Category: The Dating Game

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Bachelor #2 Writes a Check, #5 Gets a Kiss, and #4 Further Impresses

Bachelor #2 came over for brunch this morning. I made a French bistro classic–frisee lettuce with bacon and poached eggs, and some homemade bicuits and plum jam for local Coco flavor. He put the jam in his tea. Perhaps it’s a Belgian thing? He then asked to see my studio, and purchased one of my quadrants. Just like that. Are you sure? Yes, get it framed. These are the kinds of bachelors that I like. Actually, we had a great time at brunch, and my shell of impenetrability may be cracking under the strain of his charm, intelligence and cuteness. I can’t imagine meeting his mom and dad, though. My palms start sweating thinking about it.

And then the phone rang. Bachelor #5 was waiting for me at the coffee house. Kiss kiss, bye bye Bachelor #2, it’s been great and I’ll call you after I get the piece framed. Bachelor #5 is cuteness and likeability in a compact 5’7″ frame. We chatted and chatted and chatted and chatted and licked each other up and down with our eyes. There’s chemistry there, cats and kittens, chemistry and eletricity, and a real ease of communication, and a warm tingly feeling. Kissing him goodbye was all about not sucking him down in one gulp, like fighting the tractor beam on 1/4 impulse power.

After watching The Sopranos with BC and Pyro-ness, I made my way back home for a chat with Bachelor #4. He’s brilliant. Really, an original and articulate thinker, sensitive, with a keen sense of observation. I am in total awe of him and how he organizes experience in verbal elegance, with no pretension or bite. I can’t seem to pronounce his name, though, and stumbled over it like a bumpkin, even though I practiced all day. I hope this doesn’t mean more than a lack of cultural sensitivity and a subconscious manifestation of my insecurity around his brilliance.

Tomorrow evening it’s dinner with Bachelor #6, a daring appointment in that we haven’t met in person yet, and I prefer to slowly ease my way into activities that I can’t easily escape from. But even if he’s no more than a pretty face, he’s got a pretty pretty face. And he’s in his 20’s. I’ve never dated a 20-something. Even in my 20’s. Not that I’m going to date him, mind you, but still–20’s. Did your spine just tingle like mine did?

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The Dating Game: Bachelors #3 and #4

I met up with Bachelor #3 yesterday afternoon for coffee. He’s a husky bear with a multi-hued beard similar to a lion’s, a big smile, and a bubbly personality. He has an assured masculinity that nicely balanced with a slight gay twang and an elegant stride. We had only an hour to chat, which went by swiftly with very pleasant and jolly bantering. Stay tuned for more of Bachelor #3.

Big Chrissy gave me a lift to Brett Reichman’s opening at Paule Anglim. Brett’s virtuoso crosshatched works on paper defy comprehension. I don’t know how a human was able to make those marks. The content is just as gripping–images of Brett in almost pornographic stances, clothed, but with rolled fabric standing in for gentle-talia, and huge colorful paintings of knotted fabric in colors of the gay flag. Many old buddies were there, as well as new. I bumped into Bachelor #4, with whom I had chatted the evening before, a grad student in the UC painting department. He’s very round and compact, with a black triangular soul patch and glasses, a very gentle man. He talked about his upcoming MFA show and his current work, and I noticed his eyes darting back up to my face as I looked away and back. There’s definitely some chemistry with this one. He’s articulate, talented (I’m assuming), and has a kind face and penetrating eyes.

Later I caught up with Davide for John Woo’s Hard-Boiled, which is still just as fun as when it came out. The violence is like a ballet, in fast and slow motion. In Hong Kong action films, people die by convulsing and flipping through the air and crashing into cannisters that explode. During the grand action sequences, hundreds of expendable cops and gangsters appear out of nowhere and leap in front of bullets and spray blood all over the screen. And there’s always paper flying up in the air. Guys on motorcycles jump over burning cars only so that we can see their bikes explode. Logic takes a back seat to spectacle, and it’s gorgeous.

