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The Swing Of Things

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?

Articles We Never Finished Reading: Here, There... Somewhere

Deepika Bahri, a friend and an associate professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta, where Mr. Rushdie is a distinguished writer in residence, said that Mr. Rushdie was game for interacting online with any person or subject, highbrow or low. “I don’t think it really matters to him,” Ms. Bahri said, when asked how such behavior might affect public perception. “He does not fear or have concern about what people think or what it will do to his literary reputation.”

                 - Laura Holson, "From Exile To Everywhere," The NYT, Sunday Styles (emphasis mine)

"Everywhere," it seems, refers to Manhattan nightclubs and restaurants, not frequent flights to Atlanta, where Salman Rushdie is apparently "in residence."

This one isn't a "don't bother" because of the actual piece - like most Sunday/SunGay Styles articles, sure, it deals in trivialities, but it's not as bad as, say, building a makeup line off of the villains in The Hunger Games, or treating Kim Kardashian impersonators as art. No, what made me throw this one down was the subject of the article, Rushdie himself, who still, somehow, manages to garner this kind of coverage as if anything he's done literarily is remotely relevant or important. Even when The Satanic Verses was published, earning Mr. Rushdie death threats from fundamentlaist Islam (mostly Iran), Rushdie was more social butterfly than literary light; and time spent in hiding didn't particularly help ground him much better. But even the Times article notes that whole escapade ended after about ten years, and we're a good twenty years past that. And still, Rushdie is most notable for catting around with attractive women, frequenting nightclubs and bars, and vaguely talking about writing a new series for Showtime. And the difference between him and some other guy you run into on the Hotel Gansevoort rooftop? Not much, save that Rushdie is paid absurd sums to serve as things like "Distinguished Writer", no seriously... wait for it... "In residence" at Emory in Atlanta.  

Of course, Emory is welcome to throw its money away in any way it sees fit, but I just feel bad for the actual students at Emory, who deserve better than some Page Six Publicity Monster who can't even be bothered to take terms like "in residence" seriously.  And to be even fairer, this is hardly even one of the ten top reasons I'd never take Emory seriously, either (number one: Atlanta). None of which can be blamed on the Times, though it's hard to tell just how firmly Holson is relaying all of this seirously, or tongue in cheek. In either case, I couldn't be bothered to find out how this one turns out... because the thing really seems to write itself.

Articles We Never Finished Reading: The Crying Game

If the nineties were the decade of Prozac, all hollow-eyed and depressed, then this is the era of Xanax, all jumpy and edgy and short of breath. In Prozac Nation, published in 1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel describes a New York that today seems as antique as the one rendered by Edith Wharton. In the book, she evokes a time when twenty­somethings lived in Soho lofts, dressed for parties in black chiffon frocks, and ended the night crying on the bathroom floor. Twenty years ago, just before Kurt Cobain blew off his head with a shotgun, it was cool for Kate Moss to haunt the city from the sides of buses with a visage like an empty store and for Wurtzel to confess in print that she entertained fantasies of winding up, like Plath or Sexton, a massive talent who died too soon, “young and sad, a corpse with her head in the oven.”

            Lisa Miller, "Listening to Xanax," New York Magazine (current issue)

Miller actually kicks off this article remembering the night she rummaged through her dying mother's medicine cabinet - in front of her mother's home care nurse - looking for an Ativan, surely a sign of the bad to come all by itself. But Miller's evocation, and dismissal, of Wurtzel (as fashionable now as it was when her book first appeared - Wurtzel will forever be punished for speaking truth to medicalizing women's problems) is itself an all-too-glib indication of missing the point: there will still be late nights of crying on the bathroom floor, whether you choose a happy pill like Prozac or an anesthetizer like Xanax or Ativan. We just haven't gotten to that part of the story yet.

And PS, congratulations to the various drug companies enjoying free advertising for their trademarked drug product names!

Articles We Never Finished Reading: All This, And Daddy Issues Too?

Seriously?

“Horizon” was the first play by O’Neill I ever read, at 9 or 10, and as a black-and-white introduction to a dramatist’s worldview it’s not inappropriate reading for preadolescents. (On the other hand, its portrait of life as a dream-smothering joker might well scar a sensitive, unformed mind. Thanks a lot, Dad, for the recommendation.)

