tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384670258482758242024-02-20T04:01:49.424-08:00The Portrait of an EddieEdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-43471832573789241922010-12-04T17:50:00.000-08:002010-12-04T17:50:19.632-08:00Everyday RebellionsIn the winter of 1993, while a senior in college, I took a bus to Mount Holyoke College to see Gloria Steinem speak. I could write paragraph after paragraph on how Steinem inspires me but that's for another post. (And also the fact that that same morning, I went to see Angela Davis speak on my own campus. What a day that was.) At the end of her speech, Ms. Steinem told everybody to commit an outrageous act in the next few days, no matter how big or small it was. This was based upon the title of her book, "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions," which is still in print and should be read by everybody. <br />
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All I could picture was me standing on a table in the dining hall, a la Norma Rae, holding a sign about ... what? What would I be protesting? I certainly had a lot of ideas those days. I was reading some radical 60s literature, a recent convert to feminism and one angry young man. But I never did commit that outrageous act and I felt guilty for years. I had the chance to see Steinem speak again nine years later and did get up to ask her a question but did not reveal that I'd let her down all those years ago.<br />
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Just the other day, a Facebook friend and former coworker posted in his status update that he was bisexual and if you couldn't deal with it, too bad. It was one helluva outrageous act. He is around the age I was when I first came out publicly (I started when I was 16 in 1988 but the real push came when I was 19) and I, jaded me, was impressed and extremely moved by this. To do it so publicly and so boldly, he basically WAS pulling a Norma Rae. When I came out, I had to go the old-fashioned, pre-internet route of telling one person at a time, year to year. But this coming out on Facebook... this was something else. It was amazing; the equivalent of telling a crowded auditorium. Even more amazing was the outpouring of support he got. Some things haven't changed (the desire for people to stay closeted due to society) but many things have (people's reactions... I had a rough time, lost some friendships, it wasn't easy) have. <br />
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I came out a long time ago and, of course, as these things happen, life didn't go according to plan. I didn't fall in love immediately, I didn't become fabulous. I wasn't an A-Gay who vacationed on Fire Island and had a swell little apartment in Chelsea. I stayed the same guy I always had been and that disappointed me somewhat. I had thought my life would change forever and I'd be an entirely new person. I stayed on being Ed Aycock, always feeling so ordinary, listening to my folk music, loving my soaps, reading bad novels and good books. And I've made a LOT of mistakes along the way, not the least of which was the 1994 habit of wearing a denim shirt with blue jeans. What was I thinking? <br />
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Yesterday, I was talking with another coworker who was going on about a million different things, as he is wont to do. One thing he touched upon is how the American people want everything cozy and still hate nonconformity and difference. I agreed. And then today it hit me that I never have tried to fit into anybody's preconceived notions; I never tried to be who I wasn't. So perhaps all along I have been committing my outrageous acts. I haven't let Gloria Steinem down after all. What a relief. Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-52256816467555711432010-09-19T05:28:00.000-07:002010-09-19T05:35:11.620-07:00Tales of the Ile de la Cite (Paris, Part 3)<strong><em>This is the third part of my Paris trip from 2009. Originally posted on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span>, now transferring it to the blog. </em></strong><br /><br />Oops! Looking back on the previous post, I made the mistake of saying that I met Fernando at <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sainte</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Chappelle</span> after I was the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Musee</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">D'Orsay</span>. That was wrong because the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sainte</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Chappelle</span> is not across from <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Deux</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Magots</span>, that would be St. Germaine <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">du</span> Pres. I apologize for the mistake, hope you can forgive me and not be distrustful about anything else I write. ("What is this shit? He's LYING!")<br /><br />DAY 8 - '<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">SCUSE</span> ME WHILE I KISS THIS GRAVE<br /><br />This was the day that proved to be the most exhausting. I think it was the combination of having done so much walking and sight seeing already combined with one helluva day. I was really excited about this day because we were going to a place I had been looking forward to exploring: the cemetery of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Pere</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Lachaise</span>. So many famous people are buried here: Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Abelard and Heloise. But it was Gertrude Stein's grave that I was dying (ouch, bad pun) to see. She and Alice B. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Toklas</span> are buried together up in the northern area of the cemetery and I was ready. I had brought my old paperback of Stein's writings with me and at a flower shop, I bought a rose that I wanted to place upon her grave. (Stein did say, "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.") <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Pere</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Lachaise</span> is huge and I guess the best word to describe it is "French." This was no US cemetery with its clean lines, cut grass and shining headstones. These were mossy sepulchers, long forgotten bouquets and stone canopies. This was a place that was thick with solemnity. I mean, how much more moody can you get when huge crows are flying and cawing over the crematorium? Yeah, it was that kind of place. I loved it.The graves are interesting at who has a big place and who doesn't. Edith Piaf has a very quiet grave whereas former president <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thiers</span> has a huge Greek mausoleum. Abelard and Heloise had scaffolding around their grave site so for somebody living in Manhattan for 8 years, that seemed almost normal. Fernando stumbled upon the grave of Simone <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Signoret</span> and Yves <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Montand</span>. We didn't even know they were a couple. Jim Morrison's bust has been removed and his site is tucked into a very tight fit. Oscar Wilde has a very large headstone that is covered with lipstick kisses. I'm not sure how that tradition started but it's defaced the monument. You can see where they have tried to remove the traces only to be left with what looks like ghost kisses.<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/europe/images/perelachaise10.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/europe/images/perelachaise10.jpg</a>Finding Gertrude Stein's grave was a highlight. I placed the rose on her grave (and there were a few other new flower arrangements there as well) and then touched my book to her headstone. Yeah, it's a bit dramatic so sue me. It was because of an article on Stein six years ago in "The New Yorker" that gave me the desire to visit Paris in the first place. It took me longer than I thought to get there but I had finally made it, and was at her grave. Back in New York, I wrote in the book that I had touched this book to her grave on May 15, then realized it had been May 16<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">th</span>, so I had to cross it, correct it and then wrote "Shit!"<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.theflews.com/Paris/Week06Pictures/Paris0740Gertrude%20Stein.JPG" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.theflews.com/Paris/Week06Pictures/Paris0740Gertrude%20Stein.JPG</a>After the cemetery, we stopped to eat (I ordered and omelet but got scrambled eggs but it was delicious nonetheless) and then walked down to the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sainte</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">Chappelle</span> (this time, I'm sure this is the real place) which is renowned for its stained glass windows. It was an overcast day but my god, those windows defy description here. You just have to see them for yourself. And to think that before we went there, I was thinking to myself, "Oh god, do I want to see yet another church?" It turns out that yes, yes I did.<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3438/3185477852_ea205946cf.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3438/3185477852_ea205946cf.jpg</a><br /><br />And as this was Saturday, we were in the right place at the right time for the citywide "Night at the Museum" night where the Parisian museums were free from 6 to midnight. So we went to The Louvre for free. And of course when one goes to The Louvre, you just follow the crowd and head right for the Portrait of Lisa <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">Gherardini</span> aka Mona Lisa in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">Denon</span> wing. My feet were killing me at this point and there were even more stairs to climb but I wanted to see her. Fernando noted that these crowds of people were running by all the other famous <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">DaVinci</span> works just to see the Mona Lisa but The Louvre keeps pointing you to her and by the time you're outside the gallery here the painting is located, you're so excited that you just barrel on in. Even better, it was in the newer gallery (not the one mentioned in that novel everybody read a few years ago) and Fernando said that he'd never had a better look at her. We were able to get relatively close. And not long after that was the Venus <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">de</span> Milo and the Etruscan works. Now it was getting almost impossible to walk, but I stayed the course. Ain't I a trooper?? The Louvre shames any museum merely because of the sheer size of it and to cope with that weird sense of inferiority, I kept telling myself that "Well, the Louvre wasn't BUILT as a museum and that's why it's so big whereas the Met was built as a museum." Funny how those little insecurities come out. <a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://static.guim.co.uk/Travel/gallery/2007/may/08/france.travelnews/Louvre_JimZuckerman1-1209.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://static.guim.co.uk/Travel/gallery/2007/may/08/france.travelnews/Louvre_JimZuckerman1-1209.jpg</a><br /><br />Okay, now I was so tired I could barely think. So what better way to rest than to walk another mile down the Rue <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Rivoli</span> to the place where we here meeting people to have dinner? The place we went to for dinner was - you guessed it- <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">Marronniers</span>. I ordered a Caesar salad and the waiter dropped part of it on my lap but I didn't care; I was fascinated because he looked just like Jean Paul <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">Belmondo</span> in "Breathless." Plus, he had a great name: Florian.I don't remember much but I did make it back to the hotel and rested my feet.<br /><br />DAY NINE - LET THEM EAT BREAD<br /><br />It was Sunday and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> was off work. On this final full day, Marc and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> joined us for a bit as we came upon the bread festival outside of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">Notre</span> Dame. I cannot expound enough on how good the French bread is there. We crossed over to the Left Bank and Marc was very excited to show us a little bookstore he thought we'd like. It turned out to be "Shakespeare and Company" which I'd been to twice already. Marc was disappointed because he thought he'd be showing us something new but in my book, you're still okay with me for showing me a bookstore. We went to the oldest Mosque in Paris (and I am sorry, I cannot remember the name) and they have a nice little garden where we had mint tea. Yes, I did not have a Coca Light there. Isn't that amazing? Except for the old beggar woman who cursed us for not giving her money, that was a nice little side trip. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sunil</span>, Marc and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> headed back to their part of town and Fernando and I once again headed for The Louvre to hit the bookstore. I found a great picture book for kids that listed all the places I had been too with great illustrations, but I figured I could find it in the US. But I can't. Dammit! Just as Fernando and I were heading back to Marc and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry's</span> place, something miraculous happened. The sun came out and the clouds went away. We had rainy weather in Paris for most of that week, and here we were toward the end of that last full day and the sun was shining. Sigh. It was beautiful to see Paris in the sunlight finally. Another thing I really like about Paris is that Sunday feels like Sunday. I remember sitting around my folk;s house on Sundays when I was growing up, and everybody seemed to be quieter and more relaxed than usual and that's how Paris felt that day. After a nice final dinner with the group, I went back to the heights of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error">Montmartre</span> and looked at the city from one of its highest points. There's the usual melancholy when you're on the final day of your vacation and despite my earliest misgivings about my hotel room, I found I was even going to miss that. And with even more time, I'll probably be telling people that I loved the hotel and it was wonderful because that's how memory works.And so there isn't much more to tell. The next morning, I got up and headed down to Marc and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry's</span> one final time. Marc's vacation was over and he had to report to Marseilles for work so he was gone. There was a sort of "the circle has been broken" feel by his absence. I had one last meal of baguettes and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error">Nutella</span> and we headed to the airport. I shouldn't have waited 15 years until I took a big trip. I shouldn't have been so wimpy about traveling alone but it was worth it to experience Paris with friends, especially those who had been to the city before and knew the layout. So now the long awaited trip is a memory and I've probably forgotten to add little things about it in here, but I hope you've enjoyed reading about it.