Last night I had dinner with Peter and Luis at Dosa, on Valencia, although without Luis. Really great south indian food. Peter goes there a lot, and is treated like royalty. He had made the reservations for the wrong night, and even though it was packed, with people crowded around the front door waiting for a table, they immediately whisked us to a cozy little table. All the wait staff came by to kiss him, one by one. Since Peter began losing his sight, his intelligence, wit, and charm seem amplified. He’s my age, but he’s a gay man from a different era, a voracious reader, conversant about everything. Sometimes walking with him I forget that he’s blind, and he bumps into things and just laughs, neither frustrated nor upset, just accepting and amused. He uses his hands to push things onto his fork, which is almost shocking at first, and then endearing, to hear this brilliant man talking about Buddhism and his new Ming cabinet with his hands dripping lamb curry.
Movie and a Reading
Emily came over earlier and we watched Cisco Pike, Kris Kristoferson’s film debut. He plays a has-been but still-struggling singer/drug dealer trying to leave the drug biz, drawn back in for one more deal by corrupt, jaded but dreamy police Sargeant Gene Hackman, who offers a light sentence on a previous drug charge if Cisco can raise $10,000 for him by the end of the weekend by selling his confiscated pot. Kristoferson is pre-beard, softer, and with what looks like the promise of a great career–he even wrote and performed several of the songs in the film. I think that Gene Hackman is one of the greatest actors of his generation, able to convey malice and dangerous potential with the twitch of an eyelash. Plus he’s just beautiful. Emily is the perfect person to watch 70’s film with–she understands the radical urgency of the fashions and the aesthetic significance of the pulled-back zoom.
I made some crab cakes and a salad, and then we took off for a reading of New Narrative writers at Artifact, a salon that happens once a month in the Mission. Laura Simms, a poet from Wisconsin read her poetry, and Dodie Bellamy read from an essay that she’s working on about her work. Dodie’s essay was brilliant, so completely entertaining. She read about being a student of Bob’s, who takes responsibility for unleashing the New Narrativers on us, and afterwards she came to me and said she felt strange reading about Bob and our house in front of me, but I told her we were talking now and that I was completey charmed by the piece. Her metaphors are so clever and witty. She spoke of being a Language Poet groupie, and learning to write from gay men, who showed her that pornography and group sex were okay subjects to write about. She was introduced by her husband, writer Kevin Killian, whose introduction could have earned an Academy Award nomination, so filled with sincerity and wit. We split before Rob Halpern could read, but I tend to drift with his writing, so it was for the best.
Tomorrow it’s time to meet Bachelor #5, and a second date with Bachelor #2!
Slow Club, Columbarium
Philip and I went to the Slow Club for brunch today, and then slowly made our way to the San Francisco Columbarium on Loraine Court. The Columbarium, a perforated Victorian genie bottle housing cremated remains, built in 1897, is all that remains of the 167 acre Odd Fellows Cemetary near present day Geary and Stanyan Streets. The graves were moved to Colma, supposedly, in the late 20’s and early 30’s to make make way for the city’s westward expansion, and the many faux Mediterranean micro-villas and French mini-chateaux that would house the Richmond district’s mid-century pioneers. Reflecting the city’s limits of expandability, the Columbarium is almost filled to capacity, with windowsills and bookcases and every nook and corner being converted into usable niches. There are several styles of formal funerary design that give way to a very inventive and creative contemporary lexicon of niche design that incorporates photos of the deceased as well as trinkets that were of some significance to the dearly departed or their survivors. It’s the Afterlife’s Playland-At-The-Beach.