- The often astonishing Ben Brantley, piling daddy issues on top of his so-so critical writing, in a review of Eugene O'Neill's Beyond The Horizon at Irish Rep.

Are You Ready, Tell Me Are You Ready...

I've been sick for the past three days, hence no posting.

The Whitney thing keeps washing in and out of my head... one of my regulars at the coffee shop was at the funeral and called it devastating (he also went to see Aretha Franklin that night, where she paid tribute to Whitney. Also devastating).

In any case, while I gather some strength, here's one more, one I'd almost forgotten, probably her most flat-out jazz number, a big album cut on "Quiet Storm" and "Smooth Jazz" stations after Whitney came out. I loved this one.

 

 

The Thing About Celebrities

I've always felt that I have a New Yorker's approach to celebrities - certainly as long as I've ben a New Yorker, possibly since I was a child of 8 or 9 - which is that celebrities, per se, are not all that important, but trends have to come from somehwere. Which is to say, it's always good to know who the latest important celebrities are... and then try not to care all that much about them or what they do.

Lately, it's become next to impossible to keep up with all the variations and dimensions of "celebrity" out there - I blame reality television - but generally, the rules still hold; it's best not to care too much about who's famous or why, but occasionally, one may want to stay up to speed on what's happening with some of the big names of the day.

Which brings me to a few stories that seem to be comsuming a lot of oxygen just now.

First, Paula Deen has Type 2 Diabetes. I spent a lot of time not knowing who Paula Deen was - this is especially easy if one tries very hard not to watch the Food Network - but then I kept seeing pictures of this odd looking (i mean, the expression of perpetual surprise/fear on her face) woman on the covers of magazines at my local drugstore, including her own, and kept wondering, "who is this Paula Deen?" only to find out that Deen, apparently, is southern, and cooks, and became famous talking about southern cooking on television. Also, apparently, "southern" is another way of saying "use a lot of butter and cream and sugar" and the results are often fried or gooey or both.

A lot of the discussion of Deen's diagnosis - which is actually about three years old - has something to do with "just desserts" or the clucking of food moralists, which mostly is a reminder that food moralists may be right but are also annoying and unlikely to win people over. I admit, I find it curious that Deen is suddenly all too willing to discuss her health and ideas for healthier cooking (via her son's new cooking program), just at the convenient moment when she's signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Novo Nordisk. But mostly, I wonder why Deen matters at all, making food most of us wouldn't eat, let alone make on a regular basis.

Then there's Tim Tebow. Tebow is a quarterback for the Denver Broncos, and apparently grew up home schooled by his Baptist missionary parents. So he's very religious. So religious, apparently, that when he scores a touchdown, he drops to one knee and prays, thanking God for his scoring success. I think this is silly, but you know, there are worse things one could do. 

But my goodness, how this whole thing has gotten people up in arms! There are the people who seem to find it crucial to compalin about Tebow and his prayers - and his mediocre playing, or so I'm told - and then there's the copnservatives who seem determined to turn Tebow into a rightwing icon, and "Tebowing" into the next big trend. 

It would be easy to do the "I'm gay and who cares about sports"... but I'm gay and like sports, not football that much, but I try to keep up. I tend to think the conservative embrace of Tebow is, in its way, deeply cynical; it's one thing for other evangelical types to admire Tebow and his openness, another when cynical DC types embrace Tebow because it plays well to the conservative base. Both, though, are in some ways a good example of not being especially godly; using Tebow as a cudgel to judge the religiosity of others misses the point that the wonder of America is that we can all pray any old way we want to... or not pray at all. At the same time, the Tebow haters tend to give their game away by making Tebow into some sort of reliigious zealot, a reminder that there is, among the less religious, a discomfort with religious expression because it is, in fact, so reverent, and thus so hard to assail. Tebow's praying should, really, just be a colorful side note to a moderately successful career. Over time, it may well be just that.

