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White Hot: The Boys in the Waistband

There's a fascinating word missing from White Hot, Netflix's new documentary about the Abercrombie and Fitch years: the word is Aryan. And it dovetails with a similar elision in examining Bruce Weber's visual aesthetic - which the documentary rightly centers much of its grim fascination and derision upon - as the film also elides comparing Weber to Leni Riefenstahl.

And yeah, I get it: "Nazis? Can't you see why that might be a problem?" The point is, yes I do, and frankly I am neither the first, nor the last, to have brought up those comparisons. The other point is, the very reluctance of this doc to follow its own through line to some logical, difficult and obviously uncomfortable ends is why the film, which dances adroitly around the hard questions, never really lands a solid indictment of what was, and is, most deeply problematic about the whole moment when A&F dominated our popular culture.

And boy (cute boy), did it ever. I can tell you because I was there: The whole Abercrombie and Fitch thing was a little nuts. The cadre of topless boys outside their flagship stores! They literally sold a softcore porn catalog 4 times a year! They ran an ad of a naked man on a horse! (BTW - bareback? Get it?)

The first 30 minutes or so of White Hot get at, mostly well, but somewhat imperfectly, what it was to live through the madness. How desirable the bran was at its height. The weird, oversexed vibe of the stores. The even weirder, even more oversexed vibe of the advertising. After that the documentary delves, more deeply, into the underpinnings of how the venerated brand was reshaped by owner Mike Jeffries, and the role, especially, played by Bruce Weber, in creating the brand's visual identity.

Left surprisingly unspoken, really, is the role of the changing culture around the brand, and specifically, the sudden, newfound openness of the American culture to explicitly gay iconography. A&F spoke, as a brand, to teens and college kids... but even more obviously, it spoke to a generation of young, often recently out, gay men in their twenties and thirties, newly positioned in urban enclaves and white collar work. Largely white, heavily professional and service working, these gay men knew Weber, knew what he was doing, and knew it was aimed at them. And they, in turn, helped propel "A&F style" into a cultural watchword.

That the documentary misses, or at least sits quietly, around these dynamics is part of the major hole in its presentation. Because it's the very white, very oblivious nature of this gay community to its own internal racism, that helped create the problems the documentary points to: a culture within A&F focused on lookism and frankly racist definitions of attractiveness that affected hiring, store staffing, as well as advertising and marketing. It's partly why all of this was a merry little game   part of which was merrily avoiding asking why images weren't just overwhelmingly white, but so very male. Or asking why "Fierce" the store's signature fragrance, was a men's cologne. Or asking, eventually, whether straight frat boys understood how gay all of this really was?

The film unpacks, cleanly and effectively, the unravelings of the brand as lawsuits over representation, hiring policies and the like came home to roost. It helps, but also hurts, that key players like Jeffries and Weber don't participate in the documentary, thus making convenient, easily blamed bad guys.

But questions linger: why does the film absolve virtually every staffer in the film of any role in perpetuating just this kind of racist iconography? What does it say about a top to bottom corporate culture that hid, minimized and mistreated its minority work force? What does it say about our culture that the brand was so dominant, so revered, so damn hot? And can we not, at the very least,, take a moment and unpack that difficult and uncomfortable role of Aryan ideals luring in Weber's work?

No, by the end of White Hot, everything has vanished: the images from the bad years, the voices of the minority workers, the omnipresent, overly easy moralizing of folks like Robin Givhan.... in favor of corporate branding that literally tries to paper over the past. It's okay, the film says, because A&F now runs ads with a wide mix of body types and skin colors and... blah blah blah... world peace. That the film soft pedals its own outrage and runs away from the hard questions is, unfortunately indicative of how this mess came to be in the first place: if we don't examine our idealized views of these perfect fit bodies and sexualization of youth, we really aren't trying to sort out how this all worked to sell the brand to begin with. And that's the real problem we need to solve. not run from. Or at least, not continue, in our dirtiest secrets, to ogle them while claiming pious purpose. Cause boy, you still look hot in dem jeans.

Gavin Newsom's Electric Kool Aid Recall Test

One of Gavin Newsom's biggest flaws - which, I suspect, will turn out to be key to this California recall vote - is that he has been, up to now, one of the more generically forgettable politicians of his time. Vaguely handsome, absolutely unmemorable, Newsom has casually coasted through success on the Left Coast by being less visibly flaky than Jerry Brown while catering to the needs of the deeply progressive base of California's Democrats... and somehow, leaving next to no trace of mostly being there at all.