<br /><br />Au <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error">revoir</span>!Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-57014270758613816482010-09-19T03:40:00.000-07:002010-09-19T03:43:21.798-07:00"Hello, Montmartre, hello!" - Paris, Part 2<p><strong><em>Continuing my story of my trip to Paris from last year, reposting it here in my blog from Facebook.</em></strong></p><p>Some of my flaws (and I have many) come out when I am traveling. One is that when I get hungry, I become very, very grouchy. It's only appropriate that Mr. Hyde's first name is "Edward." Yet I never seem to prepare for it in advance because I never feel it coming. It just happens. God help you if you're with me and I haven't been fed in a while. I lose all sense of rationality. Thankfully, Paris has plenty of places along the way where I can grab something to go, especially if I start to crash while in a museum gallery. Another is my ridiculous addiction to Diet Coke. It tastes different in France but it's available in abundance. I tried and tried not to be silly and drink wine but I couldn't do it. Wine just doesn't agree with me and I have to go with my own comfort. It's hard to not feel declasse in that case but it was my vacation.Funniest thing was when I would respond "si" to a question when I meant "oui." It's even funnier because I am not proficient in Spanish so where the hell did that come from? </p><p> </p><p>DAY FIVE - A COUNTRY HOME</p><p>The weather in Paris was iffy at best, so we took advantage of one of the clearer days to go to Versailles. Marc had taken the week off so he drove us out. I need to say here how generous Marc and Thierry were with their time. Marc drove us to Normandy AND to Versailles. Thierry wasn't on vacation, so he did not accompany us this day. Thierry found it very funny that Fernando and I always asked him, "How was your day?" when he came home from work.Versailles is huge and a complete optical illusion. The view from the gardens is stunning, like you're staring into an impressionist painting and it goes on much further than you'd think it does. Heck, we parked in the back near the gardens and the walk to get to the ticket line up and around the buildings took a good thirty minutes. And when we were there, we bumped into an old friend who was visiting for the day from London. How weird is that? Versailles is great, the hall of mirrors is gorgeous but the one place I really loved was the old "play village" Marie Antoinette had built where she would pretend to be a shepherdess. It's really beautiful, like a living museum but no play actors like at Williamsburg or Sturbridge Village.Those who have been to Versaille before will be interested to know that it's undergoing improvements and the exterior gilt edging is being polished back to a shining gold. It's quite stunning. Versailles pretty much took up the entire day and we were exhausted by the end of it.</p><p> </p><p>DAY SIX - PRECIPITATION</p><p> </p><p>Paris in the rain. It sounds so romantic, doesn't it? It's not. The rain started and of course while I had bought an umbrella my first day there (It said PARIS in big letters on the side), I did not bring my jacket that day and it was POURING. So of course I had to complain that the rain was dripping down onto me. Really, what was anybody going to do? Was I five? But the rain did subside a bit and we headed on our day. I do understand now why the leaves are so, so dark green in Paris. Those trees are well watered. In one of my favorite French movies "Cleo from 5 to 7," (1961) poor Cleo is wandering through the streets in the daytime, and some are very shadowy. I was happy that the streets still are just as well-shaded as they were back then.One of the out of the way museums Fernando wanted to see was the Musee Nissim de Camondo museum near Parc Monceau. It was the family home of Turkish Jews who emigrated in the 19th century. The father had two children. The son died in WW1 and the father was stricken with grief and willed his home to be a museum in his son's name. Even worse, the daughter and her family were rounded up during WW2 and died in the camps. It's a very Thomas Mann-like ending to the family. But the house remains and it's stunning. I think I liked it more than Versailles. Anybody who goes to Paris should visit.<a href="http://www.facebook.com/editnote.php?draft&note_id=104494381577&id=1045965374" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/editnote.php?draft&note_id=104494381577&id=1045965374</a><a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_Nissim_de_Camondo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_Nissim_de_Camondo</a>Funnily enough, the part of the museum that fascinated us the most were the servant's quarters and kitchen. It was like something out of "Gosford Park."It had cleared up and it was time for me to come face to face with the experience I was waiting for: The Eiffel Tower. Yes,it's touristy and blah blah blah but it's touristy for a reason. That thing is amazing. I had been reading in a guidebook (one of those beautiful Knopf guides) that one of the best ways to see the Tower was to climb up the first few levels. It's cheaper AND you get a sense of how the edifice all comes together. The only time I'd ever seen anybody climb the Tower was Lois Lane in "Superman 2." Well, those first two levels are much, much higher than they look, even from the ground but I did it. Sadly, they do not sell "This Man Climbed the Eiffel Tower" bumper stickers at the top like they do Mount Washington bumper stickers in New Hampshire, but I did it. The Tower is amazing. And they have toilets up there, even better!From there, it was back to Marc and Thierry's for dinner and then a walk back up the hill to the hotel for me.</p><p> </p><p>DAY SEVEN - YOU SAY MUSEE, I SAY YOU SAY?</p><p> </p><p>I spent the morning on my own, going to the Musee D'Orsay - a converted train station -which was wonderful. One of my favorite parts of that museum was all the Art Nouveau furniture. It surely wasn't their lame cafe. It was one of the few places in Paris where the sandwiches were of subpar quality. So if you go to the Musee D'Orsay, stay for the art but not for the food. They do have a very elegant restaurant there, the very type of restaurant you'd dream of eating at, but I couldn't afford that so I shuffled up to the sixth level mezzzanine for a soggy sandwich and no seating. A real surprise greeted me there as among as the amazing Cezannes, Lautrecs and Renoirs was none other than Whistler's Mother. How fun to meet a fellow American!<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.gothereguide.com/musee+dorsay+paris-place/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.gothereguide.com/musee+dorsay+paris-place/</a><a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhistlersMother.jpeg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhistlersMother.jpeg</a>From there, I wandered down to the Saint Chappelle to meet up with Fernando. It is across the street from Deux Magots which I'd been hoping to see, but now it's very expensive and in a ritzy neighborhood. Quelle dommage!We went back to Le Marais and Marronnier and had some drinks at the outdoor cafe before heading to dinner. It started to rain again while we were at the cafe and we were at the very edge of the awning so we tried to creep back as far as we could. It was hard because the cute boys behind us wouldn't budge. How very rude of them!Here is a picture of Marronniers (I just realized I haven't been spelling it correctly but won't go back and correct it) but when I was there, everything face out, nobody had their back to you.<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.parismarais.com/gay-guide/gay-bars-paris/les-marronniers-gay-bar-mar.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.parismarais.com/gay-guide/gay-bars-paris/les-marronniers-gay-bar-mar.jpg</a>Dinner was in a neighborhood near the Bastille Opera House. Oh that poor Opera House. I guess somebody thought it was nice but the main entrance looks like the front of a Community College. And I went to a community college so I know of what I speak. It was a Moroccan couscous restaurant and it was delicious. I loved that everybody who walked in there seemed really happy to be there. The bathroom was across a small outdoor patio but it was growing dark and I almost walked up the stairs and presumably, into somebody's apartment. Good thing I looked more closely. The Bastille area is very lively at night. We ended up back in Le Marais and I finally felt confident enough to take the Metro on my own back to the hotel. It let me off in Pigalle which is a short walk and for blocks it's "Sex Shows" and Girls. It must be somewhat what Times Square was like in the 70s and 80s. There was even a Boulanger on the corner right next to a shop that advertised live sex stage shows. No thank you, I'll buy my bread elsewhere.There was also a McDonalds. And it was packed. sad!<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/jwss/bath2004/images/Place%20Pigalle%2001.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/jwss/bath2004/images/Place%20Pigalle%2001.jpg</a></p><p> </p><p>Then I went to bed. </p><p> </p><p>Two more days left!</p>Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-7404134402284759772010-09-19T03:32:00.000-07:002010-09-19T03:35:33.741-07:00Guess What I Saw in Paris? (Part 1)<strong>This is the first part of my trip to Paris that I posted in my "Notes" section on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> before I started my blog last year. I am <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">reposting</span> it here to preserve it.</strong><br /><br />This was- I am very ashamed to say - my first major vacation in 15 years. That's pathetic enough. Unlike the last time, as enamored as I am of Paris now, I know enough that loving a to visit a city is not the same as trying to move there. We always hear about those expats but ya know what? The majority of them came from money. There's always other visits and I would go back in a heartbeat. I need to go back. I loved this place! But it didn't start so smoothly ...<br /><br />DAY ONE - <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">LUTETIA</span> AT LAST!!!<br /><br />It was a little rainy when we got there. My friends - Fernando and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sunil</span> - were staying with their Parisian friends- Marc and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span>- on the Rue <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Geoffroy</span> Marie. At the top of their street was the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Folies</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bergeres</span>. (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">O'Briens</span>, ask your mom about her <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Folies</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bergeres</span> story!) They lived in a beautiful little apartment in a very middle working class neighborhood. Anybody ever been to Paris and been amazed by all the green neon cross pharmacies?<br /><br />One of the first things we did was traverse all the amazing covered passages all the way to the Louvre. That's where I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Far from being a delicate spindle, it is actually a rather muscular structure. A man tried to sell me something, I said I didn't speak French. He asked (in English) where I was from, I said the US and he was excited. He is Kenyan so we slapped hands over Obama. I still didn't buy what he was trying to sell. We walked in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Palais</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Royale</span> gardens before going back to the apartment where <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Marc. We</span> were exhausted and after a rest we went up the hill to the Blvd <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Rochechouart</span> and my hotel. Well, for 42 Euros a night, I shouldn't have expected much more. I knew the bathrooms would be shared but didn't know the toilet would be one floor below me. Or that the shower would be in a closet with no ventilation and a pervasive mildew scent. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bleh</span>. Later in the week, the handle on the sink in my room came right off in my hands. The area I stayed in was right below the hill of the great <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sacre</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Coeur</span>. You could see the people on the upper steps from far below. <a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.partenia.org/images/200702/SacreCoeur5.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.partenia.org/images/200702/SacreCoeur5.jpg</a><br /><br />We went to Le <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Marais</span> and met another <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> for drinks are <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">Marronier</span>, THE place to see and be seen. I love how the cafes in Paris all have the chairs facing out so you feel as though you're performing for an audience as you walk by. From there, we walked back to where Marc had made us dinner (what a guy!) and then I went back to my hotel for a fitful sleep.<br /><br />DAY TWO and THREE - THE NORMAN INVASION<br /><br />I awoke with one of the worst headaches I'd ever had. I tried in vain to find an open pharmacy but when things are closed in Paris, they're CLOSED. The guy at the front desk gave me an aspirin which helped. Thank god, because this was the day when we took the two day trip to Normandy. How cute is it to drive through those little villages and see people carrying around their baguettes? The French love their bread and boy, it's been hard to get used to the American stuff again.I was relieved to get out of the mildewy hotel and go on a road trip through the French countryside. I felt much better as the day wore on and by the time we arrived at our first stop, the town of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">Etretat</span>, I was ready to scale those amazing cliffs. We walked and walked and walked. Those cliffs are STEEP and there are no protective barriers but it was wonderful. And yes, I held my own despite the steep pathways and constant climbing. <a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.freemages.fr/album/normandie/etretat_falaises.