In these uncertain, politically enervating times, the escapism of celebrity gossip is easy and inviting. I picked up the Star Magazine to find out more about the Kardashians, spent and hour or more discussing who wore what at the Golden Globes; I don't claim to be above the celebrity news. the thing about celebrity culture is that it isn't, and shouldn't be our only definition of culture. It's sad to see how much of what passes for "news" these days is warmed up, or leftover, or day old celebrity gossip stretched into filler. Paula Deen is now a "health" segment. Tebow leads the sports pages and political discussions, when he is less than crucial in either space. Kardashians, the saga of Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert and some comedic comment on the cmapaigns... it all goes on and on, and it's amusing, at first, how much we have a thing about celebrities. But not for long.

Friday Field Trip: Stalking The Queen of Louisiana

Famous people go to restaurants and eat.

I know this may surprise you, but live long enough in New York City, and you will discover that this truth makes for occasionally great people watching and also events that, in the long run, are pretty mundane. When I saw Molly Ringwald at a birthday dinner for one of her friends, I was struck by how ordinary, how simply New York she seemed. It's who we are. It's what we do.

Similarly, when my friend Jennifer and I ate a late lunch one day at Fred's, the restaurant atop Barneys on madison Avenue, we were both surprised and yet unfazed to discover we were sharing the otherwise largely empty restaurant with Chris Rock, his wife and kids. Nice, fun to share... but mostly we were there for the food (although, while the food is good - and pricey - in the end, I keep going back to Fred's because you never know who you might see).

So Friday night I got to spend a little leisure time in Manhattan, with Michael, my other red headed pal. Michael have been friends for several years, and he remains my truest connection to gay life in Chelsea and Manhattan generally. Edward, his especially stylish, and youthful, boyfriend is also a big part of my keeping up with the absolute latest.

Anyway, the three of us share generally fancy food tastes, though Michael and I also share a common love of cheap Chinese (indeed, it's kind of a litmus test for friends that we share an appropriately cheap Chinese meal), Edward will have none of it. So instead of finding a fairly fancy Asian, we decided to go with Le Grainne, a charming French bistro at 21st and 9th, where we've dined before - mainly crepes and sandwiches along with some pasta, this is one of those "little places" that's more about being known to the locals than being one of the top spots. From 23rd down, you can really find tons of these (something similar up the East side, but I find the Upper West more about trendy and less about quality).

Anyway, it was a night of lovely food and our usual outrageous and funny conversation - we share similar dark and witty senses of humor - and wonderful all on its own... but then Edward looked over and spotted Evan Rachel Wood. Now, I know enough about movie stars to be able to identify Evan Rachel Wood by name, but not really by face. But Edward pulled up her pics on his iPhone and confirmed.

Apparently, Ms. Wood is best known these days for playing the Vampire Queen of Louisiana on True Blood. 

But really, it wan't like we were stalking her, and I made Edward come away from staring at her through the side window (but really, he was just checking out her date). But it was a genuine sighting.

And she's lovely. But mostly, I think we just appreciated her good taste, as well as our own. And anyway, Ethan Hawke lives just across the street, so that really doesn't count.

Hitch

Like many, the moment was gasp-inducing: when I read Christopher Hitchens scathing take on Mother Theresa, I was both appalled and amused. And ultimately, won over.

If there was a sacred cow, Hitch wanted to take it apart, both to show you there was no need to hold it sacred, and to point out that cows are tasty, if cooked properly. 

He had, as they say, a way with words. His sentences were things to admire, full of pithy phrasing, brilliant word choices, dripping acid on his subjects as they made their acerbic points. He was the last of a breed, the unapologetic, slightly sozzled old school reporter (classic Fleet Street, as they say over there) who took nothing for granted and so no need for the niceties.

Hitch was a good example of how Vanity Fair is a different thing under Graydon Carter, less the upscale version of People that it devolved to under Tina Brown, harder edged, more sarcastic, a latter day Spy, an American Punch, still obsessed with celebrity and names, darling, names... but less sentimental, more old school. There was Dominick Dunne to name drop incessantly, and Hitchens, to remind you that assumed greatness is a mistake.

