Frankie’s back. Yeah, Frankie. Frankie, the guy who comes and goes. Mostly, he goes, but when he comes – boy, does he come. Or rather, he tries to. When Frankie comes, it’s usually after he’s spent 4-6 months on Riker's Island. See, Frankie’s got this cycle. First he’s here, smoking crack in the hall and asking for a shot of tequila. But then, a couple of weeks later, he’s asking if he can come in, (“t’chill – y’know?”). Then, all of a sudden, he's gone. He's gone right after he asked you for that hit you didn't have time to deal with. Where'd he go? Back to Riker's, of course. Back to the place where guys like him don't take as much risk asking the things they always ask...
Frankie’s short. He’s short, he most often stinks, and he doesn’t have a lot of teeth. More specifically, his teeth are scattered throughtout his mouth, in a manner that makes me obsess over whether it would be possible to replace only what’s missing or if it’s just plain necessary to remove everything altogether – to make a clean slate. I know this obsession is a distraction. I can see Frankie watching me obsess over his teeth. I can see that he knows I'm distracted by their crookedness. And I can see how he works it.
He works it by asking if he can come in. This only happens when he’s just gotten back from Reichers. When he’s just come back from Reichers, he comes to me. He comes to me – hard – and he asks for everything a Puerto Rican crack-head who’s just gotten back from Reichers can ask for. First he asks for a shot, then he asks for a hit – and then he asks me if I’ll buy him a hit of what he really wants.
What he doesn’t know is that I know what he wants is more complicated than he thinks. I know he wants more than he says he’s wanting. I know it because he can’t step out of my personal zone and he can’t stop sniffing me like I’m some sort of bitch in heat. He’s in my face. He’s in my zone. He’s standing in front of me, posing his just-out-of-Reichers bod as if there’s no way any homo on earth could resist him, trying to stare me down. Down onto the couch…
I stare back at him. I stare right back at him – right back in the eye, my eyes whispering, “I know what you’re up to, and a Reichers-buffed bod isn’t enough.” I don’t care what he’s up to. I don’t care what he wants. Yeah, it’s cute that he’s playing me. But not cute enough to get myself played.
So I give him his shot, and maybe I let him take a hit or two. Why not? I’m doing my bumps. So why not give the motherfucker his hits? And maybe I take a hit. Or two. But that’s all. ‘Cuz I don’t like his hits. He knows it. He wishes I would, but he knows it. He knows I don’t like his hits. He doesn’t like my bumps, and I don’t like his hits.
And we both know this. From the moment this dance starts, we both know it, but I let him lead anyway. ‘Cuz he’s been at Reichers for the past 4-6 months. And he’s gotten used to mansex, whether he admits it or not. So whether he admits it or not, he’s the one coming onto me. And I’m the one saying no.
Christ, but that pisses him off.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
So You Wanna Know What Goes On Here, in Bushwick, do Ya?
Then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you even though you already know. Or, you already have a good idea – which is to say, a very, very bad idea. Because what goes on here in Bushwick is very bad. Very, very bad. It’s so very, very bad, it’s downright good.
But you expected that. That’s why you’re reading. You’re reading because you’re expecting the very, very bad. And even though the very, very bad has been told many, many times before – you’re still waiting to see how the very, very bad lives and thrives in today’s society. In today’s society outside Manhattan. In today’s society outside Manhattan, in Bushwick. Because in order to outlive life in today’s New York, one must venture beyond today’s Manhattan. One must venture all the way to Northeast Brooklyn – to Bushwick. One must venture to where everything that’s been done before dares to be done again. (And again, and again…)
“Is there anything special about Buswick?,” you might ask. No, there’s nothing particularly special about this neighborhood where all of America’s beer once flowed, and all of America’s beer-es-tocracy once dwelled. Yeah, that’s a made-up term. We’re gonna encounter a lot of made-up terms along this path. If you can’t handle made-up terms, then switch to another blog – one that has nothing to do with reality-based fantasy… Then we’ll all be all set.
All of which is to say, “Of course, idiot – there’s plenty that’s special about Bushwick.” Do your own fucking Wikipedia. You’ll see. (If, that is, Wikipedia has the balls to call it like it was.) Bushwick is not only the place that kept America drunk throughout the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s – it’s the place that held onto keeping the country as drunk as it could while White Flight affected it, and its ability to do so.
Imagine. The fleeing of a neighborhood that affected its ability to maintain a virtually narcotic hold upon those who wished to flee it. And upon those who’d grown accustomed to fleeing the day-to-day hum-drum of their lives through the consumption of what that neighborhood had, up until then, produced – regularly.
In other words, “What happens when the source of the drug stops producing the drug – all in the name of no longer being worthy of producing that drug?”
That’s what happened in Bushwick. That’s what happened in Bushwick, about forty years ago. And 40 years ago is long ago enough as not to warrant further description as to exactly what happened then. At this point, and at this time, all that matters is that – long ago – Bushwick was transformed. It was transformed because it stopped producing its drug. It stopped producing its drug of alcohol. It stopped producing the drug that was so common at the time that it pretty near devastated most of our grandparents. Most, that is, of our readers’ grandparents. That’s right. You. Our readers. It – alcohol – probably almost wound up destroying your grandparents. If it didn’t, then consider yourselves lucky. If it didn’t, then your grandparents were probably Jewish or Morman of Seventh-Day Adventist. If that was the case, then good for you. (And, simultaneously, I’m sorry for you…)
But we were talking about Bushwick. We were talking about Bushwick, in Brooklyn. Bushwick – that peculiar neighborhood where blue-collar immigrants and Blue-Bloods co-existed, for the sake of producing that which would intoxicate them all. You see, Bushwick was – at the turn of the 20th Century – the hub of America’s beer production. That’s why we still have Knickerbocker Avenue. That’s why the area is sprinkled with factories (which have recently been turned into lofts), interspersed with ornate Victorian homes. That, and the blackout of 1977, are the reasons why Bushwick has an aesthetic unlike so much of the rest of Brooklyn. Bushwick isn’t picturesque like Park Slope. It isn’t anywhere near as adorable as the cobble-stoned Brooklyn Heights. And it has nowhere near the self-imposed kitschy charm of the far-away Coney Island. No, Bushwick’s aesthtic – of it can even be called that – is much more like that of Los Angeles. It’s scattered, and full of flotsam and jetsom. To understand Bushwick is to drive or ride through it – if only by imagination. In order to appreciate Bushwick, one must look not at it, but along it. For it is only through glancing at Bushwick’s appearance – as it appears as we coast alongside it – that we are able to understand it.
Why, do you ask, do I go into so much extraneous description about the place where I ask you that you ask about? My apologies if you think my premise is too verbose. But I need you to understand: What goes on here – even though it might seem identical to what goes on in so many other places – is special. It’s unique. It’s unique in the sense that it’s happening here and now, in one of the only parts of New York that will allow it to happen. One of the only parts of today’s New York that will allow this kind of scenario to go on in – to use poor grammar, as eventually I must – is here, in the scattered neighborhood known as Bushwick.
Ready to hear?
I’ll bet you are.
But you expected that. That’s why you’re reading. You’re reading because you’re expecting the very, very bad. And even though the very, very bad has been told many, many times before – you’re still waiting to see how the very, very bad lives and thrives in today’s society. In today’s society outside Manhattan. In today’s society outside Manhattan, in Bushwick. Because in order to outlive life in today’s New York, one must venture beyond today’s Manhattan. One must venture all the way to Northeast Brooklyn – to Bushwick. One must venture to where everything that’s been done before dares to be done again. (And again, and again…)
“Is there anything special about Buswick?,” you might ask. No, there’s nothing particularly special about this neighborhood where all of America’s beer once flowed, and all of America’s beer-es-tocracy once dwelled. Yeah, that’s a made-up term. We’re gonna encounter a lot of made-up terms along this path. If you can’t handle made-up terms, then switch to another blog – one that has nothing to do with reality-based fantasy… Then we’ll all be all set.
All of which is to say, “Of course, idiot – there’s plenty that’s special about Bushwick.” Do your own fucking Wikipedia. You’ll see. (If, that is, Wikipedia has the balls to call it like it was.) Bushwick is not only the place that kept America drunk throughout the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s – it’s the place that held onto keeping the country as drunk as it could while White Flight affected it, and its ability to do so.
Imagine. The fleeing of a neighborhood that affected its ability to maintain a virtually narcotic hold upon those who wished to flee it. And upon those who’d grown accustomed to fleeing the day-to-day hum-drum of their lives through the consumption of what that neighborhood had, up until then, produced – regularly.
In other words, “What happens when the source of the drug stops producing the drug – all in the name of no longer being worthy of producing that drug?”
That’s what happened in Bushwick. That’s what happened in Bushwick, about forty years ago. And 40 years ago is long ago enough as not to warrant further description as to exactly what happened then. At this point, and at this time, all that matters is that – long ago – Bushwick was transformed. It was transformed because it stopped producing its drug. It stopped producing its drug of alcohol. It stopped producing the drug that was so common at the time that it pretty near devastated most of our grandparents. Most, that is, of our readers’ grandparents. That’s right. You. Our readers. It – alcohol – probably almost wound up destroying your grandparents. If it didn’t, then consider yourselves lucky. If it didn’t, then your grandparents were probably Jewish or Morman of Seventh-Day Adventist. If that was the case, then good for you. (And, simultaneously, I’m sorry for you…)
But we were talking about Bushwick. We were talking about Bushwick, in Brooklyn. Bushwick – that peculiar neighborhood where blue-collar immigrants and Blue-Bloods co-existed, for the sake of producing that which would intoxicate them all. You see, Bushwick was – at the turn of the 20th Century – the hub of America’s beer production. That’s why we still have Knickerbocker Avenue. That’s why the area is sprinkled with factories (which have recently been turned into lofts), interspersed with ornate Victorian homes. That, and the blackout of 1977, are the reasons why Bushwick has an aesthetic unlike so much of the rest of Brooklyn. Bushwick isn’t picturesque like Park Slope. It isn’t anywhere near as adorable as the cobble-stoned Brooklyn Heights. And it has nowhere near the self-imposed kitschy charm of the far-away Coney Island. No, Bushwick’s aesthtic – of it can even be called that – is much more like that of Los Angeles. It’s scattered, and full of flotsam and jetsom. To understand Bushwick is to drive or ride through it – if only by imagination. In order to appreciate Bushwick, one must look not at it, but along it. For it is only through glancing at Bushwick’s appearance – as it appears as we coast alongside it – that we are able to understand it.
Why, do you ask, do I go into so much extraneous description about the place where I ask you that you ask about? My apologies if you think my premise is too verbose. But I need you to understand: What goes on here – even though it might seem identical to what goes on in so many other places – is special. It’s unique. It’s unique in the sense that it’s happening here and now, in one of the only parts of New York that will allow it to happen. One of the only parts of today’s New York that will allow this kind of scenario to go on in – to use poor grammar, as eventually I must – is here, in the scattered neighborhood known as Bushwick.
Ready to hear?
I’ll bet you are.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
A Letter to My Fellow New Yorkers: Greetings from Bushwick!
[The following is presented as though I was writing for a local publicaton, as an exercise, per a dear friend's advice... Even tho' it's directed towawd New Yorkers, everyone can get a feel for it...]
Hello, readers.
I’m assuming most of you are New Yorkers, so I won’t go into detail about exactly where I am. You know where I am, even if you’ve never been here.
Even if you’ve never been here, you’ve heard about it. You’ve heard about Bushwick. All of you New Yorkers have heard about Bushwick. If you haven’t, you pretend you have.
Don’t lie. You know you do. You know you pretend you’ve heard about Bushwick, even though you haven’t.
Except that you have. You have heard about it. You have heard about Bushwick. You’ve heard enough about Bushwick to know that you want to hear more. You want to hear more about Bushwick.
So what do you want to know first? How seedy it is out here on the outskirts of gentrification, or how dangerous? How grimy, or how insidious? What’s that, you say? Neither? Both? None of the above? All? Well, then, let me tell you…
But just for the record, let neither of us forget: You are the reader, and I am the storyteller. Yeah, that’s right. I’m the storyteller. That means I tell stories (as if you needed to know). But for some reason -- some strange silly reason – I felt the need to remind you of our dynamic. Because that’s all it is. A dynamic. And if you’re still reading, well then, you’re more of a voyeur than I expected you to be. ("Nice dynamic. Gooood dynamic…")
So welcome, my dynamic voyeur, to my dynamic world. To Bushwick. To Buswick at the turn of the New Millenium. The Late Turn of the New Millenium…
Don’t forget – you’re watching. You’re reading. I never asked you to. See, so much of the here and now in Bushwick has to do with our exhibitionistic tendencies (and, simultaneously, so much of that same here, and that same now, is dependent upon your tendency toward voyeurism), that it suddenly becomes difficult to decipher exactly who’s getting off and who’s getting them off, if y’know what I mean.
So don’t forget. That’s a big part of it. That’s a big part of Buswhick: Not forgetting that somebody is watching; that they know they’re watching, and that those they’re watching know they’re being watched. That’s a big part of it. A big part. Probably the biggest part of all of Bushwick. The biggest part of Bushwick is that it knows its Renaissance – if it can ever come near being called that – must occur under the microscope of the microcultural gaze. Shit, too much has happened already not to make it so. Too much. Too much history. Too much history, claiming its place in history, leaving only those cracks in history that know full well they’re nothing but cracks fruitlessly attempting to justify their existence. To live out their lives. Their lives amidst the other cracks. Their attempts at cracking into the cracks of history.
Come. Witness it. Witness life admist the cracks. It isn’t as bleak or banal as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it’s rich. It’s rich with richness… The almost earthen richness of a territory paved over for glory but then left to succumb to the whims of urban decay… Left, crying in near vain, for its original earthen richness to return.
What does one do with such territory? How does one revive the earth beneath an industrial park? It’s simple, really. One must merely show up, and then one must merely proclaim said territory to be his or her own. His own, her home.
So let’s talk about Bushwick, dear voyeur -- since you seem so interested. And I’ll be that one…
Hello, readers.
I’m assuming most of you are New Yorkers, so I won’t go into detail about exactly where I am. You know where I am, even if you’ve never been here.
Even if you’ve never been here, you’ve heard about it. You’ve heard about Bushwick. All of you New Yorkers have heard about Bushwick. If you haven’t, you pretend you have.
Don’t lie. You know you do. You know you pretend you’ve heard about Bushwick, even though you haven’t.
Except that you have. You have heard about it. You have heard about Bushwick. You’ve heard enough about Bushwick to know that you want to hear more. You want to hear more about Bushwick.
So what do you want to know first? How seedy it is out here on the outskirts of gentrification, or how dangerous? How grimy, or how insidious? What’s that, you say? Neither? Both? None of the above? All? Well, then, let me tell you…
But just for the record, let neither of us forget: You are the reader, and I am the storyteller. Yeah, that’s right. I’m the storyteller. That means I tell stories (as if you needed to know). But for some reason -- some strange silly reason – I felt the need to remind you of our dynamic. Because that’s all it is. A dynamic. And if you’re still reading, well then, you’re more of a voyeur than I expected you to be. ("Nice dynamic. Gooood dynamic…")
So welcome, my dynamic voyeur, to my dynamic world. To Bushwick. To Buswick at the turn of the New Millenium. The Late Turn of the New Millenium…
Don’t forget – you’re watching. You’re reading. I never asked you to. See, so much of the here and now in Bushwick has to do with our exhibitionistic tendencies (and, simultaneously, so much of that same here, and that same now, is dependent upon your tendency toward voyeurism), that it suddenly becomes difficult to decipher exactly who’s getting off and who’s getting them off, if y’know what I mean.
So don’t forget. That’s a big part of it. That’s a big part of Buswhick: Not forgetting that somebody is watching; that they know they’re watching, and that those they’re watching know they’re being watched. That’s a big part of it. A big part. Probably the biggest part of all of Bushwick. The biggest part of Bushwick is that it knows its Renaissance – if it can ever come near being called that – must occur under the microscope of the microcultural gaze. Shit, too much has happened already not to make it so. Too much. Too much history. Too much history, claiming its place in history, leaving only those cracks in history that know full well they’re nothing but cracks fruitlessly attempting to justify their existence. To live out their lives. Their lives amidst the other cracks. Their attempts at cracking into the cracks of history.
Come. Witness it. Witness life admist the cracks. It isn’t as bleak or banal as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it’s rich. It’s rich with richness… The almost earthen richness of a territory paved over for glory but then left to succumb to the whims of urban decay… Left, crying in near vain, for its original earthen richness to return.
What does one do with such territory? How does one revive the earth beneath an industrial park? It’s simple, really. One must merely show up, and then one must merely proclaim said territory to be his or her own. His own, her home.
So let’s talk about Bushwick, dear voyeur -- since you seem so interested. And I’ll be that one…
Thursday, November 30, 2006
I'm Still Here
Hello, whoever's left...
I don't mean to be maudlin. I just mean it. I know I've been neglecting my blog.
Oh, well.
I just wanted you to know that I'm still here. I'm still here, and I'm still a blogger. Just because I don't post every day and just because I don't go into detail about how every drop of semen that ejaculates from my penis lands -- whether upon a partner or just myself -- doesn't mean I'm not still a member of this electronic "community."
Yes, I've been too busy with corporate life to post. But why do I get more comments when I don't post than when I do? You guys aren't all that much better about this whole arrangement than you say I am...
No, I don't mean to be nasty either. Just honest. Which is the basis of my writing. So I suppose that when you don't see much of my writing, you can assume I'm not "in a place" to be fully honest with myself.
Any horny teenager can write about his cum drops. I thought I was seeking more than that.
