Category: ultrapersonal

Candy store

Most of my medical stuff happens at the sexual health clinic rather than a GP’s office, so the vibe in the waiting room is always a little weird. In the town where I used to live, this meant there were lots of nervous college kids, sketchy guys, and kinda trashy girls. There are lots averted eyes and people actively trying to state at the telly instead of anything else.

In the middle of London, however, this means that everyone is almost eerily hot, and mostly gay — including the staff. It’s hard to ignore the distinctly cruisy vibe in the room. Even if folks aren’t actively cruising, they’re definitely inspecting everyone else. It’s a totally different kind of awkward, much more like my doctor’s office back in Chelsea in New York.

Is there a socially acceptable way to ask someone out at the clap clinic?

One more thing about Orton

You know, there are lots of other things that have been happening that might be better to write about (Travel and work abroad! Fetishwear spending sprees! The waxing and waning of various flirtations!) but all that stuff always takes so much time and effort that I ought to be devoting to things that actually help pay my bills. But since I’ve just started reading The Orton Diaries on today’s bus/tube/plane/train trip, I’m thinking again about a certain ex and all the similarities between him and Orton’s carefully constructed public persona that just seem too perfect to be a coincidence. And the intro of the book also reminded me that Orton’s diaries and letters are held at my old university, in the library where a certain someone also used to work.

Also, Orton is still really sexy and smart and funny. But kind of a jerk, just like a certain someone always was.

My Aim Is True

schiphol_urinal.jpg

So it wasn’t my imagination. When I was stopping to take a quick leak on my way through Schiphol Airport yesterday morning, I spotted this little thing that looked like a fly in the urinal, except it clearly wasn’t a fly. It sort of seemed like something stuck to the bowl, so I found myself trying to wash it away. I fell right into their nefarious social-engineering trap! What a chump.

Stop men from peeing on the floor. Authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess. But if you give them a target, they can’t help but try to hit it. Similar designs have been implemented in urinals around the world, including mini soccer goals, bulls-eyes, and urine video games (seriously). Do they work? Since the bugs were etched into the airport urinals, spillage has decreased by 80 percent.

[From Good, via BoingBoing.]

Actually, it’s a pretty brilliant idea, and really not sinister at all. I have to admit that when I first realized it wasn’t a fly or a speck of dirt in the bowl, my immediate instinct was that it was some kind of viral ad campaign, since I’ve been getting more and more pissed off [heh.] about how hard it is to escape ads in public spaces. I’m really pleased this was an intentional attempt to get dudes to do the right thing. (Note to other airports/places with public restrooms: Please don’t try to do this with ads. The urinal cakes with ads in them are horrifying enough. Thanks.)

Prick up your what now?

Joe Orton

I’ve just finished the original book, and am now finally watching the filmed version of Prick Up Your Ears, the biography of playwright Joe Orton. I had a nagging sensation while reading the book that there was a lot about Orton that reminded me of an ex of mine with whom I had one of my more melodramatic relationships. Twice.

Gary Oldman as Joe Orton

Watching the film now, I’m convinced that Orton — and particularly Gary Oldman’s performance as Orton — fed into this guy’s personal mythology, and certainly his kit bag of posturing and affectations. He was, like Orton, a guy from a fucked-up working class background who picked himself up by his bootstraps using a fistful of natural intelligence and talent. Like Orton, he was also sexy as fuck and kind of a smug, self-satisfied cock. I don’t recall him ever mentioning Orton — I guess by the time we’d met he’d moved on to other literary obsessions. Actually, it would be more in character if he’d decided that Orton wasn’t much to think about from a literary standpoint, no matter how much he played up the same kind of romantic rebel schtick.

Growing pains

Now that I’m “back on the market” and “fresh meat” and assorted other euphemisms for single and generally prone to sluttiness, I’m discovering something new about myself. Or perhaps it’s something new about how other guys respond to me. I seem to have cruised into this phase of my life where I’m the age that young guys who are into older guys are into me. It’s not bad, and I say that as someone who’s often into older guys as well. In fact, I’m finding that I’m more attracted to younger guys than I would have guessed, at least if they’re clever and a bit wise for their years. Lately I’ve been finding myself in the company of more cute, interesting guys in their 20s than I did when I was in my 20s. I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts, if I can.