I remember when he called the Queen Mother an old drunk, and those terrible things he said about Jackie Onassis (not as bad as Gore Vidal, but still). And never mind those terrible things he said about churches and religion. Is nothing sacred? Of course not.

They don't make them like Hitchens anymore, partly because we know better: when he wrote 5,000 words defending his drinking, I felt, for once, not that he'd gone too far, but that his cantankerousness was simply the camouflage of an old man set in his ways. He was one of the "getting sober is for quitters" school, of a piece with his general defiance... but at some point, some choices aren't giving in or giving up, they're just sensible, practical approaches to living healthier. Hitchens gave up nothing, but he was slowed, finally, by cancer that robbed him, literally, of his voice, but not his words. And he was not about to go gentle in to the good night.

The word is that Christopher Hitchens died overnight, at age 62, having completed his last piece which will appear in next month's Vanity Fair. It will, of course, be a must read. But then, they all were. All I wanted was for him to live longer.

Here In The Real World

So... the last few days were spent mostly offline, out in the "real world." I'm more conscious, these days, of making the choice to step away from the onine sorld in favor of life lived in real time in real space. Working, doing things with friends and family, sleeping (a lot of sleeping)... these are my days.

It's not that I want to write less - I'm behind on movie reviews, for one thing - but the challenge of finding a balance doesn't get easier, and the sense that writing, at times, makes me put the rest of life, the real life, on hold hasn't had its usual appeal. Add to that the dismal state of blogs, especially politically motivated blogs, and the even more depressing state of politics in general... and the appeal of spending time with two very nice nephews just grows and grows.

The thing about life lived in real time, I find, is the way things are more immediate, more practical, more... well, real. Raking leaves, doing laundry, making a pie, serving coffee and cleaning my store... these things keep me grounded, my head focused on things that, in the end, probably matter most. The things we can actually do, the ways our lives can actual touch others, the problems that seem most immediate, most manageable, most solvable. 

So, here I sit while the plumbers install a new faucet in our kitchen - life is full of practical problems, these days - trying to get a little caught up. It's too cold, winter is upon us, I hate the early dying of the light, day after day. This has been, in so many ways, a strange year, full of unexpected twists and turns... only to wind up, here, with more of a sense that I am, in fact, doing okay, right where I need to be, focused (at least some of the time) on things that matter. If things keep eing this interesting, I could even learn to like this real world. At least some of the time.

The Occupation Ends... And The World Goes Round

If it's worth having a "two month anniversary", can I at least get a few moments to ask what Occupy Wall Street managed to accomplish in two months?

And if I say, at best, the OWS movement has been a literal mess... do I still really have to apologize for not being a good lefty?

Either way, I'm still here, and I'm still saying it: two months of this poorly thought through, lousily executed protest and all we've got to show for it are our chains - I mean, those metaphorical ones where we 99% are shackled to the wheel, grinding away for the 1%. Or something.

Little over a month ago I said what, I figured at the time, was not wildly out of line: it seemed hard to tell what OWS was trying to accomplish, it was hard to see how a lot of people camped out in a park would amount to much, and the likelihood of things breaking down into disarray and chaos and possibly violence seemed all too real. Can I at least get a point for having some small amount of prescience?

For about a couple of weeks, I had a post in mind about the fact that New Yorkers are, in fact, an extremely patient people - we get a bad rap for being angry and impatient, but it takes patience, and a remarkable sense of grace to live in the highly concentrated, congested quarters of America's largest city. And when it comes to acting out - and acting up - New Yorkers often turn out to be awfully patient. We just avoid Times Square, or go to the beach on Pride Parade week, or shop downtown while the New York City Marathon is running. Inconveniences happen. And most days, you will still have to wait in line for your morning coffee. Patience isn't just a virtue, it's essential.

That's why I don't think it's surprising that a lot of other cities and a number of other Mayors lost patience with their "Occupy" protests long before Bloomberg moved into Zucotti Park. Denver and Oakland and Portland and Seattle may give off West Coast (or Mountaintop) vibes of easy acceptance and anything goes... but all that mellowness is hard won and, well, leaves a dark cranky undercurrent. Live Free and Peaceful... just don't get out of line or cause too much trouble. Or we'll show up with tear gas and pepper spray.