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D, Shrimp, Cheese, Neel, Davide
Friday night was D’s birthday, and since he wasn’t in the mood to compete with Reese’s attention demands, we celebrated last night. He invited several charming friends of his and their dogs over to a dinner that I made to his precise specifications, “Spaghetti–NOT fettucine, NOT penne–spaghetti, and a Caesar salad, with SHRIMP–BAY shrimp,” etc, etc… He asked to watch Meet Me in Saint Louis after dinner, which gave the atmosphere an even more festive pall. What a strange film. It’s almost like a vaudeville show, with intensely entertaining musical interludes woven into and around several potentially volatile plotlines that fizzle out before anybody gets too upset–except Margaret O’Brien, that is, who flips out at the prospect of moving to New York after big sis Judy serenades her with “Have yourself a mery little Christmas,” and destroys the snow people on the lawn out front with a bat. And the color and costumes are fabulous. Dean told me it was the best birthday he’s ever had. It was the dogs. He’s a real dog person. He’s so hairy that I think they look at him as one of their own. I was very happy to have made him happy. He can be a tough cookie to please.
BC and I did make it to Neel Eargood’s show on Polk yesterday (731 Polk, Tues-Sat 10-6, through 3/31). He’s created gridded works of stained glass and metal that float in space as rolled or delicately undulating sheets. He combines colors, or just patterns in clear glass, so that lights falls on and through the works in very beautiful ways. His titles are often hilarious, if not self-referential, like “Gimme Some of That Hot Cubic Tube.” Cara Barnard and Duane, the artists showing with him, create abstract graphic forms on paper and canvas that render in two dimensions a flatness and organic weirdness that extend Neel’s play with light and form into the Freudian. Get thee down to Polk Street, LJers and support our very own Neel.
Later, I had a lovely complaining session with Davide over coffee at that place next to Superstar on Castro, which used to be a really nice cafe with comfy seats and good panini, but is now a place with okay panini and seats that are not only uncomfortable, but are like 4 feet off the ground, inducing vertigo and dangly feet. I love talking with Davide, and am grateful for his emotional breadth.
I didn’t make it to any other exhibitions this week, but will make it to first Thursday openings this week. Come along.
A Few Days in the Life
SATURDAY
BC and I took a break from our break and went to Yerba Buena and SFMoMA Saturday. We are like barnacles, indeed. There are some intriguing sculptures on display by Wang Du at YBCA, based on images taken from magazines and newspapers–a sculpture of a person, for instance will have the head cropped off and the forehead exaggerated, like in a newspaper. This kind of rendering in 3-dimensions of 2-dimensional representations of 3-dimensional space was very cleverly done, but didn’t move me quite like the nearby sculptures by Cornelia Parker, of charred fragments from two churches that had burned down: one a white church destroyed by lightning; and one a black church destroyed by arson. The fragments were hung from wire, separated and arranged in a cube-shaped configuration, the charred remnants of these violent actions re-organized into a beautiful and haunting presence in rational space.
SFMoMA has some humdingers on display upstairs, including some fabulous new work. I could stand for hours in front of Vija Celmins’ work. One, a painting of stars, and the other, of waves on the ocean, are so visually spare yet contain such profound serenity and beauty. Wangechi Mutu’s installation and collages were breathtakingly beautiful and unsettling. I was completely inspired and want to make work that is breathtakingly beautiful and unsettling. She is my new hero.
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After bonding with the Vulva School at Kiki Smith’s show, and then getting to know Chuck Close’s nose hairs too intimately, we decided to save the Earthquake and Richard Long shows for later.
Later that night I picked up Hong-Xi and drove over to Nick & Jeff for a grand hot pot celebration to usher in the Year of the Dog. Kiltbear was there, and was as cute as ever. Arf! Arf! Hong-Xi drank too much, the first time I’ve ever seen her drunk in the 20 years that I’ve known her.
SUNDAY
After dim sum with my dumpling Dean, Philip and I went to look at a house in Sea Cliff. Built in 1970 by Bruce Heiser, the house is like an elegant mod kwanset hut, with a wall of glass facing the street, an open floor plan with one level suspended above the center of the grand central space, visual themes of lines and curves that appear throughout the house as a curved wall of brick or a row of yellow glass panels, a tiny raised garden that you cross a sort of moat to get to, and a downstairs den with a wall of glass that is curtained by a waterfall descending from the moat above. It was nice imagining living in our mid-Century dream pad with our Tony Duquette furniture and Laurel lamps, descending the yellow shag carpeted spiral staircase to greet Goldie Hawn and Julie Christie in our matching Pucci scarves and Mennen Dry Looks.