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.freemages.fr/album/normandie/etretat_falaises.jpg</a>From there, we went to the towns of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">Deauville</span> and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">Trouville</span>. I loved <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">Deauville</span> which is the site for the climax of the great film "Bob <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">le</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Flambeur</span>." Side note: I am very grateful that you can find Diet Coke in France; it's called "Coca Cola Light" there. From there, we went to the gorgeous seaside town of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">Honfleur</span> <a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.domainedevillers.com/images/tourisme/honfleur_clic.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.domainedevillers.com/images/tourisme/honfleur_clic.jpg</a>and had dinner by the water. I wanted escargot but it wasn't on the menu. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> said "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">bulots</span>" were the same thing. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">Thierry</span> was wrong. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bulots</span> were served raw in the shell with mayonnaise. I gamely ate about half of it, Fernando helped me with the rest but for the record, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">bulots</span> are NOT escargot.We stayed in the most beautiful B&B I'd ever seen, with a thatched roof and delicious breakfast. I slept on a creaky, fold-out couch but unlike Elaine <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">Benes</span>, the bar didn't throw my back out. The next day we journeyed to the amazing Mont St. Michel and this was truly one of the highlights of the trip. An old neighbor of ours used to have a picture of it on her wall and I never could reconcile myself to such an amazing looking place on the water, but there it was, rising out of the horizon like a fairy tale.<a onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this)," href="http://www.tyeliorn-bretagne.net/images/Mont.St.Michel.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.tyeliorn-bretagne.net/images/Mont.St.Michel.jpg</a>And hey, the ham and cheese sandwich I bought there for lunch was swell. See, it was because of that bread again. God, that stuff is good.<br /><br />Hey, know what there's a lot of in France? Steps! Mt. St. Michel is no exception. But to be there, in such an old place was almost overwhelming. After a nice, long day at Mt. St. Michel, we drove back to Paris just in time for Marc to make us another dinner. Then I grudgingly went back to my hotel room, although this time, it didn't seem as bad as it had. I passed out.<br /><br />DAY FOUR - THE <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error">AUTOMYTHOLOGY</span> OF ALICE B. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error">TOKLAS</span><br /><br />Now I've been in the country for a few days, I have seen so many things, now it's time to really be let loose in the city. We had established a routine that I would walk down the hill every morning to have breakfast with Marc, Fernando and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sunil</span> at their place. This was a day I'd been looking forward to because this was the day I was going to see The Left Bank among other things! That included <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error">Notre</span> Dame, the expat bookstore "Shakespeare and Company", the Rue Dante where all the comic book stores are (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error">yay</span>!!!), <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error">Contrescarpe</span> where Hemingway lived during his expat years and writes about in "A <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-error">Moveable</span> Feast", the Luxembourg Gardens and most exciting for me, the Rue <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error">de</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_42" class="blsp-spelling-error">Fleurus</span> where Gertrude Stein had her famous salon and lived first with her brother Leo and then the incomparable Alice B. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_43" class="blsp-spelling-error">Toklas</span>. I was worried I wouldn't find it but there it was, and there was a plaque out front. To think of all the art and people who came and went from that building. God. The mind reels. I didn't want to leave the front of it. There are bookstores and stamp shops everywhere in Paris. It's nice to see a city where the bookstores aren't all closing down.After that, a high end Parisian department store to use the bathrooms (and they had a bookstore and a film exhibition in the basement. Why can't we do that???)That night - <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_44" class="blsp-spelling-error">Montmartre</span>. Oh god, I talked about steps before and climbing up the steps in <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_45" class="blsp-spelling-error">Montmartre</span> to the Scare <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_46" class="blsp-spelling-error">Coeur</span> and then the streets was a task unto itself. Again, I made it and the views of Paris from up there are amazing. US schoolkids, this is also the area where "The Red Balloon" takes place. Remember that? This is where the little boy lived with the steep steps. I found the old cabaret I was looking for, Au Lapin Agile, and was amused at the beautiful plaza full of tourist gouging "artists." Really, this was like nothing I'd ever seen and I loved it. I think the only time I'd ever seen such cute streets was at a Disneyland like place which recreates everything. This was real and so amazing.<br /><br />Ah, I miss it already.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-8858030301471864402010-09-16T17:42:00.000-07:002010-09-16T18:05:02.049-07:00The Return of Big F***in' EdI posted something on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> the other day about how being honest about who you are can be the most liberating feeling. I was tying it into the fact that it is September, and I count this month as the big month when I went to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">UMASS</span> in the Fall of 1991 and finally came out. Of course, this is not entirely true as I came out to a friend in 1988 (still one of my best friends today) when I was 16 and several people in the subsequent years. But many of them were not always understanding and in the Fall of 1991, I finally met "my own kind." And I also got the nickname, Big <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Fuckin</span>' Ed which I had drunkenly anointed myself at a work party a few months earlier.<br /><br />What I had overlooked at the time I made my <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> post is that I was 19 in September of 1991 and I am 38 now. That's half my life. My first 19 years were interminable, the last 19 have gone by in a flash. I still feel as insecure and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">unhappy</span> and naive as I did at 18, other times, older than a fossil. But that wonderful, madcap era of college still feels as new and fresh as it did then. I posted a profile pic of me on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> recently from that era and a zoo <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">coworker's</span> comment is that in it I look "genuinely happy." And I guess I was. You know that song from the Rankin-Bass "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" when Jessica the schoolmarm lets down her hair and sings, "My World is Beginning Today?" That's exactly how I felt back then, sans the psychedelic imagery and stop-motion animation. <br /><br />I've been thinking <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">about</span> this time even more these past few months as I am now in a job where I am quite a bit older than most of the other employees. What few other gay kids were there are gone or left for school. Once again, I feel like the lone gay guy in a roomful of straight people. It's as though I am back at square one, as tough the ensuing years have never happened. Maybe I am a mystery to these zoo coworkers, not always happy, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">sometimes</span> in a bad mood. But the truth is, I have gone so long feeling one way that to go back to feeling another way - alone- is terrible. And I'm disoriented. I can always come back to reality when I am back in my apartment, talking with my friends. But I also have <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">this</span> insane need to be liked by everybody. It's not as intense <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">as Neely</span> O'Hara in "Valley of the Dolls" with her "mass love," but it's close. But why would these people have any interest in be <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">friending</span> a guy who's almost 40??? I think I'm a cool guy but I'm an anomaly now. I've never really wanted to be back in this position, it can be a bit <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">alienating</span> but I do like these people quite a bit. And, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">embarrassing</span> to admit, even feel a little protective of them sometimes. <br /><br />This time is not completely the same as when I was young, though. This time I can speak my mind, unlike in high school when I was afraid of my life. I can assert my opinion if I feel people are misinformed. And quite a few kids are. There was a wonderful moment when one guy was going on about what gay people. I said to him, "That's how you think gay people are, huh?" He said yes and I said, "Do you know you've been sitting next to one for the past half an hour." Dead silence.<br /><br />Ah, score one for Big <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Fuckin</span>' Ed. I've still got it.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-51598302905574878692010-07-18T06:18:00.000-07:002010-07-18T06:51:59.091-07:00The View from Tiger Mountain: Life at the ZooFirst off, I have never actually been to the Tiger Mountain exhibit. I have only walked by it a handful of times. But it makes for a nifty title and it does have its significance. Tiger Mountain is the zoo equivalent of hell. Those who are assigned there for the day have the pleasure of standing in the sun in an isolated exhibit that is purgatory for a seasonal worker. And the only task you have is to ask people to park their strollers. Well, that doesn't sound SO bad now, does it? But have you ever dealt with suburban moms and their 6k strollers? Yes, one of them did claim to have a 6k stroller. And if they did- why? And more importantly, why bring it to the zoo? On a regular basis at Tiger Mountain, you are yelled at for asking people to park their strollers. You are insulted. You are given nasty looks. All while baking in the sun, in the middle of nowhere and not really being able to say anything but, "I'm sorry, ma'am, it's park policy." Well, that's what you're SUPPOSED to say. I think some of the employees have been a bit more creative in their answers.<br /><br />Therefore, it's no surprise that if you find yourself on the roster for this attraction in the morning, you groan and try to figure out what you must have done to anger the Zoo gods to put you in this space. The rumor is that it's a punishment zone. As I said, I have never been there but was assigned to it once, only to find myself spared at the last moment when a cashier called out. Score one for me. <br /><br />But you know, all in all, the zoo has been okay. Sure, I can complain and all-who doesn't complain about their jobs- and really, the only thing keeping me from fully loving it is the pay. But I knew of that situation going into the position. <br /><br />And to think I thought I wouldn't have to work there. I was told by the third-party recruiter that I would never be hired as they would see me as a "flight risk." I still got an offer. I was having several interviews around the same time and naively assumed at least one of them would make me an offer. In fact, a recruiter called me my second day of training at the zoo and I assumed it would be to tell me that the company wanted me. But then he said the news was "bittersweet" and that they went with somebody else. (Note to recruiters: there is NOTHING bittersweet about not getting a job. It is just bitter.)<br /><br />And here are a few things I've learned about myself and others so far this season:<br /><br />- I am old. I mean, really old. You laugh, but when some of the people you work with are 16 through 21 and have never heard of the Mary Tyler Moore show or All in the Family and you cannot connect on a lot of levels, it's odd. I like these people a lot and- while I wouldn't broadcast it- I always have this desperate need to be liked. But I also know that I need to set boundaries because if I try to suggest hanging out, I don't want to be that creepy older guy.<br /><br />- On the flip side, most people there are surprised when I tell them how old I am. And I get some kind of kick out of saying, "I'm turning 40 next year" and being told I look younger. Score!<br /><br />- Gorillas are awesome. <br /><br />- I think there are a lot more gay guys in my department than even they know. But I'd never, ever call any of them on it. Unless they tell me, I won't confront them. I'm rarely wrong but - again, here is the age thing - I don't want to be seen as some creepy older guy. I'm not hitting on them, I'd just like friends and if they needed to talk about it, would be willing to be there for them. But I can volunteer on a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">hot line</span> as well. I'd love to have them be honest, as I am. But nobody needs to be rushed into facing things about themselves that they are not ready for.<br /><br />- I can wear shorts above the knee and get over my shame that my legs look like pipe cleaners.<br /><br />- I haven't yet gotten tired of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. It's all I can afford. I'd love to go to McDonald's once in a while but I don't dare.<br /><br />And just this past Friday, I saw a great sight. I was working at an attraction across from the giraffe lawn. The zoo hadn't opened yet and the giraffes had just been let out. One of the younger giraffes was running in circles around the field in that beautiful, loping gait they have. He was probably happy that he didn't have to be at Tiger Mountain either.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-58049907770931861022010-04-05T18:27:00.000-07:002010-04-05T18:34:19.858-07:00Eddie Does Easter<strong>This is kind of a lazy post. It's just the letter I wrote to the restaurant where I had an awful Easter brunch. Yeah, I know. I haven't posted anything in months and the first thing I do is an email. But I just thought I'd introduce you to my life as a perpetual "Mary Tyler Moore Show" dinner party - you know, always hopeful they'll be fun but something always goes wrong. And every word of this is true. You may think, "Wow, this queen really does get bitchy about his eggs." But it was EASTER and I wanted a nice meal with friends. So, read on.