after real life had ended it too soon.

In truth, I have only a few vague remembrances of any such affairs, and this is how it should be. The memories of past events only exist to help shape your future. Pleasant thoughts of times past encourage you to find similar feelings in ever new adventures. That which was will not be again, but that which will be needs only your active seeking of it to make it so. Everything before is prequel. The main story starts now.

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Speaking of time, one of my minor wastes of it is occasionally to check the "missed connections" section of the local craigslist. For some reason I want to see myself mentioned there. Maybe its an ego thing. Maybe its just one of those things you want to accomplish someday in life (e.g. see the Parthenon, win Hoosier Lotto, get mentioned in Missed Connections). Well, I am not a person who is willing to wait on somebody else to do something for me. If I can't expect someone else to do something, I do it myself. I think in this case I want to leave a "desperately seeking" message looking for me. It's not like I would have responded to a real request anyway, so what the hell? If you should check the site and see people across Indianapolis spotting and looking for the same charming, debonair, well-dressed gentleman, it's just me.

When Straight Men Stray

Senator Craig from Idaho gets arrested for allegedly making improper advances to a male undercover cop. He claims afterwards that he is not gay. I for one have no reason to doubt his statement. Straight men performing sexual acts with other men is not unusual. If anything good could come from this unpleasant situation, it would be a better understanding of the fact that straight men occasionally stray "gay".

I wouldn't want to wade too deep into the question of what does it mean for a person to be considered gay or straight. However, I will mention one interesting thing I heard on the subject some numbers of years back. It was a statement from the then director of the Kinsey Institute (located in sexually active Indiana). She said that, 1) science didn't know yet what caused heterosexuality, and 2) straight/gay were defined by who a person falls in love with. I liked that the definition steered away from who you have sex with, since there are gay people who don't have sex with their own gender and there are straight people who sometimes do.

Still, I'm not sure if this makes the discussion clearer since it would be easy to fall into a side discussion of loving someone versus being in love. Instead let's go with the sense of attraction, skipping love and sex altogether. I don't think Senator Craig wanted to go for long walks on the beach with his cop, or spend a evening with him at a romantic candlelit dinner. He would want to with his wife or at least some female, but with his potty paramour, he would only want to take care of business. It's just an extension of masturbation.

So why wouldn't a straight guy just wait until he got home to the missus or just jack the hammer himself? I think straight men would deviate into stall balling for two reasons. One is that when they need to get off, they need to do it right now and with whatever is available. Two is that men need variety in their sexual activity. Same-sex sex provides the unusual thrill that makes up for the other 90% of the time when they are harpooning their hag in the stale old missionary position.



Straight men, whether they be politicians or twenty-something internet studs, can and will have sex with other men. Thank goodness or we wouldn't have some of our favorite adult entertainment websites. The only problem really is that we need to get people out of public restrooms, parks, and bookstores. I think the best solution would be to add darkrooms to sports bars. I would put up with a few quarters of watching football for a little backroom Monday Night Bar-balling.

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When straight men have to do that gay thing

Too Real When I Feel

Reality TV creates an ever increasing number of instant celebrities and with the celebrity status comes fans. For some of these now famous people, the fandom can be understandable because their TV appearance showcased their entertainment talent and boosted their career in the fan supported performing arts. For the others, the ones who are more or less ordinary people, the concept of having fans can seem odd.

I think the draw that these reality TV stars have is that they seemingly expose their inner self and this satisfies a human need in the viewers to find and really get to know other people. Socially, we all wear our masks but we long to know what is behind the other person's. That's why reading other people's minds is traditionally the most wished for super power after flying. We want to know and in turn perhaps be known.

It's debatable that anyone shows their true personality on TV, but the kind of shows that seem to are not the talent shows, like American Idol or SYTYCD, but rather the communal endeavors, such as Amazing Race, Survivor, and Big Brother. On these shows there is an induced level of stress that intended to cause the participants to throw off their facades and reveal what they are really like. These revelations are then caught by the omnipresent camera, usually in a solitary situation to emphasize that the thoughts expressed are of a deeply personal nature (shared only with the cameraman and a few million viewers). To the people watching at home, it's an easy way to look inside someone and determine if they are someone with whom one would want to be friends or lovers or whatever. The result is that the likable contestants get a lot of fans who wish they could get to know the person on TV or someone like them because they are just so special.

The interesting thing about this is there are plenty of ordinary people all around in real life who may fit the bill just as well but whom you'll never know because they don't come with a "confessional" video with which you can preview their personality. With television you can watch who you want to learn more about and then turn them off when you decide you don't care for them. Obviously, it's not that simple in real life. People would rather not invest the time and effort in learning about the strangers all around them, forgoing the reward of finding a splendid friend in order to avoid the surprise of what else they might find instead.