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MONDAY
Les and I took in a double header at the Balboa Monday night: a film about Cartier-Bresson; and one of the most interesting films of the year thus far, called William Eggleston: In the Real World. Isabelle Huppert appeared in the Cartier-Bresson film, among other artists and glitteratti, a gorgeous and smart French windbag, leafing through a book of his pictures, making wonderfully overwrought, gushy, and insightful statements about the images. The Eggleston film knocked my socks off. You get to follow around this brilliant artist and see his process, how he looks at everything, drawing our attention to the beauty in every single thing in sight. At the end of the film, the filmmaker tries to engage him in a discussion about dreams and representation, and Egggleston just says no, he doesn’t think like that, no, doesn’t see it quite like that–a man who sees and creates with his eyes and body with no need to distill meaning beyond what’s been seen and represented. In one amazing scene, he’s at the home of a young woman, at night, she’s in jammies and he’s sketching while she blabs on and on with music blaring and him occasionally mumbling something in acknowledgment or disagreement. There’s an understood intimacy between the two that’s never discussed and we’re never quite let in on. We already know he’s married–is this a lover? A daughter? It’s as interesting as his work, and functions in exactly the same way–no context, only intensity and strange beauty cropped from what’s been stumbled across.
TUESDAY
Davide came over last night and we watched Hinokio, a Japanesse film about a boy confined to his room following a car accident. Having lost his mom in the wreck, he blames his dad and refuses to leave the room or continue with his rehab. In a twist of the Pinocchio story, his dad builds a robot that goes to school for him, but that is controlled by the boy from a virtual control center in his room. It’s a very sweet and easy film about a boy who learns to live and love again with the help of Japanese electronics.
Hey Mambo!
Yesterday, BC and I attempted to drive to Inverness for lunch and a hike (don’t laugh) at Dean & Doug’s with Kathryn Van Dyke, Bob Ortbal, and an artist friend in town from Switzerland, Roland, but about halfway there got a call from Dean saying the roads were flooded and to turn around. I was quite content to get back to my bed to mope and read. Later, Philip made the most incredible meal for us–“California” Cassoulet, Greens & Citrus Salad, Fig-Hazelnut Linzertorte… Chez Philipe is my favorite restaurant!
I’m feeling a bit better and ready to get back into the swing of things. Never having paid much serious attention to astrology, I do seem to be a textbook Scorpio–dark, deep, slave to my loins kind of thing. I should just shut up and make with the horizontal mambo already. Mambo!
I Made You Out of Clay
Garry, the Thinking Man’s Bear, made latkes last night to celebrate the 5th night of Hannukah. The latkes were great, as usual, except for the sweet potato experiment, which didn’t quite come together, although I applaud Garry’s bold attempt to push the tradition into new culinary territory. As the evening wore on, I kept wondering why my speech seemed so slurred and everyone was getting blurry–didn’t I have just 3 little glasses of wine? It wasn’t until chowing down on the evening’s dreidel winnings that I remembered the slivovitz!–the fiery eastern European plum brandy that reddens the nose and blackens the reputation! Garry had poured me maybe one? two? little glasses and I am grateful that Big Chris pulled me from the party at just the right moment, before my interpretive dance number. Among the in-focus bloggers that I remember bumping into: Rootbeer1, QBear, Gabecentric, FoodpoisoningSF, BearBear… Tomorrow BC and I are going to see Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki and Herb at Herbst Theater! The hottest ticket in town!
