Month: February 2001

Bon Jour!

Notes from France:

  • French keyboards are absolutely maddening. This is my excuse for any subsequent typos.
  • When I first got here, I had to wander through a planeload of French Marines also arriving at the airport. Deeeeeeeeee-licious. What may be delicious is the food, but I’m not sure because I’ve been having terrible indigestion, making it hard for me to eat.
  • I am able to read more French than I thought, but I am able to speak much less. This language barrier is especially frustrating when handsome Frenchmen are whispering dirty propositions in your ear, but you are unable to decipher them. Luckily, not all forms or social interaction require much talking.
  • This is a very, very cruisy city. Like, out of control. It’s also kinda dirty and graffitti-covered, which is a very welcome surprise. I like seeing signs of life like that.
  • As much as I am used to turning corners and seeing surprises in New York City, it’s a very different thing when I turn corners here and see glorious architecture that I’ve studied for years. Even the regular buildings here have beautiful, enviable massing and proportions.
  • Versailles is a beautiful obscenity, but it totally lacks passion. It certainly doesn’t lack lavish splendor, though. I would have revolted because of it, too. And I’m a wuss.
  • My hotel is a block away from a gaudy neon stretch of strip clubs, peepshow theaters, and faux-scandalous cabarets like the Moulin Rouge. The most glamorous whores I have ever seen wander the side streets and the taxi-dancer bars: They are plump, saggy, made up like paintings, and dressed in cheap cocktail dresses and fur coats. I completely love them. Very Toulouse-Lautrec, even in this day and age.

The Paw

I am such a procrastinating bastard. I must go get my laundry so I can start packing so I can get the hell out of this country, but I can’t seem to tear myself away from perusing the cute punk rock boys at the Make Out Club. I am officially on my way to becoming a lech.

Not as bad as this guy who was bothering me while I was out last night, though. Dude just wouldn’t take a fucking hint, or even a polite but firm “no.” After walking past me at one point and not bothering to stare at anything but my crotch, he comes up to me with some corny line, which I gently rebuffed. Then he does it again ten minutes later! And then he walks by me with some other corny line and paws my crotch. so I grab his arm, move it, give him a dirty look and walk away. Then he comes up to me whispering more cornball, canned-porn-movie shit. This is repeated about a half-dozen times over the course of the evening, and I’m getting more and more pissed off all the time. After a while, he tries to apologize and say that he recognized me from Pratt yadda yadda yadda (I think he was in one of the more bullshit required classes that I dropped) and he just wanted me to be cool and relax since I looked so tense. since “no thanks” and “no, I don’t want to chat” and “leave me the fuck alone” didn’t work yet, I wasn’t too shocked that he didn’t quite the get the point of “I’m not tense, I’m just fucking irritated.” What a pain.

Fancy Restaurants and Dank Basements

I also meant to mention a few things spotted during the trip to San Francisco that were actually about New York.

First, I was thumbing through the in-flight rag on the American plane, and came across a gushing profile of Williamsburg, of all places. It’s not bad enough that Bedford Ave. is already clogged with hipsters, or that The Real World may be coming here next year, but now hordes of tourists are being encouraged to cross the river and go slumming. Mark my words, it won’t be long before they open a Marriott there. Sheesh! I’m glad I live off in the boonies, where it’s still more ghetto.

Second, I was looking at this beautiful coffee-table book about the photography of James Bidgood, and I was startled to learn that Bidgood met Bobby Kendall, and quite a few of his other models, at a place called Club 82. Apparently, this was quite the swinging joint in its day, with cabaret shows and go-go boys and all manner of decadence. I even discovered that Blondie played there back in the early ’80s. As fellow connoisseurs of contemporary homo East Village sleaze know, this place is still kicking and is still good for a thrill or two, but it’s a far cry now from its more flamboyant past. I love discovering ghosts like this in places that I know around the city. Reading books like Low Life (by fellow Regis alum Luc sante) and Gay New York clued me in to all sorts of colorful tidbits about parts of the city that have fascinating, racy histories that would really put the wind up your skirts.

Gay-Hating Kooks

Are there any gay-hating kooks out there who read this site? Are any of you also pedophiles? If so, please, let me know so I can respond. My mother is very concerned that my visibility on the web may be making me a target. This wave of paranoia was prompted by an e-mail she received from my uncle, who found this site while searching for his last name and was very alarmed that there are pictures of my nieces and nephews to be found here. (Witness, if you will, the speed with which any presence of children on a site with gay content becomes associated with the threat of pedophilia.) Apparently, by acknowledging that I have a family who I love and choosing to share some of my expereriences with them with my small cadre of readers, any display of the children will send the many pedophiles who frequent my site into a stalking frenzy. And apparently when pedophiles are prowling the internet for children to abuse, their searches will bring them right here, from which they will be able to play detective and track down my nieces and nephews, despite the complete lack of information about them besides who their parents might be. Parents, I should mention, who have been pleased to see family pictures presented on the web in a loving context. Their parents also, presumably, are doing a damn good job of monitoring their children’s online activites, which are where the real risks would arise.

I have no sympathy or patience for anyone who would cause any harm to a child, particularly a child who I know and love. There are reasons I don’t include addresses for e-mail address for my nieces and nephews, or any other child who makes an appearance here. I think it’s a hysterical, knee-jerk reaction to assume that an image of a child immediately puts that child at risk. Where can the line be drawn? Should children be shrouded in public like Muslim women? Should they be banned from appearing in magazines, television, movies, sports? When does fear and concern require withdrawal from society?

On a final note, I’m pleased to say that after five years or so of publishing on the web, I have never been a focus for the attention of gay-hating kooks. I suppose there’s plenty of better fodder for their narrow agenda. I have, however, grown as a writer and a person and made countless wonderful friends. I have encouraged a few people to accept themselves and come out to their own family and friends, with great results. I have inspired a few people to indulge their own creative instincts. I’ve gotten an unflattering e-mail or two, but usually because someone disagreed with my opinion or didn’t get a joke. I haven’t seen any risks online that don’t exist for any person who engages in real-world society, but I have seen advantages that I would not have experienced otherwise.