Monday, April 30, 2001
I think the trickiest part of being in a long-term relationship is remembering why you love your partner. When you see him every day and sleep beside him every night and share a bathroom with him every morning, you naturally start taking him for granted. That means comfort, sure, but it also means complacency, and more importantly, forgetfulness. You forget how much you love him--his laugh, the way he arches his eyebrow when he's joking around, what your is life with him. Just a moment ago as I lay in bed with Jonno--him asleep, me watching Liv Tyler pout her way through a muted Armageddon, Gaston lying quietly on the pillow beside me--I stopped rushing, stopped obsessing, stopped making to-do lists in my head, and remembered. Sappy? Maybe. Saccharine? Signs point to yes. Sincere? You betcha.
Ugh. Off to a day-long conference in Baton Rouge. I'm sure you're envious. I mean, who wouldn't give his eye teeth for a day in the land of pageant hair and Jimmy Swaggart?
Sunday, April 29, 2001
 I know, I know: it's weird that we had a houseguest for nearly a week and I didn't even mention him. I guess it's because I was so busy that Jonno did all the entertaining; apart from a couple of drinks and a dinner or two, I didn't see that much of our new friend. Of course, Jonno's a better hostess than I am anyway--whether I'm busy or not.
Still, it was nice to spend the little time with Patrick that I did. Very friendly, very giving, very low-maintenance: good qualities in a guest. Next time he visits, I hope he and I can spend some of the daylight hours together. That's when I'm at my best. Perhaps Jonno and I will even pull together a little soir�e in his honor--something special and intime. Maybe I could get these guys to come down and organize it. Contrary to popular opinion, you see, I've got no head for party details.
Friday, April 27, 2001
Suddenly--and I'm not sure how this happened--it seem that I'm finally caught up. Of course, most of my bills are overdue. And Geronimo himself could set up an ambush behind the mounds of paper looming over my desk. There's also that matter of the mold-ridden coffee cup that's been slouching toward my keyboard for the past two months. But other than that, everything's okay. Oops. I spoke too soon.
Thursday, April 26, 2001
Dear goddess. He's up for a webbie. Is nothing sacred?
Things I'm currently missing:
- My highly coveted Sporty Spice lollipop. (Lick it, and Sporty's horsey Mancunian face appears!)
- My Power Station t-shirt from the 1985 concert tour. (I do, however, know where to find my genuine Tony Thompson drumstick from same.)
- My back-up corset. (If I should ever lose my Frederick's of Hollywood, I'll be in a real pickle, I will.)
- My gold tooth clip. (I know they're passe, but it's the principle of the matter.)
- The keys to my hand- and ankle-cuffs. (Now there's an accident waiting to happen.)
- My sense of common decency. (I may be common, but never decent.)
Funny what goes through your mind when you're standing listless in the shower. P.S. If someone doesn't cut it out, I'm gonna get the big head.
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
In case any of you care (and I hope you don't), the Honorary International Committee for Longue Vue House and Gardens' sesquiannual Sentimental Journeys gala includes the Maharana and Maharani Arvind Singh Mewar, the Contessa Simonetta Brandolini d'Adda, and Mr. and Mrs. Joaquin Fernandez de Cordova Hohenlohe, Marquess and Marchioness of Povar. Which led me to ask: where the hell is Povar? It's not in my olde-skoole 50-pound office dictionary, and all I could find via Google were a lot of gamer websites for some kinda MUD or MOO (remember those?). Wouldn't it be funny if Mr. and Mrs. Hohenlohe were just a couple of bourgeois computer geeks who'd tantalized the gala committee with a really long name....
This may sound kinda funny coming from a theatre fag, but I don't like drama. In fact, I hate it. Hate, hate, hate... Luckily, I know very few people who are prone to such antics. Since high school, I've been pretty good at cutting those folks out of my life. Today, however, I've encountered two of 'em--two drama queens I could easily live without. The first I put in her place (as much as I could, the brainless tart), the other, who followed close on her heels...well, let's just say I've never seen a straight man with such a penchant for melodrama. At one point during his bombastic tirade, I wanted to blurt out, "You're too fat for that gesture," but I held my tongue. May they all rot in hell, Amen.