A lot's been brewing on the back burner of my mind, which means something creative is going to emerge soon. That's how I work. I'm not an "every-day-at-5:00am" kind of writer. I'm a sprinter. And that's just gonna hafta do.
Lots of artists are sprinters. I've been doing my homework. I know. No, I'm not going to tell you who else. All that matters is that I know my creative process isn't unique to me, and that it's valid.
No need to validate this corporate queen's ticket. Between the company and myself, we've got it covered.
Write to ya soon.
Mean it.
Bye for now.
I don't mean to be maudlin. I just mean it. I know I've been neglecting my blog.
Oh, well.
I just wanted you to know that I'm still here. I'm still here, and I'm still a blogger. Just because I don't post every day and just because I don't go into detail about how every drop of semen that ejaculates from my penis lands -- whether upon a partner or just myself -- doesn't mean I'm not still a member of this electronic "community."
Yes, I've been too busy with corporate life to post. But why do I get more comments when I don't post than when I do? You guys aren't all that much better about this whole arrangement than you say I am...
No, I don't mean to be nasty either. Just honest. Which is the basis of my writing. So I suppose that when you don't see much of my writing, you can assume I'm not "in a place" to be fully honest with myself.
Any horny teenager can write about his cum drops. I thought I was seeking more than that.
A lot's been brewing on the back burner of my mind, which means something creative is going to emerge soon. That's how I work. I'm not an "every-day-at-5:00am" kind of writer. I'm a sprinter. And that's just gonna hafta do.
Lots of artists are sprinters. I've been doing my homework. I know. No, I'm not going to tell you who else. All that matters is that I know my creative process isn't unique to me, and that it's valid.
No need to validate this corporate queen's ticket. Between the company and myself, we've got it covered.
Write to ya soon.
Mean it.
Bye for now.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Why
Why You Haven't Heard from Me Lately, In a Nutshell:
- in May, the Mortgage job fell through, and I was out of cash and out of rent credits (I earn a month's rent for every one of my landlord's other units that I rent out to other over-paying, "pink-cheeked ((his term))" tenants)
- in June, a day after my birthday, the LoveofMyLife emailed me saying, "I don't even like you anymore. Good-bye."
- all through June I temped for a bunch of Corporate-Level Indians in the Park Ave office of Dell Financial, logging in the minimum payment checks that desperate middle- and lower-class Americans sent in via certified mail in order to prevent having their accounts go into collections
- in July, I finally landed a job I can live with, so I started it -- and I'm only just now hitting my 60th day. 30 days to go and I'm hard to fire...
- on July 31st, a slimy law firm from Long Island siezed my checking account, demanding $1,600 for a credit card I defaulted on three years ago in order to make my move to NY a reality
In other words, I've been in crisis mode. Level Red on a bad day, Level Orange on a good one.
Hey, if a guy can't use a 9/11 metaphor -- no matter how lame -- on 9/11, then just when can he?
Don't lose faith. Lose patience, maybe, but I beg of you, please don't lose faith.
Cheers,
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Hang in There, 'Cuz Lord Knows We're Hanngin'...
To those y'all who been waitin' 'round so diligently for an update, "Hat's Off!" For yours are the "those" whose expectations will soon 'nough be fulfilled...
And to everyone else, rest assured: STORM'S a' BREWIN'!!!
G
And to everyone else, rest assured: STORM'S a' BREWIN'!!!
G
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
I Got Clocked!
MotheraGod, I can’t believe it. I jus’ can’t believe it. It happened. It finally happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally happened. It finally fuckin’ happened. It just happened t’ happen. It just had t’ fuckin’ happen. To me, finally. It finally fuckin’ happened. I can’t believe it, but it finally fuckin’ happened. It happened. To me. Finally. Fuck.
I was walkin’ the dog. Of all things, an’ a’ all times. I was walkin’ the dog. It happened when I was walkin’ the dog. I was jus’ walkin’ the’ dog when it happened. I was fuckin’ walkin’ the dog. That’s when it happened. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it finally had t’ happen. Of all things, an’ a’ all times, that’s when it finally had t’ happen. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it happenend.
I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. Broadway & Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. And Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Tonight. On Broadway and Cook, right outside McDonald’s. That’s where it happened. Tonight. It happened tonight, of all nights, right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook.
What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened, right then and there, when I was walkin’ the dog. When I was walkin’ the dog, tonight, across from McDonald’s, on Broadway & Cook. I’ll tell ya what happened. Y’might not be as int’rested as I’d like y’t’be, but I’ll tell y’ jus’ th’ same. I’ll tell ya, ‘cuz y’must be wonderin’. Y’must be wonderin’ by now. If, by now, y’er not doin’ anythin’ other’n readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else, then y’er wonderin’. If y’er not readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else by now, then y’er wonderin’. Y’er wonderin’ what happened. So I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened tonight. What happened tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s. McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. What happened then, and what happened there was... I got clocked. I got clocked tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Yup. That’s it. That’s what happened. I got clocked. I got clocked but good. Here in my own neighborhood, where I’ve lived for two years. Where I’ve lived for two years, an’ where I’ve never had a run-in with any of “my own kind,” so to speak, it happened. It finally happened. It finally happened tonight. Tonight, of all times, it finally happened. Tonight, I got clocked. I got clocked but good. An’ the weirdest part is, I didn’t even know it ‘til long after it happened.
A few hours after it happened, a beautiful young boy said “Hi” to me in a bar. He said “Hi” to me. Long after it’d happened, he said “Hi.” Like he knew me. He said “Hi” like he knew me. So I gathered that maybe he did. I gathered maybe he did know me. So I was game. I said “Hi” back. I said “Hi.” And then I asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “I saw you walking your dog tonight. Right outside McDonald’s. I saw you walking your dog. And when I saw you, I said to myself, 'Oh, there’s gay people here. Cool.'”
Clocked. Fuck.
After all this time here, alone with my dog, I’d gotten used to not being visibly gay. Sure, I was white, I was male; I was even middle class and artsy. But I hadn’t been “tagged” yet as being gay. The racial and socio-economic circles around here don’t have much time for sexual politics. They presume everyone around them is heterosexual. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re too busy surviving to even ponder it. Anything else, that is. Sexually speaking. They don’t have time to ponder anything else sexually. Even if there are a hundred men fucking each other on the “Down Low.” Even if there are a hundred women living together because “their men have all left them…”
But if one gay boy in one gay bar in Brooklyn was able to clock me as being a homo, in my own neighborhood – well, that means the end of my anonymity in that neighborhood. I suppose I should feel good about being recognized. I suppose I should feel “proud.” But I don’t. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel good, or warm, or fuzzy, or proud to have been clocked by another gay in my neighborhood. Instead I feel sad. I feel sad that my escape is no longer an escape. I feel bummed that other queers have started moving in. I can’t stand that I might be starting the next queer hip neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I wanted was to get away from the gay ghetto. But it seems I’ve just started its next charter.
There’s nothing to repeat here. There’s nothing to wax poetic. Apparently I’m the proverbial self-loathing homo. Apparently I can’t stand my own kind. Why else would I try to move away from them? Why else would I pride myself on living in seclusion? Why else would I hate the appearance of others like me in the area where I’d established myself as separate and un-needing of them and their like?
Getting clocked isn’t good. It’s not a desirable thing. It’s not like getting recognized, or acknowledged, or rewarded. Getting clocked is a bad thing. Gettin' clocked sucks. You don’t wanna get clocked. Trust me. You don’t. I wish I hadn’t been clocked. I wish that boy’d never seen me, no matter how beautiful he is. What’s his problem, anyway? Doesn’t he have anything better to look at?
I was walkin’ the dog. Of all things, an’ a’ all times. I was walkin’ the dog. It happened when I was walkin’ the dog. I was jus’ walkin’ the’ dog when it happened. I was fuckin’ walkin’ the dog. That’s when it happened. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it finally had t’ happen. Of all things, an’ a’ all times, that’s when it finally had t’ happen. When I was walkin’ the fuckin’ dog. That’s when it happenend.
I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. Broadway & Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s. On Broadway. And Cook. I was right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Tonight. On Broadway and Cook, right outside McDonald’s. That’s where it happened. Tonight. It happened tonight, of all nights, right outside McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook.
What happened? I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened, right then and there, when I was walkin’ the dog. When I was walkin’ the dog, tonight, across from McDonald’s, on Broadway & Cook. I’ll tell ya what happened. Y’might not be as int’rested as I’d like y’t’be, but I’ll tell y’ jus’ th’ same. I’ll tell ya, ‘cuz y’must be wonderin’. Y’must be wonderin’ by now. If, by now, y’er not doin’ anythin’ other’n readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else, then y’er wonderin’. If y’er not readin’ or lookin’ at somethin’ else by now, then y’er wonderin’. Y’er wonderin’ what happened. So I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya what happened. I’ll tell ya what happened tonight. What happened tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s. McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. What happened then, and what happened there was... I got clocked. I got clocked tonight when I was walkin’ the dog across from McDonald’s on Broadway & Cook. Yup. That’s it. That’s what happened. I got clocked. I got clocked but good. Here in my own neighborhood, where I’ve lived for two years. Where I’ve lived for two years, an’ where I’ve never had a run-in with any of “my own kind,” so to speak, it happened. It finally happened. It finally happened tonight. Tonight, of all times, it finally happened. Tonight, I got clocked. I got clocked but good. An’ the weirdest part is, I didn’t even know it ‘til long after it happened.
A few hours after it happened, a beautiful young boy said “Hi” to me in a bar. He said “Hi” to me. Long after it’d happened, he said “Hi.” Like he knew me. He said “Hi” like he knew me. So I gathered that maybe he did. I gathered maybe he did know me. So I was game. I said “Hi” back. I said “Hi.” And then I asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “I saw you walking your dog tonight. Right outside McDonald’s. I saw you walking your dog. And when I saw you, I said to myself, 'Oh, there’s gay people here. Cool.'”
Clocked. Fuck.
After all this time here, alone with my dog, I’d gotten used to not being visibly gay. Sure, I was white, I was male; I was even middle class and artsy. But I hadn’t been “tagged” yet as being gay. The racial and socio-economic circles around here don’t have much time for sexual politics. They presume everyone around them is heterosexual. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re too busy surviving to even ponder it. Anything else, that is. Sexually speaking. They don’t have time to ponder anything else sexually. Even if there are a hundred men fucking each other on the “Down Low.” Even if there are a hundred women living together because “their men have all left them…”
But if one gay boy in one gay bar in Brooklyn was able to clock me as being a homo, in my own neighborhood – well, that means the end of my anonymity in that neighborhood. I suppose I should feel good about being recognized. I suppose I should feel “proud.” But I don’t. I don’t feel proud. I don’t feel good, or warm, or fuzzy, or proud to have been clocked by another gay in my neighborhood. Instead I feel sad. I feel sad that my escape is no longer an escape. I feel bummed that other queers have started moving in. I can’t stand that I might be starting the next queer hip neighborhood in Brooklyn. All I wanted was to get away from the gay ghetto. But it seems I’ve just started its next charter.
There’s nothing to repeat here. There’s nothing to wax poetic. Apparently I’m the proverbial self-loathing homo. Apparently I can’t stand my own kind. Why else would I try to move away from them? Why else would I pride myself on living in seclusion? Why else would I hate the appearance of others like me in the area where I’d established myself as separate and un-needing of them and their like?
Getting clocked isn’t good. It’s not a desirable thing. It’s not like getting recognized, or acknowledged, or rewarded. Getting clocked is a bad thing. Gettin' clocked sucks. You don’t wanna get clocked. Trust me. You don’t. I wish I hadn’t been clocked. I wish that boy’d never seen me, no matter how beautiful he is. What’s his problem, anyway? Doesn’t he have anything better to look at?
Sunday, March 26, 2006
(Me an’) Bobby McGee
(I meant to tell y’all ‘bout this before, but I never got around’a it. Well, here’s t’ gittin’ ‘round…)
FLASHBACK, 1998: “The Lot” in LA. I’ve just begun to feel settled-in amidst the other artists, the ‘70s leftovers, and the boho wanna-be’s who constitute my new SoCal alterna-digs’ total residence. The apartment’s been spackled, it’s been painted, and it just been carpeted. The garden’s been sown, and the life force that is Spooge has manifested himself – presently in the form of an uncut adolescent pup.
It’s dusk. I think it’s wintertime. (It's not as easy to tell in La-La Land... You have to look for what's in bloom and ask yourself if you need a sweater.) I’m hosing down the parking lot. (Martini in left hand, nozzle in right. Yeah, I switch hands from time to time, in the name of trying to avoid Carpal Tunnel, but for the most part, this is the stance.) I’m stoned. (What else is new? These are the CA years.) Spooge is doing his thang. So are all the cats. So are all the other dogs. The other dogs all bunk down with Jerry, the “Potato Sack guy,” we call him – a 40+ queen who values the gym about as much as I value monogamy. All these animals are sniffin’, scratchin’, and piddlin’, each according to his or her immediate needs. All of which is to say, it’s just another typical night on the Lot. The sun’s gone down, as it always does, past the edge of the parking lot and past the tops of the Magnolia, Pine and Palm trees aligning the streets that fall between us and the beach. (There’s about 20 minutes worth of ‘em, in Angelino miles. We Angelinos like to describe distance in terms of how long it’ll take you to drive there… We're a "Rate x Time" kind of folk.)
The artists who are lucky enough not to need a day job are busy working in their studios. Those who are in “job phase” are sipping Merlot and listening to Pat Sajak drop cryptic crossword clues. Vanna White patiently awaits illumination. (She will NOT act until she receives her Pavlovian cue. THAT's what got her the job, way back when -- did I ever tell you that? But I digress...) As for Myself? Categorically, I dwell somewhere within the strata of my subculture. I’m a slacker who’s just re-realized he needs to get back to work. So, I work harder than I have to, on The Lot itself, y’see, to make up for my inadequacies.
“Heck,” I tell myself (each and every day I do it), “it’s not like it doesn’t need doin’.”
Anyway, it was on just this kind of day, at exactly this time of night, while I was doing this exact sort of thing – when I first met Bobby McGee. He was a large dog, by the Lot’s standards. By our Lot’s standards, Spooge was a big dog. Spooge was the first big dog who had succeeded in earning permanent residence on the Lot since Catherine, the crazy dyke who'd made and subsequently lost a small fortune via a T-shirt and novelty enterprise called "Flying Fish," had lived there with her ever-rotating population of Pit Bulls. Catherine now lived three doors down, doing God knows what, while her T-shirts and novelties rotted away on gray metal shelves. ANYway, before Spooge, all we on the Lot had, in terms of canine compansionship, were little, “yappy” dogs. And they all shacked up with Jerry.
But picture if you will: Myself, almost 10 years ago… Martini and garden hose in hand(s); proud father of the first full-sized dog to have recently landed residence on the Lot. And then picture, if you will: Myself, meeting – for the first time – a Border Collie/Sheep Dog mix (who’s only recognizable to me as such because I grew up with a father who bred dogs and who familiarized me with the appearances and inclinations of many hunting and show breeds). And THEN picture, if you can: The simultaneous combination of delight and despair I experienced when I: a) recognized that another large-sized dog had made his way onto the Lot, and b) realized that the reason he’d done so was because he was crippled to the core – the obvious victim of a car accident.
Whether on human or canine, cat or canary, I had never before seen such injuries. I had never before witnessed such raw, open, dripping wounds. They were puss-ridden; fur-mixed-with-skin-mixed-with-flesh-mixed-with-sutures, CATASTROPHIC symptoms. Never before had I viewed in real life such obvious consequences of nature and industrialization colliding, VIOLENTLY. But I was witnessing them then. Martini in one hand, garden hose in the other, there I stood, under the LA sunset, witnessing it. And it was disgusting. "Such, "I tried to assure myself, "is the nature of life in LA." "Such is the rare yet predictable outcome of a certain unlucky percentile who have to live a flesh-and-blood existence under the utterly unforgiving reign of mechanism." More precisely, I thought, mechanism met with speed. For it is the marriage of mechanicality and motion that makes up the make-up of Los Angeles. Ride with it and everything’s fine. Floating and jetting, the flotsam and jetsom move along quite smoothly, providing an aesthetic that predates and predicts the visual effects of the internet. Southern California long ago raised surfing to another level; it just needed Microsoft Windows to teach the rest of us how to recognize it.
But for this borderline Border Collie whom I came to deem Bobby McGee, surfing hadn't helped. Surfing hadn't proven to be a conduit. Unlike the rest of us who surfed LA traffic daily --negotiating stop signs, traffic lights, hair-pin turns and multiple intersections -- Bobby, apparently, hadn't made it home safe one night. His was an unlucky number. His was a number representing collision. Running the numbers hadn't helped Bobby; it had hurt him. That's what the numbers dictate. That's what the numbers require. The numbers require that in order for 95% of us to make it home safe, 5% of us -- be we human, canine, or of any other life form -- must suffer. We must suffer eventuality.
So I suppose it was my own particular form of eventuality that eventually led to my having to witness the likes of Bobby McGee. But nothing could've prepared me for the moment. Nothing could’ve helped me witness what I witnessed that night while I was watering down the Lot in LA – that night when I first met him. That night when I first laid eyes upon Bobby McGee. No Martini, no bong, no drug could’ve prepared me. Nothing, except perhaps a glimpse of death itself, could’ve prepared me to glimpse what I glimpsed that evening, right around twilight. I don’t even know how he walked. I don’t know how he walked up to me. And I'm not really sure why. The rest of Jerry’s dogs always scattered whenever I sprayed the hose. But not Bobby.