<br /><br /></strong><br />To Whom It May Concern:<br /><br />I am writing to express my disappointment with Havana Central and their staff at the Morningside Heights restaurant on April 4, 2010. Now I have been to this restaurant many, many times in the past before it even became Havana Central and have never had any reason to complain. But the staff just wasn't firing on all cylinders this day.<br /><br />I had come to brunch with two of my friends. I had ordered the "Huevos Fritos Cubanos." I have had them several times before. Our server took my order, then my friends. When I was served, I was given the same dish as my friend had ordered. (Later, the receipt would show that this is how it was entered into the computer- that despite us ordering two different dishes, it had been input in error.) It took a long time to get our server's attention, I asked for the menu so I could show him what I ordered as he seemed to have no idea what I was asking for. I kept saying, it's the two eggs over rice. So after being told that "because we're so busy, it'll take a while to make you that" and waiting, I was presented with a different dish a second time that was wrong. This was swimming in beans and I know that there is a small portion of beans on what I had ordered but this was eggs and beans, again, not what I had ordered - indeed, the Cuban pressed bread wasn't even there so I know they didn't get it right. I sent it back again (and the busboy gave me the most annoyed look as he did so.)<br /><br />Our server came back and said, "We're out of that dish." How can you be out of a dish that consists of two eggs, rice, some onions and a spoonful of beans? Was anybody in the kitchen even familiar with the menu? Our server said that the menu has changed recently, but first of all, why would that be my fault? Secondly, this is a dish I've ordered a few times before so it's been around. Was somebody in the kitchen just annoyed with me that they were being stubborn? Well, I'm sorry, it's a recession, I do not go out to eat as much as I once did and I do want to get what I have ordered.<br /><br />So I ordered a burger as it was getting late. I asked for it "medium rare." The server said, "Medium well." I had to correct him. But it didn't matter. The burger I got was medium well. I felt badly for my friends who had to wait for me to eat while they were done, but there was consolation in the fact that the appetizer we had ordered (and had asked about three different times) never came out until they had finished their meals.<br /><br />All in all, I am very disappointed by my experience at your restaurant. As I said, I've been a patron since 2001 so I know that it's not the standard procedure. It's said that if you have a good experience, you tell two people but if you have a bad one, you tell ten. I am not going to tell ten people but this experience has made me less likely to frequent your establishment in the future.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-865616254147178532009-10-06T19:26:00.000-07:002009-10-06T19:36:21.159-07:00Let's Scare Viewers to DeathIt's October! I became a horror movie convert several years ago and have never looked back. It was cathartic because as a kid I was chicken about everything. I especially hated having to sleep next to the closet, sure that there was something in there at night. I had classmates who were allowed to see R-rated movies when they weren't even in puberty and that was so weird to me. One Halloween night, I was sleeping over at a friends and "Friday the 13th" was on. I refused to be in the same room as the movie. <br /><br />But now? That's all changed. So I've decided to compile a short and nowhere near exhaustive list of some great horror movies you should try and rent this season. Yes, some are very common so you wont be surprised to see them here but I've tried to include a few that not as many people know about/have seen. I haven't mentioned many horror movies from the past few years because I tend to find them, for the most part, lame and unimaginative. (Not to mention a large number being remakes anyhow...) Note that all the movies I list here are the originals. And I know I may get a lot of "I can't believe you didn't mention ..." But space is limited. :)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The "No, DUH!" List:</span><br /><br />1. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halloween</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1978) </span>- I don't even need to explain why this is here. General rule, stay away from most of the sequels although H20 despite it's obvious "Scream"-inspired style provides good closure (which be undone a few years later) and brings back not just Jamie Lee Curtis but Nancy Stephens from parts one and two. She's the cigarette smoking nurse who Michael attacks in the car in the first film.<br /><br />2. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday the 13th</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1980)</span>- I like this movie. A lot. Yes, it's a rip off of "Halloween" but it also works on its own. I love the early sequence when the young counselor is wandering through the quiet New Jersey town and is warned about the camp. It sets up some good atmosphere. Plus, while it's not the gold standard of acting, the cast is all pretty likable (including Kevin Bacon) and you really do feel the darkness and isolation of the camp. <br /><br />3. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Night of the Living Dead</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1968)</span>- What's more disturbing? The flesh eating zombies or the zombie-free final few minutes where a character meets a fate far too close to what was happening in 1960s America? Great, great movie. Plus, Judith O'Dea (Barbra) wears one of the most unconvincing falls ever.<br /><br />4. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1973)</span>- The dinner table scene with the hammer is almost too much for me now, not sure what people thought in 1973 but damn. This is intense and there's a LOT of good screaming.<br /><br />5. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Poltergeist</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1982)</span> - Funny how I hated horror movies but did love this. Not so much pure horror to an adult as it is thrilling, for kids, this movie brings every childhood fear to life. Oh, and it was rated PG so kids streamed into the theaters in the summer of 1982 and a whole generation got messed up. Notable for the really strong performances and warmth from Craig T. Nelson, the great Beatrice Straight and the fantastic JoBeth Williams who should have been nominated for an Oscar for this.<br /><br />Also: <span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Exorcist"</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">"A Nightmare on Elm Street."</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The "Be Sure and Look For This" List:</span><br /><br />6. <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Black Christmas"</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1974)</span> - Did you ever wonder what a horror movie starring Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin (SCTV and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") and the girl who played Juliet in the "Romeo and Juliet" movie we all saw in high school where she flashed her boobs and Romeo his butt, would be like? (Her name is Olivia Hussey, by the way.) Wonder no more. This is a great, unsettling slasher/thriller set in a sorority house. The best thing about it is the air of mystery of who the obscene caller is, something the abysmal 2006 remake spells out for you. One of the scariest scenes for me is when a woman discovers something in a park and screams and screams but we are never shown what it is yet it's still horrifying. Good stuff. A perhaps apocryphal tale has it that when this was first broadcast on network TV, it was yanked at the midpoint because of viewers calling in and saying it was too scary. Another cool thing? It was directed by Bob Clark who nine years later directed the much gentler "A Christmas Story."<br /><br />7. <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Don't Look Now" </span><span style="font-style: italic;">(1973)</span> - Ahhh, Venice. Canals, gondoliers, piazzas and murdered women. Wait, what? This is not the Venice of David Lean's "Summertime." This is Venice in the off-season. Gloomy, abandoned, eerie, dangerous. Is it haunted the by the ghost of Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland's dead daughter? Who is responsible for the murders? Who are the two weird sisters? This film is notorious less for the story than the sex scene between Christie and Sutherland that was rumored to be real. Warning: Donald Sutherland naked butt alert. But it's not as frightening as his curly wig.<br /><br />8. <span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Haunting"</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1963)</span> - remade as a crappy CGI fest in 1999, this is the real deal. Think you're tough? Watch this by yourself with the lights out. Go ahead, I DARE you. I saw this at the age of 24 and had trouble sleeping for the next three weeks. The scariest movie where you never see the ghosts. The music, camera angles and black and white photography are all unsettling. Plus, it has a great cast that includes Julie Harris, Russ Tamblyn and Claire Bloom wearing one great mod outfit. Again, watch it alone. Ha.<br /><br />9. <span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Innocents"</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1961)</span>- There have been a lot, lot, lot of versions of "The Turns of the Screw" (and why not? It's a kick ass ghost story) but this is a very faithful and very scary adaptation of the Henry James short story. Deborah Kerr is great as the nanny who's seeing evil, manipulative ghosts - or is she? Also in the cast is the creepy boy from "Village of the Damned." We do see ghosts in this movie, but there's also a lot of great psychological horror going on here as well.<br /><br />10. <span style="font-weight: bold;"> "Let's Scare Jessica to Death"</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1971)</span>- Hey look! A movie set in rural Connecticut that was FILMED in rural Connecticut and not Ontario or Romania. Great movie about an unbalanced woman who has visions and weird experiences when she moves into an old farmhouse with her husband to "live off the land." Well, it *was* 1971. Vampires and ghosts and Jessica herself all prove pretty scary.<br /><br />11. <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Suspiria"</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(1977)</span> - An Italian movie, set in Germany and filmed in English. A young woman goes to a dance school that turns out to be home to a coven of witches. Beautiful, rich, vibrant colors make it look like a gore soaked "Wizard of Oz." Not for the faint of heart (it's Italian horror and that's code for blood) but gorgeously filmed with a killer soundtrack.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Modern Horror List:</span><br /><br />Since they're relatively new, I will only mention:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Let the Right One In"</span> (Swedish vampires!)<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Orphanage"</span> (Spanish ghosts!)<br /><br />I don't want to say much about these two as they have plots that need to be experienced rather than described.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Not Horror but Horrific:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"They Shoot Horses Don't They?"</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> (1969)</span>- No, this is not a traditional horror movie but you'd be hard pressed to find a movie more unsettling and disturbing. And you thought dance marathons were only fund raisers that high school students participate in!<br /><br />Happy viewing!Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-24922469273891842062009-09-30T13:46:00.000-07:002009-09-30T13:57:15.415-07:00Random thoughts, (some up, some down), to end SeptemberAs I said in a previous post, last week was great because I kept myself busy the entire time getting ready for the dinner party on Friday. (And I need to add here that one of the books that was crucial to the dinner party's success FINALLY arrived from the library today, all of two and a half weeks after I place the request. I had to find the actual book in a bookstore and copy down the recipes.) This week has been a big ol' letdown so far. Since I see no point in buying unlimited Metro Cards for the time being, I tend to stay in my neighborhood a lot. No problem as it's a nice neighborhood, (one of the cast members from "As the World Turns" lives up here and I see him all the time) but some weeks are more boring than others. This is one of them. Perhaps it's the cold and the fact that people are bundling up. I like cold weather, always have and will, but this year it reminds me how much time is going by and that I am still out of work. I'm looking forward to a nice Indian summer if anything to get those Columbia boys back in t-shirts.<br /><br />Also compounding the general malaise is the sudden uptick in rejection letters that I am getting. I suppose it's good that there seems to be movement but none of the movement is in my direction. But I still send out those resume dutifully and faithfully every day. I know a job will come, but I just don't want it to happen too late. Yeah, the news is rather depressing about the job situation and I know so many others are in the same situation as I, but I get a little selfish and think, "Yes, but only I can control what happens to me." So I second guess myself, wonder what I am doing wrong, wonder if I have done nothing but take the wrong career path my entire life, kick myself when another rejection arrives as though it's some form of judgement.<br /><br />Nevertheless, there is something satisfying about sending out resumes, knowing that you're working on getting it out there, that each day your name goes out to more and more people, like a ripple effect in a pond. And the more who know about me, the better the odds have to be mathematically. Right? RIGHT??? It's that conundrum: I know I can do the job well, but these people can only choose one person and in this competitive climate, they'll go with the most "golden" resume. And so I am still here and so ashamed to admit that last week, I made it a point to tune into "Oprah" to see the Mackenzie Phillips debacle. Oh, how I've fallen.<br /><br />Geez, thank god for this blog so I can get it all out. I don't want there to be too much annoying navel-gazing here but every now and then I have to vent.<br /><br />So, let's talk Sarah Palin for a second. And only for a second for that's all I can take. The woman is incapable of stringing together a coherent thought - this is not saying she cannot form a sentence, she can. It's just that her sentences makes very little sense. Therefore, her book will be completely ghostwritten as we know. The only thing that bugs me is that it probably will be a bestseller. I guess there's no accounting for taste.