Month: April 2000

The Filthiest of Heroes

I was raised on filth. More specifically, I have been an ardent fan of the John Waters aesthetic ever since I was an impressionable young high-school sophomore. I was hooked even before I finally got to see my first films of his, a double feature of Pink Flamingos and Polyester my senior year of high school. By that time I had read plenty of stuff by and about John, and I was truly devoted to him and his canonization of trash culture. Finally seeing all the movies only intensified things by a few levels.

My appreciation for John and his Dreamland players has never wavered, but finally going to see Divine Trash, steve Yeager’s documentary on John and his early career brought all that giddy enthusiasm right back. In particular, this was the first time I had ever gotten to see Waters regulars like Edith Massey, David Lochary, and Mary Vivian Pierce speak out of character. If you love John — and I know you do — try to find and watch this film. You’ll be grateful just for the chance to watch the woman from the Maryland Film Censor Board go apoplectic as she recalls Divine‘s infamous “rosary job” scene from Mondo Trasho.

The photo above was taken by Stephanie Hernstadt for The Finger. M. J. Loheed, Matt Patterson, Eddie schmidt © 1998.

OK, New Topic.

Spring is in the air. At least that’s one possible explanation for the rampant cruising I’ve been noticing on the streets of New York lately. Another possible explanation (and the more likely, I suspect) is that it was a really good idea for me to finally ditch the glasses look. Who can say? Maybe the boys checked me out before and I just never noticed because I had no peripheral vision, and was constantly wiping greasy dirt of my glasses. Maybe they just made me look dorkier than was optimal. Either way, I have had a real streak of self-esteem-building incidents lately, ones involving really cute guys giving me long, intentional, very frisky looks on the subways and the streets.

Not that this means I have the necessary social skills to take advantage of this new development. I’m getting better, though. Maybe I’ll work my way up to the next hurdle soon: meeting a guy who not only wants to get busy, but also wants to stick around for movies and adventures afterward. And is engaging enough to that I would encourage him to do so.

I’m not holding my breath. It’s easy enough to meet sexy guys and have sex with them, and easy enough to meet cool guys who are a lot of fun to hang out with, but the two factors come together a lot more rarely than I would think possible.

One More Topic

Right now I’m sitting in Cinema Classics, one of my favorite hangouts, waiting for a date, believe it or not. Unfortunately, the mix of the crowd right now has achieved a certain level of comically cliche urban hipness. There’s scruffy writer guy next to me, who’s madly scrawling away in his spiral notebook and reading rumpled activist flyers. There’s the group of crusty-punk bike messengers in the back ranting about human rights, the World Trade Organization, and (you knew it had to be coming) the many, many uses of hemp. There are three groups of Germans. Worst of all is the intellectually pretentious older guy on the couch, trying to impress his blind date with all sorts of masturbatory bragging about how he only goes to see movies at revival houses. When he’s not engaging thin, winsome strangers at coffee shops in discussions on the problems of the modern educational system. Of course, I’m not much better than any of them: I’m the guy tap-tap-tapping away on his laptop, working on one of his many fruitless personal projects. (Namely, my two web sites.)

Fresh Start

The big news, if I haven’t blabbed it to you yet, is that I finally quit my job. Woo hoo! No more two-hour commute (on a good day)! Back to doing freelance work in the comfort of my own home! Of course, whenever I quit a job, I always feel huge pangs of guilt. I didn’t hate the place or the work, just the grueling trip back and forth. Too bad it couldn’t have worked out another way. Oh well, at least I’m free to help out the glamorous world of public television for a few months again.

Movies for Gay Boys

That Gregg Araki, he sure does make a sexy movie. Not to mention pretty goofy and fun. His pop culture allegiances also strike right to the heart of the teenage New Waver that would later become Sparky. Unfortunately, most of his stuff isn’t out (ba dump bump!) on DVD yet, so it looks like it’ll be a while more before I finally get to see Nowhere or Totally Fucked Up (no asterisks for this cat).

Also, check out the ultimately happy story of Rusty. It’s cute.

First Things First

A few months ago, when I was knee-deep in my “should I or shouldn’t I” grad school crisis, Adbusters and a few other magazines simultaneously published a reprint of First Things First, a manifesto first written by Ken Garland in 1964. First Things First was a call to designers to take responsibility for the role they played in society, and not just idly contribute to the propagation of reckless consumption. It asked designers to make a distinction between design as communication and design as persuasion, and side in favor of using their skills to improve our culture rather than drown it in a deeper sea of crap.

This made a big impact on me, since it was a clear, passionate articulation of problems I’d wrestled with for years as a designer. This was the reason I’d quit or turned down more than one job rather than produce second-rate crap just because it might sell. This was the reason that one of my professors at Pratt consistently made me furious in class for wasting our energy on a project geared toward producing modular, “sell-as-much-as-possible” crap. This was the reason that I’ve never considered working in advertising. This was also the reason I loved working for public television and teaching. I really believe in design’s ability to facilitate learning and understanding, in ways that are explicit as well as implicit. I love typography and design and photography and stuff, and I want to use them for good, not evil.

Naturally, this high-falutin’ approach regularly comes into conflict with my desire to earn a living. I once had to design a kids’ book that was little more than a perverse attempt to move product by cashing in on public-domain ideas. I still cringe when I think about the time I gave telephone software support to what is apparently a cult. It’s an ongoing battle, and one where I’m not always happy with the outcome, but I think it’s worth the effort to try and stick by the ethical approach.

Wired published a great article that hit me in the same way, even though it wasn’t about my field of expertise. Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us was an examination of where the future of robotics, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering might be taking us, and whether or not they posed more of a threat than an ultimate benefit. This wasn’t a reactionary warning from a Luddite; it was written by Bill Joy from Sun, and looked at both sides of the coin. But it made the same call to scientists and engineers that First Things First made to designers: Take responsibility for the things to which you contribute. He points out that Robert Oppenheimer and the scientists of the Manhattan Project learned this lesson later than they wished they had, and that some of today’s technologies pose even greater threats than the Bomb posed.

It wouldn’t be such a bad idea for everyone to ponder the ethics of their careers, now would it? Maybe that tickle in the back of your brain, that aspect of your job that you try not to think about, is something you should think about. Maybe it’s not such a grey area after all. Maybe it’s touch of conscience.