Bobby, that night, hobbled right on up t’ me, even tho' I was sprayin’ full throttle. He hobbled right up t’ me. He hobbled right on up, introducin’ himself, 'spite th’ fact that no other dog who’d’ just been through what he’d just been through would’a ever cared t’inroduce himself t’anybody… An' I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never seen anythin' like it. It was like lookin’ at half a dog. Half a dog sliced right down the middle – and not from belly t' belly, but from head t’ toe! Right down the middle! A perfect half a’ dog! He was a perfect half a' dog. Cut right down the middle. Like the Invisible Dog from the ‘70s. Like the friggin’ Invisible Dog. Cut right down the middle. From schnout t’ tail, Ol’ Bobby was a perfect half a' dog.
One side of him looked like the dog he was – or at least, the dog he’d once been. But the other side of him looked like a science experiment. It was flat, it was transluscent, and it had no fur. I don’t think it even had bones. (Looking back, I realize it must’ve, but at the time, I couldn’t even see them.) The one side that was him was pretty. It was full. It was black, it was white, it was long-haired, and it was full. It was full of life. But the other side of him – the one that was damaged – was so damaged I couldn’t imagine how any dog would've been able to get along without all the stuff he was missing.
Aside from Jerry, I guess, I was the only other human who took to Bobby. Everyone else ignored him. I can’t say as I blame them, because during our time on the Lot, we all witnessed many a damaged animal. It was just part of being there. I mean, c’mon – there we were, living where the city had forgotten itself, and in so doing, allowed the desert to reclaim itself. There were plenty of wild creatures to contend with, mostly in the form of feral cats and pack dogs. But because Ol’ Bobby’d made the effort to introduce himself to me that night, I couldn’t help but wanna get to know him. So I got to know him. And in getting to know him, I came to name him. Yeah, I’m the one who named him. I’m the one who named him “Bobby McGee.” At first, no one asked me why. But as time passed – as he healed and grew back into the cute sheep-herding collie dog he’d been before his accident – people grew curious as to why I called him what I did. And when they asked, I told ‘em, “I call him Bobby McGee. ‘Cuz when he first showed up here – he had nothin’ left t’lose.”
Maybe that’s why he'd hobbled up to me that evening. Maybe he recognized that we had something in common. And y'know somethin'? He was right. Because on that particular evening, on that particular Lot, in that particular corner of the world, Me ‘n’ Bobby McGee – as the illustrious Miss Joplin herself would’ve attested, had she been there to witness us – were just about the free-est souls in the Southland.
FLASHBACK, 1998: “The Lot” in LA. I’ve just begun to feel settled-in amidst the other artists, the ‘70s leftovers, and the boho wanna-be’s who constitute my new SoCal alterna-digs’ total residence. The apartment’s been spackled, it’s been painted, and it just been carpeted. The garden’s been sown, and the life force that is Spooge has manifested himself – presently in the form of an uncut adolescent pup.
It’s dusk. I think it’s wintertime. (It's not as easy to tell in La-La Land... You have to look for what's in bloom and ask yourself if you need a sweater.) I’m hosing down the parking lot. (Martini in left hand, nozzle in right. Yeah, I switch hands from time to time, in the name of trying to avoid Carpal Tunnel, but for the most part, this is the stance.) I’m stoned. (What else is new? These are the CA years.) Spooge is doing his thang. So are all the cats. So are all the other dogs. The other dogs all bunk down with Jerry, the “Potato Sack guy,” we call him – a 40+ queen who values the gym about as much as I value monogamy. All these animals are sniffin’, scratchin’, and piddlin’, each according to his or her immediate needs. All of which is to say, it’s just another typical night on the Lot. The sun’s gone down, as it always does, past the edge of the parking lot and past the tops of the Magnolia, Pine and Palm trees aligning the streets that fall between us and the beach. (There’s about 20 minutes worth of ‘em, in Angelino miles. We Angelinos like to describe distance in terms of how long it’ll take you to drive there… We're a "Rate x Time" kind of folk.)
The artists who are lucky enough not to need a day job are busy working in their studios. Those who are in “job phase” are sipping Merlot and listening to Pat Sajak drop cryptic crossword clues. Vanna White patiently awaits illumination. (She will NOT act until she receives her Pavlovian cue. THAT's what got her the job, way back when -- did I ever tell you that? But I digress...) As for Myself? Categorically, I dwell somewhere within the strata of my subculture. I’m a slacker who’s just re-realized he needs to get back to work. So, I work harder than I have to, on The Lot itself, y’see, to make up for my inadequacies.
“Heck,” I tell myself (each and every day I do it), “it’s not like it doesn’t need doin’.”
Anyway, it was on just this kind of day, at exactly this time of night, while I was doing this exact sort of thing – when I first met Bobby McGee. He was a large dog, by the Lot’s standards. By our Lot’s standards, Spooge was a big dog. Spooge was the first big dog who had succeeded in earning permanent residence on the Lot since Catherine, the crazy dyke who'd made and subsequently lost a small fortune via a T-shirt and novelty enterprise called "Flying Fish," had lived there with her ever-rotating population of Pit Bulls. Catherine now lived three doors down, doing God knows what, while her T-shirts and novelties rotted away on gray metal shelves. ANYway, before Spooge, all we on the Lot had, in terms of canine compansionship, were little, “yappy” dogs. And they all shacked up with Jerry.
But picture if you will: Myself, almost 10 years ago… Martini and garden hose in hand(s); proud father of the first full-sized dog to have recently landed residence on the Lot. And then picture, if you will: Myself, meeting – for the first time – a Border Collie/Sheep Dog mix (who’s only recognizable to me as such because I grew up with a father who bred dogs and who familiarized me with the appearances and inclinations of many hunting and show breeds). And THEN picture, if you can: The simultaneous combination of delight and despair I experienced when I: a) recognized that another large-sized dog had made his way onto the Lot, and b) realized that the reason he’d done so was because he was crippled to the core – the obvious victim of a car accident.
Whether on human or canine, cat or canary, I had never before seen such injuries. I had never before witnessed such raw, open, dripping wounds. They were puss-ridden; fur-mixed-with-skin-mixed-with-flesh-mixed-with-sutures, CATASTROPHIC symptoms. Never before had I viewed in real life such obvious consequences of nature and industrialization colliding, VIOLENTLY. But I was witnessing them then. Martini in one hand, garden hose in the other, there I stood, under the LA sunset, witnessing it. And it was disgusting. "Such, "I tried to assure myself, "is the nature of life in LA." "Such is the rare yet predictable outcome of a certain unlucky percentile who have to live a flesh-and-blood existence under the utterly unforgiving reign of mechanism." More precisely, I thought, mechanism met with speed. For it is the marriage of mechanicality and motion that makes up the make-up of Los Angeles. Ride with it and everything’s fine. Floating and jetting, the flotsam and jetsom move along quite smoothly, providing an aesthetic that predates and predicts the visual effects of the internet. Southern California long ago raised surfing to another level; it just needed Microsoft Windows to teach the rest of us how to recognize it.
But for this borderline Border Collie whom I came to deem Bobby McGee, surfing hadn't helped. Surfing hadn't proven to be a conduit. Unlike the rest of us who surfed LA traffic daily --negotiating stop signs, traffic lights, hair-pin turns and multiple intersections -- Bobby, apparently, hadn't made it home safe one night. His was an unlucky number. His was a number representing collision. Running the numbers hadn't helped Bobby; it had hurt him. That's what the numbers dictate. That's what the numbers require. The numbers require that in order for 95% of us to make it home safe, 5% of us -- be we human, canine, or of any other life form -- must suffer. We must suffer eventuality.
So I suppose it was my own particular form of eventuality that eventually led to my having to witness the likes of Bobby McGee. But nothing could've prepared me for the moment. Nothing could’ve helped me witness what I witnessed that night while I was watering down the Lot in LA – that night when I first met him. That night when I first laid eyes upon Bobby McGee. No Martini, no bong, no drug could’ve prepared me. Nothing, except perhaps a glimpse of death itself, could’ve prepared me to glimpse what I glimpsed that evening, right around twilight. I don’t even know how he walked. I don’t know how he walked up to me. And I'm not really sure why. The rest of Jerry’s dogs always scattered whenever I sprayed the hose. But not Bobby.
Bobby, that night, hobbled right on up t’ me, even tho' I was sprayin’ full throttle. He hobbled right up t’ me. He hobbled right on up, introducin’ himself, 'spite th’ fact that no other dog who’d’ just been through what he’d just been through would’a ever cared t’inroduce himself t’anybody… An' I couldn’t believe what I saw. I’d never seen anythin' like it. It was like lookin’ at half a dog. Half a dog sliced right down the middle – and not from belly t' belly, but from head t’ toe! Right down the middle! A perfect half a’ dog! He was a perfect half a' dog. Cut right down the middle. Like the Invisible Dog from the ‘70s. Like the friggin’ Invisible Dog. Cut right down the middle. From schnout t’ tail, Ol’ Bobby was a perfect half a' dog.
One side of him looked like the dog he was – or at least, the dog he’d once been. But the other side of him looked like a science experiment. It was flat, it was transluscent, and it had no fur. I don’t think it even had bones. (Looking back, I realize it must’ve, but at the time, I couldn’t even see them.) The one side that was him was pretty. It was full. It was black, it was white, it was long-haired, and it was full. It was full of life. But the other side of him – the one that was damaged – was so damaged I couldn’t imagine how any dog would've been able to get along without all the stuff he was missing.
Aside from Jerry, I guess, I was the only other human who took to Bobby. Everyone else ignored him. I can’t say as I blame them, because during our time on the Lot, we all witnessed many a damaged animal. It was just part of being there. I mean, c’mon – there we were, living where the city had forgotten itself, and in so doing, allowed the desert to reclaim itself. There were plenty of wild creatures to contend with, mostly in the form of feral cats and pack dogs. But because Ol’ Bobby’d made the effort to introduce himself to me that night, I couldn’t help but wanna get to know him. So I got to know him. And in getting to know him, I came to name him. Yeah, I’m the one who named him. I’m the one who named him “Bobby McGee.” At first, no one asked me why. But as time passed – as he healed and grew back into the cute sheep-herding collie dog he’d been before his accident – people grew curious as to why I called him what I did. And when they asked, I told ‘em, “I call him Bobby McGee. ‘Cuz when he first showed up here – he had nothin’ left t’lose.”
Maybe that’s why he'd hobbled up to me that evening. Maybe he recognized that we had something in common. And y'know somethin'? He was right. Because on that particular evening, on that particular Lot, in that particular corner of the world, Me ‘n’ Bobby McGee – as the illustrious Miss Joplin herself would’ve attested, had she been there to witness us – were just about the free-est souls in the Southland.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
CGU* III (Episode 1): Just What Have I Done Now?
(*Career Girl Update, Series III)
If I never accomplish anything else during this whacky incarnation I’m having, at least I’ll be able to return to the Great Void knowing I’ve amused just a few of you along the way. I know I’m silly. Really, I do.
So what am I up to this time? Just what sort of career has this Career Girl who’s notorious for not being able to hold down a career landed now? As many of you have read, and as bizarre as it sounds (even to myself, still), I’m now a Mortgage Broker.
“Mortgage Broker.” What sort of image does that title conjure up in your heads? Go ahead, be honest. I won’t be offended if it’s offensive. Lord knows I’ve come too far in the world of offensiveness to fear the offense people might take in my occupation. Does it strike you as “smarmy?” Does it come across as the Used Car Sales echelon of the real estate industry? Yes, I believe it does. I think, whenever I tell people I’m a Mortgage Broker, that I sound like the guys you see on late-night TV. You know, the ones peddling last year’s Ford Explorers and Toyota Corollas at bargain prices – “Not to be beaten anywhere, or [they’ll] pay the difference!!!”
All I know is this: Three years ago, I was financially stable but emotionally and artistically stagnant in Los Angeles. Two years ago, I had just acquired my present apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was busy slapping up my first coats of paint and searching for a microwave and Toast-r-Oven. And last year I was living the High Life, collecting Unemployment and young Brooklyn boy-toys alike. I brought both home to said East Williamsburg apartment, spending the former on all the drugs I was doing with the latter.
All of which is to say, I’ve looked at NYC from both sides now.
I’ve been the newcomer with the demanding day job and I’ve been the Brooklyn slacker who proves that it is, indeed, possible to survive in NY on less than $100,000/year. Way less. Way, way less. I’ve been the guppie and the boho. I’ve made it here (which means, if you’ll remember, that I can make it anywhere) “with” and “without.” From surfing couches to earning an Executive Assistant’s salary and back to surfing a couch again (my own, mind you), I have acquired close to three years’ life experience here in the Big Apple. And some said it couldn’t be done!
I’m no stranger to taking big risks in moving to new cities. At 23, soon after taking my sweet time to graduate from college (spent a semester in France just for the hell of it), I packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and left Portland, Maine, forever. Folks said I’d be back, but I never have been, except for one quick visit sometime during ’89. (I’ve been meaning to get back there, especially now that I’m back on the East Coast, and I will always love my dear friends there, but I haven’t made it back yet.) After living in SF for close to 10 years (and after experiencing a major shift in sensibilites – from uptight New English preppie to hedonistic SF clone), I decided – mostly for the sake of love, mind you – to relocate to Los Angeles. I remained there, with the quasi-communal, eternally familial group of artists with whom I’d recalimed a filthy parcel of South Central turf, for almost seven years. But I was unhappy. Despite having surrounded myself with other artists in the hopes of living the Creative Life, my creativity dried up. I was too worried about maintaining the homestead to take time to write. I wound up smoking too much pot while I continually clipped ever-growing garden blossoms and stems. That’s what led to my taking the next, most recent risk – moving to NYC on a shoestring.
Throughout the processes of taking all of these risks, I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve learned to go ahead and take big leaps as long as my heart tells me it’s OK. That’s what’s happening with this new job. It’s a crazy job. Given that I now possess far less than the infamous $3,000 I had when I first arrived in NY, it’s an insane proposition. It’s commission only. It’s a high-pressure, low-benefit sales job. In other words, I’ve signed up to sweat in a boiler room.
But y’know what? I love it. I don’t just “like” it. I’m not “settling” until something better comes along. I think this job is an opportunity – the opportunity I knew I’d need once I’d gotten established in this city and was ready to move to the next level. I’m sorry I portrayed the company as appearing to have “mob” connections in my previous post. (Well, I’m sorry, but not to the point where I’m willing to take back those initial impressions. They will have to forever remain what they were. Many people, if they were to meet my new boss, would get the same feeling from him and his associates. They are loud, aggressive Long Island natives. They are Italian beyond belief. They could give Brando a run for his cotton-stuffed, mealy-mouthed money. And I love them.)
I have a feeling about this new job. It’s much like the feeling I had when I moved to SF; when I launched my one-man show there; when I packed up and left the Bay Area when it would’ve made more career sense to stay; and when I decided to make the move from LA to NYC. It’s a feeling of surety, despite all apparent reasons to cast doubt. I can’t explain it any further than that. I’m having a gut feeling about this new job. A good gut feeling. And that's all I can say about it.
But I will tell you this: Through this job, I have consciously challenged myself. I have chosen to face some serious demons. You see, early on in my childoood, somewhere around first grade, I was diagnosed as being “bad at math.” My teacher told my parents that I was linguistically talented but mathematically deficient and we all accepted the diagnosis. I proceeded to go through the rest of my education, all the way through grad school, believing I just didn’t have the aptitide to comprehend numbers, arithmetic, percentages, and all else that comprises the vocabulary of business. Consequently I was raised to believe I “didn’t have a head for money.” Heck, I was an artist. I was creative. I could write a hell of a Christmas letter, but God forbid I shoud be expected to do my own taxes.
Well, recently, after having taken as much time as I apparently needed to slack in Brooklyn – after having finally saturated myself with the bohemian/party lifestlye – I have decided that a guy who can maintain a 3.7 GPA in a graduate program (even if it is just at a state school and in an arts program) can certainly wrap his brain around the principles that enable people with far fewer intellectual faculties than he has to accumulate wealth in a capitalist system.
So THAT’s what I’ve “done now.” THAT’s what I’m up to. As usual, Greg has motives far beyond the petty and the apparent. Greg is up to something big. Greg is battling his demons, and he’s determined to come out of the battle armed with the knowledge that will help him land the best fucking mortgage possible on that Goddamed Anna Madrigal-esque brownstone he’s always dreamed of owning. This is New York, for Chrissake. If a New Yorker isn’t at least a little bit curious about how the local real esate market works, s/he’s not a real New Yorker. S/he’s a tourist.
I have a lifetime of sales under my belt. As complex as the mortgage industry is, it’s still sales, plain and simple. The man who’s just launched the Manhattan office of a firm he’s worked with since 1997 on Long Island took one look at me and decided I was capable of learning the ropes. That’s my new boss. I don’t intend to let him – but more importantly, myself – down. It takes time but the money one can earn in this field is hefty. Living on commission only brings me back to my Patrick Murphy days. I have never been happier with my work than when I was living from job to job. It always came together then, and I’m sure it’ll come together now. Meanwhile I’ll be learning all about the mysterious phenomenon known as New York City real estate. Not bad party chat, eh?
I made the move and I painted the apartment. I celebrated my 40th birthday with all my best friends. Then I took a year off to rest, play, and inquire as to exactly who I wanted to be now that I am here. Now I’m greasing the money wheels so that when the muse visits and helps me put together the next creative urge, I’ll be ready and able to produce it.
There’s a connection between productivity and creativity, and I’m gonna work it.
If I never accomplish anything else during this whacky incarnation I’m having, at least I’ll be able to return to the Great Void knowing I’ve amused just a few of you along the way. I know I’m silly. Really, I do.
