NYCweboy

Gas Attack

My leave-taking has been harder than I expected, and so, in order to make a proper go of it, the plan now for me is the end of today, early tomorrow latest... and then two weeks of internet silence.

Frustrating as it's been (you have no idea) for me, I can't just leave everything unsaid, and yet work's already ramped up, and it's hard to focus. So instead of the lengthy send-ffs I planned, perhaps something a little more quick and dirty.

There was a lot of discussion last week about how the rise in gas prices was (finally) changing behavior, and as a result, would the old notions of "suburban life" get up-ended as well. It was a quaint discussion really (see here and here, for instance), but what interested me was the return of some familiar mindsets: that the suburbs still look a lot like the way my generation remembers from their youth, that "urban renewal" is an ongoing process still subject to familiar debates (about crime and safety, and notions of public transportation, for this discussion, mainly), and that... well, basically the last ten years never happened... or at least, didn't already have profound impacts we're only just starting to understand.

Missing from most of these discussions - I'll say it again - is any sense of "affordable housing". It's housing that's driven a lot of demographic decisions, as new buyers and buyers looking to move up discovered that city centers, and many suburbs, were suddenly priced out of reach (or priced so as to make only the least attractive properties remotely workable). The tradeoff, for years, was the artifically low nature of American gas prices, which allowed for excess consumption and lifestyles that would otherwise have been far less possible.

Teh Insomnia

It burns.... What keeps you up at night?  Too much to do?  Live coverage of Olympics women's beach volleyball?  Gas?  An impending move?  Nightmares?  Those damn kids and their ridiculous racket?  How slowly four follows three?  A gripping read?

When I can't sleep (I suck at it, but serious insomnia attacks like this occur every other month or so), I eventually just get back up and start working on all the sh*t I feel like I ignored over the course of the day.  I usually collapse b/w 4 and 5 a.m., and - thank g-d I'm a graduate student - get up around 11.  I'm tempted to write "you should all be so lucky," but really, being awake when you physically, desperately want to be sleeping just sucks.

So who's going to be the Dem VP?  Oops, sorry, BOR-ING!  Ok...who do you think will be the first celebrity Michael Phelps is linked to romantically in his post-Beijing life?  What shows can't you wait to return in the fall?  How much of the Convention will you be TIVO'ing?

For those here with me in these pre-dawn hours: Discuss.

- Redstar

Just A Song Before I Go

Well, actually, not just a song: I have a few things I was still working on prior to the "break" I planned to start this weekend, so my plan is to get them written and posted and take off (just like me - always packing at the last minute; actually no, but I always forget something). On the way out, though, I've been meaning to pass along a Nostalgia Sublime of my own: this charming bit of eighties dance pop by singer Yazz, not, as Kenneth did, to be confused with the seminal electro group Yaz (Yazoo in England). Yazz (Yasmina Evans) was a mixed race model - part of the wave of eighties "exotics" who led to opening up modeling to all sorts of new notions of beauty - turned singer, who has since found religion and is still singing. I loved her then (The Only Way Is Up was enormously popular in gay clubs at the time); I actually still find her fascinating now. Share and Enjoy.

Friday Evening Flowerlude

jinbaltimore

Liquid Lunch

"Lunch" in Bushnell Park, Hartford, CT, August 13, 2008.

That's the State House in the backdrop.

That's not our lunch, Weboy and me, but the remains of others' - whether it be the likely indigent in one of the poorest cities in the nation, or the elected officials from the state a.k.a. "Corrupticut." Who knows, maybe it was a late night or early morning strategy meeting between Lieberman and McCain.

Interestingly, after Weboy and I had probably an insufferable Boston-NY laugh about CT being one big "bedroom community," I read on Wikipedia that it's the 4th densest state in the country.  Joke's on us, I suppose...as we laughed all the way out of town, headed in opposite directions on I-84.

Which reminds me, when will we launch our nationwide movement to tear down the highways that slice through our cities?  Big Dig U.S.A., anyone??  Stay tuned for the next strategy meeting in beautiful downtown Hartford!!

- Redstar

And Then He'll Fight The Evil Robot King... And Save Us All Again

Don't ask me why I'm watching The Olympics.

It's embarrassing. All my strength and resolve flies out the window when I get home and find Mom absorbed in the latest gymnastics trials or swimming heats. And there I sit, zombie-like, taking it all in.

I hate the Olympics. I hate what they've become, I hate what NBC has done to them, I hate we all just go along and act as if any of this is meaningful, when mostly, it's not.