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The Dating Game: Bachelor #2

Bachelor #2 was allowed to make his pitch this afternoon. His dad is a diamond merchant, his mom a former curator at the Met, he has a PhD, and is cute as a button. Alas, no fireworks. I finally meet someone with a diamond mine and I can’t drum up a little enthusiasm. He arrived at the appointed time with his Ferragamo bag and very handsome euro-cool outfit and perfect two-day shadow. I wore a black shirt that was way too warm and my nose started sweating. When my shirt buttons started popping off I mentioned Tender Buttons on NY’s Upper East side, which prompted an articulate soliloquy about the difference between the upper east and west sides. I’m not very comfortable around money, or around the talk about and around it. And “old” and “new” money talk gives me the heeby jeebies. He wants to buy a piece of mine, though. I told him, “You know, they’re kind of expensive,” like I would say to one of my impoverished friends before offering to trade for a foot massage. He countered that his family has a fund to buy art. Remember, this is the family of diamond merchants. Now, you just don’t say things like that to an artist who tries to make a living selling his art. I’ve already spent it in my head. You say, “I’d love to visit your studio, and see what you’re up to.” And then, at the studio, you pull out your checkbook and make my day. I always say a kiss on the hand might feel very good, but a diamond tiara lasts forever.

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The Dating Game: Bachelor #1

I’ve placed personal ads on several websites. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find many fine interesting men to chat with online, and maybe it’s because I’m the new kid on the block, but quite a few. Yesterday evening I had tea with Bachelor #1, a pudgy and sincere former Anchorman with a gypsy soul and a heart (as well as a ring with his initials) of gold. The Anchorman is a true romantic, with stubby fingers, thick wavy hair, hairy forearms, a mustache that fills the vast rectangle between his lip and nose and cheeks, a round belly, and a love of life and living. He’d be the chatty cab driver in a Quinn Martin production, the one who always seems to be there when needed. The only other people in the cafe were two girls with laptops who sat right behind us, mostly silent except for the clicking of their keyboards, and I’m sure focused on every word of our exchange. One of the girls had the highest-pitched voice that I’ve ever heard, like in a cartoon. I asked the Anchorman if he’d like to grab a bite, as we were having such a nice time chatting, and at the restaurant on the other end of town, there was the girl with the high pitched voice, sitting at the table right next to us. I asked her where she was going after dinner, to foresee where we’d be later on. Despite her prediction, the date ended with me being dropped off, a hug, a peck on the lips, and a “Sleepum tightums,” my honor still intact. Bachelor #1, the Anchorman, is easy, uncomplicated, sure of himself and a delight to be around–a nice Jewish boy from Jersey. No sparks flying, but it’d be nice to hang with him again.

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Single: Day 1

I’m on the plane back to San Francisco, contemplating the next stage of my life as a newly single homosexualist. But first, a bit about the last few days in New York:

Our last weekend in the Big Apple was shared with my old high school buddy Jason, now an environmental consultant working in Our Nation’s Capital. We spent the day visiting galleries and museums, and eating Cuban and New American cuisine.

Murray Guy on 17th Street had a show of photographs by Barbara Probst that we really liked. The subject of her photographs is the moment of exposure itself, and how our point of view affects our understanding of the image. She’ll photograph a scene with several cameras positioned at different angles, the shutters of the cameras released at the same moment. An array of five photographs, for instance, depicts the same girl, with hands up, but in one image it looks like she’s playing catch outside, in another it’s revealed that she’s standing in front of a backdrop and modeling for the camera, and in another it looks like she’s on the street and possibly in trouble. Any strict reading of the narrative is confounded by the different views.

We then hopped on the train for Long Island City and a visit to the Sculpture Center, where another old friend, Mary Cerutti is now the director. They have a fantastic group of works on display. A Scottish artist, Anya Gallaccio, cut down and reassembled a 30-foot tall weeping cherry tree in the central gallery space. The means of the tree’s support are all visible–large cables and big bolts used to piece the limbs back together. The piece elegantly represents our desire to tame nature, to create landscapes that mimic the natural, while drawing our attention to the extraordinary sculptural qualities of the tree itself. The smell is wonderful, too. There are also some fantastic installations downstairs: In one dark corridor of the industrial brick setting, Mary Temple has painted the brick and floor to make it seem that sunlight is streaming in through a nearby bricked-up arch, casting shadows of trees and shrubs on the walls and floor. The illusion is so realistic that you don’t notice it as anything extraordinary, even though it’s impossible. When it suddenly dawns on you that light can’t pass through brick, it’s quite magical. There were also wonderful tiny one-inch sculptures by Michael Ross, transforming found objects into wonders of form and color, and several other fabulous experiential installations that I’ll just have to tell you about later.