<br /><br />And finally, a farewell to September, a month that began with me on Martha's Vineyard, having one of the most glorious vacations ever, to a more sobering month as some friends lost loved ones, members of the family sold their homes, ending an era, and a final gathering was held on the ground of another relatives home that will be sold soon. That was especially moving as it was the place where our families have been gathering since I was an infant (and before) and I'm sad to see the house go.<br /><br />As I finish writing this, somewhere outside my window, some old creaky door is opening and it sounds like the effect used in horror movies for coffins. That can only mean that it's time for October.<br /><br />Another month, more possibilities.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-17879540111871950812009-09-29T18:21:00.000-07:002009-09-29T18:53:34.860-07:00Where's the Boeuf? (Yes, I know that was terrible.)I can cook. I have made entire Thanksgiving dinners, I am a whiz at eggplant parmesan, my shepherd's pie is a delight but I was feeling limited in what I was able to produce. So, as many of you know, I took a big step last week and tried something new. A multi-step recipe that required real attention and skill. And I did it. Have I mastered the art of French cooking? No. But I came that much closer the other night.<br /><br />I spent the better part of a month worrying about cooking up the boeuf bourguignon (god, I wish that were easier to spell) and as of last Friday night, I served it, people ate it, they seemed to enjoy it and that was it.<br /><br />The last several months of my life have been very rote. A typical day goes with me getting up, taking my walk, going home, and sending out resumes while I have "The Young and the Restless" on in the background. (For those of you who used to watch it but haven't in years, you'll be delighted to know that Kay and Jill still hate one another. Since 1974.) Then I tend to worry about my future obsessively for the rest of the day.<br /><br />Last week was a change of pace and it was nice to stave off the few work rejections that I did get and go shopping. I turned in my coin at the bank and bought items a few at a time. I think that was a psychological thing so it wouldn't look as though I had spent too much money all at once. Always the glutton for punishment, I even walked through the heat and humidity last week to the Fairway down under the viaduct to get the stew meat. And truthfully, I just didn't want to pay for a subway ride to the Fairway on 75th. A friend insisted that I should only go to Fairway, but I'm not sure why that should have been my only option. But I did get my meat and bacon there. Yes, the recipe calls for both bacon and beef. Vegetarians had best stop reading here. <br /><br />My mind wouldn't rest. While lying in bed on Wednesday night, I was puzzling over what it would be like to cut the bacon from the "rind." I don't think I'd even seen bacon that hadn't been sliced before. The task of separating the bacon from the rind ended up being a lot easier than I thought. The rind is just the skin anyhow. And it all worked out swell. I bought a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" recently but didn't want it to get all messy. perhaps I shouldn't have been so reticent. I always tell my mother that I want her old Betty Crocker cookbook one day, and that things is so splattered by grease and flour and shortening and god knows what else that the book could probably be cooked in the oven and taste good. But I couldn't bring myself to soil my new cookbook. I photocopied the recipe and had it right in front of me as I went step by step, bit by bit over the recipe. There were a few adjustments I had to make - the bacon didn't render out enough fat to brown the meat successfully and in the end, there was no fat to pour out. I started at 1:30 in the afternoon and was done by 7:45 pm. That includes the whole process of cooking in the oven (and frequently checking to make sure it wasn't simmering too much.) Unlike Julie Powell, I did not fall asleep and burn it. Although, my recipe looked a lot different than the one shown in "Julie and Julia." <br /><br />And as Julia said, the flavors come together much more harmoniously when left overnight. There was barely enough for leftovers when the party was over. That's partly due to a nosy roommate with boundary issues but that's another story entirely.<br /><br />So what do I tackle next?Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-74666308452699344742009-09-21T14:45:00.000-07:002009-09-21T14:55:06.008-07:00Special, esoteric "Mad Men" fans only postingAs I've mentioned many times before, I'm obsessive. My latest obsession? "Mad Men." How can I even begin to describe how much I loved last night's episode? My friend and I are hooked on this show. In the early 90s, he and I used to spend every Saturday night in his basement watching "Twin Peaks" and nearly twenty years later, we have another "Twin Peaks" to capture our interest. <br /><br />First, here's a good quote from an"Onion" critic about the season that reflects what I've discussed with people about the slow nature of the show and is it better to watch all at once on DVD or week by week:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/guy-walks-into-an-advertising-agency,33092/" target="_blank">http://www.avclub.com/articles/guy-walks-into-an-advertising-agency,33092/</a><br /><br />"I’ve read a lot of criticism—in the comments section here and in other places—that while Season Three has featured a number of memorable moments, it hasn’t really cohered. The leisurely pace that’s been Mad Men’s trademark mode has, at times, seemed a little indulgent, as though creator Matt Weiner were trying to convince us that there’s more happening than there actually is… if only we’d look hard enough. Since I enjoy spending time in the Mad Men universe whether it's drama-filled or not, I haven’t minded the slow-drip, scene-by-scene approach. I think of this show as being like one long novel, and though each chapter has its own careful construction and unique themes, it often feels wrong to judge the individual elements of the composition until we’ve seen the whole picture. Three years from now, when we see how much (or how little) everyone’s lives have changed over the course of Mad Men, those “not much happe<br />ning” times we’ve spent with them will be all the more meaningful, because we’ll have come to know these people."<br /><br />I totally agree.<br /><br />Some things about last night I really liked:<br /><br />- Pete's reaction when they said that Ken Cosgrove is head of accounts as is Pete Campbell, "for the time being." Vincent Kartheiser has some great, momentary reactions shots, like a few weeks ago when the jai alai guy was talking about "balls coming at his face."<br /><br />-Peggy fainting into Pete's arms.<br /><br />- Joan. Joan. Joan. Was she great in this episode or what? How can she leave Sterling Cooper? And how can they let her go? I swore she was going to ask Don to help her get her job back when they were in the hospital but she didn't. Damn. But man, she and Don have some smokin' chemistry. But as Joan noted in the first season, he never went after her. I'll bet Don never has affairs with coworkers. Joan is the one with brains in her fingers, not her husband.<br /><br />- Betty apparently still doesn't care for Bobby much. "Go beat your head against the wall. Only boring people get bored."<br /><br />- Evil Bubble Cut Barbie.<br /><br />- Why don't we know Don's secretary's name? Peggy has Olive, Pete's had Hildy forever, Paul has/had Lois.<br /><br />- Did you notice the quick shot of Mr. Hooker and a secretary run into the room, all mussed up when the accident happened? Man, I wish Joan would put him in his place.<br /><br /> - Paul Kinsey going crazy over having to cut his beard and then playing the guitar while the top brass comes through.<br /><br />- And the accident itself. Completely unexpected but this is the way MM always confounds our expectations. Here I was thinking, we now have this young upstart, he's going to cause all kinds of trouble and tension, everybody will hate him. There will be episodes worth of resentment and then blam!, his foot gets cut off by a lawnmower and suddenly the status quo is restored. Brilliant play on the title as well, "Guy Walks Into Advertising Agency" as his name was Guy and then of course, he doesn't walk out.<br /><br />I love this show.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-52887698685204469622009-09-17T14:00:00.000-07:002009-09-21T15:30:24.814-07:00Mary Travers (1936-2009)Just a few hours before I had heard that Mary Travers had died, I was listening to the song "Early in the Morning" on You Tube as sung by Colin Hanks on "Mad Men." That song is the first song on the first "Peter, Paul and Mary" album. It wasn't until maybe an hour after I had heard that she died that I realized I'd just been listening to one of their songs earlier that day. That made everything that much sadder for me.<br /><br />Amidst all this contemporary tea party nonsense, the ugly rhetoric being thrown around, the sense that everything is falling apart, we have lost one of the voices in the struggle for freedom and civil liberties. It was once said about folksinger Malvina Reynolds that her protest songs sound gentle, but she doesn't protest gently. The same can be said for Mary Travers.<br /><br />I have a CD boxed-set from a few years ago entitled "Washington Square Memories" which is the folk music from the era. One of the photos in the booklet shows a young, pretty, teenage blonde singing along with a girl in a guitar. The photo is dated 1954-55. I can give you three guesses as to who that young blonde is.<br /><br />If you want the quintessential 60s folkie, I'd say it would be Mary Travers. This isn't to put down Joan Baez because I love her but Travers was the archetype of the folkie. She was a city dweller who would go down to Washington Square on the weekends and sing along. Eventually, she played the clubs, was discovered and recruited to be part of a folksinging trio. Yes, you heard me right - "recruited." "Peter, Paul and Mary" did not form spontaneously but were put together by a record company. This doesn't take away from any of their legacy for me (or the fact that, as a book I once read noted, that Mary was blonde whereas the true authentic folk singers all knew that it was the brunettes who were the most earnest, the type who carried a copy of "The Bell Jar" in their purses.)<br /><br />So there's both a hint of authenticity and the commercial in the story of Mary Travers. But to me, it doesn't matter. What I remember are the songs. My mother had a few Peter, Paul and Mary albums and when we were growing up, she would often play them when she was doing the dishes after dinner or on lazy Sunday afternoons. My mother owned their first album, the one when Mary is holding a bouquet of flowers and the name of the group is written on chalk on a brick wall behind them. The song I seem to remember best, and I have no idea why, is "Lemon Tree." But the song I grew to love when I started listening to them on my own at the age of 17 is "If I Had a Hammer." Yes, in the era of hair metal and Funky Colmadenas, I went in the opposite direction.<br /><br />It's because of the influence of "Peter, Paul and Mary" I went and discovered all these other wonderful, brilliant folk artists from that era and beyond. It's why I always feel as though I was born too late and wish that the Greenwich Village I knew was not the one where I worked for 6 years in the '00s but the Village of the 50s and 60s. I know I idealize it, smoky coffeehouses, acoustic music, beatniks but there has to really have been something there for the legend to grow. It sure beats all the Marc Jacobs boutiques that have taken over Bleecker Street.<br /><br />Goodbye, Mary. Thanks for the fight, the music, your voice, your inspiration and everything else. I was going to try and end this with some reference to one of her songs, like "your soul is blowin' in the wind" or "now you're much further than 500 miles" but I think it's best to show my love and respect and just stop right here.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-39884992698993364322009-08-27T17:37:00.000-07:002009-08-27T17:58:10.545-07:00Summer is Almost Over (Thank God)Summer is my least favorite time of year. The summer of 2009 was no different. I won't go into details but for the most part, this summer sucked, so I am not especially sorry to see the back end of it. <br /><br />But this was a good week with which to end the month of August. And there was nothing especially amazing about it. Well, the weather broke so that was indeed a good thing after last week's heat wave. I think if the Russian kids who were staying with us last week were here now, they would have been exploring the city a lot more. <br /><br />But I was outside a lot more. I visited a friend's mother who was returning home after visiting for a few months, I helped out with a Tuesday night community dinner and I spent the past two days volunteering at my friend's workplace to help organize things. My friend works in a private library setting and all I could think of was, "That was a wasted opportunity." I suppose if I went back in time, I would do a lot of things differently and taken an actual library job out of grad school rather than falling for the "dot coms are the here and now!" argument. Ah well...<br /><br />But after two days of hauling boxes, sweating, running up and down stairs, handling books older than this country, getting red rot on my hands , I felt rejuvenated. It's a good thing I've been doing my four mile morning walks every day for the past several months because I didn't feel all that tired. But had I done this earlier in the year, I'd have been winded after an hour. <br /><br />Man, it felt good to be working and useful again. Who thought I'd ever miss good old hard work? <br /><br />And now as a reward, I'm heading out on vacation for a week (if one can really take a vacation when they haven't worked in forever. )Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-9642714931299502992009-08-24T17:52:00.000-07:002009-08-24T18:31:57.428-07:00The Boys from St. PetersburgThere were two young Russian visitors from St. Petersburg staying in the apartment over the last several days. One of them left yesterday and the other one this morning. They were complete strangers to us; neither my roommate, W., nor I had ever met them before and I don't expect we'll ever see them again. The visitors came to stay here as a favor to a friend of my roommate. The friend would have taken them in but HIS roommate objected hosting people for five nights so W. was called upon to help out. After all, W.'s friend said, we'll never see the kids because this is New York City and they will be out all the time. I wasn't entirely sold on the idea but then, I don't really have much pull when it comes to decisions made in this apartment. That's a story for another time.