Quick - quote me a memorable Newsom speech.

Newsom works best, as politicians do, by never being too risky, and it largely paid off. Even when he had to get tough during the pandemic, for much of it he was acting in the shadow of Andrew Cuomo and Jay Inslee - Inslee because Washington state got hit first, and Cuomo as New York got hit harder. Newsom probably needed to respond sooner and more forcefully, but his failures on that score were subsumed by the ultimate scale of the pandemic, and more than most, he was able to have the kind of success you can only have when every level of government in the state largely falls in line and works for the same goals.

But one fancy dinner at French Laundry, and a restive population that has long equated their state with breezy openness, and Newsom looked a bit, well, cavalier. Decisions about reopening were bound to be complex, but Newsom embodied the "Do as I say, not as I do" hypocrisy that, frankly, has become a struggle for almost all of us who care about public health. When to unmask, when to go back to restaurants... our choices have been a confused mix of Listening to Science and Deciding to Do It Anyway.  It's worth noting, for instance, no one involved in the French Laundry episode got sick. But that just kind of underscores the "well, why do we have to isolate so much" aspect of all our conversations, these days.

Recalling Newsom took on a life of its own once national conservatives and Fox News decided Newsom was weak enough to be beatable... whether that ultimately pans out is still a tossup of sorts, but so far, that choice looks ham handed, at best. Newsom has run a generally low key, below the radar effort to lock down a no vote on recall (from choosing an obscure September date to do it to quietly enlisting the known liberal universe to stump for him). So far, that seems to be working: polls have "no" consistently beating "yes" on recall, and while turnout is as low as expected, it's not clear that Republicans in CA have overcome their built in disadvantages to get anywhere near where they would need to be to succeed.

Partly, that's because the California GOP remains in tatters: lack of statewide leadership, indeed, any clear leadership of any kind, has been the hallmark of this effort. Driven by faceless pressure group interests, the Recall zombie walked right up to its signature deadline not knowing if they'd hit it. Once they did, no one emerged as a real potential hopeful to replace Newsom. The largely hilarious failure of Caitlyn Jenner to work up more than a vanity driven, reality show style of a campaign hurt considerably. And at this point, the GOP hopes rest on Larry Elder, a fringe-y outsider with loads of bad baggage and no real sense of what it would take to govern the largest state.

Yes, the prospect of Elder should scare people... but that, too, just plays effectively to Newsom's shambling "oh no, I'm in danger" approach to the whole thing. Everyone's worried, democrats are terrified... and yet, Newsom still has spent much of this recall campaign largely low key, barely in public, trying less to draw attention than to avoid it. That's probably, from a political strategy standpoint, the smart play: Elder flails especially for lack of a true foil, and conservative news outlet struggle to give the whole recall enterprise a sense of real urgency. Still, as I said from the start, Newsom's generic blandness has been his secret weapon all along, as well as his Achilles' heel. He will likely survive a recall... but it's hardly the most inspiring effort anyone has ever seen... and that's partly why he struggles to be seen positively at all.

A smarter, saner Republican party - or a less crazy conservative movement, at least - would probably have seen the Recall for the fool's errand it's turning out to be. Newsom isn't a political superstar... but he's also no abject failure a la Grey Davis, either. And again, frankly, Republicans have no secret Arnold Schwarzeneggar this time to swallow up the celebrity oxygen, either. No, this is just another flaky, only-in-California moment that underscores both the fecklessness of the public and the confused panda notions of what passes for state government in the Golden State. Tightening the recall process, really facing up to the state's internal issues... these are probably the real lessons of what is, and isn't happening with this Recall, and why. But seeing that would require seeing past the electric circus mentality of national conservatives, flailing through the initial moments of post Trump existence with no real sense of who they are, what they want, or how even to start. Gavin Newsom, even in their equation, is a handsome, generic detail. One widely disseminated dinner party does not a revolution make.