Monday, April 23, 2001
 I received my MA in New Orleans nearly eight years ago, then I signed on to a doctoral program at NYU. Some of my friends here were concerned about a lil' ol' Southern boy like me livin' up in the Big City, but I wasn't worried in the least. I'd visited New York enough to know the lay of the land reasonably well, and I had quite a few friends there already. Nothing to worry about, right? Wrong. You know that truism that goes, "There's no place lonelier than a crowd?" Well, that's the way I felt for most of my time in New York. As if the city's pervasive, numbing anonymity weren't enough to bring on the blues, my friends were all too busy making rent to spend much time with me, so I was left to wander the streets alone. Then one night, one of my co-workers from French Connection (yes, dearie, I was a retail ho') suggested I stop by the club where he toiled after hours: the now defunct Glitz, at 13th and Broadway. Little did I know that things were about to change. Sort of. Having nothing better to do, I traipsed to the club at the appointed hour, paid a couple of bucks to get in, and chatted with my friend, who was one of the hostesses that evening. The tunes were good, so I decided to dance a bit, and there, in the corner of the floor, turning it out with Girlina and her pack of clubby minions, I saw the world's Most Adorable Boy. With his swarthy, Mediterranean looks and a bit of a tan, dressed only in a wifebeater and jeans (hey, it was summer), he practically glowed. I couldn't stop looking at him. We exchanged glances a couple of times, but I was too shy and he didn't seem particularly interested, just amused, so ultimately I let it go. Flash forward to a dark and sultry night about a month later. I was casually seeing someone--very nice, very cute, but we didn't share a lot of, um, interests. That night, the night of my 25th birthday, the guy dumped me. "It's all moving too fast, too quickly," yadda yadda yadda. I hung up. Fuck him. So, I could have stayed home and listened to my collection of Bread LPs and felt sorry for myself, but no, I went out--first to Glitz, where nothing was happening, and then to a club I'd seen advertised in HX, Zone DK. It was, for all intents and purposes, a sex club. Not a very good sex club, mind you--which explains why it went out of business--but a sex club nonetheless. And there, amidst the typical license plate/warehouse decor and the surpisingly sexy clientele, who should I see but Mr. Wifebeater.... We made eye contact, he and I, then crossed paths in the itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny, teeny-weeny back area. Nothing serious happened--just a lot of heavy petting. But even with all the crowds and the pushing and shoving, it was pretty damn nice. When we were finally overcome by claustrophobia, we stepped out to the bar and chatted a bit. I was swooning, but I played it cool, gave him my card, he said he'd call. He didn't. In fact, although I saw him nearly every week for the next year, he barely returned my glances. I was completely confused: we were so obviously meant to be together, why couldn't he see that? (God, if that doesn't make me sound like a stalker from a CBS movie of the week, I don't know what will.) Over three years later, he finally came 'round, thanks to a little nudge from Lady Luck. But if I'd stayed back at the hotel the night we were re-introduced, or if he'd gone to bed and not come out, where would either of us be now? Fate isn't just about happy coincidence. It's about the terrifying possibility of ships passing in the night. As of yesterday, we're four years down, with several score more to go. Happy anniversary, boyfriend. 
Friday, April 20, 2001
As a rule, I'm pretty jaded. Pierced your kidneys? So last month. Tattooed your retina? Woman, please. Had all your teeth extracted in the name of performance art? How very. But every so often, I come across something that makes me say, "Huh?" This is one of those times. (Some of you might be interested to note he's from Atlanta. What the hell is in y'all's water, anyway?) Thanks for the link, Steve. I think.
Thursday, April 19, 2001
The scariest part of being found through a Google search for gay circuit party photos isn't that I was on the list. It's that I was #2 on the list. Oh, yeah: Dante was #10.
For the past month or so, my life has been a relentless search for angles--marketing angles, that is. How can we pitch this to the public? To the press? What's our next project? What can we do to build on what we've already done? And so on. A few years ago, I would never have seen myself doing this. I had very clear ideas about what's entertaining and what isn't. Back then, good art was all you needed; mount a good production, and people will come crawling out of the woodwork to see it. Then I had a course in arts marketing, I realized that good art is as much about the public as it is the product. You don't just bring in Robert Wilson to direct Yoko Ono's latest dreck and assume that you're going to sell out a three month run. I know, it's obvious. But I find it funny how much I've changed my tune. And every so often, I wish I could sit back and enjoy things.
