My therapist is on Daddyhunt–looking for someone just like me! There I was, perusing the new faces… “Hey, he looks cute, I think I’ll click on–OMIGOD, it’s my therapist in his underwear!” Now, it’s been several years since I saw him, maybe he won’t even recognize me, but there he is in his boxers and wife-beater, in the very same house with the commemoritive Wizard of Oz ornament display, the same Persian rug that my psyche spilled all over. Should I ask him out? He already knows what to expect. Free therapy, real transference… how could I resist? Suddenly I’m remembering all the times sitting in his office and those eyes–those puppy dog eyes–looking me up and down… was he sizing up more than my mental state? Grateful that he wasn’t in the same awkward position(s) as my boyfriend(s) at the time, but later, with his boyfriend, fantasizing about the back of my head bobbing up and down on his hot therapist lap? I’m freaked out. It’s like walking into the room and your parents are at it–you know they do it, but, omigod, Mom? and Dad? are doing it??
The Dating Game: Concubears #1 and #2
Last night I went to see a group of plays structured around the theme of death. My Concubear (#2) directed several of them, and wrote one as well. The plays varied from serious to funny, with most of the serious ones being pretty awful–except of course for Concubear (#2)’s, which contained really good writing, great direction, and the best acting. I was very proud. The funniest play was about two gay men falling to their deaths after accidentally driving their car off an exceptionally high lookout point. The play opens with them on pedestals waving their arms and legs as if falling through space, and proceeds through the last hilarious moments of their lives.
It was the first time I’d seen my bear mistress outside of his dark apartment, the first time in shoes, even. He has a very interesting presence, much taller in shoes–well, and standing up–and he has these cute round ears that stick straight out from his round face, like a big goateed Pixar mouse. He was just adorable.
I didn’t sleep all night last night, my jealous Scorpio dark side struggling against my supportive Gemini Rising, worrying about Concubear (#1), who was out on the town with a visiting Italian by the name of “ItalyStud.” To paraphrase Hellen Lawson, “The only stud that comes out of a Chris Komater show is Chris Komater, and that’s ME, baby, remember?” This morning I called promptly at 8. “Hi, it’s Chris, just wanted to see how you are, what’s up…?” “The date went really well.” “Oh, what date? Oh right, the italian guy. I’m glad to hear you had a nice time.” “I’m not used to guys being so sweet to me–well, except for you–and treating me so well–well, except for you…” and on and on. Grrrrrrr. At least they didn’t do the mambo italiano. So he says…
I know that it’s just envy–that he’s directing his affection towards something other than me. But what would I do if he ever directed his energy towards me again? I’m a one-man cat, dig? It is clear that my Concubear (#1) and I don’t have much in common and wouldn’t make it as a couple, even if he suddenly decided to devote himself to that end—although our history goes back about 10 years, and our lovemaking like unlocking some previously unfathomable mystery of the universe, and for a time, when I was unavailable, he was chasing after me. I’ll have to tell you the amazing story of our epic l’amour fou some day, or write a book about it. A big difference between us–and the deal breaker–is that he gets heated up by new and continued conquests. I want just one lover who wants just one me. These Concubears are just keeping the machinery working until HE comes along and sweeps me off my feet, but man is it difficult to be, or even appear to be detached when that’s all I want to do is bitch-slap that so-called italian stud.
I’ve never gone so long between relationships. The stakes seem higher—feeling older and wanting something to really last, to feel challenged—or maybe I’m just less willing to settle. I used to bitch at my friend Barry that he would never marry because he had some idea of perfection in his head that no one could possibly live up to. I fear sometimes that I’ve become Barry. Then I quickly shake myself like Bette Davis shaking Miriam Hopkins in Old Aquaintance, and calmly say, “Chris, relax, your expectations aren’t unrealistic, you just know what you want, hang in there, little buddy!” And so I hang. And hang and hang… Meanwhile gravity continues to do its thing.
Life Munches On
Life munches on.