So what am I up to this time? Just what sort of career has this Career Girl who’s notorious for not being able to hold down a career landed now? As many of you have read, and as bizarre as it sounds (even to myself, still), I’m now a Mortgage Broker.
“Mortgage Broker.” What sort of image does that title conjure up in your heads? Go ahead, be honest. I won’t be offended if it’s offensive. Lord knows I’ve come too far in the world of offensiveness to fear the offense people might take in my occupation. Does it strike you as “smarmy?” Does it come across as the Used Car Sales echelon of the real estate industry? Yes, I believe it does. I think, whenever I tell people I’m a Mortgage Broker, that I sound like the guys you see on late-night TV. You know, the ones peddling last year’s Ford Explorers and Toyota Corollas at bargain prices – “Not to be beaten anywhere, or [they’ll] pay the difference!!!”
All I know is this: Three years ago, I was financially stable but emotionally and artistically stagnant in Los Angeles. Two years ago, I had just acquired my present apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was busy slapping up my first coats of paint and searching for a microwave and Toast-r-Oven. And last year I was living the High Life, collecting Unemployment and young Brooklyn boy-toys alike. I brought both home to said East Williamsburg apartment, spending the former on all the drugs I was doing with the latter.
All of which is to say, I’ve looked at NYC from both sides now.
I’ve been the newcomer with the demanding day job and I’ve been the Brooklyn slacker who proves that it is, indeed, possible to survive in NY on less than $100,000/year. Way less. Way, way less. I’ve been the guppie and the boho. I’ve made it here (which means, if you’ll remember, that I can make it anywhere) “with” and “without.” From surfing couches to earning an Executive Assistant’s salary and back to surfing a couch again (my own, mind you), I have acquired close to three years’ life experience here in the Big Apple. And some said it couldn’t be done!
I’m no stranger to taking big risks in moving to new cities. At 23, soon after taking my sweet time to graduate from college (spent a semester in France just for the hell of it), I packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and left Portland, Maine, forever. Folks said I’d be back, but I never have been, except for one quick visit sometime during ’89. (I’ve been meaning to get back there, especially now that I’m back on the East Coast, and I will always love my dear friends there, but I haven’t made it back yet.) After living in SF for close to 10 years (and after experiencing a major shift in sensibilites – from uptight New English preppie to hedonistic SF clone), I decided – mostly for the sake of love, mind you – to relocate to Los Angeles. I remained there, with the quasi-communal, eternally familial group of artists with whom I’d recalimed a filthy parcel of South Central turf, for almost seven years. But I was unhappy. Despite having surrounded myself with other artists in the hopes of living the Creative Life, my creativity dried up. I was too worried about maintaining the homestead to take time to write. I wound up smoking too much pot while I continually clipped ever-growing garden blossoms and stems. That’s what led to my taking the next, most recent risk – moving to NYC on a shoestring.
Throughout the processes of taking all of these risks, I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve learned to go ahead and take big leaps as long as my heart tells me it’s OK. That’s what’s happening with this new job. It’s a crazy job. Given that I now possess far less than the infamous $3,000 I had when I first arrived in NY, it’s an insane proposition. It’s commission only. It’s a high-pressure, low-benefit sales job. In other words, I’ve signed up to sweat in a boiler room.
But y’know what? I love it. I don’t just “like” it. I’m not “settling” until something better comes along. I think this job is an opportunity – the opportunity I knew I’d need once I’d gotten established in this city and was ready to move to the next level. I’m sorry I portrayed the company as appearing to have “mob” connections in my previous post. (Well, I’m sorry, but not to the point where I’m willing to take back those initial impressions. They will have to forever remain what they were. Many people, if they were to meet my new boss, would get the same feeling from him and his associates. They are loud, aggressive Long Island natives. They are Italian beyond belief. They could give Brando a run for his cotton-stuffed, mealy-mouthed money. And I love them.)
I have a feeling about this new job. It’s much like the feeling I had when I moved to SF; when I launched my one-man show there; when I packed up and left the Bay Area when it would’ve made more career sense to stay; and when I decided to make the move from LA to NYC. It’s a feeling of surety, despite all apparent reasons to cast doubt. I can’t explain it any further than that. I’m having a gut feeling about this new job. A good gut feeling. And that's all I can say about it.
But I will tell you this: Through this job, I have consciously challenged myself. I have chosen to face some serious demons. You see, early on in my childoood, somewhere around first grade, I was diagnosed as being “bad at math.” My teacher told my parents that I was linguistically talented but mathematically deficient and we all accepted the diagnosis. I proceeded to go through the rest of my education, all the way through grad school, believing I just didn’t have the aptitide to comprehend numbers, arithmetic, percentages, and all else that comprises the vocabulary of business. Consequently I was raised to believe I “didn’t have a head for money.” Heck, I was an artist. I was creative. I could write a hell of a Christmas letter, but God forbid I shoud be expected to do my own taxes.
Well, recently, after having taken as much time as I apparently needed to slack in Brooklyn – after having finally saturated myself with the bohemian/party lifestlye – I have decided that a guy who can maintain a 3.7 GPA in a graduate program (even if it is just at a state school and in an arts program) can certainly wrap his brain around the principles that enable people with far fewer intellectual faculties than he has to accumulate wealth in a capitalist system.
So THAT’s what I’ve “done now.” THAT’s what I’m up to. As usual, Greg has motives far beyond the petty and the apparent. Greg is up to something big. Greg is battling his demons, and he’s determined to come out of the battle armed with the knowledge that will help him land the best fucking mortgage possible on that Goddamed Anna Madrigal-esque brownstone he’s always dreamed of owning. This is New York, for Chrissake. If a New Yorker isn’t at least a little bit curious about how the local real esate market works, s/he’s not a real New Yorker. S/he’s a tourist.
I have a lifetime of sales under my belt. As complex as the mortgage industry is, it’s still sales, plain and simple. The man who’s just launched the Manhattan office of a firm he’s worked with since 1997 on Long Island took one look at me and decided I was capable of learning the ropes. That’s my new boss. I don’t intend to let him – but more importantly, myself – down. It takes time but the money one can earn in this field is hefty. Living on commission only brings me back to my Patrick Murphy days. I have never been happier with my work than when I was living from job to job. It always came together then, and I’m sure it’ll come together now. Meanwhile I’ll be learning all about the mysterious phenomenon known as New York City real estate. Not bad party chat, eh?
I made the move and I painted the apartment. I celebrated my 40th birthday with all my best friends. Then I took a year off to rest, play, and inquire as to exactly who I wanted to be now that I am here. Now I’m greasing the money wheels so that when the muse visits and helps me put together the next creative urge, I’ll be ready and able to produce it.
There’s a connection between productivity and creativity, and I’m gonna work it.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Ta-Daaaa!!!
It’s time to shift gears again. It’s time to make another run for it.
No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”
It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?
I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.
No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.
So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.
Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.
I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."
So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.
I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.
And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.
I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.
“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”
When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.
Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”
When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.
His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.
There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.
But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”
On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.
One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.
“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”
“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”
“That’s me.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.
“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“
“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”
Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.
I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.
It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.
That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.
Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?
No, I’m not running away. I’m not even leaving town. But I am about to commence another life stage. I’m about to re-enter the White Collar Army. I’ve just accepted another job. I’m about to go back to “work.”
It happens. It happens frequently. Despite my having a fantasy of a lifestyle independent of corporate cash flow, I regularly pick up the opportunity to acquire one. What is it this time? Which stratum of American economics will I soon be entering in efforts to make a buck and set aside the funds necessary for the next bohemian phase?
I have conflicting feelings about telling you. But it suffices to say that it’s yet another realm of sales. It’s sales, through and through. It’s sales, pure and simple. It’s sales, as sales-y as sales gets. But I will NOT be serving as somebody’s “Assistant.” I will NO LONGER be anyone's "EA." Never again will I have to endure the pleas and cries of spoiled executives who feel they aren’t getting enough of my attention.
No, this time around (and once again), I will be the salesperson. I am a Salesman. And after everything I’ve been through while servicing salespeople in the farcical world of magazine advertising over the past three years, I’m damned glad to be a salesman once again.
So what will I be selling? Are you sure you want to know? Well, in a nutshell, mortgages. Yes, I am about to enter the realm of real estate that is often compared to used car sales. I’m going to be a Mortgage Broker. That means I’ll be spending most of my time in a Manhattan boiler room, yackin’ it up on the phone, competing with everyone around me to lock you into the best Re-Fi rate you can find – as long as it allows me enough wiggle-room to make a commission.
Commission. That’s the magic word. Let’s just hope it falls reasonably within the realm of white magic, and not black. (And if you put me in the postiton of having to defend that terminology in regards to racial politics then you are immediately off my contact list for the duration of this endeavor!) I’ve worked for commission before, and I’m sure to work for it again. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of the word. Yeah, it brings up certain concerns, but it doesn’t prevent me from considering an opportunity. Truth is, commission jobs often pay way more than any salaried position can offer, but you have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be patient.
I’ve been on the lookout for a commission job (that’s right, I’ve actually been seeking one) for six months now. I’ve interviewed with modeling agencies, real estate brokers, and more marketing firms than I can count on both hands. (“What do they do?,” you might ask. Well, just about anything that might make them a buck, from key chains to baseball hats to aprons and napsacks. If you can fit a company’s name on it, then they find a way to make it.) And I’ve been offered more jobs than I can count (well, on one hand, at least). I’ve been invited to run around Midtown showing overpriced apartments to New York’s ever-rotating white collar work force. I’ve been asked to schlep bags of pens, purses, T-shirts and sweatshirts all over the city's intricate subway system in order to get “face time” with influencial clients. And last but not least, I’ve been invited to participate in a less-than-reputable practice of Shipping and Receiving, assuring that one company’s international clients “receive all the goods they’ve ordered via the internet.” Now, if whatever this “company” is shipping falls under the umbrella of “things that are legal to ship,” then just why would they need to farm out their Shipping and Receiving? (Much less pay $1,000 per item sucessfully delivered???) Hence my reason for not jumping at that "opportunity."
So why have I been seeking a commission job? It’s quite simple, really. I’m used to taking risks, and I’ve seen that doing so will always eventually pay off. My entire life for the past 15 years has been about taking risks. And while most of those risks might not have paid off in the sense that I have lots of money and a solid investment portfolio, they have paid off in terms of life experience. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done. I only regret, as the saying goes, those things that I’ve not yet gotten around to.
I don’t want to regret not having particpated in the vast economic substratum that is New York real estate. As my recent (and, might I add, profitable) endeavors in Brooklyn apartment brokering have proven, it’s a lucrative arena. Over the past year, I’ve earned six months’ rent. Apartment brokering has done two things for me. It has left me in a state of awe and it has pushed me into a state of wonder (awe at the fact that I don’t have to write a rent check until April and wonder over the possibility of never having to write one again). If there’s one field in which one will always be able to make a living in New York, it’s New York real estate. No matter what the market does or how competitive it gets (barring an insurmountable terrorist attack or nuclear devastation itself), New York will always have a market for housing.
And so, as the fates would have it (as demonstrated by my having to perouse the Post as part of my responsibilities during that Thanksgiving temp gig I had at the Hearst Corporation), I came across an ad seeking what they now call “Loan Officers.” And I called it. But the voice mailbox for the number was full. That didn’t surprise me. So I put it on my calendar to call back after the holidays and find out what it was all about.
I called on January 4th. This time, the company’s manager picked right up. “You sound good on the phone,” he said, after I’d done little more than introduce myself. “Can you get here today?” I recognized a hard sell when I heard it, so I gave the most suitable (and in effect the most honest) answer.
“No,” I said, “I have apartment showings throughout this afternoon. But I can meet with you anytime tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the manager said, “That’s good for you. OK. Tomorrow it is.”
When I made it to their office the next day, in my typical skin-of-my-teeth “on time” fashion, the 20-something Latina receptionist with a Staten Island accent immediately announced my arrival. But Mr. Manager soon forgot about me. I sat in their reception area, taking calls from temp agencies and other potential employers all the while. At one point I remember saying, “No, I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m at an interview. They’re taking their time getting around to me” – daring phone chat for one in the position of seeking employment, but it worked in my favor. It presented me as someone with a busy phone, and with other things to do.
Eventually the receptionist got around to reminding the manager of my presence. The other end of the speakerphone then announced, “Oh, Christ, send him in. I forgot all about him.”
When I entered Jimmy G’s office (yes, that’s what they call him), I was immediately taken aback and began scanning for the camera that was shooting stock footage for the next Sopranos episode. He was swarthy beyond compare. He had a deep, gravel-y bass voice. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit complete with a Rolex watch. He was accessorized by more than just one ring. There was no doubt about it. He was the image of mob success. There was no other way to perceive it.
His phones were ringing. People were constantly knocking on his door. But he managed to shrug it all off in efforts to give me a decent interview. He was surprised that I had a pen and paper; that I was inclined to take notes. He looked me up and down once – and only once – and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He proceeded to give me the basics about himself (did time on the Wall Street trading floor circa 1985-92), his company (based in Long Island and branching out to Manhattan), and its origins (“After seven years on the floor," [he] figured, “why should [he] keep on doing all the grunt work?”). He then informed me of his business plan (“10 desks, 5-10 deals each per month, each generating an average of 3-8 million gross in loans”). Then he told me what the commission would be from such gross funds, and he actually took out some checks made out to his Loan Officers which backed up the numbers he’d just given me.
There they were. The checks his brokers received. Right before they received them. I knew this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – showing a candidate the money before s/he could ever earn it – but I was enticed by it nonetheless. One of them had even been “whited out” and corrected. Would someone actually do that with a phony check? I preferred to think of it as an action taken by an accounting department that wanted to conserve paper. Lord knows I’d seen that many times before.
But like I said, I recognized one of the oldest tricks in the book. Despite my having been enticed by the show of checks, I was nowhere near convinced that the operation was legitimate as a result of it. However, there was more to my interview. Mr. Jimmy G allowed me to wander the floor after we’d finished talking. But before we’d finished talking, Mr. Jimmy had made it perfectly clear that I was invited to participate in his fiscal party. “You’re just what we’re looking for,” he said. “You’re well put together and articulate. You could do very well in this field.”
On the floor, I observed approximately 10 people, of all races and apparent socio-economic backgrounds, making calls, working computers, and filling out paperwork. I lingered a while, scanning the paperwork that was stacked by the fax. Mentally I took in the blank fields. They were applications. They had distinct spots that required filling: Name, Address, Date of Original Loan, Interest Rate, Amount Paid to Date, etc… It was obvious any idiot could fill them out.
One of the brokers spotted me, observed me observing the process, and then followed me out into the hall once I’d figured the entire interview process was over. He tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside. He was a well-dressed white man with brown hair. His skin was almost as pale as my own, and he had the same sort of dark circles underneath his blue eyes. In other words, he was a fellow white guy.
“So what’d ya think?” he asked me, Mephistophelian smirk all put into place.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “He pulled the old trick of flashing the checks.”
“Was one of them made out to a Dan somebody?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think so.”
“That’s me.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
“Look,” the guy proceeded to tell me, “I won’t tell you this field is easy. It’s pretty grueling. But it’s not impossible. If you do the work, the money is ridiculous.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And you want me to know that because…?” I asked.
“Because I get a feeling you could do it. You’ll need to learn a lot, and you should take some courses if you don’t know anything about the field. But I didn’t know anything about the field, and I’m –“
“You’re Dan somebody,” I said for him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Nice to meet you. Thanks.”
Truth be told? I probably wouldn’t have given the operation a second glance based upon the interaction I’d had with Mr. Jimmy G. But the interaction I had with Dan Somebody put it all into a different perspective.
I went home and mulled over the day's events whilst drinkng a Martini and taking in a few bong hits. And I found that I’d become excited. It wasn’t a rational sort of excitement. It was much more the type of excitement I experience when I’m doing something “wrong” that’s ultimatley better for me in the long run than anything “right.” And I realized that I’d found the boiler room I’d been looking for. I’d been looking for a sales opportunity that dealt in some solid field and that had maximum payoff. I hadn't been looking to chase a few hundred bucks at a time. I hadn't even been looking to chase a few thousand. But several thousand plus? THAT I’d been chasing, and I could justify setting aside a few months to chase it full-time.
It doesn’t matter that the operation where I'll begin working next Monday might be less than legitimate or even connected to the mob. Even if it is, I believe it’s part of a huge industry with plenty of spaces to fill. I’ve been researching the field and I’ve learned that Mortgage Brokers are among the highest-paid sales professionals in the U.S., and that over 60% of them earn over $80,000 annually. It’s the business of making loans happen. It’s been around since the dawn of Capitalism and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’d like to learn more about it.
That’s all I’ll say about it at this point. I’d like to learn more about it. But I have a feeling what I’ll learn will prove invaluable – somewhere down the line. It’s gonna be a major lifestyle change. I’m gonna have to work from 10-8:00 every weekday. But I’ll be generating my own account list; entering data on my own spreadsheets, and making my own reservations for client dinners. I’ll be on the phone most of the day and chasing real estate agents the rest of the time. It’s a huge commitment, but I’m curiously ready to make it. I'm ready to (re-)enter the White Collar Army.
Say “Hello” to your friend, the Mortgage Broker. You haven't, by any chance, been considering a ReFi lately, have you?
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Re-Velveteened
Oh, My Friggin’ Christ.
I think I’m losing touch with reality. Or, more specifically, bourgeois reality. But then, even having to clarify something as basic as reality reassures me I’m only further experiencing my own reality – which, contrary to popular belief – isn’t bourgeois. So I guess all I meant to say when I introduced this entry via, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” was, “I’m obviously having another wrestling match with bourgeois reality.” There. That’s more like it. Hope you get what I mean.