<br /><br />W.'s reasons for taking the guys in were not entirely altruistic; what W. really wanted was a passage to St. Petersburg. I think a lot of this "taking in people out of the goodness of our hearts" is more of a <em>quid pro quo </em>situation than anybody cares to admit. If you can stay in our apartment for free in New York, there's an expectation that people will reciprocate and let you stay with them <em>gratis</em> in their home country.<br /><br />There was a problem with this theory right off the bat: these guys were only 19 years old (born in 1990!), probably don't even have their own places and while they were certainly not arrogant or rude, they didn't really have any interest in hanging out with two (curiously single) American guys, one in his mid-forties and the other in his *ahem* late-thirties. (And where is our third roommate, V.? V. is out shooting a short film in Bolivia and will be gone for a month. He left two weeks ago and W. asked me "Did he cut his hair before he left or does he still look like a homeless guy who you'd see asking for money on the number 1 train?" The latter.)<br /><br />There was no bonding that happened with our foreign visitors, no moments where we sat around and talked and laughed. Most conversations we had were short and rushed; often I'd be left talking in mid-sentence as they would appear to lose interest, turn away and go onto the Russian language Facebook. I tried to get them talking about Facebook, but that went nowhere.<br /><br />The most serious conversation I did have with one of them came about when I was in the kitchen getting a drink. The kid came in, looked me square in the face and in a very serious tone asked, "Do you know where we can get doughnuts around here?" Sadly, I didn't. This is just not a doughnut neighborhood. These guys don't have doughnuts in Russia and they came upon a bakery in upstate New York earlier in their travels and fell in love with the fried delicacies. It was hard to explain to them that bakeries in Manhattan don't really specialize in doughnuts.<br /><br />As for the guys being out all the time and us never seeing them- lies, all lies. I think our visitors spent more time in the apartment than they did sightseeing. One day they went to the Brooklyn Bridge. The next, they took the Staten Island Ferry but were back in the apartment by 3 pm and stayed the rest of the day. They didn't just stay in a corner either. These guys spent almost all of their time in this heat trap, playing loud rock music, fiddling on the computer, organizing and reorganizing their luggage which they seemed to do about five times. They even cooked, something I haven't bothered doing since the summer began and it became far too hot to turn on the oven or stove. They subsisted on rice and some kind of stir fry vegetables the entire time they were here, washed down with a bottle of Dr. Pepper that lasted five days. Their luggage and belongings were spread out all over the front living room so we could see some of the things the guys had collected during their travels. Little American flags (from their trip to DC), bags of candy, toys and, oddly, dozens of packets of <em>Sweet and Low</em>. <br /><br />I can't blame them for not wanting to be out too much. Their visit coincided with some of the hottest, most humid weather of the summer, but even the apartment was sweltering. The night before their arrival there was a microburst so severe that the city, Central <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00;color:#000000;" >Park</span> especially, lost hundreds of trees. I'm still in mourning.<br /><br />Now they're gone and a weird thing happened this evening. The apartment is quiet, the front room is empty and I miss the chaos. Just a little bit. Turns out, having a full house that was crowded and noisy, even for a short while, was a nice respite from all the endless days I have been spending here alone looking for work. Now I'm feeling lonely again. Joni was right, you really don't know what you've got til it's gone.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-71985309986179673322009-08-22T13:13:00.000-07:002009-08-22T13:43:24.782-07:00Everyone's Crazy for a Sharp-Dressed ManI was killing time at a bookstore today and was looking through the book, "FML" which is based on the website of the same name (which in turn is based on a website created by a group of French friends.) The title stands for "F*** MY Life" and is full of purportedly true incidents, usually only a sentence or two about horrible situations that have befallen the narrator and they end each with "FML." The book was sort of amusing but there are way too many entries about "I found out via a mistaken text message that my boyfriend was cheating on me - with my best friend! FML" or "I asked my mom if I looked fat in this dress and she said I'd look fat in anything! FML." FML is overrun with cheating boyfriends, cruel moms and people with bad acne. That it's now out in book form can only mean one thing: the toilet read. Okay, perhaps I am being cruel and you can bring it out at a party but I think the amusement would end quickly after the fifth "My boyfriend dumped me and asked if my sister was single. FML." story.<br /><br /><br />The one thing the book "FML" did do was make me think about some of the embarrassing things that have happened to me over the years. It's a blessing and a curse that I have a memory like a steel trap. On the one hand, I am able to remember dates and incidents; I am the family historian. On the other hand, I remember times when people have hurt me or even worse, when I have been cruel to others and caused people pain. It would be nice to forget about all of those time by taking a pill, sort of like an "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" because really, I can still feel badly about things that I did YEARS ago. I feel my face turn red and it's as though the incident happened yesterday. Much like the story of the brown corduroys in 7th grade.<br /><br />Remember corduroys? Not the wide cord kind, but the thin cord kind we wore in the 70s and 80s that would make the "vhoop vhoop" sound whenever we'd walk? The kind that would wear out at the knees and the behind but they were so comfortable we just didn't want to give them up? I wore a lot of corduroys in 7th grade (the 1983-84 school year) and preferred them to jeans. One particular morning, I was tearing about the house trying to find pants to wear and I couldn't find any clean clothes. (Too many incidents like this precipitated my mother giving us all laundry baskets when we were in our early teens and saying that our personal laundry duties were up to us now.) But at the last minute, I did manage to find pants in the dryer, a pair of tan corduroys. A lucky break! I put them on and went to school.<br /><br /><br />Junior High was not the high point in my school career: kids were crueler, teachers grew meaner (and nuttier.) There were all sorts of adjustments I had to make to get used to life at Kiley Junior High and I was only, at this point, (March of 1984) starting to get into the groove. But on this day, after lunch, the kid behind me (his name was Jason. Where are you now, Jason?) was laughing and pointing to my butt. A word about my butt: I don't really have one so that can't be what the amusement was. I wondered if my pen had exploded in my pocket; that had happened earlier in the school year but I didn't carry pens in my back pocket anymore. What could have been so funny that he was laughing and calling somebody else over to take a look? Were the pants torn revealing my underwear. A cursory feel back there revealed that no, the pants were intact. Thankfully, the line started moving and nobody else came to witness what was on my ass.<br /><br />I then forgot about it. Jason didn't press the issue and the day went on. But when I was about to go home the day, one of the girls in my class looked at me in that oh so serious way only a twelve year old can muster and said, "Chic is for girls." I had no idea what she was talking about but something was going on and I was just glad to go home and find out what it was.<br /><br /><br />I got home and my sister, who is two and a half years older than me, yelled at me because I was wearing her pants, her "Chic" brand pants. I had worn them to school. And then, worst of all, she and my brother started laughing at me. You see, dear reader, those were NOT my tan corduroys in the dryer that morning, they were my sister's "Chic" tan corduroy pants. I had worn my sister's pants to school and all day I had the "Chic" label emblazoned across the back pocket on my ass. I was so humiliated by my siblings laughing at me that, in a rage, I overturned a small table. So then the day, which had been bad enough, ended with me getting punished because I had knocked over furniture. Something like this could only, only happen in Junior High.<br /><br />And the worst thing about it all? That entire day I was going around wearing girl's pants, I never noticed any difference in the way my sister's pants fit me as compared to my actual brown cords (which, as it turned out, were still in the dirty clothes basket.)<br /><br />I may as well say it: FML.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-37208431544284727222009-08-21T19:37:00.000-07:002009-08-21T19:42:55.415-07:00Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews Make Us Miss the 60s That Much LessOh, Carol. Oh, Julie.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQyoMDZUP68">OH GOD!!!!</a>Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-59668062676615952502009-08-20T14:24:00.000-07:002009-08-21T14:40:29.635-07:00The True, Sad Saga of the Prospect Street SocietyThe Prospect Street Society, a group dedicated to the pursuit of creativity and the higher arts and doomed to a very short life, met for the very first time on a Wednesday evening in May of 1996. It was the only time when all five members – Madeleine, B., Joe, Todd and I- were present. Despite the initial burst of enthusiasm we had for the idea, (inspired partly because I grew all excited by the film “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” about the Algonquin Round Table which I then showed to Madeleine and B. and we decided wouldn’t it be fun if we had a little society of our own) each consecutive meeting would be missing one or two people. But at the very first gathering, we were all there, happy and hopeful, determined to be the next great movement of arts in this country, one that we could say started in the living room of Madeleine and B.’s place, and then we could relate the story of our humble beginnings to arts magazines and interviewers. Okay, to be fair I doubt anybody else in the group felt this way but my runaway imagination – always ten steps ahead- did get this far.<br /><br />Four out of five of the Society members had met several years earlier while we were working together at a large bookstore near the Massachusetts/Connecticut border.I had started the job there after college, as part-time Christmas help that became permanent after the holiday. I was also working another job as an admissions clerk at a very quiet local museum complex, but it was the bookstore job that was the one I always looked forward to every night. There at the bookstore, I met several other disenchanted kindred souls who were working there because of the bad economy.While times were tough there was still optimism in the air as it was early into Bill Clinton’s first term – the ignominies of the Defense of Marriage Act and the Lewinsky scandal were still down the road - and after the previous twelve years of Republican rule, it felt like a new day. After we all left the bookstore, we remained friends and once Madeleine and B. moved back into the area after living on Nantucket for a time, we formed the group.<br /><br /><br />By this time in my life, I was looking for any escape from suburbia (where I lived with my partner) into Northampton, near where I had attended to college. To me, the area of the upper Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts was a fairyland in contrast to where I was living in Enfield, CT. I was secretly happy that the sojourn to Nantucket hadn’t worked out for Madeleine and B. I wasn't ready to cut them loose yet and I was glad that they were, for the time being, back in the area and back in my life. They moved into the handsome brick building, up the hill from downtown Northampton and directly behind Smith College campus. It was the only brick apartment building in the neighborhood. Memory has a strange way of making me think that their apartment was up several levels, like on the sixth floor but this can’t be possible as the place wasn't even six stories tall. The building was big but not tall.<br /><br /><br />Madeleine had decorated the living room with photographs and paintings she had created. The bookshelves were filled with all kids of different cookbooks; it was the first time that I had ever really considered cookbooks to be literature but Madeleine had them on the shelves with as much reverence as I used to place my first editions of modern novels. In Madeleine’s hands, even "Martha Stewart's Entertaining" looked perfectly in place next to her books on Gauguin, Josephine Baker and Pablo Picasso.<br /><br />I can’t remember if there were drinks or food passed along at the first meeting, but I figured there had to be something. It was around dinnertime and I wouldn’t have had time to eat between my job as a bank teller in Springfield and then heading up to Northampton. I sat on the floor and Madeleine and B.’s cats, Punkin and Frida, came and went as they pleased in the room, not entirely thrilled by the strangers who had invaded their space and not willing to be affectionate. Since none of us were particularly sure as how to conduct a meeting, we went around one by one and shared what we had. Todd passed around some slides of paintings that he had made at college. We all would take a slide, hold it up to the light and try to discern what the image was in the acetate. Joe presented less of a short story than random thoughts of the state of the current literature and the real lack of anything exciting or new happening.<br /><br />I had just recently read “Pride and Prejudice” for the first time and had been completely taken by it. Very few books before or since have held such a power for me, and it was one line in that book that I found both hilarious and worthy of seizing upon, the description of the temperament eldest Bennet daughter as “the super-excellent disposition of Jane.” I took that line and used it as the title of a short story I’d written in Jane Austen’s voice, but transported to the current world of Amherst, Massachusetts in the mid-1990s. I can no longer find any trace of my story and cannot even remember much of it, just that the heroine Jane (whose personality remains to me as some big blank, I was so busy trying to be witty that I forgot to give my character any personality) and where she lived that it must not have been a very impressive achievement. But when all we want to do is parody, what is impressive? (Embarrassingly, a year later a friend wanted us all to write short humorous essays on a theme and I again went to that Jane Austen parody well for inspiration. How lame!) Madeleine passed around some artwork, and B. presented some of his paintings.