And sure, there may be more recalls (though most states have much higher barriers to them) and more falderal from the far right now that desperation has long since taken over good sense. But failing to oust Newsom is, well, failure. If conservatives can't turn their fanciful, ginned up narratives into political success - and so far, it's not looking great on most fronts - that's just another proof that their marginalization is more real, and less scary than as has been over advertised since the failed "insurrection" of January sixth. The foolishness is not pointing out how absurd, wasteful and dangerous conservatism has become... but how we imbue it with more power than it actually has, more triple A batteries in a flashlight than full on electric klieg lights. And if you can't beat Gavin Newsom with a flashlight... just how badass are you, really?

Spiritus DeSantis

Given that it's way to soon to start talking about 2024 (OFFICIALLY), now seems like a good time to get ahead of the game and nip some things before they take off. And Example A of that would be... Ron DeSantis.

David Frum, combining prescient and clueless, posted the "watch out for DeSantis" lookout piece in The Atlantic this week, and he's not wrong: DeSantis is surely positioning himself to be a serious contender for the next presidential run. What's missing from Frum's otherwise compelling examination is... any sense of why the DeSantis show may well not be ready for prime time.

It takes far braver souls than I to dive deeply into Florida's politics; the state's unique mix of stalwart seniors (it's the oldest state in the US), large Hispanic native and immigrant populations, snowbirds with a dream, and a huge helping of deep southern traditionalists makes for a wild mix to begin with, add in the laissez faire, gold coast approach to economic opportunities and almost anything goes. There's a "Florida Man" meme for a reason. But the state's tantalizing bundle of electoral votes and politics that sway in the damp ocean breeze make for a sense that, well, anything's possible.

Not everything is, though. DeSantis is third or fourth in a string of lackluster, what's in it for me Republican opportunists elected as Governor, a line that includes millionaire healthcare executive Rick Scott and Charlie "now I'm a Democrat" Crist, as well as Jeb "I married an immigrant" Bush. All have enjoyed unique, famous for the wrong reason reps as Chief Executive... and careers that don't end, necessarily, in spite of it. DeSantis more or less limped his way into the job, pulled up by either unexpected turnout (the nice version) or some sort of manipulation (the darker conspiracist view) when Trump won office. As a result - and given Trump's Palm Beach residency which solidified on his watch - DeSantis was, outside of maybe only Kristi Noem, the President's biggest Governor toady.

Democrats have been hurting in Florida, as those results show. Much hope was pinned on defeating DeSantis  since his campaigning was haphazard at best and his career leading up to his run decidedly muddled. But Desantis managed to eke out a razor thin win (30,000 of 8 million cast) over Andrew Gillum (who, subsequently, flamed out spectacularly himself), and he goes up again next year fairly secure to likely sail through. And that will be largely in spite of, not because of, a mixed record at best.

What sells DeSantis and what he surely will run on, is that Florida wasn't, at least by what we know, a pandemic disaster. Enormous crises favor the well connected and the vaguely authoritarian, and Desantis, though feckless, has both qualities in spades. He locked down nursing homes and senior care facilities early (and, it should be said, at least it appears, tightly). He tried to limit lockdowns, but benefitted from the fact that he didn't have to try that hard: tourism fell through the floor, and has not, so far, rebounded to anything like pre pandemic levels. And he left a lot of the hardest choices to more local authorities, meaning Mayors made most of the hardest choices about mask rules, beach closings and social distancing, day to day.

In terms of vaccinations, DeSantis also had 2 assets on his side - a large senior population that had to be first in line and the ear of Trump officials making the earliest allocation decisions. While news organizations - 60 Minutes most notably - tried to pin him down on favoritism to businesses that supported him, DeSantis used public/private partnerships to distribute vaccines because that's pretty much all the state has: weak central governance and resistance to government run programs means the state leans on outside providers often, for everything. Sure, some rich Floridians jumped the line and anyone with a connection in the state could easily schedule a shot... but he's not a vaccine skeptic and he's made a conscious decision that being the death governor would hurt his image, which is, at least, politically astute.

Still Florida is #3 in total cases, #4 in total deaths (per capita, it's outside the top 10 in both, but so is New York, which may say more about poor choices in less populated states). They are the state which led the huge summer spike, and saw the second huge spike in January after a holiday season where businesses were open and masks not well policed. Further, cases remain alarmingly high and rising, even with a reasonable 25% total vaccinated population. DeSantis has a Covid case to make... it's just not nearly as good as many would like to suggest, at least in terms of actual public health metrics. Economically, DeSantis may have a point. But that's hard to make atop a raft of current deaths.