‘Cuz I mean it anyway – I’m losing touch with reality! Again! See, that’s the thing about life in the Velveteen Rabbit zone. It’s not like the moral would have you think. It’s not enough to get real just once. In order to keep being real, you have to keep getting real… Again, again, and again… ad infinitum…
Tell me, please: Am I real?
I’d like to believe so. I’d like to believe I did my homework, way back in San Francisco in 1992. But that was over a decade ago, and, well, here in New York – on the verge of 2006 – I’m getting a liitle impatient. I’m impatient for some Return On Investment. I’m lookin’ for that ROI. I’m waitin’ for the payoff for bein’ real.
But so far, the only payoff for bein’ real I’ve experienced is more reality. Of my sort, that is… Which ISN’T the sort I started this passage off talkin’ about. Argh!
One friend told me to re-visit Death in Venice. I’m sure that’s worthy advice, but I’ve just finished revisiting SlaughterHouse 5, Siddartha, and Steppenwolf, so I think I’m covered as far as the eternal artist’s struggle against the bourgeois sensibilty goes… At this point, I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to contribute my own slice to that pie?
Anyway, I’ll pick up a copy of Death... Just to be sure.
But this business of being “informed so that one might create deeper literature” – I’ve gotta tell you, it’s what’s got me in a stand-still. It started with Grad School in Theatre way back in ’94… Learnin’ ‘bout my craft just sucked the wind right outta my sails. THAT, if truth be told, is the real reason I don’t pursue Theatre again. Or writing, or performing, or anything literary.
We got us a bit of a problem. We got us a writer who doesn’t wanna write – much less read or perform. UGH.
And I don’t know where to begin, when it comes to analyzing that problem. When it comes to breaking it down and recognizing the reasons why I’ve chosen to remain stagnant within the realm of “just getting by” and failed to continue to follow my artistic path. No, I might not know where to begin. But I do know which clues to drop…
Take, for instance, the observations I’ve accumulated from my functioning-alcoholic parents and their approach to life. I’ve come to emulate them almost down to the wire. Sometime during my 30s, a voice went off inside my head. It said, “Hey: You’re not getting any younger! Isn’t about time you started that drinking habit?” And so I did. As my Irish Catholic cheeks began to lose their blush of youth, I made damned sure it was replaced by the blush of blossoming (functioning) alcoholism.
Martini, anyone?
And then there’s the eternal obsession with “the steady paycheck.” Just how many of you have I bored to tears in recent years with my litanies of chasing profit? I’m sorry.
Real estate. Long distance telephone services. Gym memberships. Advertising. And then real estate again. And soon, perhaps, more advertising! When will these distractions cease to be distractions? I’ll tell you when they’ll stop: WHEN I HAVE SOME SUITABLE MEANS OF INCOME TO REPLACE THEM.
It’s the eternal artist’s paradox. You work because you have to pay your rent and bills. The time and energy you spend working takes away from your ability to produce your next work, which could hypothetically (finally!) land you in a position of being able to support yourself by your “work.” The awareness of this sick situatation renders you less than fully capable of performing your “work,” which triggers an ugly cycle vacillating between your potential self-satisfaction (in that you’re able to support yourself through working) dissipating into your self-loathing (in that you’re unable to support your “work”).
And I’m stuck thick in the middle of that paradox, here, in NYC – one of America’s most expensive cities.
But I’m gonna battle the paradox, through and through. I always have. I don’t care if it looks as though I’ve bounced from one fiscal failure to another. Those fiscal failures all supported me for a while, and got me to this point, which is here – now.
If I’m still alive and questioning then there’s still hope.
How’s this for a dose of reality: Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been too preoccupied with JUST GETTING BY to allow myself the luxury of pursuing higher goals? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve been trapping myself in a cycle of perpetual (REQUISITE) bohemianism by not allowing myself to assume some of my upper middle class white privilege. In other words, maybe a professional job and salary might pave the way for me to consider taking future artisitc risks. Lord knows not having any money certainly has prevented me from taking any. Even though I’ve had the time to pursue an artisitc lifestyle, I haven’t had the money. After all, even a bohemian career requires some start-up capital.
So don’t hate me if I tell you in my next post that I’ve just become a Mortgage Broker. I hear the money’s killer in that field.
I think I’m losing touch with reality. Or, more specifically, bourgeois reality. But then, even having to clarify something as basic as reality reassures me I’m only further experiencing my own reality – which, contrary to popular belief – isn’t bourgeois. So I guess all I meant to say when I introduced this entry via, “I think I’m losing touch with reality” was, “I’m obviously having another wrestling match with bourgeois reality.” There. That’s more like it. Hope you get what I mean.
‘Cuz I mean it anyway – I’m losing touch with reality! Again! See, that’s the thing about life in the Velveteen Rabbit zone. It’s not like the moral would have you think. It’s not enough to get real just once. In order to keep being real, you have to keep getting real… Again, again, and again… ad infinitum…
Tell me, please: Am I real?
I’d like to believe so. I’d like to believe I did my homework, way back in San Francisco in 1992. But that was over a decade ago, and, well, here in New York – on the verge of 2006 – I’m getting a liitle impatient. I’m impatient for some Return On Investment. I’m lookin’ for that ROI. I’m waitin’ for the payoff for bein’ real.
But so far, the only payoff for bein’ real I’ve experienced is more reality. Of my sort, that is… Which ISN’T the sort I started this passage off talkin’ about. Argh!
One friend told me to re-visit Death in Venice. I’m sure that’s worthy advice, but I’ve just finished revisiting SlaughterHouse 5, Siddartha, and Steppenwolf, so I think I’m covered as far as the eternal artist’s struggle against the bourgeois sensibilty goes… At this point, I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to contribute my own slice to that pie?
Anyway, I’ll pick up a copy of Death... Just to be sure.
But this business of being “informed so that one might create deeper literature” – I’ve gotta tell you, it’s what’s got me in a stand-still. It started with Grad School in Theatre way back in ’94… Learnin’ ‘bout my craft just sucked the wind right outta my sails. THAT, if truth be told, is the real reason I don’t pursue Theatre again. Or writing, or performing, or anything literary.
We got us a bit of a problem. We got us a writer who doesn’t wanna write – much less read or perform. UGH.
And I don’t know where to begin, when it comes to analyzing that problem. When it comes to breaking it down and recognizing the reasons why I’ve chosen to remain stagnant within the realm of “just getting by” and failed to continue to follow my artistic path. No, I might not know where to begin. But I do know which clues to drop…
Take, for instance, the observations I’ve accumulated from my functioning-alcoholic parents and their approach to life. I’ve come to emulate them almost down to the wire. Sometime during my 30s, a voice went off inside my head. It said, “Hey: You’re not getting any younger! Isn’t about time you started that drinking habit?” And so I did. As my Irish Catholic cheeks began to lose their blush of youth, I made damned sure it was replaced by the blush of blossoming (functioning) alcoholism.
Martini, anyone?
And then there’s the eternal obsession with “the steady paycheck.” Just how many of you have I bored to tears in recent years with my litanies of chasing profit? I’m sorry.
Real estate. Long distance telephone services. Gym memberships. Advertising. And then real estate again. And soon, perhaps, more advertising! When will these distractions cease to be distractions? I’ll tell you when they’ll stop: WHEN I HAVE SOME SUITABLE MEANS OF INCOME TO REPLACE THEM.
It’s the eternal artist’s paradox. You work because you have to pay your rent and bills. The time and energy you spend working takes away from your ability to produce your next work, which could hypothetically (finally!) land you in a position of being able to support yourself by your “work.” The awareness of this sick situatation renders you less than fully capable of performing your “work,” which triggers an ugly cycle vacillating between your potential self-satisfaction (in that you’re able to support yourself through working) dissipating into your self-loathing (in that you’re unable to support your “work”).
And I’m stuck thick in the middle of that paradox, here, in NYC – one of America’s most expensive cities.
But I’m gonna battle the paradox, through and through. I always have. I don’t care if it looks as though I’ve bounced from one fiscal failure to another. Those fiscal failures all supported me for a while, and got me to this point, which is here – now.
If I’m still alive and questioning then there’s still hope.
How’s this for a dose of reality: Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been too preoccupied with JUST GETTING BY to allow myself the luxury of pursuing higher goals? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve been trapping myself in a cycle of perpetual (REQUISITE) bohemianism by not allowing myself to assume some of my upper middle class white privilege. In other words, maybe a professional job and salary might pave the way for me to consider taking future artisitc risks. Lord knows not having any money certainly has prevented me from taking any. Even though I’ve had the time to pursue an artisitc lifestyle, I haven’t had the money. After all, even a bohemian career requires some start-up capital.
So don’t hate me if I tell you in my next post that I’ve just become a Mortgage Broker. I hear the money’s killer in that field.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Career Girl Update: Back Rubbin' the Saddle Sores Again
It' so flattering when y'all complain that I haven't posted in a while. Really, it is. But if you think you're gonna make me pull a Sally Field, well, you're wrong. (Wink.) I'll just settle for saying, "Thanks for reading." And I mean it.
It's been a month since my last post, so I thought I'd drop a quick blog note to apprise everyone of just what I'm up to. As many of you know, I've been living the high life for a year now. The first six months were funded by Unemployment Insurance. Over the last six months, I've lived off a combination of savings, brokering apartments for my landlord (a free month's rent for every unit I rent out -- so far I've rented three since June), and teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). AND I've temped in various upscale corporate setting, as those of you who've read the "Pippypoo" entry well know. And oh, yeah... the massage thing pops up every once in a while, so to speak.
Christ, reviewing that list makes me realize what a busy little bohemian I can be when I put my mind to things... Such a litany of pursuits, however trivial, is enough to make me reconsider whether I remain qualified for slacker status.
Anyhoo, today I'm plunked in front of yet another Hearst Corporation computer, filling in for some "lifer" Executive Assistant who works for some coot who's apprently so old and important that his business cards no longer contain a job title. John Mack Carter's resume includes having been chairman of American Home Publishing, Editor-in-Chief of Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's, and Associate Editor of my alma mater, Better Homes & Gardens. (I know an alma mater is a school from which one has graduated -- that's exactly what it was for me, since it was my official introduction to the School of Hard Knocks.) Well, how nice for John.
If I hadn't seen the man the last time I was here (temping for the Corporate Treasurer), I'd have no idea what he looks like. He's in Florida today. Just like he was yesterday. For the past two days I've sat at his secretary's desk, answering his phone (which only rings once an hour) and taking care of my personal business both via phone and internet.
Now THIS is a job I could handle.
I love lending a helping hand to the aging icons of industry. I love seeing how major corporations will keep people on salary and fill their lives with perks and benefits simply because they were, once upon a time, productive. It's almost contrary to basic capitalist principle, isn't it? I can't decide if I want to criticize the waste of company dollars or praise the sheer humanitarianism of the situation. So I settle for "sticking it to the man" by wasting some of their dollars myself, and by taking care of all my home office supply needs while I'm here. Anyone need some Scotch tape? A pile of Post-It's?
Meanwhile, I'm back in the FT job search. I'm ready again, not to mention broke. No more savings to live off, save for the precious little IRA I started a few years ago and that I've vowed not to touch. Much.
This time around I'm targeting sales, especially ad sales. If I'd been an eager little advertising beaver when I was at the last FT gig with Veranda magazine, this is exactly the career path I'd have been on. So I've decided to get on it again. My experience qualifies me for it; I'm "priced out" of considering anything new (e.g.: I can't settle for less money), and I actually think I could handle it for a while. The main emphasis is that I would NOT be anyone's "Assistant" anymore. THAT's what made the last two jobs such hell for me. My ego has suffered enough blows. I refuse to put myself in a subservient role again. True, sales is as kiss-ass as jobs come, but in the ad world, Ad Reps are respected. No assistant is respected. Don't even try to get PC on me now. I've had three years of humbling experiences to back up my argument.
What about the ESL, you ask? I'm teaching every weeknight from 7-10pm. It's a great gig but it only pays $12.00/hr!!! I'm paying dues in that field. I need a year's experience in it before any day school takes me seriously. Hence the reason to return to FT sales work while I continue to gain ESL teaching experience PT.
So the slacker is awakening from his slumber. I won't say "the party's over," however. I know myself too well. But I apologize if the blogging slows down. Studies show that when Greg has a FT job, his creativity wanes. Believe me you, I've made it a long-term goal to establish a lifestyle that is balanced between money-grubbing and creative endeavors. But that requires a short-term commitment to wage slavery.
Don't give up on us, baby.
It's been a month since my last post, so I thought I'd drop a quick blog note to apprise everyone of just what I'm up to. As many of you know, I've been living the high life for a year now. The first six months were funded by Unemployment Insurance. Over the last six months, I've lived off a combination of savings, brokering apartments for my landlord (a free month's rent for every unit I rent out -- so far I've rented three since June), and teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). AND I've temped in various upscale corporate setting, as those of you who've read the "Pippypoo" entry well know. And oh, yeah... the massage thing pops up every once in a while, so to speak.
Christ, reviewing that list makes me realize what a busy little bohemian I can be when I put my mind to things... Such a litany of pursuits, however trivial, is enough to make me reconsider whether I remain qualified for slacker status.
Anyhoo, today I'm plunked in front of yet another Hearst Corporation computer, filling in for some "lifer" Executive Assistant who works for some coot who's apprently so old and important that his business cards no longer contain a job title. John Mack Carter's resume includes having been chairman of American Home Publishing, Editor-in-Chief of Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's, and Associate Editor of my alma mater, Better Homes & Gardens. (I know an alma mater is a school from which one has graduated -- that's exactly what it was for me, since it was my official introduction to the School of Hard Knocks.) Well, how nice for John.
If I hadn't seen the man the last time I was here (temping for the Corporate Treasurer), I'd have no idea what he looks like. He's in Florida today. Just like he was yesterday. For the past two days I've sat at his secretary's desk, answering his phone (which only rings once an hour) and taking care of my personal business both via phone and internet.
Now THIS is a job I could handle.
I love lending a helping hand to the aging icons of industry. I love seeing how major corporations will keep people on salary and fill their lives with perks and benefits simply because they were, once upon a time, productive. It's almost contrary to basic capitalist principle, isn't it? I can't decide if I want to criticize the waste of company dollars or praise the sheer humanitarianism of the situation. So I settle for "sticking it to the man" by wasting some of their dollars myself, and by taking care of all my home office supply needs while I'm here. Anyone need some Scotch tape? A pile of Post-It's?
Meanwhile, I'm back in the FT job search. I'm ready again, not to mention broke. No more savings to live off, save for the precious little IRA I started a few years ago and that I've vowed not to touch. Much.
This time around I'm targeting sales, especially ad sales. If I'd been an eager little advertising beaver when I was at the last FT gig with Veranda magazine, this is exactly the career path I'd have been on. So I've decided to get on it again. My experience qualifies me for it; I'm "priced out" of considering anything new (e.g.: I can't settle for less money), and I actually think I could handle it for a while. The main emphasis is that I would NOT be anyone's "Assistant" anymore. THAT's what made the last two jobs such hell for me. My ego has suffered enough blows. I refuse to put myself in a subservient role again. True, sales is as kiss-ass as jobs come, but in the ad world, Ad Reps are respected. No assistant is respected. Don't even try to get PC on me now. I've had three years of humbling experiences to back up my argument.
What about the ESL, you ask? I'm teaching every weeknight from 7-10pm. It's a great gig but it only pays $12.00/hr!!! I'm paying dues in that field. I need a year's experience in it before any day school takes me seriously. Hence the reason to return to FT sales work while I continue to gain ESL teaching experience PT.
So the slacker is awakening from his slumber. I won't say "the party's over," however. I know myself too well. But I apologize if the blogging slows down. Studies show that when Greg has a FT job, his creativity wanes. Believe me you, I've made it a long-term goal to establish a lifestyle that is balanced between money-grubbing and creative endeavors. But that requires a short-term commitment to wage slavery.
Don't give up on us, baby.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
One of These Days
Hey, Mr. DJ – put a record on, I wanna dance with my past… If I can’t do anything else, then I’ll dedicate my artistic mission toward describing what it’s like to grow up somewhere between the bourgeoise and the rebel… If I can’t seem to make it through to the populace; if I can’t make it to the print presses or the airwaves; then maybe I’ll just have to settle for letting the folks who surf the ‘net know how I feel about how I was raised to feel…
I’m not the only one. Neither are you. If you’re alive enough to read this right here and right now, then you’re one of us. You’re one of those who was raised on the Myth of A Star Is Born. It doesn’t matter of it’s Streisand or Garland you associate with the role. The truth is, if you remember either (or worse, like myself, if you remember both), then the Star in question is none other than yourself.
Rising to fame is the late 20th/early 21st Century equivalent to an immigrant’s arriving from another land, after passing through Eillis Island, onto streets paved with gold. It is the current American mythos. It is the umph upon which the majority of several industries have been thrust, and then built.
Don’t know what I mean? Then take a look-see at American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, or even at the mothers of all “Reality” TV: The Real World or Survivor. They encapsulate, in less than 60 minutes (gotta reserve ample time for commercials, after all), the sheer reductivist version of Darwinianism that America likes to call its own.
It’s survival of the fittest, that is. Which equates, in camera-ready terms, to an unspoken unilateral agreement to put to contest only the most beautiful of people. Hence the first line of Darwinian deliniation, in American terms, equals beauty – according to how the camera sees it. (Beauty has, after all, been determined differently according to various variables throughout Western history; i.e.: how one looks whilst lounging along a riverbank or on a chaise, or how one appears on stage.) Don’t tell me Richard Hatch isn’t handsome. True, he might not look like Tom Cruise, but if his nose had cast any unnessecary shadows on that, the first of the screen tests before any of the contestants had landed on the first of the Survivor islands, then you can be damned sure he’d never have gotten the opportunity to saunter around, however robustly, in his birthday suit.