By the time Bloomberg and Co moved in to Zucotti, patience wasn't jut thin, it was pretty much gone. "What do you want" has gone from being a plaintive cry to a sneer to a near screaming response. We get it... you're angry... but WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT? The reality, the sad reality, really, is that OWS has never quite figured that out. They're kind of mad about banks and world finance, they're kind of upset about foreclosures, there's a lot of "We Are The 99%"... but none of that amounts to a coherent case for changing something, never mind a set of proposals, always asked for, about some practical things that could be started right away, to really change things, or make a difference.

Even today, as the "Anniversary" is marked by fresh protests, Occupy Wall Street literally couldn't live up to its name. Still. Trying to march to Wall Street with the expressed purpose of "shutting down" the stock exchanges amounted to a lot of street blockades, some arrests... and little else. I spent the morning transfixed by the images on the business channels, where earnest, even caring, reporters tried to make sense of the protests... only to have to turn from that to reporting on the other actual business news of the days... because, regardless, the business of business was going to go on. Most obviously, and most tellingly, the idea of stopping or shutting the exchanges was impossible because "Wall Street" is no longer the center of the stock or bond market - the same internet that makes Twitter and Facebook the tools of the New Fangled Revolutions is the tool that's been destroying our economy at the speed of light. Nobody can shut down the stock markets without finding the "off" switch.

Much has been made of the "hundreds" of protests, the "thousands" of demonstrators, the "huge numbers" of bank accounts closed or moved in the movement's arguably one real challenge to the status quo, the Move Your Money protest. The reality though is that all of these big numbers are drops in a vast ocean of indifference and ignorance. Millions of people, still, probably don't know much about, or care, about Occupy protests. And even among the chattering classes, nominal support for some anger at economic injustice doesn't amount to doing anything at all. Millions of bank accounts are still at the largest (and worst run) banks. I don't love Chase, I think Jamie Dimon is part of the problem... but my checking account is still with them. And a Credit Union is no answer for me, though I still ponder the possibility.

And still, worst of all, I think, is the frustrating sense that blind support for Occupy is some kind of lefty expectation. Either you support the people in the streets... or you sympathize with the 1%. There's no way to say, apparently, still, that one cares deeply about economic justice and economic reforms, bank regulation and reduction of debt... but doesn't see the point of people camped out in parks, or swarming the streets turning a protest against banks into confrontations with police and local authority. Because, clearly, they're all the same. That kind of undifferentiated, nonspecific nature to the Occupy protests is the real and continuing indication that a leaderless mob is no answer to the problems we face. 

I'm sure some will argue that a) this isn't over (I'd agree), that b) this was a necessary step to future action and c) that these protests have had meaningful results, if one just looks hard enough. I don't think OWS is over, but future protests won't, really owe their future success or future support to Occupy; they will be successful when and if the case is made for taking action and expecting actual results. The failure of OWS to do either is real, and OWS owns it, and should, fairly, be termed as failed. As for "meaningful results"... replaying old debates about how police and local authorities handle mobs doesn't strike me as what OWS set out to do, and the results, mainly, are reminders that the public will accept a lot of mistreatment of protesters if the result is a return to normalcy where the protesters go away. And no, that's not me saying "yea mistreatment!", it's simply to say that, as for example in Oakland, our ability to find one side sympathetic gets harder when the mob goes off on a window breaking, stone throwing rampage.

And sure, the protesters remain in Zucotti Park, the leaderless meetings go on, more protests will no doubt occur.  It's going to be hard, though, to sustain that energy through a long winter. Even more pointedly, I'd wonder just who's doing what with all that money ($500,000, I read) and stuff that OWS "owns" though it's "not organized" and lacks a leadership. Today, I suspect, the two month anniversary may mark the movement's last real gasp of relevance. From here, it strikes me as dwindling participation, a lot of conflicts over money and property, and a sense of an opportunity in the distance that was missed. And maybe someone learned something from the failures of Occupy... but my own sense is to doubt that. Which means, come next summer, probably some new protests with similarly boisterous crowds, full of sound and fury, signifying very little at all.