Look, I think it's exciting to watch Michael Phelps win... again. But really, that's what he was trained to do, and he does it with the calm, joyless efficiency of a cyborg so thoroughly that it's hard to develop a lot of enthusiasm for what seems, very much, foreordained. I don't want to make light of his prowess - I can't do it, and most likely, neither can you. But still.

Phelps, I think, is emblematic of what The Olympics have become, athletics wise: grim automatons carefully engineered to excel in their sport, freaks of a sort who have made the notion of cheerful, amateur competition moot. This, really, is the logical endpoint of the energy that some countries put into developing "athletics programs" solely focused on winning Olympic medals. Now, all the big countries do it, and all of it has killed the idea of the Olympics. I still can't decide which is more hilariously  sad: the professional basketball players who've made the basketball competition more ludicrous every time, or the professional tennis players, who act as if they're doing something other than what they do at Wimbledon and the US Open, except with flags.

It's especially odd to see the Olympics this year, when "world peace" is so far from even being a goal at this time. International cooperation? In your sad little dreams. Even as we play this out, Russia has invaded Georgia... never mind Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Iran (which, unlike many Muslim nations, actually sent women to compete).

Yes, the opening ceremonies were lavishly beautiful, and visually stunning (and really, so what if one little girl lip-synched for another? Is that the biggest scandal here? I'm thinking no). But that, too is kind of a given - just like the appearance of Q-tip shaped Sarah Brightman to wail in her oddly "international songbird" way, which it turns out sounds a lot like Chinese Opera, I suddenly realized.

There's really nothing new here, nothing unexpected, little to really show us a world where we come together, from all over the globe, and share a moment of worldwide harmony. That's really for the MacDonald's commercials. No, it's corporate and plasticized and engineered and overdone... and empty. And after awhile, watching those rather tortured looking young people (especially the gymnasts), I'm inclined to beg us all to stop this farce before we hurt someone. Oh wait, we already did.

Which leaves NBC, the worst thing to happen to the Olympics since, well, corporate sponsorship, I suppose; as much as I try to prepare for it, I am still stunned by the insipid levels of "color commentary" we get. That's especially true watching machine-like Phelps, as the NBC team struggles to inject drama, warmth, and a sense of purpose to watching the obvious. There's his Mom, and his sisters. Oh, and did you know he's planning to move back to Baltimore after the games? Mom must be thrilled. Or so I've been told. Repeatedly. And suddenly, the point of South Park's "What Would Brian Boitano Do" becomes clearer - more descriptions of Phelps superhuman breath-holding, big feet, and fish like qualities... and I think he's actually Aquaman.

As I get ready to take a blog break, I know one thing that will really be last on my list - following any more of this nonsense. If I want real superheroes, I'll just go back to reading Justice League.

Reunion!

Weboy and I are meeting up for lunch tomorrow - I think it's been almost 4 months since we've last seen each other.  :(  That's miserable.  I got used to him being up here in Boston - the pleasure was all mine. 

Yay for Weboy!  And Hartford!  Come again, you say?  Well, Hartford is midway between our homes.  Perfect.  I appreciate Hartford, without really knowing it all that well.  It's an original New England city, now struggling to survive economically with more than its fair share of non-profit, non-tax paying financial institutions, diverse with strong Puerto Rican representation, problematically financially isolated from its surrounding suburbs due to CT laws.  One of the wealthiest states in the country has some of the poorest cities, and Hartford is one of them. 

La, la, la...it's weird blogging with the iPod plugged into the ears...I'm listening to Sail On by the Commodores on repeat.  I have no idea why - I've seen Lionel live and everything, and I'm aware of my late 70s soft rock preferences - but this song just blows my mind.  I find it so satisfying.  Amazing piano, amazing crescendo near the end.  I can't get enough.

It's been awhile since I've admitted my questionable musical tastes.  Anyone got any embarrassing proclivities to share?  We could stand to call out the lurkers as the summer begins to draw to a close...who's left???

Weboy and I will be thinking of you tomorrow as we dine in beautiful downtown Hartford.

- Redstar

School's Out... Possibly Forever.

In the continuing fallout from the credit crisis (the bigger, more accurate way to describe the Mortgage Mess), we are only now beginning to see the enormity of the problem. One way was the recent revelation that New York City has a glut of one bedroom apartments - more than have been on the market in years - because new buyers can't get mortgages.

Another, just coming to light in the past week or so, is that the student loan market has dried up.