Agri-Aggro

Daisies

Anyone who’s ever done time in the suburbs should have a look at this sharp little essay from the New Yorker about the great American lawn, a totally artificial aspect of landscaping that’s turned into a bit of an environmental nightmare at this point, and has even turned into the focus of various kinds of communal bullying.

Back in Staten Island, where each yard had a postage-stamp size patch of turf that more often than not was groomed better than the average head of hair, we saw a lot of lawn-based hostility over the years. I always admired my parents for not taking the lawn too seriously. I feel vindicated to read that a lawn like ours — filled with its share of dandelions, crab grass, clover, and other “unwanted” bits of flora — is actually a more ecologically viable state of affairs. We never had a lush carpet of homogenous green like the most of our neighbors, and ours tended to be a little less tidy. The neighbors hated it.

To the neighbors on either side of it, the front lawn was practically a fetish. It was a pastime, an obligation, a status symbol. It was also never meant to be touched, except by mowers or fertilizers. Our house had two strips of grass on either side of the property, cut off from the main lawn by the driveway and the walkway up to the door we used. Over the years, those strips were annexed by the neighbors.

At first they just started tending the grass along with their own, but it got a little out of control once they started yelling at my nieces and nephews for setting foot on grass that was still part of our yard. Eventually, one of the neighbors started sending his son out early in the morning to mow our lawn when it got a little unruly. My folks never really minded, since it saved them some effort, but the underlying expectation that they ought to be towing the line always pissed me off. The other neighbors, well, they were just self-involved assholes about the whole thing.

But yeah, sign me up for the backlash.

Thriving Office

I’m in the middle of moving to a quiet little attic (“loft” in the local parlance, but that’s just confusing to people back home who know that the lofts I used to live in meant something very different) in London.

TootingThat’s less glamorous than it sounds, in many ways. For one thing, I’m down in Zone 3, in the far eastern end of Tooting. Saying I’m moving to London is a similar obfuscatory truth to saying I grew up in New York City when it was really Staten Island, which only just barely counts. For another, it’s a total wreck of a place. It’s got a great volume — basically meaning it’s a nice space if you ignore the physical stuff that actually encloses the space — and I have it all to myself and it’s relatively cheap considering that, but as for the state of the way the place was fixed up and supposedly made habitable…well, I have never seen such appalling workmanship in my life.

And I lived in the middle of the projects in Bushwick, in a loft built out by a crackhead.

It will be OK once I hound the landlord about a couple of issues and complete a short list of minor repairs. Also, I’m just enough of a bohemian art fag still to pull off some clever camouflage with color, cheap furniture, and strategically positioned knickknacks and artwork on the walls.

I’m still living in Reading, even though I’ve had the new place for a couple of weeks already. Aside from the condition of the place, I still own nothing but books and cloths anymore, so I’ve been stocking up at the Ikea in Croydon, preparing to make the move. (Incidentally, the strangest part about the Ikea in Croydon is how perfectly it feels like every other Ikea I’ve ever seen. It was hard to remember that I wasn’t actually buying my bachelor-friendly kitchen-in-a-box back in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Except for the food in the café, which — being English — was worse than I could have imagined.) I can’t really move in until I get the broadband hooked up, anyway, since I still need my home to be my office studio until I can find a proper work (and accompanying visa) situation.

What I can say is that a promising side venture is coming together as I continue my happy-go-lucky freelance career. Mr. Moore and I have joined forces to work on type and design projects with one another. Behold! — The Colour Grey! (Nothing to to see at the site yet, since we’ve been too busy with actual projects to deal with out own site yet, but give us a little time.)

The other big summer project will be getting Gina ready for a proper commercial release, hopefully before the year is out. I’m also going to speak at a conference in Cork in July, and do a little teaching in the Netherlands this August/September, which ought to be fun. Very interdisciplinary stuff, which I always love. More later on those, probably.

Wow, I really need to get out of bed and get to work now.

Goodbye to the Cheyenne




Farewell, originally uploaded by Goggla.

Well, looks like there’s another reason not to bother going back to New York. My beloved Cheyenne Diner is finally closing down.