See, these days (ever since the dawn of Hollywood and the utterly critical aspect called depth-of-field), beauty has been determined less by one’s facial features and more by the lack of them. Because features cast shadows, and shadows – in the film/video world – are problems. It started somewhere around Garbo and has continued right up to Pamela Anderson. The former had no features whatsoever, other than what the camera gave her, and the latter? Ditto – except for her “titto’s.” You see, bodily features are just fine. It’s the close up that’s the problem. Unless, of course, you’re utterly featureless. Then it’s no problem at all.
Which is not to say that one can’t possess any physical features whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Coloring is critical (no matter what any make-up or lighting “artist” wants to tell you), as is the shape of one’s head. Lash length is a factor, as is one’s ability to raise one (and only one) eyebrow. And of course, there’s the ever-important head width, and forehead hieght, and jaw structure, and chin size, and then the eventually adjacent neck length. These factors work together in an indescribable and transcendant ability to suggest meaning and context when framed within any of the industry-standard Pythagorean ratios. (“Letterbox” and “pan-and-scan” are the primary two – have a ball looking up these terms, among others, those of you who’ve magically managed to avoid encountering them).
Factors that no longer matter include but are not limited to: height, stature, strength, endurance and – let’s certainly not forget – intellect (the capacity to which one would need in order to memorize an entire script so that one might perform it from beginning to end without ceaseless interruptions and/or retakes). (Note: WEIGHT remains a critical factor, as in, “the less the better.”) Otherwise, today’s cinematic standards of beauty remain identical to that of previous generations.
So, if you’re “on board” for the pursuit of the current American mythos, sooner or later you’re going to have to evaluate yourself on this beauty scale. If you’re lucky enough to be honest enough with yourself not to try to compete with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas (don’t know why I jumped immediately to the pseudo Latin American talent pool for that comparison, so in the interest of racial equality, let’s also throw in Halle Berry and Denzel Washington; and then Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrel), then you’ll be immediately prompted to recognize yourself as a “character actor.” Good for you. You’ve just joined the ranks of Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito (who happen to have been married at one point – don’t know if they still are).
I don’t care if you’re an actor, a musician, or even a writer or a fucking painter – at this point in history, America wants all of its celebrities to be pretty. If you’re not pretty, then you’d better be friggin’ funny, like Marty Feldman. Or you’d better be rich. You can be as ugly as you want as long as you’re funny or rich. But no one ever got rich by being ugly (Feldman is no millionaire – he’s not even still alive), and getting rich AND famous is what we’re talking about here… So if you’re ugly and rich and famous by now, that means you’ve been working at it for a good 30 years or so and your time has just come… Kinda like “The Donald.” (So fire me already. I wasn’t even gonna apply.) If you’re just ugly and famous right now, just wait a few months… (Case in point: Every day I see “de plane,” but when’s the last time we saw Tattoo?)
Still willing to pursue today’s American dream? Then you must be talented.
Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!
How nice for you. So one of these days, as they say, your ship will come in. If you just keep plugging along, despite all the odds against you and despite all the cosmetic surgery that your “younger-than’s” and “lesser-than’s” are currently undergoing (not to mention the subsequent contacts that their surgeons will be able to put them in touch with), then you might just be able to make a name for yourself. You might just get through to the populace. And then maybe – after all that work and if the Good Witch of the North just happens to meet you at an art opening or a movie or theatre premiere after she’s downed a few too many Cosmopolitans – you might just become a star. Well, then, of course I apologize for sounding too cynical. Of course you were right in persuing the mythos of our time. Good for you. You beat the odds.
I’m sorry – just who are you again?
I’m not the only one. Neither are you. If you’re alive enough to read this right here and right now, then you’re one of us. You’re one of those who was raised on the Myth of A Star Is Born. It doesn’t matter of it’s Streisand or Garland you associate with the role. The truth is, if you remember either (or worse, like myself, if you remember both), then the Star in question is none other than yourself.
Rising to fame is the late 20th/early 21st Century equivalent to an immigrant’s arriving from another land, after passing through Eillis Island, onto streets paved with gold. It is the current American mythos. It is the umph upon which the majority of several industries have been thrust, and then built.
Don’t know what I mean? Then take a look-see at American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, or even at the mothers of all “Reality” TV: The Real World or Survivor. They encapsulate, in less than 60 minutes (gotta reserve ample time for commercials, after all), the sheer reductivist version of Darwinianism that America likes to call its own.
It’s survival of the fittest, that is. Which equates, in camera-ready terms, to an unspoken unilateral agreement to put to contest only the most beautiful of people. Hence the first line of Darwinian deliniation, in American terms, equals beauty – according to how the camera sees it. (Beauty has, after all, been determined differently according to various variables throughout Western history; i.e.: how one looks whilst lounging along a riverbank or on a chaise, or how one appears on stage.) Don’t tell me Richard Hatch isn’t handsome. True, he might not look like Tom Cruise, but if his nose had cast any unnessecary shadows on that, the first of the screen tests before any of the contestants had landed on the first of the Survivor islands, then you can be damned sure he’d never have gotten the opportunity to saunter around, however robustly, in his birthday suit.
See, these days (ever since the dawn of Hollywood and the utterly critical aspect called depth-of-field), beauty has been determined less by one’s facial features and more by the lack of them. Because features cast shadows, and shadows – in the film/video world – are problems. It started somewhere around Garbo and has continued right up to Pamela Anderson. The former had no features whatsoever, other than what the camera gave her, and the latter? Ditto – except for her “titto’s.” You see, bodily features are just fine. It’s the close up that’s the problem. Unless, of course, you’re utterly featureless. Then it’s no problem at all.
Which is not to say that one can’t possess any physical features whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Coloring is critical (no matter what any make-up or lighting “artist” wants to tell you), as is the shape of one’s head. Lash length is a factor, as is one’s ability to raise one (and only one) eyebrow. And of course, there’s the ever-important head width, and forehead hieght, and jaw structure, and chin size, and then the eventually adjacent neck length. These factors work together in an indescribable and transcendant ability to suggest meaning and context when framed within any of the industry-standard Pythagorean ratios. (“Letterbox” and “pan-and-scan” are the primary two – have a ball looking up these terms, among others, those of you who’ve magically managed to avoid encountering them).
Factors that no longer matter include but are not limited to: height, stature, strength, endurance and – let’s certainly not forget – intellect (the capacity to which one would need in order to memorize an entire script so that one might perform it from beginning to end without ceaseless interruptions and/or retakes). (Note: WEIGHT remains a critical factor, as in, “the less the better.”) Otherwise, today’s cinematic standards of beauty remain identical to that of previous generations.
So, if you’re “on board” for the pursuit of the current American mythos, sooner or later you’re going to have to evaluate yourself on this beauty scale. If you’re lucky enough to be honest enough with yourself not to try to compete with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas (don’t know why I jumped immediately to the pseudo Latin American talent pool for that comparison, so in the interest of racial equality, let’s also throw in Halle Berry and Denzel Washington; and then Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrel), then you’ll be immediately prompted to recognize yourself as a “character actor.” Good for you. You’ve just joined the ranks of Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito (who happen to have been married at one point – don’t know if they still are).
I don’t care if you’re an actor, a musician, or even a writer or a fucking painter – at this point in history, America wants all of its celebrities to be pretty. If you’re not pretty, then you’d better be friggin’ funny, like Marty Feldman. Or you’d better be rich. You can be as ugly as you want as long as you’re funny or rich. But no one ever got rich by being ugly (Feldman is no millionaire – he’s not even still alive), and getting rich AND famous is what we’re talking about here… So if you’re ugly and rich and famous by now, that means you’ve been working at it for a good 30 years or so and your time has just come… Kinda like “The Donald.” (So fire me already. I wasn’t even gonna apply.) If you’re just ugly and famous right now, just wait a few months… (Case in point: Every day I see “de plane,” but when’s the last time we saw Tattoo?)
Still willing to pursue today’s American dream? Then you must be talented.
Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!
How nice for you. So one of these days, as they say, your ship will come in. If you just keep plugging along, despite all the odds against you and despite all the cosmetic surgery that your “younger-than’s” and “lesser-than’s” are currently undergoing (not to mention the subsequent contacts that their surgeons will be able to put them in touch with), then you might just be able to make a name for yourself. You might just get through to the populace. And then maybe – after all that work and if the Good Witch of the North just happens to meet you at an art opening or a movie or theatre premiere after she’s downed a few too many Cosmopolitans – you might just become a star. Well, then, of course I apologize for sounding too cynical. Of course you were right in persuing the mythos of our time. Good for you. You beat the odds.
I’m sorry – just who are you again?
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
September Mourn
While June, July and August of 2005 will forever in my mind be remembered as one of the best summers I’ve ever had, I must confess, the ensuing September was one of the worst months I’ve ever had. Call it anticlimax if you will, but there’s more to it than that. Much more.
I’ve alluded to and even discussed to some extent my tenuous relationship with my parents. Well, I suppose the time has come to elaborate. And I suppose I’ll start with the terse clinical description that sums up so much of the dynamic: I’m the only child of two ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts. If that doesn’t paint some sort of image, I don’t know what will.
I went to visit said parents during the last week of August – supposedly for a “vacation” from the vacation I’d been indulging in since late May…
If there’s a delicate way to put this, I can’t find it. So I’ll just come out with it. My mother has been sipping her way into a steady, sustained, self-destructive stupor since I came out to her way back during the barely post-Cro Magnon era of the Reagan administration (e.g.: 1987). Yeah, it’s been that long. Grudge much? If you ever feel the need to look up the term “false expectation,” then by all means, do. When you do, you’ll find pictures of both my mother and myself next to the definition. She’s the progenitor and I’m the result.
At first the situation was (pardon the pun) relatively easy to deal with. I’d taken care of that. I’d moved all the way from New England to California. I’d put distance between us. Not just physical distance, but cultural distance, too, as I knew my parents perceived California to be “the land of the fruits and the nuts.” Whenever I heard that experession (as I did, many thousands of times over Walter Cronkite’s delivery of the evening news, TV trays in place; TV dinners upon them), I had two – apparently opposing – reactions. On one hand, I immediately understood my parents’ undercutting reference; but on the other hand, deep inside me, a semi-latent fascination with all matters radical perked up and took notice… I suppose that’s largely how I came to equate California with my eventual freedom.
So, when the proper time came (yes, it had to be the “proper” time, as I was still very much New English on the outside), I annouced to my circle of college friends, shortly after graduation, that I was going to move to San Francisco. (Would now be the best time to mention that graduation came with a few thousand bucksaws from my parents, which, I’m sure, they’d envisioned my banking until I needed to buy an engagement ring or put down some money for a home? OK. Consider it mentioned. Yes, I understand how my parents might have come to view this as “insult to injury.”) Of course, the rote repsonse in parts New English back then – and probably still is – “Oh, you’ll be back.”
But I never came back. Even now, almost 20 years later, I still haven’t come back. While I might have returned, finally, to the east coast, I have in no way returned to New England. And despite my disinclination to ever say “never,” I’m pretty sure I can remain honorbaly inclined to say I’ll never go back there. NYC is as close as it gets, baby.
Instead of coming back, I came further out. My 10 years in San Francisco resulted in my evolving from an uptight Irish Catholic prick, albeit an already quite homosexual one, to a radical leftist queer sexworker. (Yes, “sexworker” – that’s what we whores are referred to in more civilized social circles.) And as my consciousness soared, that of my parents remained stagnant at best. Actually, I think it digressed, because I wasn’t there to be “in their face” enough to whittle away at their defenses.
It was easy enough to hide my true self from them whenever I mad my bi-annual trips “home.” After all, I’d been hiding myself from them all my life – and they’d come to expect that – so what difference did it make? But there was a difference. There grew between the three of us an undescribable, inescapable tension. It was as if we lived constantly with the impending threat of an Irish Catholic denial implosion. (No, of course it couldn’t have been an explosion. That would’ve been too explicit.)
By the time my decade in SF was coming to a close, I was coming into my own. I’d broken away from the bourgeois strings of 9-5. I was supporting myself as a sexwoker so that I could write, produce and star in my very own one-man shows. I worked one show to death, playing it at venue after venue until finally I landed a gig at “THE” venue and was written up in several of the Bay Area weeklies – and favorably, I might add. Soon after all this happened, I felt the chill of San Franciso’s glass ceiling, so I knew it was time to move on. It didn’t matter that the rest of the Bay Area had become a warm an nurturing womb. What mattered most was my progression, for better or worse.
So I progressed to Los Angeles, for several reasons, not the least of which was love. Yes, indeed, the cynical whore had found love, in the form of a visual artist from Salt Lake City who’d taken to homesteading in South Central – right around the time of the Rodney Kind riots. How cool is THAT? (Heh.) I rationalized the move in as many self-interested directions as possible, but whenever I got (amidst all the moving and shuffling and sanding and scraping and prepping and painting and repainting and touching up and re-touching) a moment to myself, I realized I’d moved to that god forsaken lot in Los Angeles for love, plain and simple. Hell, I had entered my 30s, so I figured that’s what it was time to do. Settle down and all…
Yeah, I was there to find an agent and maybe do some commercial work. Yeah, I was there to continue playwriting and launch gigs at venues in a bigger pond. And yeah, I did some of that. But most importantly, I was there because I’d found a soul mate.
When I told Mom and Dad about my newfound interest in domestic bliss, they were actually happy. Even if it couldn’t be a wife, I’d at least found a spouse. That’s how they saw the situation. So for a brief while they changed their icy New English tune to one of almost veritable support. In that area, at least. But as for the artsy-fartsy bohemianism? That they still couldn’t handle. See, I’m what most conservative parents might call a “double whammy.” Not only am I gay, but I’m also a bohemian. For real. This ain’t no adolescent phase (much like the queerness wasn’t, either). This is my life. This is moi. This is who and what I am. I’m the rare statistic that parents dread. I didn’t outgrow either phase.
Now, in the interest of ostensible fairness, let’s then hear some sympathy for my folks. All together now: “Awwwwwwww…”
See, the funniest thing about my folks (“funny,” as in deep-dark “weird,” that is – it’s nowhere near funny “ha-ha,” except in the deepest and darkest of ways) is this: They have never been able to think of my gayness as something that has happened to me; they can only perceive it in terms of how it has “happened” to them. For all the “It’s just not a lifestyle I would’ve chosen for you” and “If there was only something we could’ve done to prevent this from happening to you,” notions they might have sent my way, I’ve never once heard from either of them any statement remotely resembling, “Well, if that’s who and what you think you are, then I suppose I’ll have to support that.” Their most compassionate explanations and descriptions have been replete with prejudice and blame. And I don’t, at this point, think I need to spell out exactly against whom they are prejudiced and whom they blame.
So: in a nutshell… Ever since the fall of 1987, immediately after I’d packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and driven across the country to move to SF, my mother has been depressed. She has been so depressed that she developed not only one, not even two, but three types of cancer – each related to her sex and maternity: breast, cervial, and uterine, respectively. And a few years after she’d had several surgeries and “beaten the odds,” dear ol’ Dad came down with prostate cancer.
Now, I’m not one to victim-blame, but am I the only one who sees a weird sort of subconscious, repressed Irish Catholic poetic justice in this picture? Which is not to say, in using the term “poetic justice,” that I think it’s just that my parents have fallen prey to these diseases, but I do – especially as a writer – see a literary pattern of sorts.
Flash forward to the August just passed, the final week during which I visited my parents on “vacation.” Not only did I once again have to face the living image that has become my alcohol-soaked, post-chemo’d Mom – who’s taken to sleeping until 4pm so that she might stay up until 5am sipping white wine from a box and watching Nick at Nite – but I also had to listen to Dear Ol’ Dad’s justifications as to exactly why I was honor-bound to nod and smile whenever she dished out one of her insults (a/k/a, in their heads, “truisms”). In their heads, there’s nothing wrong with our relationship. As it turns out, even though homosexuality never factored into their personal equations, they both hated their mothers. For them, hating one’s mother is status quo. I think that’s the thing they ultimately believe is most radical about me – that I refuse to accept continued abuse from my mother.
But that doesn’t stop her from dishing it out. And it doesn’t stop him from supporting her in doing so. That’s what I learned, during a one-week stay last August back at the homefront. After all these years and after falling under the false assumption that moving “back east” would bring me closer to the parents I’d abandoned almost 20 years ago, I finally came to the realization that I wasn't the only one responsible for our alienated dynamic. In fact, my parents were not only equally to blame for setting up the dynamic, they are apparently quite content with keeping it intact. So when I returned to Brooklyn, after a somewhat longer than brief escape to Party-Party/Never-Never Land, I eventually came (down) to the point of recognizing all this.
Mom hasn’t recovered and most likely never will recover from realizing that I am gay. And her response to the matter has been to take what we Irish like to call “the low road” – denial, anger, and blame. Dad plays the part of the codependent in this case, silently supporting Mom’s behaviors through not making any attempts to change them. Why? Because ultimately he agrees with her position, so he can’t muster up the strength to argue with it.
I am a faggot in my parents’ eyes. As ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts, that’s the only perception available to them. To question that perception would open them up to questioning every other perception that contributes to their sensibility. Like the Roman Catholic church, they espouse to love the sinner but hate the sin.
And that’s a sin I can’t even begin to love any sinner for.
Therein lies the conflict between me and my parents. That’s the reason why I fall into 30-day depressions after each visit I make to Massachusetts. I do my best to recognize that their reaction is not my responsibility; that how they feel about who and what I am ultimately has nothing to do with the essence of who and what I am. But it hurts to visit them. It hurts to see the devastation that the unwillingness to reconsider a sensibility will do to a body (or two, or three, or more – all the way up to a society). THAT’s what pushes me into a chasm of depression. That’s why September was such an awful month for me. And that’s the demon I need to battle next.