Unfortunately, it is hard to get to know people on a deeper level. There is a societal condition that thwarts the human nature to know others. It is often expressed with the well known letters TMI. In real life we only let each other reveal enough to stay within the comfort zone, which isn't much. I know that there is no one other that me who really knows who I am completely and I can't decide if it's because I withhold the information or I feel others don't want to know.

With such interpersonal constraints, it's no wonder we turn to television to see what people are "really" like.

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Freddie Mercury "The Great Pretender"

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I posted picturea of some of my more recent favorites of reality television: James Rhine from Big Brother 6, Jesse Brune from Work Out, and Goil Amornvivat from Top Design.

Boys Do Fall In Love

This is one of my favorite old-time print ads. It is a 1950 advertisement for Coca-Cola. I like the setting and the colors of the illustration, but what I really love is the backstory I've created for it.

The kids in the picture are students at a small college in Indiana. Maxine, the girl in the green top, is best friends were her gay buddy Bobby, the boy in the khaki colored shirt. Maxine had decided to try to match up Bobby with Paul (checkered sport coat), the brother of her sorority sister Cynthia (in the blue). Maxine has invited Bobby, Paul, Cynthia, and her other friends Mary Ann (in the pink) and Bess (not visible) to go for a picnic so that she could have Bobby and Paul become better acquainted.

So far this afternoon, the plan is going swimmingly. Bobby and Paul are getting along great, talking about their common interest in art history. As all of the kids finish eating, Bobby tells Paul about how he loves to draw. Paul gets into the cooler to get Bobby a Coke and asks Bobby if Bobby would do a drawing of him. Bobby, perhaps in a Freudian way, exclaims, "I'd love to do you!"

At this moment, Bess is standing in front of the group with her camera to take a picture. She captures the scene seconds after Bobby's exclamation. Bobby realizes his double entendre and smiles sheepishly at Paul. Paul, thinking he'd be happy to be done by Bobby, blushes and averts his eyes downward. He gives the coke bottle an almost imperceptible stroke to let Bobby know that he's okay with the idea. Maxine smiles knowingly, realizing her plan has been a success. Cynthia howls with laughter thinking to herself, "he said draw. Ha-ha-ha." Mary Ann stands back and grins, hoping no one realizes that she has no idea what's going or why she's there.

What happens later on the night of the Homecoming dance, or when Bobby contemplates quitting the glee club to spend more time with Paul? I don't know. You tell me in your belated reply.

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Robin Gibb "Boys Do Fall in Love"

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The best Coke campaign ever, featuring Joey Diggs' "Always Coca-Cola"

Trick the Movie

My favorite gay movie is Trick. I first saw in 1999 during Southern Decadence, at the cozy little Canal Place theater in New Orleans. I found seeing this movie one of the best treats of my visit that year, and with all the other sights and distractions that occur during this annual bacchanalia, that's saying a lot. The movie has the spirit of romance, and finding the right guy, and the intervention of fate, and all these provided an elation from realizing that anything is possible back in my real life.

The movie is funny, romantic, inspirational, and warm-hearted. You end up falling in love with the characters and wondering what happens to them in the future because you become so enamored with them. I strongly recommend this film, and as one of the two tag lines says, "It's big, it's beautiful and you're gonna love it."

The other tag line just grazes the surface of the adventure: "A story about two guys trying to make it in the big city." One of the two guys is Gabriel (Christian Campbell), an aspiring writer of musical theater who is working as a office clerk and living with a straight roommate in order to get by. His best friend is Katherine (Tori Spelling), an aspiring actress, who tries to be optimistic and encouraging to Gabriel when he feels that he is failing in the pursuit of his ambition. She can't help him with his real problem though, which is that his his creative work lacks emotion and zest - mainly because he lacks it in his own life as well.

Gabriel answers criticism about the flatness of the characters he creates by saying, "I can't have them falling in love on the first night. That wouldn't be believable." To this, his friend Perry (Steve Hayes) retorts, "Well, not if you don't believe it." The heart of the movie then becomes Gabriel learning in a night-long misadventure how to let himself believe in such things and to find what new possibilities he can gain from opening his mind in this way.

Gabriel goes out to a club and sees a handsome go-go boy. Later, on his trip home he sees the go-go boy, Mark (J.P. Pitoc), on the subway and after some meaningful eye contact, both get off at the same stop and agree to get busy at Gabriel's place. Unfortunately, Gabriel's straight roommate wants to use the apartment for his own sexcapade and Gabriel and Mark are out on the street looking for somewhere they can spend some intimate time together. Traveling through the streets, bars, clubs, and a late-night diner, they bounce around, meeting up with several wacky friends and characters who keep them from getting together but by sunrise have provided a situation that teaches Gabriel and Mark that a little perseverance can provide something more gratifying than a one-night stand.