According to the Wall Street Journal today (and I thought the New York Times over the weekend, but I can't find the article), students are find it increasingly difficult to get loans to pay for school (and more, apparently, will this year). This is especially true at community colleges and technical schools, where students are often fending for themselves (in other words, not parents seeking loans for 18 year olds, but older students themselves), and may not have a credit history, or certainly not a good one, to qualify.

But that's not to say that traditional four year college students are untouched.  Many loans, subsidized by the Federal Government are still available, but those loans have not by themselves been enough for many students and families to cover college costs. This had led to a rise in private lenders offering add-on loans, often enormous, to families, saddling students with debt amounts in the six figures upon graduation.

Like mortgages, the idea that this was unsustainable was bound to occur; but still, the rapid dissolution of school lending is somewhat surprising. But one of the worst areas of inflation, which has received scant attention, is the sepctacular rise in tuition rates, especially at private colleges and universities, but even state schools, especially prominent ones like the SUNY and UC systems, have been progressively pricing lower income students out of the best schools in their systems. What's worse though, is that the loan crisis is unlikely to slow the tuition increases or even result in lowering of tuition. Wealthy schools may merely dip further into their endowments to fund lower income students (which goes to the embarrassing hefty endowments some schools have amassed in the favorable markets, but will still mean educational opportunities for only a lucky few). Other schools, that struggle with endowment issues, will not have that option.

As for the federal financing of loans, that's not so great either; like it's sister agencies of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae (the student lender public/private corporation) has been roiled by scandals, mostly related to cozy insider relationships within its board and with lenders, and favorable loans to influential parties. Now, as the loan markets suffer, Sallie Mae, like Fannie and Freddie, is suffering from poor quarterly results, though not the massive loses of the other, larger entities. Moreover, state entities are discovering that they can't find lenders, either; Massachusetts recently announced that its loan program was being suspended... just in time for the new school year.

And with Congress having just passed a large, messy bill (that does helpfully make Pell Grants more widely available among a few other options) meant to show mainly symbolic "progress" on Education (from a Congress of no particular progress on nearly anything else), it will be hard to go back, this fall, and try to fix the financial levers. None of which delves into our lopsided notions that everyone needs a college degree (much like the notion that everyone needs to own a home, it just may not be the case, and as well, speaks volumes about our problems in elementary and secondary preparedness), nor makes any examination of our distressing employment picture, where those with less than a college education are left with few job options as well (which is why the drying up of loans to technical schools and community colleges for working class students is especially harsh). All of which adds up to a sudden, likely jolt over the coming month or so as the "human interest" stories explore the realities of the lack of loan availability - dreams deferred, put on hold... or possibly lost forever.

Promiscuous, Professionally

A couple of links from Andrew Sullivan brought me to this new Out Magazine article on Manhunt, the sex-connect site of choice for gay men these days. Given that I started the day talking about John Edwards and adultery, finishing up thinking about gay men and promiscuity seems both book-ending and mirror image... if you see what I mean.

I've never been especially fascinated with Manhunt, nor do I see its particular usefulness. Partly this is because I have no use for internet "dating" sites (it's a stretch to call the hooking up via Manhunt "dating", but then that's a little bit true of some straight connection services, too). For whatever reason - mostly because I do not look like the man I am searching for - I think the internet hookup services deal too much in the visual, and the bottom line. People are looking, so often for their twin, not their complement, I find, when dealing in visuals. And a luandry list, really, of birthdates and sun signs, hair color and height, actually tell us very little. Which leaves the little blurbs of personality in the "what I'm looking for" paragraph... and frankly, people lie. The only safe move, I always figured... was not to play.

My own links to Manhunt are somewhat dual perception - a friend of mine from my old Starbucks store in Boston wound up working for them, while another friend swore by his hookups on the site. From the latter friend I've come to see the almost business-like, muindane nature of gay hooking up that Mandate has fostered; while the former friend provided hours of hilarity at Thanksgiving last year by supplying us with his employee handbook, and its detailed explanations of what members can and cannot do (and discuss on the site). This is especially fun if you have a couple of college age straight girls who don't know the ins and outs of a lot of gay terminology - oh, and it also helps to have one or two uptight straight boys in the mix (but not too uptight).

Seeing Manhunt from both sides, I tend to agree with Michael Gross in Out - there's something new and different about the way Manhunt (and others, like Craigslist, which Gross essentially ignores) has commoditized the way gay men cruise. What used to happen in bars and clubs has gone online, and with it, gay life has become more hidden, less communal, more private, and more isolating. On the one hand, I think this explains why gay life has seemed more... well, sober these days, more boring. People don't seem to get out like they used to. It's harder to get people to do the social things. On the other, I think maybe blaming Manhunt for what the web has wrought is too much - when we made it easier for more and more people to share their lives online, the exponential increase in possibilities was bound to follow. And perhaps, that's not all bad.