I spent last weekend at Dean & Doug’s Inverness pad. We picked huckleberries, which turned into a delicious ice cream topping, donned our netting and fed the bees. Dean did the best Queen Bee imitation. I brought up an apple pie that I made from apples that they had brought to my house the previous weekend. Apples, apples, apples–everywhere apples! I made about 3 pies with them and still have more! We spent the bulk of the weekend picking fruit and cooking and eating and drinking, like what people used to do before TV. They recently put up a deer fence, so they toss spent apples over the fence for the deer to nibble on. And nibble they do. It’s like putting out used furniture on 20th street in front of my house–gone in 15 minutes. Where are the deer when there are no apples for them to eat? How do they just suddenly appear? They are so adorable, I don’t see how people can shoot them, their swirling pink tongues and quivering little white tails and (real!) doe eyes.
We took a walk after dinner on Saturday night–an incredible vegetarian dinner involving artichokes, barley, cauliflower, corn, and love–a walk “around the block.” It was so dark from the dense canopy of trees that I could only make out a slightly less-dark trapezoid under my feet that was the road. Everything was blurry, like walking in a cartoon. I could hear the crunch of my feet on pavement, but couldn’t see my feet. I’d stick my hands out in front of me and they’d melt into the less-dark-ness of the road. Then I’d turn to the side and see trees disorientingly silhouetted against the night sky in remarkably sharp focus, and then look straight ahead again into the blurry abstraction of the road. It was thrilling. Sleeping was like that, too, pitch black and hallucinatory. I could hear every sound of the many creatures visiting the improvised feed lot outside my window–munching sounds and cracking twigs. Were I not surrounded by my dear hosts and dear deer, I would have thought I was in a horror film.
Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton had a show at Paule Anglim that was pretty dynamite last month–very large caricatured portraits of her contemporaries on scrolls of linen, big bold blobs of color. She’s my kind of painter–expressive and gestural. If Fat Albert had a painter friend in the ‘hood, it would be Caitlin, master portraitist of the new Cosby kids.
Nick Dong finally returned my Inter-Personal Masculinity Evaluator, so line up to be evaluated.
A crisp new version of Lang’s Scarlet Street came out a while back and I finally watched it, having seen it many times over the years as a fuzzy scratchy worn out print. It’s the story of my life, rich with gender ambiguities and frustrated attempts to love the person that you eventually have to kill. Chris Cross, played by Edward G. Robinson, is a meek clerk who, in his spare time and in the bathroom, paints naive portraits of “what he feels.” The film opens with Chris being feted for decades of service to the firm, with no hopes for advancement. He glances out the window to notice the boss’ beautiful mistress waiting in a limo outside. He says to his colleague, “I wonder what it’s like to be loved by a woman like that.” Not “I wonder what it’s like to LOVE a woman like that,” but “I wonder what it’s like to BE loved by a woman like that,” establishing his passivity. He finds out alright, and ends up homeless, unable to claim his identity as the painter of his own masterworks that were improperly (but with his blessing) attributed to the woman he desires most but kills; Kitty, who led him to his downfall, the love that he can never attain, but whose voice calling out to her lover–who gets blamed for her death and is fried in the electric chair–will haunt him for eternity. It’s a sublime masterpiece.
I’m getting into Top Chef. I developed a big crush on Joey, the chunky italian, who was asked to pack up his knives and hit the road last week. He breaks down and cries, it’s so heartbreaking. I’ve watched the last 10 minutes about 5 times already in reruns, and I cry each time, hoping that this time he’ll be spared, that it won’t be the last time I’ll see him. He even says, “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me,” but come on. The other hot chunky guy, Howie, is a thug, and while cute, he’s a thug, really, with no inter-personal relating skills. The other chef-testants cower in fear when they have to break up into groups, fearful that they’ll end up in his group and have to deal with his misanthropic dictatorial take on group dynamics. Still, I’d boink him. And eat his food, of course.