No, what DeSantis is really selling to a frustrated and angry Trump crowd and a nervous GOP more generally is a kind of Trump Lite: he's much more disciplined, more politically savvy (which isn't saying much), but happy to lay on the code words and conspiracy rhetoric to prove his loyalty. Desperate Republicans are clearly terrified of alienating the Trumpists, even as they know that going full Trump won't win elections; the DeSantis theory would suggest that you can have some of the ugliness but tie it to a more traditional political narrative, an actual office holder with experience in Congress and running a state. And, honestly, they may be right. Or that person might be Kristi Noem.

Whatever the case, national democrats need to take the threat of DeSantis seriously, if not literally. The ill winds blowing around perpetual fratboy Matt Gaetz could just as easily rope in DeSantis (though as a Catholic with a TV trophy wife, a sex scandal seems unlikely), and that Publix money could, in itself, be the tip of plenty of campaign finance messiness... though "sleazy money" and "Florida" are usually hard to make into career killers. No, the simpler case is that, for all his message discipline thus far, DeSantis could easily find himself in a national race out of his depth and prone to missteps. Lots of people think they can manage the Trumpist crowd to their own ends, but don't have Trump's sheer mendacity or desperation to go wherever that road leads. DeSantis may have no shame, but he's prone to mess ups in public speaking and a tetchy demeanor that plays well on Fox but hasn't been tested outside of the local market.

Even with all that, the threat is that all the stink in the world may not be enough to stall DeSantis if he can turn his modest skills into a juggernaut of big money, right wing media support and a MAGA crowd to back it up. That presumes, of course, that Trump himself can be kept out of it (a big if, at least for now) and the MAGA crowd can be managed; I have my doubts on that as well. But still. DeSantis, from a Florida catbird seat, would start with a number of advantages, ones that could be crushing if no one starts, now, assembling the evidence against him. And while I think we are still a country that tolerates Florida, rather than embracing it... I don't want to stress test that theory more than is absolutely necessary. I've been on enough cruise ships, and seen enough Spring Break movies to know... there could very easily be more of them than of us. And I wouldn't just leave the prospect of President DeSantis to chance. 

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?

Island Time

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all. 

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had.  Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

I promise to poat pictures too.

Oh, and, Happy Easter. :)

Til The Clouds Roll By

In the end, as I think about it, the thing about a hurricane is not what you can anticipate, but what you can't: what makes a hurricane disastrous are things you either couldn't figure out in advance, or knew about, but couldn't prevent.

If you can figure out, for instance, that a hurricane hitting New York City and its coastal surroundings would be an enormous human disaster, you can move a lot of people out of the way. You can't move a lot of houses out of the way, but depending on how bad the storm is, that might not matter.

People will, no doubt, debate a lot of silliness about whether all the evacuations were necessary, whether public transportation should have been halted, if it all seems, in retrospect, like overkill. Have at it, I suppose. It seems to me, though, that, what will remain, after all the shouting dies down, is the reality that we dealt pretty well with things we could anticipate. 

The problem with Hurricane Irene, are things we couldn't.

it seems obvious, now, that a 500-mile wide tropical storm is still a big mess after it hits the coast... but no one, really, quite predicted what a disaster the storm would be once it traveled north of the New York coast. This is a storm that, most likely, will be recalled - as these storms are - most by the places that were most devastated worst. Upstate New York, Vermont, a great deal of Connecticut... Irene is probably destined to be their memory, more than for those of us who waited, with varying anxiety, for a deluge that didn't quite deliver. 

It could have been worse, it could have strengthened the way some forecasts predicted... but this doesn't have to be a story of What Might Have Been. The good thing, the amazing thing is that, for what it actually was, people took it seriously. And some serious people showed their seriousness. 

As much as Michael Bloomberg gets a terrible reputation for his imperiousness and  his occasional high-handedness (none more than his own faith that he, alone, is best suited to be Mayor), he does have a Chief Executive knack for making a plan. His decisions to evacuate low lying areas, to shut down the nation's largest public transportation system, were big choices and he owned them and clearly, they worked. Similarly, Chris Christie bluntly laid out a plan to evacuate New Jersey's shore points and said so in a clear, forthright way: take this seriously. Don't wait for the storm, don't be an idiot, and don't waste the time of people whose job it is to respond to disasters. Bev Perdue in North Carolina came off similarly forceful, practical, and determined.