Still, though I have no use for Manhunt, I can't say I'm immune to the way sex, especially gay sex, has become so mechanical, so businesslike, because of the web. The soul killing aspects of porn and promiscuity may always have been around, yet the web has exponentially increased that now. We are all touched by the wages of sin. We are, in our ways, whores and pornstars now... or at least, we can be.

I think Gross is wrong to leap on the high horse - which Sullivan, of course, can't help but agree with - that all this sexuality online is killing our politics; the quotes he provides from activist types at NGLTF tend to underline a constant dilemma that existed long before the internet - that the men who came for the party and to get laid do not care about the ideas, and it's often the earnest hectoring the beautiful to pay attention... which rarely works. No, Gross is on firmer ground - and Sullivan on dicier territory, given his own promiscuous escapades that became so public - pointing out that when men see themselves as little more than their body parts and basic functions... seomthing about who they are as people is lost.

It's never been my goal to be prudish in this; but I've always thought promiscuity, ultimately, is mainly a dead end - much the way prostitution (the job of being promiscuous professionally) is, too. It's true, as Manhunt advertises that "he's out there." He's always out there, he's always been out there. But in here, in our hearts and in the nature of who we are... what's out there the externals, the physical value of who we are... is not all we are. And I suspect, at some point, that the joyless, mechanical nature of online hookups will become more of an issue than it is now. Let's hope we can separate the business from the pleasure.

It's Not For Me To Say

It really isn't, so let me have Gail Collins say it for me:

If Edwards’s political career is toast, it will be because he has always seemed to be less than a sum of his parts: the position papers, the “Two Americas,” the photogenic grin, the supersmart wife. The only piece of the package that consistently disappointed was the man himself. He wasn’t a very good running mate for John Kerry, and as a presidential candidate, he always struck me as being about 2 inches deep.

I'm not one to say I was surprised; I knew about Rielle Hunter back when Mickey Kaus started retailing The National Enquirer rumors of an affair back in January, and frankly, though I don't like Kaus, he didn't sound crazy to me. Nor did The Enquirer.

I'm also not one to hold some rigid notions of fidelity; those who know me well know that this kind of thing is not theoretical to me. I think life is complicated, relationships are complicated, and people who set up rigid notions of expectations are mostly bound for disappointment.

But let's not call this meaningless: John Edwards' affair with an aspiring filmmaker was poor judgment at least, and should have kept him, probably, from even attempting a run (it's clear that the affair, and its timing, was before he made his official announcement to run). Regardless of one's personal tastes in these things, having an ill wife who is widely admired by your supporters will make revelations of an affair into a political disaster.

Yes, we are a country of curious, and conflicted morality when it comes to these things. We expect fidelity in marriage, yet our culture has come to accept notions that bad, unhappy relationships should not have to continue. We support remarriage; we accept divorce. To say there's a  "double standard" about affairs would suggest two clear, polarized sides... and that's not where we are.

Conservatives who complain of liberal "anything goes" behavior that never gets punished, ought to remember that this kind of absolutism hurts them - and in a year of backing twice married John McCain, who left his wife for a younger, wealthier fashion plate, hardly helps. They might also recall that their hero, Ronald Reagan, has the distinction of being the nation's first divorced President, with a messy blended family that never fully meshed.

On the liberal side, it's also worth remembering that defense against prudery does not excuse bad behavior; Edwards, as with those who've come before, is no hero. Bill Clinton's involvement with Monica Lewinsky may have been poor grounds for impeachment, but it was also spectacularly inappropriate. We are not required to agree to agree with every narrow notion of exual fidelity to say really, that was a huge mistake. Huge.

People have affairs; real life is messy. It's not for me to say what an affair means to John and Elizabeth Edwards - that's their personal life, and they seem to have their resolution. It's not even for me to say whether Edwards could or couldn't be President; voters can really go either way. It's up to the Edwards devotees - of which I was never really was one - to decide what this means to believing in him and his message. But as Collins suggests, what strikes me, yet again, is how this all seems to be of a piece: the beautiful, shallow man who seemed all too susceptible to flattery and caught up in a sense of his own self importance. Which is why the failure of the affair really doesn't surprise me: after they both finished admiring John Edwards... really, what was left to say?