What else? Reese turned 14–Bob made a volcano cake that spewed lava. Many contestants on The Dating Game, but none worth mentioning. I drove D to Reno to visit his mom and discovered that everybody there is overweight and limps. No dates, though. I’m having dinner with Thomas Hardy tonight. I didn’t get ANY of the grants that I applied for. But you haven’t seen the last of me…
The Dating Game: Bachelor #17 and the Ferengi
Bachelor #17: Sent by God
Bachelor #17, my Philly psychologist in town to pitch the woo, dropped the bomb on me at dinner. “I’m a Catholic priest.” It really didn’t matter to me, except for everything his religion stands for. “Oh, I thought you were going to tell me you were a child-molester,” I quipped, “–or did you?” I had been amused by and attracted to him up to that point, but his priestness was a big hurdle. Not because I wouldn’t be thrilled doing this forbidden thing that was just between me, him, and his god, but because, well, I don’t know. He suddenly looked like a priest, with that cute warm welcoming Irish smile and ruddy face. Barry Fitzgerald or Pat O’Brien. I mean, his boss says not to have sex. I immediately wanted to know how he addressed the inherent conflicts of interest, what he really believed… but I behaved and asked only mildly challenging questions. He’s a very sweet man, and talked in a very engaging and open way. He’s someone who keeps sex and intimacy in different boxes in his closet, but seems very eager to experience, or at least imagine, dumping the two out on the floor and seeing what happens when they co-mingle. I kissed him goodnight and could tell he was all excited. Well, because he told me so, but even though he aroused my interest, my inner Catholic erected a holy glowing barrier between us that whisked me up to my flat and into the sanctuary of my Coco nest.
I’ll be seeing him again on Saturday.
Update: Well, he bailed on Saturday, feigning a head cold. He called a few days later and confessed. He said that in our brief time together he developed feelings that scared him. Intimacy, it seems, is indeed something that’s going to have to stay in his closet–it’s what he wants the most and what scares him the most. He’s so easy to read, as if his psychology studies had prepared him to be a sort of textbook example of Fear of Intimacy. Bye bye Father.
My Date with the Ferengi
We met on CraigsList. I had placed a very detailed ad in the section where guys are looking for specific sorts of activity “now!” I asked for a sort of life partner “now!” I started a nice conversation with this guy who sent me a picture that looked like it was a reflection in a mirror. His faced seemed distorted by what I thought was a ripple in the glass or something, but I mentally photoshopped out the flaws in the glass and thought he was kind of cute. When I asked for a clearer picture, he claimed that it was the clearest. Maybe just a bad photographer I thought. Well, it turned out that he wasn’t a bad photographer. It wasn’t a flaw at all, the guy was a Klingon/Ferengi hybrid. I audibly gasped when he opened the door to let me into his dingy dark filthy apartment that smelled of pee and Aqua Velva and looked just like the inside of a photon-torpedoed D5 Klingon battlecruiser. I just can’t bring myself to tell you of the comic adventures that ensued in that strange new world, nor how I escaped–certainly a place where I’d never gone before.
The Dating Game: Coco is Sad, and Yet They Come
I’ve been flirting with this “bottom” south of San Francisco. It took 20 questions to discover that he was from Iraq. He skillfully evaded all of my questions with vague responses, I even asked if he was from Persia, hoping to give him a safe way out. Finally I just asked, “Are you from Iraq?” We seemed to hit it off quite well online, and then he called, leaving a message asking if I’d join him at the Lone Star for a drink. I called him back and told him that I’d love to meet him somewhere where we could talk and get to know each other, but that I’m not really a bar person. A week went by and he called again, asking me if I’d like to join him at the Watergarden, a gay bathhouse in San Jose. “We don’t have to do anything.” Again, I returned his call and left a message with the same response, “You know, I’m not really a bar or bathhouse kind of homosexual. I’m probably more like your mother. And I’d prefer to get to know your upper half before being exposed to your lower half.” Well, I didn’t hear back from him.
I’ve been revisiting Brideshead Revisited. In high school it made such a deep impression on me, Charles and Sebastian’s deep intimacy, Charles’ detachment and longing. Like the older Charles Ryder, returning to the scene of his young love… Christian Huygen called me up last week. “Guess where I am?” I haven’t seen Christian in about 11 years. We went out, briefly, 15 years ago, but I wasn’t ready to be with him, and he had his own complications. We spent several days together last week, and it was like the intervening years hadn’t intervened at all, like we were continuing a conversation from 15 years ago. We both recognized it, like what drew us together in the first place was still firmly there, and all the successes and failures and heartaches of the decade and a half that had passed between us meant nothing.