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
 I'll probably catch a lot of flack for this--especially from my boyfriend, Yankee that he is--but I can't help feeling a little conflicted about the state flag issue going on in Mississippi. On the one hand, I understand how some folks feel the current flag is a symbol of racial inequity. And I'm sure the state's surprising number of white liberals feel just as guilty as can be about having it fly over the capitol building nearly 150 years after the Civil War. On the other hand, it's a flag. And if a flag's supposed to represent anything, it's identity--national, regional, or statewide. I could see how a new flag would be important in the formation of a new state, but that's not happening. (And no, I don't buy the pr/marketing angle that the Mississippi of 2001 is a "new" Mississippi.) Flags are graphic symbols; a new flag should symbolize something newly important, something newly profound, something newly shared. The proposed new flag does none of those things. And there's a good chance it would only enhance racial tensions throughout the state. I also don't buy the notion that a new flag is somehow going to encourage massive amounts of new business investments in the state (one of the major incentives pushed by the "new flag" side). It's not the flag that's a turn-off to Fortune 500 companies--it's the poor quality of public education and the general lack of kick-ass corporate tax breaks. Trust me, I know: we're having the same problems in New Orleans. Of course, being the pomo homo that I am, I'm aware that my sentiments are influenced by the fact that (a) I'm a white male, (b) I no longer live in Mississippi and have little investment in the issue, and (c) I have a certain fondness for the rebel insignia due to the numerous Ole Miss games I attended as a wee lad. Not that any of that would keep me from opening my big fat mouth....
 Here's a little secret: we're halfway through the run and still rockin'!
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
So... (a) I forgot to mention how fun it was to hang a bit with James this past weekend. You never know what to expect with web friends; happily, James continues my lucky streak. (b) Another web cutie has reared his well-trimmed head. (c) Theatre and theater are two different things. My friend Jack brought this orthographic issue to my attention, so I figure now's as good a time as any to clear up the confusion. Simply put, theatre refers to the art form, theater to the physical site at which it is performed. Ergo:
George Bernard Shaw wrote many theatre works, but heaven forbid you actually go to a theater to see one performed.
Or:
Last night, Xavier and I saw the most amusing piece of theatre in the parking lot of the 7-11,
but,
As I walked out of the poorly-designed theater and into the street, I was nearly run down by an unmarked vehicle driven by a woman who, for all intents and purposes, might have been the ghost of Bella Abzug.
Pretentious? Perhaps. But it's all in the name of good grammar.
Lord, how'd I miss this? A thoroughly reasonable, rational editorial in the Times-Picayune criticizing the anti-civil union bill currently being debated in the State House of Representatives? How'd that happen?
Monday, April 16, 2001
During my brief New York residency, there was an amazing public art project on 42nd Street. Called simply "The 42nd Street Project," artists took over abandoned shop fronts between Broadway and 8th Avenue and did as they pleased with them. Todd Oldham gussied up an erstwhile peep show with kitchy 60s designs. Nam June Paik installed a few dozen monitors and played endless loops of his video work. But to me, the best was the work of Jenny Holzer, who placed her truisms on the street's many empty theatre marquees. Walking down the sidewalk, glancing up at the marquees was a jarring experience: where you might expect to see titles like "The Young and the Hung XXII" or "Kitten Natividad's All-Girl Revue," instead you got little lectures, little epiphanies. It was breathtaking, in a way. Today, while waiting for some documents to upload on my blazing 56k dial-up, I was flipping through a book of Ms. Holzer's and accidentally rediscovered some of these pieces. For the both of you who've never seen/heard them, here's a few of my favorites:
YOU LIVE THE SURPRISE RESULTS OF OLD PLANS.
IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER.
THE BREAKDOWN COMES WHEN YOU STOP CONTROLLING YOURSELF AND WANT THE RELEASE OF A BLOODBATH.
SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY FAST.
Bear with me, folks. I'm dealing with: 1. An aging, whiny, ludicrously insecure actor (wait, that's redundant). 2. Projects I never knew about, all of which have deadlines I can't possibly meet--at least, not without a batallion of monkey butlers schooled in Quark who've been trained to do my bidding. 3. About a squillion production details for current and upcoming shows. 4. Renovation of a 160-year old house (still). 5. A Great Coffee Famine, which began when my Mr. Coffee decided it didn't want to hold water any more. 6. Two flea-ridden hounds and a cat that's prone to knock over breakables at 4:37am with frightening regularity. Surprisingly enough, taxes aren't on my to-do list--somehow I got my ass in gear and filed 'em early. Who knew?