Here are some pictures of my new symbol, the weeping cherry tree that was cut to pieces and bolted back together, no longer blooming, but still solid and lovely:

P.S.1 is not far from the Sculpture Center, so we strolled over to see Peter Hujar’s work, and the Wolfgang Tillmans show. The Hujar images–portraits, nudes, abandoned places–were printed all the same size, each image formally framed with subject in the center and beautifully balanced, very poignant. The Tillmans show is a big survery of this young photographer’s work, and is dynamite. His subject is photography itself–the way a photograph conveys information, the subject, color, and the paper as conveyor of information and object. He addresses the entire process, from taking the image to how it’s presented. There are large color-field abstractions made from blowing up images so large that just the grain is visible and a single color, or very subtle shifts in gradation. Some pieces are called “Impossible Color,” and are indeed of indescribable colors made possible only through photochemistry. In other images, he exposed the paper with no negative, just light, the resulting image a record of his interaction and intervention. Some images are folded and creased, the paper a sculpture that interacts with the ambient light to extend the experience of “painting with light” into another dimension. Very clever, inventive, and smart.

NOTE TO EXHIBITING ARTISTS: If you’ve shown your work in any exhibition during the past year, bring an invite to MoMA’s membership desk and get a $25 one-year membership!

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Up and Over

We took the A train yesterday, or was it Tuesday(?), up to the Cloisters, which we decided would be best visited in the spring or summer, as the gardens were all shriveled up and without plantings of winter interest. The structure itself is worth the 100 stops on the A train, combining plundered medieval French monastic architecture into a fabulous and dramatic setting. The tapestries are pretty fabulous, too. But also pretty gruesome. That poor unicorn. My favorite things in the museum are the wavy columns in the 12th century Saint-Guilhem Cloister.

Today we hopped back onto the A train and over to Brooklyn to the Transportation Museum. We’re both interested in Victorian technology and the amazing feats of late 19th century engineering, but were a bit discouraged that the displays seemed geared towards 2nd graders. On the lower level, in a now defunct subway station, the museum houses trains dating back to the early 20th century, which we got to actually play on! And there are still bathrooms in the station, adding a touch of nostalgia and convenience to the experience.

BC and I are doing great. He’s chatting away with his new little dude on one of those bear_ _ _.com sites as I type away up here. click click click click, his stubby fingers are chatting up a silent storm but a few feet away. This is such a great segue into bachelorhood, being single together.

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Twilight time in New York for the Chrissies

Meanwhile, back to the breakup: Chrissy and I today concluded that the decision to break up is the best thing for both of us, and that we can best support each other now as friends. A sigh of relief the size of an atomic blast shook the eastern seaboard. And then we had sex. Breakup sex is great when you know it’s breakup sex. Now we have two and a half more weeks together in close proximity to hunker down and resolve the conflicts that have been barriers to our relationship as lovers, and clear the path to a solid friendship.

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And All the Sailors Say “Coco”

I’m really not looking forward to the prospect of being single, if that’s what BC and I eventually settle on, or are already. At the moment, we’re separated–you know, Big & Little Chrissy style, which means we talk only 8 times a day and aren’t sleeping together. I’ve been sampling the waters, the electronic waters, that is, that have risen since last being really single, and am daunted by the ease of access to physical intimacy, of which I have not partaken, mind you, and the challenge of what I like to think of as old-fashioned dating.

You see, I am a dater. I like dating and getting to know someone. I imagine eyeing someone at an opening, blushing, maybe setting up a date for tea in my garden, and maybe then, after he’s sat through Berlin Alexanderplatz with me and still seems interested, maybe then…

All of my prospective online suitors seem fixated on incredibly specific physical characteristics. They’re looking to give form to their fantasies, and I’m looking, too, although my fantasies are a bit more involved and take years to unfold, if not hours to explain. Like I look at a picture of a naked guy on Bear-licious and imagine us throwing back martinis with Gore Vidal and Cy Twombly at our villa outside of Rome before slipping upstairs and ripping our clothes off to celebrate our 15th year of making love twice a day.

And since I’ve been in mostly monogamous relationships that have been mostly monogamous, I haven’t had protected sex in years, decades, and I do not look forward to plastic, latex, sheep intestines, or anything else between me and sensation.

The other day I put on a different pair of glasses, not my goofy ones, but my little wire-frames, and I don’t know what convergence of hormones, star-alignment, weather patterns and pollen made it possible, but I felt sexy–like for the first time in my life, somehow really sexy, like John Travolta in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever. I strutted down Castro, heads turned, sunglasses came off, high fives everywhere… it was magical. 40 year old men are my thing, and I’m finally one of them!