I’m finding San Francisco bereft of men interested in intellectual or romantic life. It’s like being in the Children of Men. “It’s 2007. The last homosexual looking for a relationship died 10 years ago…” Seeing the brilliant and charming Christian jolted me a bit, too. There is hope, but I’m not finding it here. I have found one dreamy man in Denver that I just adore, but he lives in Denver. I would marry my Minneapolis musician this instant if he didn’t live in Minneapolis or already have a lover. Of my cyber boyfriends, my Philly psychologist is coming to visit in May, my Birmingham lawyer in June, and my italian art teacher in London in July. But I find no comfort in the prospect of these brief–if wildly fantastic and even sexually exhalting–encounters. I need a husband and I need one quick.
I even told my furry ward that I needed to be away from him for a while. Well, okay–AGAIN–but this time I mean it! There must be some term for falling in love with your patient. Or what happened to Patti Hearst. I need to be around mentally stable intellectually stimulating chubby hairy men. Should I start a reading group?
Sigh.
There’s a Guy in this old town
I’m tellin’ you a fact
He measures five feet up and down
And five feet front and back
He’s a Roly Poly Baby
Pleasin’ as they come
He’s a Roly Poly Baby
A Ton of Fun
The Dating Game: My Big Fat Greek God, New Work by Campbell, and a Website Update
So remember a few weeks ago I mentioned this Greek deity who seemed mildly interested in flirting with my mortalness? Well, he sent me a note saying that he’d love to get together for a drink or dinner and see if there is any spark, a spark that he is afraid just isn’t there, but I seem appealing enough on some level that he’s willing to forgo chemistry and explore a different fit. This is the guy who likes older guys, way older than my 41. I had made the horrible mistake of wearing my Vans skate shoes and a little boy plaid shirt for our coffee and left a boyish impression that I am going to have to work hard to dispel. I’ve let my beard grow out a little, so that the gray is more apparent, and I’ve cultivated a slightly hunched back. In the right light, I can scrunch my eyes for crows feet that are sure to knock his socks off. Maybe I should act distracted or fall asleep at dinner?
See Jim Campbell’s show at Hosfelt. He’s created grids of hanging strands of leds, turned towards the wall, that project near abstractions of home movies. The effect is mesmerizing, just light on wall that suddenly coalesces into something like memory. Really beautiful work.
I’ve also added a new section to my website, documenting my show at Meridian last year. Check it out! Click on the link to Spring.
Professors, Florida wedding, roommates, blips, and…
I used to think that “prof” in the personal ads meant “professor.” I was inconsolable when I discovered that there weren’t all these single professors waiting to take me on as their student of love. I also thought that “ltr” meant “loving tender relationship.” “I’m looking for a loving tender relationship,” I’d tell guys who’d ask me what I was looking for. No one corrected me. Perhaps they thought they were wrong?
Anyway, I was in Florida last week, for my niece’s wedding. Her dad’s brother, who refers to his lover of 20 years as his “roommate” was there, and it was great bonding with him as an adult gay male, having not seen him since I was about 9 years old and he was in high school. His “roommate” wasn’t there, but he sounds really wild, like wild like gay guys in San Francisco used to be. The wild ones are now in the boonies, and metropolitan life pales to the wonderful strangeness made accessible by the internet. It rained a lot while I was there, and I only got one day in at the beach, my tanline only a slight crease across my thigh.
Several little blips on the Date-ar, but nothing worth mentioning. I’m working away on my project for October, not getting out too much, just dining with friends and watching movies, and museum shows and galleries, trying to sell some work and doing lots of gardening to finance all this stuff. Just one more piece to go for the show, but it’s the big one, with twenty 30″ square images. It should be completed by the end of summer, and I’ll post some updates as they materialize. I do think of you all often, and fondly. Next year I’m going to sit on my butt and write koans about knuckle hair.
My wisteria’s in bloom, the roses are just opening, my house is going to be painted next week and I’m about $5,000 short. My Spring Studio Sale is still going on, cats and kittens–help feed the children, I mean, paint the Coco Shack!