Friday, April 13, 2001
Just in case any of you were wondering, we're a hit!
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
Looking back on the past weeks' posts, it seems like my life's been pretty dull. Nothing funny has happened to me. Nothing seriously tragic, either. My boyfriend went away on a mini-vacation, but with everything else going on in my life, the only time his absence really got to me was at night, as I lay in bed alone with the hounds. I feel like I've been working non-stop with very little to show for it. But despite my overall fatigue and the lethargy that's creeping upon me as temperatures begin to rise, I find myself getting busier and busier. I'm involved with at least three productions going up this summer. And I'm doing much more reading and writing than I used to. And I'm finally getting motivated to organize the piles of bills, clippings, and other crap sitting on my desk. Curious.
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
 Factoid: today's obsession is none other than Daniel Auteuil. Congratulations, Daniel!
We interrupt today's blog for a special news bulletin: Rip Taylor is still alive. Repeat: Rip Taylor is still alive. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Monday, April 09, 2001
Gasp. Pant. Gasp. Wheeze. Gasp.... Jesus H. Mary and Joseph, what a weekend. As I own a penis, I've never had the opportunity to experience giving birth to a child, but I can only imagine that it feels a lot like the last-minute push we made to get Camille up and running (minus the buckets of blood, of course). Between the layout of the programs and the stitching of petticoats and the down-to-the-wire tech, I thought it'd never get done. But of course, it did. And I must say, I think we did pretty damn well. All the major reviewers came, and unless my ears deceived me, they all had a good time (by now, I know their laughs by heart). Of course, we'll see how the reviews themselves turn out.... Only drawback? There's no A/C in the place, and we're having a bit of a pre-summer heatwave. That's fine for around the pool, but not so nice when you're wearing a wool tuxedo and a bad toupee. At least the rent's cheap. Over the next few days, I hope to fully regain conciousness and catch up on my sleep. After that, I'll probably be a little funnier and a lot more engaging. Until then... P.S. I unloaded a roll of film the other day that must've been two years old. Not too many pics on it, but there was a pretty good one of the boyfriend at Decadence. See? 
Thursday, April 05, 2001
Zoinks! How'd it get so hot all of a sudden? I've entered that odd liminal stage--a roughly two-week stretch during which I feel continually uncomfortable as my body adjusts to the heat. Sweating, increasing my fluid intake, and hopefully losing a few pounds: that's what I'm up to for the next little while. In other news, the Old Farmer's Almanac says Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death by a US Federal court fifty years ago today.
Wednesday, April 04, 2001
My To-Do List1. Get coffee. 2. Kill all artists. 3. Figure out how to run the #$@%*& light board at the #*$&@ theatre before the show opens day after tomorrow. 4. Organize the numerous stacks of papers looming over my desk before I'm consumed by an avalanche of bills, news clippings, and pornographic magazines. 5. Lay in the sun. Don't get up for a while. 6. Walk the dogs 7. Kiss my boyfriend goodbye as he jets off to the land of hills and cute boys and good Mexican food. 8. Get coffee. 9. Plan an elaborate suicide ritual of operatic proportions. File it away for future reference. 10. Eat more bran.
Monday, April 02, 2001
A Small Recounting, Followed by Brief Notes on DragI have this policy of always saying "yes." Richard, would you mind helping me out with my mid-term paper? Yes. Richard, would you mind lending me your truck next week so I can move back in with my mother? Yes, indeed. Richard, would you mind volunteering for a massive literary festival the same weekend you're supposed to be shuttling visiting artists around town and loading in your own show, which opens in less than a week? What part of "Yes" didn't you understand? Good lord. So, the past three days have been a big fat blur--not a waste, now, just a blur. In the end, I got to see some fan-TAS-tic dance, and had a fun time with quite a few folks of the lesbian persuasion at last night's King of Fools party. [Related note for further reflection: as far as costumes go, drag queens have it far easier than drag kings. Female drag is all about glamour and wigs and makeup and stuff--masking, essentially. Male drag, on the other hand...well, it's hard to even conceive as drag because it's presumed to be so "natural." If being masculine is the opposite of being glamorous and "artificial," then drag kings have the cards stacked against 'em. All they've got to work with is a vat of hair gel and a fake beard... But their music is so much better--hello? when's the last time you saw a drag queen perform to Devo?--I guess it doesn't really matter...]
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