I deviated significantly in that last paragraph from my opening trepidation about being single, but I suppose it’s a good thing to feel good about oneself, jyes? Remember my utter despair just a few months ago when I looked in the mirror and saw the middle-aged me for the first time? And when have Chris and I been able to really leave each other anyway? We’ve pledged our devotion to each other, and now comes the tough part of deciding what’s the best way for us to express that devotion. And stick with it. Whatever happens, I’m so comforted by the security of his love.

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Spinning

Did anbody read Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy? Do you remember, having made your way through those four tomes, getting to the last book, and how completely devastated you were to realize that reality was an illusion? Tonight, after tucking little Reesie into bed, I settled down to fill out some mindless online quiz, and D walked in, excited to tell me about his date with someone who seemed on the outside to be interested more in just the outside of D, which half of the Castro seems interested in at the moment. He sort of went on and on, and on and on, and on and on, and then mentioned that this guy knew him from when he was with his last lover, years ago, but D had no recollection of him. After a while, and when an interjection was possible, I asked, “D, do you remember our affair?” Now, before I tell you his response, let me preface it with the fact that D was the only witness to acts that my body had never before or since been able to perform, muscles contracting that I didn’t even know about, my head constantly spinning from the blood being diverted from it…

“Well,” he said, “I think I remember.”

I imagined myself not being in the scene, but recalling it as I accepted my Academy Award. Masterfully hiding my complete devastation, I turned the subject back to his date, a few more moments of interaction, and then I excused myself to sleep.

So one of the most intense and real and life-changing encounters with another human being is now contained almost entirely in my recollection of it, and the few neurons left in my head. What was so real, so intense, so dramatic, the affair that destroyed my relationship with Bob, that stirred my artistic soul, that woke my sexuality, that made me feel complete as a man, that mattered more to me than monogamy or my vows or the trust that I had spent 10 years building… “I think I remember.”

What do we do when we not only see, but understand, that it’s all an illusion, that we’re all alone, that none of it matters, that none of it is even remembered?

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Du Du Du-duna Du Du

So last night BC and I watched a bear porn movie. There was no intimacy at all, only inert preening and the stimulation of three specific areas. There was also no kissing, except for some lip biting and straight porn lesbian-like tongue wrestling. One verbal imperative consistent throughout the film was the instructive “Do this to that, yeah,” which doesn’t make sense at all to me, except in the case of the nipple–there are two to choose from so specificity may be in order, but mostly these directives were issued after the activity had already started. A correct statement would be something to the effect of “Continue with that stimulating activity.” I’m concerned that our younger gay brothers may actually think that this is the way that men make love. Sigh. I remember a run-of-the-mill gay film from the late eighties about some bicyclist who ends up with a group of guys in a barn, all stripped down to their tube socks and tennies, that had some convincing dialogue and action. The guy who plays the bicyclist really seems new to the scene, and is obviously excited by all the muscular nudity around him. When he finally gets to it, he keeps saying “Oh boy, oh boy,” and you can see that he really means it, like he’s genuinely excited and genuinely surprised by his excitement. I have gone out with guys who you could tell watched a lot of porn. One of my old boyfriends, Bill, used to describe everything that was happening, like the “Do that thing, yeah” kind of stuff, only non-stop. This was the mid-eighties so he also did poppers and would turn all red and start yelling “Do it to me, do it to me!!” while I was, well, doing it to him, and I never knew what to say, except “I am, I am, yeah!” He tried to coach me to be more verbal, but I just couldn’t. I kept thinking of Madeline Kahn’s “Sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found you…” from Young Frankenstein. The only porn films I’ve enjoyed are the Gage Brothers films, which play a lot with masculinity, and the guys seem to really enjoy what they’re doing, and some classic straight porn, like Beyond the Green Door, which was made in the era when porn films were still art. I can’t remember the name of this other straight film that had a huge impact on me, but I remember a scene where this foxy black momma with mammoth mammaries is in some sort of hell-like place, surrounded by men in masks and huge erections. Today this would be a rape scene, as most of contemporary straight porn is even more screwed up and regressive, but this particular scene turned the tables around and was all about her pleasure. She was wild, so excited that she’d grab a guy, make him do this or that, and push him away to grab the next guy or two, voracious and starving. She needed that many guys to satisfy her, and her satisfaction was what it was all about, baby!