“Next!”
I’ve alluded to and even discussed to some extent my tenuous relationship with my parents. Well, I suppose the time has come to elaborate. And I suppose I’ll start with the terse clinical description that sums up so much of the dynamic: I’m the only child of two ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts. If that doesn’t paint some sort of image, I don’t know what will.
I went to visit said parents during the last week of August – supposedly for a “vacation” from the vacation I’d been indulging in since late May…
If there’s a delicate way to put this, I can’t find it. So I’ll just come out with it. My mother has been sipping her way into a steady, sustained, self-destructive stupor since I came out to her way back during the barely post-Cro Magnon era of the Reagan administration (e.g.: 1987). Yeah, it’s been that long. Grudge much? If you ever feel the need to look up the term “false expectation,” then by all means, do. When you do, you’ll find pictures of both my mother and myself next to the definition. She’s the progenitor and I’m the result.
At first the situation was (pardon the pun) relatively easy to deal with. I’d taken care of that. I’d moved all the way from New England to California. I’d put distance between us. Not just physical distance, but cultural distance, too, as I knew my parents perceived California to be “the land of the fruits and the nuts.” Whenever I heard that experession (as I did, many thousands of times over Walter Cronkite’s delivery of the evening news, TV trays in place; TV dinners upon them), I had two – apparently opposing – reactions. On one hand, I immediately understood my parents’ undercutting reference; but on the other hand, deep inside me, a semi-latent fascination with all matters radical perked up and took notice… I suppose that’s largely how I came to equate California with my eventual freedom.
So, when the proper time came (yes, it had to be the “proper” time, as I was still very much New English on the outside), I annouced to my circle of college friends, shortly after graduation, that I was going to move to San Francisco. (Would now be the best time to mention that graduation came with a few thousand bucksaws from my parents, which, I’m sure, they’d envisioned my banking until I needed to buy an engagement ring or put down some money for a home? OK. Consider it mentioned. Yes, I understand how my parents might have come to view this as “insult to injury.”) Of course, the rote repsonse in parts New English back then – and probably still is – “Oh, you’ll be back.”
But I never came back. Even now, almost 20 years later, I still haven’t come back. While I might have returned, finally, to the east coast, I have in no way returned to New England. And despite my disinclination to ever say “never,” I’m pretty sure I can remain honorbaly inclined to say I’ll never go back there. NYC is as close as it gets, baby.
Instead of coming back, I came further out. My 10 years in San Francisco resulted in my evolving from an uptight Irish Catholic prick, albeit an already quite homosexual one, to a radical leftist queer sexworker. (Yes, “sexworker” – that’s what we whores are referred to in more civilized social circles.) And as my consciousness soared, that of my parents remained stagnant at best. Actually, I think it digressed, because I wasn’t there to be “in their face” enough to whittle away at their defenses.
It was easy enough to hide my true self from them whenever I mad my bi-annual trips “home.” After all, I’d been hiding myself from them all my life – and they’d come to expect that – so what difference did it make? But there was a difference. There grew between the three of us an undescribable, inescapable tension. It was as if we lived constantly with the impending threat of an Irish Catholic denial implosion. (No, of course it couldn’t have been an explosion. That would’ve been too explicit.)
By the time my decade in SF was coming to a close, I was coming into my own. I’d broken away from the bourgeois strings of 9-5. I was supporting myself as a sexwoker so that I could write, produce and star in my very own one-man shows. I worked one show to death, playing it at venue after venue until finally I landed a gig at “THE” venue and was written up in several of the Bay Area weeklies – and favorably, I might add. Soon after all this happened, I felt the chill of San Franciso’s glass ceiling, so I knew it was time to move on. It didn’t matter that the rest of the Bay Area had become a warm an nurturing womb. What mattered most was my progression, for better or worse.
So I progressed to Los Angeles, for several reasons, not the least of which was love. Yes, indeed, the cynical whore had found love, in the form of a visual artist from Salt Lake City who’d taken to homesteading in South Central – right around the time of the Rodney Kind riots. How cool is THAT? (Heh.) I rationalized the move in as many self-interested directions as possible, but whenever I got (amidst all the moving and shuffling and sanding and scraping and prepping and painting and repainting and touching up and re-touching) a moment to myself, I realized I’d moved to that god forsaken lot in Los Angeles for love, plain and simple. Hell, I had entered my 30s, so I figured that’s what it was time to do. Settle down and all…
Yeah, I was there to find an agent and maybe do some commercial work. Yeah, I was there to continue playwriting and launch gigs at venues in a bigger pond. And yeah, I did some of that. But most importantly, I was there because I’d found a soul mate.
When I told Mom and Dad about my newfound interest in domestic bliss, they were actually happy. Even if it couldn’t be a wife, I’d at least found a spouse. That’s how they saw the situation. So for a brief while they changed their icy New English tune to one of almost veritable support. In that area, at least. But as for the artsy-fartsy bohemianism? That they still couldn’t handle. See, I’m what most conservative parents might call a “double whammy.” Not only am I gay, but I’m also a bohemian. For real. This ain’t no adolescent phase (much like the queerness wasn’t, either). This is my life. This is moi. This is who and what I am. I’m the rare statistic that parents dread. I didn’t outgrow either phase.
Now, in the interest of ostensible fairness, let’s then hear some sympathy for my folks. All together now: “Awwwwwwww…”
See, the funniest thing about my folks (“funny,” as in deep-dark “weird,” that is – it’s nowhere near funny “ha-ha,” except in the deepest and darkest of ways) is this: They have never been able to think of my gayness as something that has happened to me; they can only perceive it in terms of how it has “happened” to them. For all the “It’s just not a lifestyle I would’ve chosen for you” and “If there was only something we could’ve done to prevent this from happening to you,” notions they might have sent my way, I’ve never once heard from either of them any statement remotely resembling, “Well, if that’s who and what you think you are, then I suppose I’ll have to support that.” Their most compassionate explanations and descriptions have been replete with prejudice and blame. And I don’t, at this point, think I need to spell out exactly against whom they are prejudiced and whom they blame.
So: in a nutshell… Ever since the fall of 1987, immediately after I’d packed everything I could fit into my 1981 VW Jetta and driven across the country to move to SF, my mother has been depressed. She has been so depressed that she developed not only one, not even two, but three types of cancer – each related to her sex and maternity: breast, cervial, and uterine, respectively. And a few years after she’d had several surgeries and “beaten the odds,” dear ol’ Dad came down with prostate cancer.
Now, I’m not one to victim-blame, but am I the only one who sees a weird sort of subconscious, repressed Irish Catholic poetic justice in this picture? Which is not to say, in using the term “poetic justice,” that I think it’s just that my parents have fallen prey to these diseases, but I do – especially as a writer – see a literary pattern of sorts.
Flash forward to the August just passed, the final week during which I visited my parents on “vacation.” Not only did I once again have to face the living image that has become my alcohol-soaked, post-chemo’d Mom – who’s taken to sleeping until 4pm so that she might stay up until 5am sipping white wine from a box and watching Nick at Nite – but I also had to listen to Dear Ol’ Dad’s justifications as to exactly why I was honor-bound to nod and smile whenever she dished out one of her insults (a/k/a, in their heads, “truisms”). In their heads, there’s nothing wrong with our relationship. As it turns out, even though homosexuality never factored into their personal equations, they both hated their mothers. For them, hating one’s mother is status quo. I think that’s the thing they ultimately believe is most radical about me – that I refuse to accept continued abuse from my mother.
But that doesn’t stop her from dishing it out. And it doesn’t stop him from supporting her in doing so. That’s what I learned, during a one-week stay last August back at the homefront. After all these years and after falling under the false assumption that moving “back east” would bring me closer to the parents I’d abandoned almost 20 years ago, I finally came to the realization that I wasn't the only one responsible for our alienated dynamic. In fact, my parents were not only equally to blame for setting up the dynamic, they are apparently quite content with keeping it intact. So when I returned to Brooklyn, after a somewhat longer than brief escape to Party-Party/Never-Never Land, I eventually came (down) to the point of recognizing all this.
Mom hasn’t recovered and most likely never will recover from realizing that I am gay. And her response to the matter has been to take what we Irish like to call “the low road” – denial, anger, and blame. Dad plays the part of the codependent in this case, silently supporting Mom’s behaviors through not making any attempts to change them. Why? Because ultimately he agrees with her position, so he can’t muster up the strength to argue with it.
I am a faggot in my parents’ eyes. As ‘50s generation staunch blue-collar-made-white-collar Irish Catholics from Massachusetts, that’s the only perception available to them. To question that perception would open them up to questioning every other perception that contributes to their sensibility. Like the Roman Catholic church, they espouse to love the sinner but hate the sin.
And that’s a sin I can’t even begin to love any sinner for.
Therein lies the conflict between me and my parents. That’s the reason why I fall into 30-day depressions after each visit I make to Massachusetts. I do my best to recognize that their reaction is not my responsibility; that how they feel about who and what I am ultimately has nothing to do with the essence of who and what I am. But it hurts to visit them. It hurts to see the devastation that the unwillingness to reconsider a sensibility will do to a body (or two, or three, or more – all the way up to a society). THAT’s what pushes me into a chasm of depression. That’s why September was such an awful month for me. And that’s the demon I need to battle next.
“Next!”
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!
As some of you know (but most of you don't), I occasionally indulge in fiction. Well, here's a smattering of something that's been needing to come out of me for quite some time... The emergence of my character, Garby 'Tretch Gaberdine, of whom I've been muttering for the past -- what? -- 12 months or so... I hope those of you who've had to endure my utterances will appreciate the solidity of her character as depicted herein.
Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!
Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine is not what you’d call a popular girl. At 13, with an overbite that makes beavers jealous -- coupled with an inexplicable series of skin allergies to any fabric known to humankind as “natural” -- Garby’s kamra could hardly be described as anything desirable, much less optimal. Nevertheless, Garby must attend public school, along with the entirety of the upper-middle class, bourgeois progeny that currently exists amidst the Las Vegas populace. (Her mother is a Vegas showgirl, and her father, a successful partner at a law firm -- also Vegas-based.)
She can’t wear Mark Jacobs. She can’t even wear GAP. No, the plight of our heroine, the anti-“anygirl,” is that of outcast. She’s the outcast who has to report to homeroom every morning donning nothing less than double-knit polyester -- or “stretch gaberdine," for short.
It’s not easy to find stretch gaberdine these days. Especially in these days’ styles…
Coupled with her physical issues is Garby’s saddening speech impediment. She’s unable to pronounce either the letter “D” or the letter “S.” No other two letters of the alphabet could have proven more fatal to the girl, whose birth name is “Darby Garby.” (That’s right, “Darby Garby.”) But as our heroine, who mis-pronounces her “D’s” says it, this comes across as "Garby Garby.”
Let me make this easier for you. Picture, if you will, an ugly prepubescent with an overbite that would make beavers jealous, sitting in a schoolyard, wearing nothing but ‘70s polyester (it's the only form that's reliably double-knit), and being approached by the “popular” girls, only to be asked the following:
“So, like, who are you?”
“(G)arby.”
“Garby?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that your first name, or your last?”
“Firt.”
“You mean, your firsssst?”
“Yeah, my firrrrt.”
“Well, then, what’s your last name?”
“Garby.”
“GARBY?”
“Yeah.”
“Your name is Garby GARBY?!?”
“No, no – my name’(t) (G)ARBY Garby.”
“That’s what I said! ‘Garby GARBY?!?’”
“No – no – “
(At this point I hope you’re getting the picture.)
It isn’t long thereafter before anyone at school who asks the poor girl her name runs into this exact sort of frustration. And so, one sunny September afternoon on the playground not that much later than when the previous conversation occurred, the same “popular” girl approached our heroine and pronounced:
“Y’know what? I don’t care what your name is. I’m gonna call you GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE, ‘cuz all you wear is poly-es-ter!”
(To which there were numerous giggles from the gaggle of girls who followed this popular one…)
Our heroine was caught slightly off-guard. She asked, “Huh?”
“You heard me. From now on, your name will be GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE. 'Cuz all you wear is stretch gaberdine!”
“’Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine?’”
“No, SSSSSS-tretch. SSSSSS-tretch Gaberdine!”
“’T-t-t-‘Tretch?’”
(To which, as you might expect, there arose utter hysteria amidst the gaggle of schoolgirls.)
“That’s right,” their leader concurred, albeit in not a very polite fashion. “’Tretch Gaberdine.’ I swear, can’t you even say, ‘S?’”
But at that point our heroine’s fate had been sealed...
More later... If you can stomach it...
Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!
Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine is not what you’d call a popular girl. At 13, with an overbite that makes beavers jealous -- coupled with an inexplicable series of skin allergies to any fabric known to humankind as “natural” -- Garby’s kamra could hardly be described as anything desirable, much less optimal. Nevertheless, Garby must attend public school, along with the entirety of the upper-middle class, bourgeois progeny that currently exists amidst the Las Vegas populace. (Her mother is a Vegas showgirl, and her father, a successful partner at a law firm -- also Vegas-based.)
She can’t wear Mark Jacobs. She can’t even wear GAP. No, the plight of our heroine, the anti-“anygirl,” is that of outcast. She’s the outcast who has to report to homeroom every morning donning nothing less than double-knit polyester -- or “stretch gaberdine," for short.
It’s not easy to find stretch gaberdine these days. Especially in these days’ styles…
Coupled with her physical issues is Garby’s saddening speech impediment. She’s unable to pronounce either the letter “D” or the letter “S.” No other two letters of the alphabet could have proven more fatal to the girl, whose birth name is “Darby Garby.” (That’s right, “Darby Garby.”) But as our heroine, who mis-pronounces her “D’s” says it, this comes across as "Garby Garby.”
Let me make this easier for you. Picture, if you will, an ugly prepubescent with an overbite that would make beavers jealous, sitting in a schoolyard, wearing nothing but ‘70s polyester (it's the only form that's reliably double-knit), and being approached by the “popular” girls, only to be asked the following:
“So, like, who are you?”
“(G)arby.”
“Garby?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that your first name, or your last?”
“Firt.”
“You mean, your firsssst?”
“Yeah, my firrrrt.”
“Well, then, what’s your last name?”
“Garby.”
“GARBY?”
“Yeah.”
“Your name is Garby GARBY?!?”
“No, no – my name’(t) (G)ARBY Garby.”
“That’s what I said! ‘Garby GARBY?!?’”
“No – no – “
(At this point I hope you’re getting the picture.)
It isn’t long thereafter before anyone at school who asks the poor girl her name runs into this exact sort of frustration. And so, one sunny September afternoon on the playground not that much later than when the previous conversation occurred, the same “popular” girl approached our heroine and pronounced:
“Y’know what? I don’t care what your name is. I’m gonna call you GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE, ‘cuz all you wear is poly-es-ter!”
(To which there were numerous giggles from the gaggle of girls who followed this popular one…)
Our heroine was caught slightly off-guard. She asked, “Huh?”
“You heard me. From now on, your name will be GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE. 'Cuz all you wear is stretch gaberdine!”
“’Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine?’”
“No, SSSSSS-tretch. SSSSSS-tretch Gaberdine!”
“’T-t-t-‘Tretch?’”
(To which, as you might expect, there arose utter hysteria amidst the gaggle of schoolgirls.)
“That’s right,” their leader concurred, albeit in not a very polite fashion. “’Tretch Gaberdine.’ I swear, can’t you even say, ‘S?’”
But at that point our heroine’s fate had been sealed...
More later... If you can stomach it...
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Emerson vs. Me
As many of you know, I keep an old Underwood typewriter on the shelf above my writing station. It isn't just decoration, it's an icon of my raison d'etre, and it's there to remind me of what I came here to do.
Next to it I've hung a postcard that's a transcription of an Emerson quote. It's printed in old-school typewriter font, so it fits not only visually but thematically, since the theme reinforces the motivation for displaying the typewriter. It reads:
Next to it I've hung a postcard that's a transcription of an Emerson quote. It's printed in old-school typewriter font, so it fits not only visually but thematically, since the theme reinforces the motivation for displaying the typewriter. It reads:
To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intellegent people
and the affection of children,
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others,
to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child or a garden patch...
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded!
Well, as much as I love that quote, I couldn't help but update it to suit my own circumstances and needs. True, there's much overlap, but I feel the distinctions are distinct nonetheless. And in so being, they separate me from Emerson; they clarify the subtle differentiations between his modern era and my own postmodern:
To have taken ACTION on at least ONE of your dreams...
To have proven "them" WRONG at least once...
To have KNOWN that you proceed from an INTELLECTUAL yet SPIRITUAL standpoint...
To have LOVED deeply and often...
To have ATTRACTED people from all walks of life without trying,
Yet to have remained FASCINATED with all walks of life all the while...
To see BEAUTY in absolutely EVERYTHING that IS...
To COUNT ON others exhibiting their BEST at SOME POINT...
And to see someone's BEST when they are indeed exhibiting their WORST...
To have chosen to IMPROVE WHAT YOU HAVE rather than CHASE WHAT YOU DON'T...
To have at least ONE person say, "I love you"
who DOESN'T WANT TO GET INTO YOUR PANTS...
THIS, in MY OPINION,
is to be SUCCESSFUL.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
"Pippypoo" (or, My Summer Break with Helen)
As many of you know, I have been “temping” a lot this summer as a means of bringing in cash flow while I study to teach ESL and basically strategize my future while simultaneously really living it up during the hottest months we get here in the boroughs of New York City. I’ve also kept the cash flowing via various other endeavors, such as the tried-and-true “naughty” massage, tutoring inner-city kids who are suffering through summer school, and brokering apartments in my neighborhood. While this list might sound cumbersome to some, and while yet others would perceive the endeavors as downright contradictory (“How could he make all that work?”), I must tell you: I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.