It's easy to say "non one wanted to be the next Katrina", but it's more than that; the question, ultimately, is whether one thinks its alarmist or simply prudent to prepare for the worst. All over the East coast were officials who hedged that choice, who lagged on forcing evacuations, who seemed to follow the lead of others, rather than take it. On Long Island, the sense of just how bad things might get seemed to unravel in a fog. Connecticut officials seemed very concerned, but not quite ahead of the possibilities.

Sure, as Sunday unfolded, it was easy to feel kind of had; yes, it rained wherer we were for just about 24 straight hours... but we had no real flooding, no downed trees on our street, no power outage of any kind. The search for batteries and flashlights, the sight of a grocery stores cleaned out of bread and bottled water (how... prison), it all felt a little absurd. Sunday afternoon, we went out for a newspaper. 

But one reality of Irene, I think, is how oddly capricious the results were: just blocks from places which had little more tha a long rainstorm were places full of downed trees, flooding, massive power outages. My little Westchester town came through mostly intact. The town where my Starbucks is saw massive flooding. The towns next to it are littered with tree debris. It was still hard, this afternoon, to find a passable road from that town to my hometown. Our commuter rail - the one that everyone questioned stopping - is probably going to need a week to resume full, normal service. Had trains tried to run through the storm, I guarantee you the mess would be longer to recover from, and worse.

So New York City came through less scathed; and the Jersey shore dodged some of the worst of ocean surges and less rain. Even Long Island took less direct damage than anyone expected. Even so, what probably matters most is preparation. And seriousness.

And what can be anticipated.

For me, what really pushed me to prepare for this storm was my Mother's memory of the Hurricane of 1938, called the Long Island Express, the one storm from history where a hurricane traveled up the East Coast, never hitting land until it crossed Long Island and slammed into the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts. My mom's childhood hometown in New Jersey took a glancing blow, one she never forgot. About six months ago, she found this PBS special about the hurricane. The stories in it have stuck with me ever since.

Yesterday, by the end of the day, the clouds rolled on. The winds whipped by, and even the tail end of the hurricane, the tropical storm, pretty much blew away without incident here at home. Much as we anticipated. It wasn't that bad. This time. And maybe, if we keep taking them seriously, and we prepare for the worst, we can at least know how to meet the disasters we can anticipate.

Here's To Good Friends

Today is a day off and I've been catching up with good friends, all of us linked in strange, nearly magical ways. This one's for you guys, and all we talked about today:

 

 

Friday Evening Footprints in the Sand

 
jinb

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Greetings from Nassau. :)

We've been having a lovely cruise around the Eastern Caribbean. I thought I might try and write - a little - while onboard, but a preference for leisure very quickly took over, and happily, my pooter seemed most comfortable stored away.

Tomorrow the dream ends, and we are back to real life, and real time.

It's the sense of time that's struck me a lot on this trip - the time we have, the time we waste, how much people can try to cram into a day. And how hard that becomes when there are no clocks.

Like many cruises, and resorts (and, if you never noticed, Starbucks), the Norwegian Epic has almost no clocks anywhere. Not on most of the public decks, no clocks in staterooms, and so it can become a mystery just what time it is. This is fine, say, if your day majinly consists of lying around by the pool... but this is a ship full of activities and options. There's a (fabulous) spa, an awesome gym, and lots of dinners and shows to choose from. All at scheduled, specific times. 

And no clocks.

It's enough to make one buy a watch (and thanks to a very large onboard shopping plaza, lots of nice watches at deep discounts to American retail prices)... but it's also kind of a pain. A 10:00 gym class, a 12:00 massage... what time is it again?

So far, I've nearly missed one reserved only lunch, and two spa appointments, not to mention nearly missing the boat trip I'd arranged to join from St. Thomas to St John. My phone has become a lifesaver in terms of keeping track... but in St. Thomas and St. Maarten, my phone decided we were in the next time zone... and I gained an hour. And generally thought I was late. Or early. Or something.

Sure, time is a luxury problem - and so are those spa appointments - but it's the sense that time should have no meaning, on a rigorous schedule, that's really striking me as odd. Culturally, I think the tension between a vacation where time doesn't matter, and the heavily scheduled leisure of a cruise trip, are a good example of how confused Americans can be when it comes to leisure and time off. Have a great time, take it easy... but try to be on time.

And now, I probably have to go off to an appointment somewhere.