<br /><br />The initial meeting got off to such a good start that we were all looking forward to the next week. We did gather, but Todd was unable to attend so we were already short one member on only our second meeting. I figured this would be a one time occurrence so we put things on hold and headed into town for dinner and walked around afterward. But the Prospect Street Society never got back on track. In subsequent weeks, there would always be somebody who couldn’t make it, or we’d be too distracted to get down to business. One night, there was a huge blowup between two members. It’s kind of hard to keep a meeting going after that. And so, only two months after the Prospect Street was formed, the Prospect Street Society mutually dissolved. Sometimes, when you try too hard to make something happen, it feels forced.<br /><br />A couple of years after we ended the Society and I was leaving the area for graduate school, B. gave me a gift of an abstract landscape he’d painted that represented Northampton. It still hangs on my wall. Even though I am currently struggling and unemployed, I doubt I will one day have to sell it for food like Gertrude Stein did with some of her Cézannes during the Second World War and I don’t intend to ever get rid of it. But B. himself has faded from my life entirely; I don't expect I'll ever see him again.<br /><br />I’m still friends with Madeleine and Todd and Joe and we sometimes reminisce about the Society and we laugh. It came to nothing, just like a lot of things have and will in our lives. And for the positive outcome - I have not written any more Jane Austen parodies in over a decade.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:0;"></span><p style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-7176788393199680732009-08-20T10:26:00.000-07:002009-08-20T10:31:02.401-07:00Ed Beats a Dead Horse with this Novel of His<strong>I mentioned my novel "Semesters" the other day. I wrote five drafts of it, often coming home at the end of a work day and writing it. But it's far too many pages, so I decided to just print the synopsis of it here. I did send it to a publisher (lot of good that did, I'm sure) and the synopsis is supposed to be like the jacket copy. So if you're wondering what the story is about, here ya go. Think of it as "Hollywood Wives" meets "Tales of the City." I doubt this will be the only novel I'll ever write, but it was my first. And if it never gets published - I still did it. So pretend you've picked this book up in the store and are reading the jacket copy and are REALLY interested. <em>(Special thanks to Dave and other friends who helped write the synopsis. I couldn't do it alone.)</em></strong><br /><em></em><br /><br /><em>“On Todd Salazar’s first day of college, while his belongings were still in neatly labeled boxes on the dorm room floor, he had sex with his new roommate Darin.”</em><br /><br />From the first line of the first page of Semesters, a loopy, original novel about gay life at a large New England state university during the early ‘90s, it's clear that the people populating this novel certainly are more interesting that those saintly, asexual members of the class of 10 percent portrayed in heterosexual college novels. Set against an era when gay marriage is a pipe dream and being “out” is still a precarious choice, the students of Semesters feel safe enough in their campus microcosm to be Here and Queer—so get used to it! They have sex, do drugs, have sex again, make all the wrong decisions, wage war against their conservative enemies, bum cigarettes, have more sex, all the while struggling with questions universal to young Americans. The writing is breezy and the drama generous. You'll encounter scandalous revelations, parties out of bounds, back stabbing, and an unforgettable, topsy-turvy final confrontation. Has it been mentioned that there is sex? Lots of it!<br /><br /><br />The protagonists are three gay men: BEN BRISTOL, the transfer student looking for sex or love, whichever comes first, TODD SALAZAR, the freshman who already has quite the track record but is looking for new conquests, and DARIN BURKETT, Todd’s whiny and underhanded first semester roommate, the self-appointed perpetual victim.<br /><br /><br />Ben Bristol is the heart of the novel. After two years of living closeted at home and attending a local community college to save money, Ben has high expectations for his junior year. But despite having a hot, straight British roommate who has a habit of walking around in his underwear, Ben’s only affections are from a fedora-wearing Trekker named EDGAR whom he met during orientation. Undeterred, Ben joins the University Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance (UGLBA), writes a column for a newsletter, and falls hard for a guy who barely knows he exists—and that’s only in the first month of school. We follow the uninitiated Ben as he discovers the thrill of off-campus parties, drinks bad sangria and goes to the UGLBA-sponsored dances. Finally an active member of a gay community, is Ben happy? And what if his quest for love ends with Ben in the arms of somebody he’d never expected?<br /><br /><br />Among Ben’s new college friends are: JULIA, a fellow member of the UGLBA whose claims of bisexuality are suspect; JEREMY and ARTURO, who are at a crisis point in their relationship, which Arturo relieves by hitting on other men in front of Jeremy, oblivious to Jeremy’s growing attraction to a sexy TA; TOBE, the self-appointed DJ who plays music nobody requests and refuses to wear weight-appropriate clothing; and TERRI, the beleaguered leader of the UGLBA who discovers her ex-girlfriend is in an abusive relationship and finds herself thrust into a brutal life or death situation.<br /><br /><br />Countering Ben’s cautious and naive romantic tendencies, Todd Salazar is all magnetic sexual appeal. Todd can’t help but oblige the men who line up the moment he steps on campus in September. In addition to sleeping with his roommate, Darin, Todd seduces super-senior RICHARD, who already has a boyfriend. No matter. After Richard, there’s KIRK, a golden boy from California, who has his own apartment. But Todd is carrying a dark secret about a taboo relationship he had over the summer. There’s a problem with secrets, though ... they have a funny way of being exposed at just the wrong times.<br /><br /><br />And then there’s Darin Burkett, a weaselly freshman from the suburbs of Boston not thrilled to be stuck in a provincial western Massachusetts state school. The relationship between roommates Darin and Todd, at first full of passion, quickly dissolves as Darin’s inconsiderate habits drive anal retentive Todd crazy; Darin doesn’t make his bed, breaks Todd’s lamp [gasp!], smokes in the dorm room, and has people in at all hours, notably MARIA, the cynical fellow UGLBA member who lives down the hall. Together, Darin and Maria bring their own half-baked brand of stoner politics to a campus that Darin feels is too complacent. Eventually Darin takes up with the mysterious revolutionary and begins a prank campaign against the Young Conservatives Club. Darin also manages to acquire a boyfriend, the sexy LARS, a former swim team member with a great tan line who doesn’t seem to know why he's dating Darin. Tensions between Darin and Todd explode into a nasty fist fight which ends the first semester with a bang and sets the tone for an even larger confrontation just before Spring Break, the ramifications of which send shock waves through the campus.<br /><br /><br />So take a study break, wring out your wet Speedo and grab a cup of coffee and peanut butter chocolate chip cookie at the Blue Book Café. Semesters demonstrates how much fun college can be when you’re not attending class.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-51265936795797864492009-08-19T15:37:00.000-07:002009-08-19T16:54:31.233-07:00The Obligatory Cooking Post or Curse You, Alice B. Toklas!In the summer of 2003, I became obsessed with Gertrude Stein.<br /><br />I’ve been a man of obsessions my entire life and some previous fanatical leanings have been everything from Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” to Joan Baez to “As the World Turns” to Anne Rice to the musical “Gypsy.” With that last one, I ended up buying three different cast albums in the space of one month and then, not completely happy, I had to buy the original recording on vinyl to be a completist. Most of these former loves have never really left me and I still have the CDs in my collection, I still have “Alice in Wonderland” items in my room and I still listen to Joan Baez on occasion.<br /><br />The Gertrude Stein obsession was brought about by an article Janet Malcolm had written for The New Yorker (and an eventual book) entitled “Gertrude Stein’s War.” The article detailed the story of how Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, were able to survive the French Occupation despite being two Jewish lesbians. There was more to Malcolm’s article than that: it was a glimpse into Stein’s life in Paris in the early twentieth century. I was so taken with the article that I ran right out and bought a used copy of “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” I’d never given much thought to the whole Parisian expatriate community, but suddenly I wanted to know everything about it and especially these two women.<br /><br />And what true obsession about Stein and Toklas could be satisfied without owning a copy of “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook?” The book is still in print and I bought it more for the thrill of it rather than trying any of the recipes which I had heard are notoriously difficult. “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” is more useful as a memoir of her life in France than as a recipe book, but there was one recipe that caught my eye. No, it wasn’t the infamous “Toklas Brownies” that, as it turns out, wasn't even a brownie recipe but for Haschisch Fudge that was added into the cookbook by a friend without Toklas really knowing much about the most potent ingredient.<br /><br />The recipe that caught my eye had one of the simplest names: <em>Very Good Chocolate Mousse</em>. There were only two ingredients: 6 eggs and half a pound of sweet chocolate. Now how hard could that be, I wondered? I’m not a cook even though I used to love browning the ground meat for my mother whenever she was adding it to a recipe. It was just one of those simple pleasures…<br /><br />My first attempt at <em>Very Good Chocolate Mousse</em> took place one summer night. My roommate's two new kittens were in the kitchen with me, both fascinated and terrified by the swinging electric cord for the mixer. And for a recipe that only had two ingredients, I made every mistake a person could make. I calculated amounts wrong and put in a pound of chocolate (I was an English major, okay?), ended up beating the chocolate and eggs together when then recipe does not tell you to do that (No excuse here - I was an English major) and then, at the height of everything, I lifted the beater (still whirring) out of the bowl and chocolate went everywhere. All over me, the walls, the kittens. The evening was a failure, enough of a failure that I did not attempt the recipe again for six more years.<br /><br />This year, I finally went to Paris and had the time of my life. I brought a rose with me to the Pere LaChaise cemetery to lay onto the grave of Gertrude Stein- after all, had it not been for her, I’d never have started my interest in Paris to begin with. I wanted to thank her that I finally made it. Once, I got back to New York, I took out “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” again, blew off the dust and once again attempted <em>Very Good Chocolate Mousse</em>.<br /><br />In a fairy tale ending to this post, I could tell you that everything went swimmingly this time out. But that would be a lie.<br /><br />I do give myself credit this time for perfectly separating the yolks from the whites and correctly measuring the amount of chocolate (which, I must add, you need to shred in a cheese grater, bit by bit, until you have chocolate dust in your nose and under your fingernails.) But the mistake I did make this time was stirring the chocolate and frothy egg whites together when I should have folded them. This does make a difference (who knew?) and Toklas' promise for a spongy texture eluded me; I had mousse that was maybe a quarter of an inch deep in its bowl. It looked very sad. At least this time out, the result was edible and gave me enough confidence to not wait another six years to attempt the recipe again and get it just right next time.<br /><br />After all, mousse shouldn’t be chewy.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-73397621074133189822009-08-17T13:24:00.000-07:002009-08-18T18:40:50.283-07:00Father? No. Best!<span style="font-style:italic;">"I love children - especially when they cry and somebody has to take them away."<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span><br /><br />Anybody familiar with the 70s sitcom "Maude" starring Bea Arthur knows that in the first season, there was a controversial two-parter about Maude discovering that she is pregnant at 48. After much debate, Maude decides to undergo an abortion (a procedure than legal in New York State but not yet in the country at large.) While this episode has become notorious, it's actually a very thoughtful, poignant and intellectual take on the issue. (And as a trivia question, it was written by future 'Golden Girls' creator Susan Harris!)<br /><br />For me, the most striking part of the episode is not Maude's final decision, coming as it does in the very last moments of the episode, but something that occurs earlier. Maude and Walter are discussing the option and Walter lets loose with his own confession: he's never wanted to be a father. He says that in his life, people have thought he was crazy for voicing that opinion but it was just how he felt. I was nearly teary-eyed when I saw that because what Walter - a fictional character- and I - a semi-real person- felt were one and the same. And yes, I've often been asked why I don't have any interest in becoming a father.<br /><br />The simple answer is: I just don't. It's not because I'm gay. I know lots and lots of gay guys who have children, consider it or are in the process but for me, I've never felt the urge. To some people, that makes me selfish. Yes, I've been called selfish. And maybe I am. But I think it would be a lot worse for me if I did adopt a kid just so I wouldn't be considered selfish.<br /><br />My best friend Dave has two absolutely fantastic young boys who amuse me endlessly whenever I visit. My cousin Christine has a boy and a girl who are so cute it's painful. And my own brother has two really, honestly, great kids who are not only beautiful but good. I just don't feel as though I am missing anything after I've visited them. I look forward to seeing them again, but I still don't want to partake in being a father. <br /><br />I never hear too much about this opinion in the media, and I think it is because some people are afraid of being labeled as "selfish." That's just how I've always been.