Greg learned this lesson before, in San Franciso, but apparently Greg has had to learn it again. Greg likes doing several different things at the same time. Greg thrives off variety and the challenge of being self-employed. Greg likes doing many things Part-Time. But Greg does NOT like doing ANYTHING Full-Time. Nothing. Not one thing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not even sleeping, eating, drinking, drugging or masturbating. If it has to occur “all the time,” I don’t want any part of it. The only things in my life that I want to occur “all the time” are the basic, primal, involuntary reflexes that keep me alive such as breathing, heartbeating, digeseting and all healthy matters cellular…
Point taken? Good. I’m sure more than half of you are muttering to yourselves, “Well for Chrissake, I knew that!” I know. I know you know. I know you knew. Because I knew. And I think you knew that, too. But my process is my process, and this is how I’ve processed it. I guess I wasn’t destined to learn the lesson only once, swiftly and without sway. Apparently my process involves swaying. And so I swayed.
But (for the time being, at least – and let’s hope this time endures) I’ve swayed back into a position of optimism. I feel as though my basic Maslow Pyramid’s bottom tier, for the NY incarnation, has been solidly laid. And so now we venture on (once again) toward creative fulfillment and self-actualization…
What does this have to do with temping? It’s simple. I’ve rediscovered that I’m happier when I’m juggling several balls (so to speak). And temping, for the time being, is one of those balls. The irony with this ball is, I get most of my temp work from the very same coprporation from which I received last winter’s severance package, which included six months of uncontested Unemployment Insurance. See, I never got “booted” from the entire Hearst Coorporation; I only made “an agreement” with one of their divisions – a magazine called Veranda. As of November 30, 2004, I remain in good standing in the eyes of Hearst’s HR Department, which renders me continuously hire-able – as a temp, a freelancer, or once again as a FT employee.
For some strange reason (most likely my "old school" office etiquette and ability to feign interest in the lives of the white collars), the Hearst Corporation likes having me around from time to time. Since June (when the UI ran out), I have temped for several of the Hearst Corporation’s major muck-a-mucks, including the Treasurer of the Magazine Division (he had a fabulous black-and-white photo of Grace Jones dancing at late-era Studio 54) and none other than Ms. Helen Gurley Brown, founding Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. I now address you fresh from having returned from her office.
That is where I learned the term “pippypoo.” It is one of Helen’s creations, along with “mouseburger” and “Pussycat.” She knows she didn’t invent “Pussycat,” but she did revolutionize the realm of fabulous salutations when she incorporated it into her everyday nomenclature. She calls everybody “Pussycat,” from her husband (film and theatre proudcer David Brown) to the UPS guy – and she gets away with it.
Helen is now in her early 80s. She remains physically striking, taking tremendous (justifyable) pride in her ability to remain slender and fit. A classic, secure fashion sense ensues from this comfort Helen retains in her own skin. She’s not afraid to still don the stilettos, even of they are of reduced height. But even when she doesn’t, the lines of her dresses remain “A-line” and proper; modern to the core. Helen, like Nancy Reagan, is one brunette who has figured out how to work her assets. (And as she would tell herself, if she were writing this description, “Bravo!”) Red is one of her favorite colors, whether it be represented by her lipstick, her dress, or her accessories.
Ms. Gurley Brown (a/k/a Mrs. David Brown) continues to report to her job as Editor in Chief of the International division of Cosmo. (My high school and college friends might, at this point, be interested to know that we’re not the only ones turning 40 – this year, so is Cosmopolitan.) Her office, modest for someone of her historical stature, is pink, with leopard-print wall-to-wall carpet. There are two original Georgia O’Keefe paintings on the wall, above a loveseat upholstered in pink and pastel florals which houses two embroidered pillows. One of them reads, “I like champagne, caviar and cash.” The other simply states, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.” At the entrance to her office is her assistant’s office, where I sat. It houses a copy of each of Helen’s best-sellers. They rest on a display stand, right next to the manual typewriter on which she pounded out her debut, Sex and the Single Girl. Fresh cut flowers abound, in both Helen’s realm and within the realm of her admin, and the folder entitled “Temp Instructions” includes an entire page as to how to keep them watered.
Helen’s office day starts around 10:00am. This gives her assistant ample time to get settled, check Helen’s email (she’s on more lists than she can keep up with, including former Mayor Guliani’s and present Mayor Bloomberg’s), and open her mail. The Cosmo icon receives all sorts of paper postage, mostly consisting of fan letters. She makes a point to respond to each and every fan. If she doesn’t have a lunch engagement, she loads up the Dictaphone with “one-pagers” and critiques of the over 50 International editions of the magazine. (Yes, there is a Croatian version of Cosmo, and a Brazilian/Portugese, and an Indian… Even though the matriarch can’t read any of these languages, she can still provide feedback to her posse of editors based on what she sees in the photos and within the format.) At approximately 3:00pm, after ensuring that her assistant’s workload is sufficient enough to prevent her/him from slacking off, Ms. HGB proceeds to shut her office doors, take off her A-line dress and slip into a robe, and then take a nap on the loveseat. (She removes the cushions for some reason that I was unwilling to inquire about…) She awakens around 3:30, at which time she “plops” an exercise video into her office TV so that she might get as close to 30 minutes of “cardio” and “floor work” as she possibly can before duty recalls her! When she’s finished exercising, she re-opens her doors and resumes business as usual.
While she readily admits that Hearst basically retains her as a figure head, Helen could never be accused of taking the perfunctory route, even though nobody in the world – much less at Hearst – would think any less of her if she did. No, HGB (as we admins so quickly come to refer to her, a by-product of typing it so many times in ALL CAPS followed immediately by our own, lesser-than initials typed in lower case) is the classic workaholic. Just today I had to transcribe in a letter to the legendary ‘50s songstress, Sheila MacRae, the follwing quote: “I am just so happy that I work for a company like Hearst which allows me to continue to report to the office every day. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t work. Probably throw myself out the window or into the river.”
But at 83, Helen is forced to admit that the bulk of her workload is – can you guess? – “pippypoo.”
I adore the word. As a writer, as a queer, and as an overall idiosyncratic nut who forms crushes on sounds, words and utterances – I became immediately enraptured with the term. How blessedly succinct. How utterly descriptive. And how it borders so flirtatiously with the sultry realm of onomatopoeia! A perfect relationship, considering the source.
Pippypoo (n., late 20th Century American Feminist origin, believed to have come from the same woman who informed generations of females that it was OK to insist on having an orgasm during routine heterosexual activity, and who showed them exactly how to do it):
The mundane yet necessary tasks of the aged cultural elite (i.e.: correspondence to ailing Stars from Broadway’s Golden Era; long distance telephone calls to retired diplomats in radically different time zones; posing for photographs with those who can’t wait for you to have a stroke and finally be “out of the picture”).
As many of you who know me well “well know,” upon hearing the word – first from Ms. HGB herself and then on the illustrious Dictaphone upon which she dictates all of her correspondence and from which I learned the exact nature of her current responsibilities – I couldn’t help but repeat it. And repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it… Thank the gods the old gal’s hearing is going. She probably only heard one out of every ten “pippypoos” I blurted whilst fulfilling my duties as a conscientious temp.
Type a letter, say “pippypooh.” Type a label, say “pippypooh.” Answer the phone and – well, you have to behave then, but as soon as you hang up? Say “pippypooh!” Talk about the perfect office helper’s little helper. I had a blast. I had the time of my life. True, it was “pippypooh,” but at least everybody within earshot knew it. Nothing soothes like certainty, no matter how seemingly insignificant. And if there’s one thing of which everybody in the offices of Cosmopolitan’s International Editions is now certain, it’s that, for the past five business days, I’ve been conducting “pippypoo.”
But I was happy to do it. Nay, I was thrilled to do it. I was thrilled to be in the presence of someone so disciplined, so determined, and so accomplished. And every minute of each of those five business days, I held in the back of my head the New-Agey notion (borrowed from some Eastern philosophy, I’m sure) that we only encounter those who we are karmically ready to emulate – if we’re up to the challenge. So I therefore obvioulsy couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the universe was trying to tell me, what with being faced with such presence but yet, at the same time, with such “pippypoo.”
At 5:00 today (Friday), Helen approached my desk so that she might sign my timesheet and say Goodbye. And when she did so, she told me, “Well, Greg, I’m absolutely thrilled at your ability to translate my dictation and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having you here. I think you’re my new best friend.” At which point I shook her hand and assured her that the whole experience had been thoroughly enjoyable for me, too. Then I told her that I was a writer, too, and I was eager to get on with whatever fate New York had in store for me. She told me to send her some pages for critique because, as much as she’d like to have me back to work for her, she had a feeling I had bigger and better things in store.
Not a bad way to spend one’s summer break, eh? Even if it was just “pippypoo.”
Greg learned this lesson before, in San Franciso, but apparently Greg has had to learn it again. Greg likes doing several different things at the same time. Greg thrives off variety and the challenge of being self-employed. Greg likes doing many things Part-Time. But Greg does NOT like doing ANYTHING Full-Time. Nothing. Not one thing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not even sleeping, eating, drinking, drugging or masturbating. If it has to occur “all the time,” I don’t want any part of it. The only things in my life that I want to occur “all the time” are the basic, primal, involuntary reflexes that keep me alive such as breathing, heartbeating, digeseting and all healthy matters cellular…
Point taken? Good. I’m sure more than half of you are muttering to yourselves, “Well for Chrissake, I knew that!” I know. I know you know. I know you knew. Because I knew. And I think you knew that, too. But my process is my process, and this is how I’ve processed it. I guess I wasn’t destined to learn the lesson only once, swiftly and without sway. Apparently my process involves swaying. And so I swayed.
But (for the time being, at least – and let’s hope this time endures) I’ve swayed back into a position of optimism. I feel as though my basic Maslow Pyramid’s bottom tier, for the NY incarnation, has been solidly laid. And so now we venture on (once again) toward creative fulfillment and self-actualization…
What does this have to do with temping? It’s simple. I’ve rediscovered that I’m happier when I’m juggling several balls (so to speak). And temping, for the time being, is one of those balls. The irony with this ball is, I get most of my temp work from the very same coprporation from which I received last winter’s severance package, which included six months of uncontested Unemployment Insurance. See, I never got “booted” from the entire Hearst Coorporation; I only made “an agreement” with one of their divisions – a magazine called Veranda. As of November 30, 2004, I remain in good standing in the eyes of Hearst’s HR Department, which renders me continuously hire-able – as a temp, a freelancer, or once again as a FT employee.
For some strange reason (most likely my "old school" office etiquette and ability to feign interest in the lives of the white collars), the Hearst Corporation likes having me around from time to time. Since June (when the UI ran out), I have temped for several of the Hearst Corporation’s major muck-a-mucks, including the Treasurer of the Magazine Division (he had a fabulous black-and-white photo of Grace Jones dancing at late-era Studio 54) and none other than Ms. Helen Gurley Brown, founding Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. I now address you fresh from having returned from her office.
That is where I learned the term “pippypoo.” It is one of Helen’s creations, along with “mouseburger” and “Pussycat.” She knows she didn’t invent “Pussycat,” but she did revolutionize the realm of fabulous salutations when she incorporated it into her everyday nomenclature. She calls everybody “Pussycat,” from her husband (film and theatre proudcer David Brown) to the UPS guy – and she gets away with it.
Helen is now in her early 80s. She remains physically striking, taking tremendous (justifyable) pride in her ability to remain slender and fit. A classic, secure fashion sense ensues from this comfort Helen retains in her own skin. She’s not afraid to still don the stilettos, even of they are of reduced height. But even when she doesn’t, the lines of her dresses remain “A-line” and proper; modern to the core. Helen, like Nancy Reagan, is one brunette who has figured out how to work her assets. (And as she would tell herself, if she were writing this description, “Bravo!”) Red is one of her favorite colors, whether it be represented by her lipstick, her dress, or her accessories.
Ms. Gurley Brown (a/k/a Mrs. David Brown) continues to report to her job as Editor in Chief of the International division of Cosmo. (My high school and college friends might, at this point, be interested to know that we’re not the only ones turning 40 – this year, so is Cosmopolitan.) Her office, modest for someone of her historical stature, is pink, with leopard-print wall-to-wall carpet. There are two original Georgia O’Keefe paintings on the wall, above a loveseat upholstered in pink and pastel florals which houses two embroidered pillows. One of them reads, “I like champagne, caviar and cash.” The other simply states, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.” At the entrance to her office is her assistant’s office, where I sat. It houses a copy of each of Helen’s best-sellers. They rest on a display stand, right next to the manual typewriter on which she pounded out her debut, Sex and the Single Girl. Fresh cut flowers abound, in both Helen’s realm and within the realm of her admin, and the folder entitled “Temp Instructions” includes an entire page as to how to keep them watered.
Helen’s office day starts around 10:00am. This gives her assistant ample time to get settled, check Helen’s email (she’s on more lists than she can keep up with, including former Mayor Guliani’s and present Mayor Bloomberg’s), and open her mail. The Cosmo icon receives all sorts of paper postage, mostly consisting of fan letters. She makes a point to respond to each and every fan. If she doesn’t have a lunch engagement, she loads up the Dictaphone with “one-pagers” and critiques of the over 50 International editions of the magazine. (Yes, there is a Croatian version of Cosmo, and a Brazilian/Portugese, and an Indian… Even though the matriarch can’t read any of these languages, she can still provide feedback to her posse of editors based on what she sees in the photos and within the format.) At approximately 3:00pm, after ensuring that her assistant’s workload is sufficient enough to prevent her/him from slacking off, Ms. HGB proceeds to shut her office doors, take off her A-line dress and slip into a robe, and then take a nap on the loveseat. (She removes the cushions for some reason that I was unwilling to inquire about…) She awakens around 3:30, at which time she “plops” an exercise video into her office TV so that she might get as close to 30 minutes of “cardio” and “floor work” as she possibly can before duty recalls her! When she’s finished exercising, she re-opens her doors and resumes business as usual.
While she readily admits that Hearst basically retains her as a figure head, Helen could never be accused of taking the perfunctory route, even though nobody in the world – much less at Hearst – would think any less of her if she did. No, HGB (as we admins so quickly come to refer to her, a by-product of typing it so many times in ALL CAPS followed immediately by our own, lesser-than initials typed in lower case) is the classic workaholic. Just today I had to transcribe in a letter to the legendary ‘50s songstress, Sheila MacRae, the follwing quote: “I am just so happy that I work for a company like Hearst which allows me to continue to report to the office every day. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t work. Probably throw myself out the window or into the river.”
But at 83, Helen is forced to admit that the bulk of her workload is – can you guess? – “pippypoo.”
I adore the word. As a writer, as a queer, and as an overall idiosyncratic nut who forms crushes on sounds, words and utterances – I became immediately enraptured with the term. How blessedly succinct. How utterly descriptive. And how it borders so flirtatiously with the sultry realm of onomatopoeia! A perfect relationship, considering the source.
Pippypoo (n., late 20th Century American Feminist origin, believed to have come from the same woman who informed generations of females that it was OK to insist on having an orgasm during routine heterosexual activity, and who showed them exactly how to do it):
The mundane yet necessary tasks of the aged cultural elite (i.e.: correspondence to ailing Stars from Broadway’s Golden Era; long distance telephone calls to retired diplomats in radically different time zones; posing for photographs with those who can’t wait for you to have a stroke and finally be “out of the picture”).
As many of you who know me well “well know,” upon hearing the word – first from Ms. HGB herself and then on the illustrious Dictaphone upon which she dictates all of her correspondence and from which I learned the exact nature of her current responsibilities – I couldn’t help but repeat it. And repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it… Thank the gods the old gal’s hearing is going. She probably only heard one out of every ten “pippypoos” I blurted whilst fulfilling my duties as a conscientious temp.
Type a letter, say “pippypooh.” Type a label, say “pippypooh.” Answer the phone and – well, you have to behave then, but as soon as you hang up? Say “pippypooh!” Talk about the perfect office helper’s little helper. I had a blast. I had the time of my life. True, it was “pippypooh,” but at least everybody within earshot knew it. Nothing soothes like certainty, no matter how seemingly insignificant. And if there’s one thing of which everybody in the offices of Cosmopolitan’s International Editions is now certain, it’s that, for the past five business days, I’ve been conducting “pippypoo.”
But I was happy to do it. Nay, I was thrilled to do it. I was thrilled to be in the presence of someone so disciplined, so determined, and so accomplished. And every minute of each of those five business days, I held in the back of my head the New-Agey notion (borrowed from some Eastern philosophy, I’m sure) that we only encounter those who we are karmically ready to emulate – if we’re up to the challenge. So I therefore obvioulsy couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the universe was trying to tell me, what with being faced with such presence but yet, at the same time, with such “pippypoo.”
At 5:00 today (Friday), Helen approached my desk so that she might sign my timesheet and say Goodbye. And when she did so, she told me, “Well, Greg, I’m absolutely thrilled at your ability to translate my dictation and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having you here. I think you’re my new best friend.” At which point I shook her hand and assured her that the whole experience had been thoroughly enjoyable for me, too. Then I told her that I was a writer, too, and I was eager to get on with whatever fate New York had in store for me. She told me to send her some pages for critique because, as much as she’d like to have me back to work for her, she had a feeling I had bigger and better things in store.
Not a bad way to spend one’s summer break, eh? Even if it was just “pippypoo.”
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