Sex and the Single Man: Cheddar Vision
This is pretty much what I do lately, watch the cheddar cheese. A sample is going to be taken tonight, around 2am PDT. I’m going to put on something sexy for the core sampling.
The Dating Game: Hercules, or “George”
Hairy mediterranean forearms. Real hairy mediterranean forearms–he was born in Greece!* Furry pectoral platelets that caress each other in a tectonic dance on his chest. A firm round belly covered with thick hair that swirls into a deep darkness. A full mustache sitting under a nose designed by Praxiteles, and a shadowed chin that will never look cleanly shaven. Have the gods decided that my love life is no longer interesting to them as a tragicomedy? From where else but Mount Olympus could this gorgeous creature have descended?
He seemed very amused that I would find him attractive. Genuinely amused. He piped in, “There’s this place…” He lowered his head and looked left and right.
“The Lone Star?” I asked.
“You know it?!?”
“Yes, I’ve been there a few times.”
He came home one day two years ago to find his lover of 9 years dead. Since then, he’s gone out with married men, older married men, seeking solace in familiarity, intensity and passion with no expectation of bonding with someone only to lose him again. In the years that he was out of the dating scene, a whole community had defined itself in relation to his specific body type. He didn’t project an air of knowing how hot he was, just an acceptance that some people do–but like they were crazy or something for thinking that.
I could see myself loving this man until I die. He has arms like Popeye and doesn’t even work out. He’s not like anybody else. He doesn’t wear the bear outfits or uniforms, or even feel of his time. He’s eternal, just a man. Feeling the intensity of my attraction, he seemed almost compelled to return it, even though he’s attracted to men older than he. (He’s 45.) He said, “Well, I’m not used to going out with guys my age, but let’s have lunch. You’re handsome, talented, and charming.” Like, why not? I surmised that no one could be desired by him like his dead lover, so he was just letting himself be desired, trying it on to fill the void of his grief.
Suspecting that her husband, Hercules, was fathering kids all over Greece, Deianira tried to win him back by smearing his cape with the blood of the centaur. It didn’t work out very well. (If you don’t know the story, the point is don’t trust the marital advice of centaurs who have just been shot with poisoned arrows by your Greek hero husband.) Hercules was burned so badly that he jumped onto a funeral pyre and was whisked up to Olympus and married off to Hebe–the goddess of youth! Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe it’ll work this time?
………………………………………………………………………….
*And he’s a bottom! Perhaps you baby gays may not remember, but in the old days, one refered to one’s preference for anal sex with “Greek,” and oral sex with “French.” One would add “active” or “passive” to indicate position preference. An “active greek,” for instance, would be equivalent in today’s parlance to “daddybear top.”
The Dating Game: Introducing #15 and #16
So Bachelor #15 is actually a really sweet guy! His online ad convinced me that he was one of those South-of-Market leather daddies with a job at Genentech and a sling in his downstairs dungeon. Well, wouldn’t you know but he does work at Genentech, but doesn’t seem to be the type to be into signing contracts with his dates before tying them up and spanking them with a rubber chicken. Although one of his user pics is of him behind bars wearing nothing but a tie. He hasn’t explained this to me yet, but can you really learn everything during the first interview? He nervously asked about the meaning behind my username, “Sanfranchrisko.” “It’s because I live in SAN FRANcisco and my name is “CHRIS KOmater.” He had been quite anxious about the possibility of my user name being related to an all-vegetable shortening that I guess he was afraid I was going to use on my forearm before making him sit on it. I giggled. “No, I used butter-flavored Crisco once, in the old days, but not for my fist, and I’ve never inserted my limbs into anything that can bite.”
Then, I get home and #16 calls. “I’m calling about your massage on Thursday, Mr. Komater.” Massage, massage…? “Bill, this is Bill.” ??… Oh, Bill! Bill’s best friend is the best friend of Bachelor #8. When I was going out with #8, we’d often do things together, the 4 of us, and it was painfully clear to everyone, #8 included, that Bill and I should be the ones going home together. We had arranged for several dates over the holidays, but he came down with some kind of incapacitating rash, and now I guess he’s jumping past the get-to-know-you phase and moving straight into massage therapy.