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-37982388657361687992009-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:002009-08-18T11:12:26.928-07:00Terror at 135 Feet<span style="font-style:italic;">Found this old story from a few years ago (2006) when I and a coworker decided to cross the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of a thunderstorm. My friend Allen has since moved away, I no longer work at this job but I'm sure I wasn't the last person to get caught on the bridge during a storm.</span><br /><br />Yesterday, my old friend Allen (from my long lost UMASS days) invited me over for dinner. We’d both been feeling a bit down lately, career wise and personally so it afforded a chance to get together. I knew I’d probably get stuck watching the Will and Grace series finale, but what the hell. I’d gladly have to endure that so I could see an old friend.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Whenever I have gone to see Allen in the past, I’ve taken the subway so I never really saw much of Brooklyn, just Court Street and Atlantic Avenue but yesterday was a gorgeous spring day, sunny and warm. I love Brooklyn and thought what a great day to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. I had these grand ideas in my mind of walking over the bridge with the blue sky above me, seeing Manhattan behind me, Brooklyn ahead of me. And I probably even imagined it set to the tune of the Mary Tyler Moore theme, with all the gender specific pronouns changed to fit me. Yeah, this walk was just what I needed. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The only problem was I wasn’t sure how to get to the bridge from where I worked, so I asked Heather, a woman whom I work with how to get there. A few minutes later Heather came up and said she’d walk over the bridge with me; despite having been born and raised in Brooklyn she only had walked over the bridge twice and both times it was for emergency reasons: the blackout of ’03 and the Transit Strike back in December. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We left about five and the clouds were gathering and the sun wasn’t shining any more. The forecast I read said that there was rain due but not until about 6. I figured if we hit the bridge about 5:15, we’d have plenty of time. For those not familiar with the Bridge, the walkway for pedestrians and bikers is OVER the traffic. It’s pretty amazing and it also allows the views to be unobstructed by trucks and what have you. About five minutes into our walk, we felt a few drops but I figured it would pass. The dark clouds were above us but it was already lighter in the west so I figured we were fine. I did notice that to the South, it was pretty dark and things were obscured. And then it hit. Suffice it to say that for the next hour, Heather and I were trapped on the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of a fierce, nasty hurricane-like thunderstorm. Once you’re on the bridge, you’re pretty trapped. You can either go back to Manhattan or forward to Brooklyn but there are no shortcuts. The rain was HORIZONTAL. I didn’t have my umbrella but Heather had some Disney Tigger umbrella that broke the minute she opened it and the wind hit it. All we could do was use it as a shield. We were drenched and I had puddles in my shoes. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We reached the first arch and huddled with a bunch of other people who’d been caught in the storm. After twenty minutes, the rain seemed to be easing up so we decided to walk on. The minute we walked out from under the arch, the storm howled right back up as though it had been laying in wait. Now I know why people give hurricanes names, as though they do have human characteristics of malice. Once again, we were trapped and this time the umbrella did half the work it did before. Again with the torrential rain and this time, we saw lightning. After forever, we reached the second arch and stood there with more people. We stayed under the second arch even longer because this time the rain was not letting up. WE did manage to befriend a poor tourist from Amsterdam who was soaked to the bone and gave him suggestions as to what to see in the city. Thank God he didn’t get wise to us and ask, “If you know the city so well, how come you crossed the Bridge when it looked as though it may rain?” I wouldn’t have had an answer for that.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The rain eventually tapered off, we got off the bridge and went our separate ways. Too bad for me, I was wet the rest of the entire night and my shoes may never recover. I was not the first person to be caught on the bridge in a storm, and this won’t even be my last time walking across it but next time, I’m making sure that there aren’t even slight vapor trails in the sky.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I was never a huge fan of Will and Grace to begin with and enduring the final episode while damp was not a fun experience. And poor Heather, she has yet to cross the bridge in a normal manner.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-35604560668268466162009-08-16T08:31:00.000-07:002009-08-16T09:10:59.737-07:00The story of "Semesters" the greatest gay college novel you'll never readOne rainy day when I was six years old, I complained that I was bored. My mother took out some loose leaf paper and told me to write a story. So I did. Impressed by what I had accomplished, my mother decided that I had a talent for writing.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><u1:p></u1:p>From then on, everybody assumed that I would grow up to become a writer. I possessed a good imagination and from the few stories that I did put down to paper, (regretfully, there weren't enough) I showed talent but I never pursued the gift with much vigor. I wrote some well-received stories in junior high classes but whenever I tried to write on my own, I quickly lost interest or the story did not shape up the way I had hoped. The story I was writing down onto paper never came across as original or striking as the one I was hatching in my head. This disconnect stopped me from writing almost entirely until my sophomore year of college. Thanks to a wonderful Creative Writing teacher, I was able to write more than I had in years, but the problem remained: I was still unable to write for myself outside of school.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><u1:p></u1:p>In college, I hung out with an unconventional, colorful crowd whom I figured would make great material for a novel. After graduation, the story grew in my mind but again, I had no idea how I would make the tale come alive. How could I make the story unique? What could I do to make the characters seem real? I didn’t have any idea.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><u1:p></u1:p>Thirteen years passed. In the summer of 2006, I finally sat down at my new computer and began the story I’d put off for so long. Five months later, I had completed a 700 page first draft of my novel. Since then, I have gone through four additional drafts. I now have the story I wanted to tell. Is the novel publishable? Would anybody really ever want to read it? I don’t know.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">What is this magnum opus? Is it a heartrending tale of personal adversity? A bildungsroman about a young, plucky kid? No. It's a novel entitled "Semesters" about gay and lesbian college students whose opening sentence is <o:p></o:p></p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <u2:worddocument> <u2:view>Normal<u2:zoom>0<u2:punctuationkerning/> <u2:validateagainstschemas/> <u2:saveifxmlinvalid>false<u2:ignoremixedcontent>false<u2:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false<u2:compatibility> <u2:breakwrappedtables/> <u2:snaptogridincell/> <u2:wraptextwithpunct/> <u2:useasianbreakrules/> <u2:dontgrowautofit/> <u2:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</u2:browserlevel> </u2:compatibility> </u2:alwaysshowplaceholdertext> </u2:ignoremixedcontent> </u2:saveifxmlinvalid> </u2:zoom> </u2:view> </u2:worddocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <u3:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </u3:latentstyles> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black;">"On Todd Salazar’s first day of college, while his belongings were still in neatly labeled boxes on the dorm room floor, he had sex with his new roommate Darin."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /><span style="color: black;"></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not exactly the stuff of literary immortality. But I wanted to write a novel that was fun to me, one that I would enjoy. It was inspired by a story that had always been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since I graduated college. I just had no idea how to write the story until I read the novel that would make all the difference: Jackie Collins' "Hollywood Wives." Finally, a way to structure the tale! Yes, I suppose I should say it was Faulkner or Morrison - no less influential upon me- but it was Collins who sealed the deal.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What I do know is that I finally – after too much time- wrote that novel I knew I had in me. I keep telling people that the main reason that I want it to be published is so that I can take a trip back to <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Paris</st1:place></st1:city> - or anywhere for that matter. I'm tired of living on unemployment and sick of sending out resumes into the ether. I can always start a second book, and I probably will but there's something special about "Semesters" for me because in my way, I finally did fulfill some of my promise.<o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-64273072071730185602009-08-15T13:00:00.000-07:002009-08-15T13:47:42.553-07:00Jumping into Things Far Too LateSo, because I have been out of work for months, because I am bored, because I recently just had a severe bout with depression, I decided to try and do something else to take up my time. I have resisted the blogging thing for a while because I just didn't feel like I had anything new to say. How many people in this world do we need to have talking about themselves? But I really could use a break from the tedium of my daily routine which is now:<br /><br />- Get up and realize I am still out of work.<br />- Go on my four mile daily walk and get alarmed when I see the little schoolchildren looking taller than they were when I first started walking.<br />- Arrive home, shower and turn on "The Young and the Restless." (Oh Nikki and Victor, will you ever get it together?)<br />- Send out my daily quota of three resumes.<br />- Spend the rest of the day worrying about money.<br /><br />So, this is a good place for me to get out my thoughts. Even better, you don't have to read it if I get all down and depressing and dull.<br /><br />I know the blogging wave seems to have passed and people are all into Twittering and Facebook now, but there's some small comfort that I am coming into this so late. It seems to be my role to come into things late, after the fun has come and gone.<br /><br />When I was a teenager, I joined a Catholic Youth Group, not so much because I was so devout but because my parents were worried that I didn't have enough friends and was too much of a loner. So I joined and made a good pretense of really being a good Christian boy. (To this day, I still don't drink but that's the only vice I didn't pick up.) But when I joined, there was this group of teens who'd been in the crowd longer and they used to spend their time talking about how much more fun things used to be.<br /><br />I moved on, went to college and joined the local gay, lesbian and bisexual college group. A constant refrain around the student office then (which was painted lavender) was how things weren't as wild and crazy as they once were, how too many of the fun people had graduated. Oddly enough, despite so many people convinced that the magic was gone, I ended up having a pretty swell time .<br /><br />My first job in New York was at a now defunct dot com that had seen a lot of growth in a short time. This was a place where beach balls used to bounce around the office on West 26th Street and bongos would play whenever a sale was made. But for the group of the original employees who saw themselves as pioneers and had fond memories of the summer outing at the founder's beach home where original Picasso's adorned the walls, the newer hires (me being one of them) were intruders and just didn't know how good things once were.<br /><br />And then there's New York City itself. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody who talks about how much better the city was in the 50s/60s/70s/80s/90s. What am I to do? Here I am, happening to be in the city at a time which is apparently the least fun, least exciting, most soul deadening time ever. Drat the luck. If only I'd had the hindsight to join any of these groups/jobs just a few years earlier, I'm sure that my memories would be just as rosy as everybody else's.<br /><br />So I apologize in advance in my blog isn't as exciting or thrilling as blogs used to be. It's just my luck to always be late to the party.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38467025848275824.post-78890328025181999802009-08-15T12:56:00.000-07:002009-08-15T13:06:04.557-07:00Who I Am, Why I Am<span style="font-weight: bold;">Name: </span>Ed<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">DOB/Age:</span> October 5, 1971 (37)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Status: </span>Single for as long as I can remember.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Location:</span> New York City<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Career:</span> Unemployed<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Achievements in Life:</span> A completed novel, a sexy college romp entitled "Semesters" even though a friend told me nobody wants to read novels about college.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Goal:</span> To get a job, get the novel published so I can one day visit Paris again.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is any of this realistic?</span> At this point, I'd say no.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Realistic goal:</span> Get rid of the annoying rash on my left arm.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Really? That's it?</span> That's all for now. This rash is really itchy.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Okay, once you get rid of the rash, then what?</span> Master the Art of French Cooking.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And if you can't even do that?</span> Chef Boyardee.Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03103271873133920191noreply@blogger.com2