The movie isn't as heavy as a Brokeback Mountain but it still has some worthwhile messages: looks can be deceiving, nice guys don't finish last, and sometimes the best things in life come with a little delay.

Christian Campbell does a wonderful job of portraying the somewhat innocent and reserved Gabriel. You can feel his frustration from being stymied in his vain attempt to be a little more adventurous. J.P. Pitoc is hot, but more importantly he convincingly plays his character first as a stereotypical stripper and then as the more layered person that Mark allows Gabriel to see. Tori Spelling is Tori Spelling, but she does some great comedic work (especially during her blow-up in the diner scene). The best performance of the movie has to be from Clinton Leupp as Miss Coco Peru, in the famous "drag queen in the bathroom" scene. Coco Peru should have a star on Hollywood Blvd. for this performance.

The soundtrack CD has some good tunes on it. I especially like Erin Hamilton's version of Dreamweaver and Jessica William's I Am Woman. Steve Hayes does a funny bit at a piano bar with the song Como Te Gusta Mi Pinga?. Tori Spelling sings Enter You (Gabriel's show tune), and there is a nice reprise at the end from Christian Campbell. Be prepared after this to start spontaneously belting this song out whenever you see someone making a grand entrance. Finally there is the blissful song over the credits, Trick of Fate by Valerie Pinkerston. Love it.

I own the dvd, the t-shirt, the cd and the full size movie poster (the only one I have ever bought). It was interesting to me to see what other people thought. I created the movie list in the sidebar with Amazon's Unspun, and after 29 reviewers voted, it is #2 best gay movie. It's to be expected that nothing could beat the behemoth Brokeback Mountain. On Amazon, the movie has almost a five star rating from 201 reviewers. Eight reviewers gave it one star, but reading their comments gives a glimpse into the epicenter of bitterness and anti-social thoughts. They are more bitter than the bathroom drag queen, but without the humor of getting spunk in their eye.

See links below for detail info on the DVD and CD.
Trick DVD

Trick: Music From The Motion Picture

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Movie trailer:

Tammy Faye

Tammy Faye Messner has died on Friday, July 20th, a day after the airing of her interview on Larry King Live. Tammy Faye was a well known friend of the gay community. She faced Job-like tribulations in her life with unbelievable faith and optimism, despite often being maligned for an emotional sensitivity that lead her frequently to tears.

The original intent of this post was to comment on comments made about her appearance on LKL. It occurred to me that if someone were just starting to date someone, they could use this interview as a quick test to see if their potential boyfriend was a boyfriend-from-hell in the making. If your guy made cynical or derogatory comments about Tammy Faye in her condition, you would know that he is probably incapable of feeling empathy or compassion for any human being. Dump his ass asap and be glad you found out before it was too late.

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Westlife "I Have A Dream"

Sex With A View

Hot sex and the expression of one's political views don't go well together. Finding out that you and your love interest are a rightist and a leftist is worse than finding that you are both primarily bottoms. You should be able to put it aside for a night of hot, sweaty monkey love, but it is likely to prevent you from having a longer relationship.

Even if you only expect to have a one night stand, it is still better not to bring up politics at all or at least not during intimacy. It would be okay to show a general support for your country by singing your national anthem in the same way that it was done in the movie Shortbus, but bringing up questions about the war (dominatrix scene, same movie) is not a good thing during sex unless you too want to be punished for it. Politics can really get passions going, but not the good ones.

I remember I had an experience once with Didier, a young man in Paris, where the action was great, but afterwards, when I told him "Je suis un Américain," he felt it necessary to give me a jab with his view of American policies. When I defended my country's honor he tried to stop the discussion but it was too late. Fortunately, all the fun stuff had already occurred and it was only a vacation night on the town, but under other circumstances such a discussion by itself would have prevented any further relationship.

Of course, this is only a problem when the political views differ, but how would you find out your views are concordant without risking an unfortunate revelation? In some places you can trust that you are surrounded with like minded people but not so in other places. You can't necessarily tell by appearances, as a rough looking daddy may be a tree-hugger and a light hearted gay twink a neocon. The best course of action is not to say anything that could get your prospective partner started on expressing his views. If you can avoid this you won't have to clarify later that, "When I said I was interested in your oral skills I wasn't talking about your ability to express political rhetoric."

If you do accidentally get into a political discussion, keep in mind that Americans would rather talk about things that other people agree with than argue with anyone who doesn't. Americans have strong views, but they are like a person laying on a sofa who is watching video on TV that he hates, but the remote control is out of reach and he doesn't feel like exerting himself to do something to change the channel. Instead the person just lays there and thinks how much he hates what he is seeing. So try to change the topic of conversation and hope for the best.

If you want a long term relationship it probably would be important to know upfront if you are compatible politically with your intended, but if you are going for a fling, focus on who's on top or bottom, not left or right.