I used to work down the street, and spent many, many happy lunch hours there, enjoying almost perfect platters of grilled cheese with fries. It was also a favorite spot to drag anyone I ever had to meet in Midtown, and not just because I’ll take any excuse to get a decent milkshake.

I can’t say that I’m shocked about the closing. In fact, I’m amazed they resisted the pressure to cash in on that real estate for so long. Still, it’s a shame to see another free-standing classic diner go away, especially one that felt a little like home every time I went inside.

The Cheyenne was the kind of place I have in my mind every time I crave the perfect diner experience, a thing that doesn’t really exist in Boston or the UK, the only two other places I’ve ever lived. It’s not the that food is incredible, but that it’s just right: comforting, tasty, familiar, and not trying to be fancier than necessary. Most of the seats are booths lining the windows that look out on the street, with room to relax for one or two, or room to squeeze in a bigger group of pals. One of the waitresses would proudly show us pictures of her son in his dancing-school costumes, and occasionally give us free slices of cake.

(Tip o’ the hat to Norm for catching this for me.)

All hope is not lost for American cities, though. One of the handful of things I really love in Los Angeles — Phillipe the Original, home of the French Dip sandwich and the 9¢ cup of coffee— is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

My Idol

John Waters by Nan Goldin

For well over twenty years this man has been my hero. No lie. No exaggeration. It was John Waters and his affectionate fascination with with trash — and his own stylish, articulate, and eccentric way of blazing his own trail — that encouraged me to fully embrace whatever aspects of the high and low culture around me that caught my fancy. I was always a quirky kid. It was John who taught me that was a good thing.

Waters is most famous as a filmmaker, of course, but it was actually his books that first blew my mind. From the moment in high school when I first read Shock Value and Crackpot, I was hooked. When I finally caught a double feature of Polyester and Desperate Living some time in 1987 or so, they just confirmed what I had already come to treasure about his view of the world.

It’s easy to peg Waters and his work as campy irony or immature shock tactics, but everything he’s written, ever talk I’ve heard him give, and every interview I’ve ever read has made it clear that he really believes in the underdog and the honesty of being what you want to be, no matter how trashy. In Waters’ world, you’re only evil if you’re a superior asshole who doesn’t want others to be happy doing their own thing. For a man of refined tastes, his sense of irony is not something he uses to maintain a distance from anything, it’s a way of celebrating the lovable in the generally unloved.

He’s demeted and sweet and mischievous. When Hairspray first came out, I loved that the master of trash had made a subversive movie the whole family could love. Even the musical version throws a sucker punch or two in the midst of its squeaky clean reinterpretation of the movie:

Waters is entirely unconcerned about his oeuvre becoming softened as it goes broad. “In a way, the most subversive thing I ever did was think up Hairspray, because now families are sitting there watching two men sing a love song,” Waters said, as a car finally pulled over. “Who would ever have thought that Jerry Mathers, who I grew up with” — the child star in the title role on Leave It to Beaver, who now plays the father in Hairspray — “would be singing to a man in a dress on Broadway in something I wrote!” (From his New York interview)

I want to keep trying to be like him as I keep trying to grow up.

Danny Boy

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the Muppets (via Sean):

I can’t stop laughing once Beaker chimes in. It’s perfect.

Danny BoyAs you might imagine, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Danny Boy, since it’s effectively been my family nickname my entire life. The story goes that my Uncle John came waltzing in the room singing it at one point when my mom was pregnant with me, and it stuck.

It is a lovely little ditty, though, if it’s done right. Most versions of it I run across are a little over-the-top Oirish-y or — even worse — a little too vocally precise but lacking in heart. (Shane McGowan gets it right, if you ask me: a little sad, a little sweet, a little boozy, and a little rough around the edges.)

My favorite version is actually by Harry Belafonte:

Danny Boy — Harry Belafonte

I never really appreciated the song very much until one of the times I saw Joe Jackson in concert in concert. He sometimes does this brilliant bar-by-bar analysis of Danny Boy (well, I guess technically it’s an analysis of The Londonderry Air, which is the original melody that was grabbed for Danny Boy in 1913), detailing exactly why it’s the perfect example of a Irish ballad that can “bring tears to a glass eye”, as an intro to the Faustian story in a song of his own:

The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy — Joe Jackson

Rufus Wainwright and House of Pain do songs called Danny Boy, but neither one is quite the same.