The A List: All The Pretty People At The Shallow End Of The Pool

I've been trying to avoid this, but it just has to be said: I have become enthralled with The A-List:New York, Logo's new reality series which does a "real Housewives" like gloss on gay men in New York City.

Partly, this is pure shallowness: there's so much toplessness and buffery on display that it's just ridiculous (I think "notices buff men in filmed entertainment" is the new shorthand form of gaydar; if you can name the cute ones, you are one of us)... and confirms my own taste-o-meter for reality TV: from Paradise Hotel to Temptation Island to that brief Bravo series on picking America's next male model... if they wear a bathing suit, count me in.

But The A-List is, if possible, shallower than that: it's every "oh my God, did you see his boyfriend" story ever told, every overly dramatic queen's dream of everyday life. It's all hair and clothes and bitchy comments  and buff bodies and the 6 to 10 other things that make for the most shallow conversations imaginable.

And it's utterly fascinating, and utterly true.

The A-list's conceit is that the young men on camera represent some sort of urban gay elite; like the other shows, it's more "legend in my mind" than The Real Thing, but it makes perfect sense: if you can dine out on being Britney's hairdresser, if doing Beyonce's makeup makes you a somebody, if anyone cares that you do the flowers in Ivanka Trump's office.... it's gay men in Manhattan who can somehow make that seem important.

The most "famous" face on the A-List is probably Reichen Lemkuhl, a former Air Force officer who gained some notoriety dating Lance Bass, one of the men in N'Sync, and the only American boybander (so far) to come out. Next most famous is probably Austin, who was part of a messy series of relationships Marc Jacobs pursued since kicking drugs and buffing up into a new Gay Icon. There's also Derek, a modeling agent who apparently knows Lindsay Lohan, and Ryan, a hairdresser who married well (a much older, black banker who is rarely seen), and Ryan's friend TJ, who is also his Personal Assistant.

All of these boys, and Reichen's new boyfriend Rodiney (the requisite Brazilian model), do a credible job of representing what passes for gay social life: heavy on the arts, fashion and the visual, cute and young. It's a literal "Logan's Run" where it's rare to hang around much past 30, or maybe 35 if you push it (Mike Ruiz, also known to Drag Race fans, adds some grace to the image of the aging boytoy). Everyone's a little too young, a little too immature. Put it on camera... and it shows.

The A-List, like other reality shows, doesn't necessarily tell anyone anything they didn't already know: gay men can be shallow, and too caught up in what's pretty and of the moment. Since Stonewall, there's been a long line of books (Dancer from the Dance and Faggots, most famously) and plays (The Boys in the Band) and movies (Lots, but start, say, with Jeffrey) to make much the same point. Still, the A-List does climb up and under an image of gay life that I've rarely seen represented so fully, so unashamedly, and yes... probably so badly for the cause: this is a reminder that while we talk about "gay rights" and make gay men seem like saints... we often forget about the boys who, well, go to The Saint (a legendary nightclub, dear... look it up).

As well, the A-List climbs under and around the gender issues that the Housewives programs can't seem to address (or at least... that's my line and I'm sticking to it, to try and seem deep): bitchy and queeny they may be... but these are definitely men, and that complicates dismissing their emotional issues and social problems in quite the same way as the women of the Housewives' shows. This is a world that, up til now, was not necessarily visible to those outside of it. Trying to explain the "gay world" of clubs and parties and Fire Island to outsiders often seemed, like, well, trying to get people to believe in a mythical place (it's why, for instance, all this stuff about "the gays" and the SATC world of straight women's NYC can seem like the real thing... when those in the know can tell you, firmly, it isn't the same at all). The A-List is warts - well, not warts - and all: the "telephone, telegram... tell a fag" world of gossip and cuteness and relationships built on little more than looks and air.

And sure, it's about the small, petty details: watching Reichen lie to others, and himself, about his attractions and his wants; about shallow friendships like Derek's and TJ's and deciding whether or not to like Austin, and watching a pretty boy like Rodiney try to "make it" as a model in New York. But more than the housewives shows, I suspect that what gives the A-List some emotional punch is the breadth of relationships on display: friends, enemies, lovers, business partners. It's intimate, and a little incestuous, and oh so pretty to look at. And, as Malone said, beautiful is all it is. It takes a while to realize there might be more to life than that. Here's hoping these boys find that out.