A Merry Little Christmas
Christmas eve was spent with my siblings at my sister June’s place. She and hubby Kebby-Chan made perogies and borscht, which has become a tradition honoring Kevin’s Ukranian roots, along with tearing through countless packages, bad jokes, and good bottles of wine. Dean & Doug, Dean W, Davide and Philip joined me and Big Chrissy for an all-male homosexual Christmas day repast. Philip brought over an incredible minced meat pie and a salad of crispy organic red and green leafy things to accompany my duck gams and tarte tatin. The top of my tarte didn’t caramelize, as I rushed through Julia’s instructions without reading the final paragraph, plus Bob got the blowtorch in the divorce anyway, but the crust was perfect, the apples were a little overdone and lost some character, though, which the sheer joy of butter made almost immaterial. Next time: pre-caramelize and don’t cook as long.
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I started my Week with Busby at the Castro yesterday, for Babes of Broadway and For Me and My Gal. Dean W. joined me, cruising every single person sitting within a 5 seat radius, and abandoned me during the second film. Babes would seem like a parody of the “let’s put on a show!” movie if it weren’t what the parodies are based on. There are so many obstacles on the way to Broadway stardom for these kids, and at every point the solution is to put on a show and get the big producer to come see it.
This afternoon it’s lunch with Nick and then the fabulous Golddigger movies. I’ll see you at the Castro Theater at 3:00!
Moving Out, Live and No Nude Action, and Thanks
After a year of sharing my studio and home with my disabled friend, the time has come to discuss his moving out. I met with him and his doctors and we agreed to try to find a place for him to move into March 1. The thought of this has produced anxiety and panic in my friend, despite my assurances that there’s plenty of time to find the right place, and that he’d never be homeless with me as his friend. A great deal of my time and energy right now are spent addressing his fears. He tends to make statements intent to force me into a challenge or action, rather than addressing the fear looming obviously behind the statement. For instance, he’ll say something like, “I’m moving out this weekend,” when he actually means, “I’m scared to death of being homeless and I want you to take care of me–don’t let me leave.” My goal right now is to help him move towards being more independent. It’s fairly clear that my goals are at odds with his, and that he’s going to kick and scream at every nudge I make in that direction. His idea of independence involves venturing out briefly into the world and scrambling back to Daddy Cub Coco’s Nest. BC told me that we’ve evolved into parent/adolescent roles, with all the acting-out and tension inherent in that dynamic. When he told me that he wanted to spend the holidays alone rather than be with me and my family, “who are all loud,” I told him that sometimes he has to do things that are difficult because others need him to, and that he is a part of the family and that I need him to participate in Christmas. Doesn’t that sound like something a demented mom would say?
There is no holiday entertainment from my kitchen window this year. My exhibitionists across the street are all away: the Asian pole dancer has closed the curtains and turned a light on that’s been on for three days; the hairy naked guy below hasn’t flashed me for two days; and the chicks to the right have a light on over their mantle that’s been on for two nights. Their anti-burglary measures are more like announcements that they’re out of town. Perhaps I should go into burglary.
On evening walks I love noticing the ubiquitous images of people sitting in windows illuminated by their glowing computer monitors.
The Japanese porn magazine wants to feature these bay area muscle dudes over three issues: the first will feature the Asian guy; the second issue the western guy; and the third will be of them “making love.” !!! I’m intensely nervous about this. First of all, I use a bulky camera and it takes me forever to set up a shot. Bring in the stunt pee-pees, please. I’m thinking of having the shoot be about me looking at them, implicitly, although framed as them looking at each other. The Asian guy would be in bed, perhaps viewed from behind, the camera would get closer, you’d see the hairy hand of Mr. Western Muscle Dude pull back the sheet, and Mr. Asian Muscle Dude respond to being looked at. Same with Mr. Western Muscle Dude. Then finally, we’d see them tumbling and intertwined, a mass of different skins tones, hair patterns, projectile appendages, and slobber.
For Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with my siblings, I made a pear pie, served with cream whipped into a frenzy with some fresh ginger. By the time I got to it, though, all of my organs were cowering under the pressure that my expansive stomach was exerting on them to make way for yet more. It’s so hard to not overeat on Thanksgiving. There’s so much sensation, so much flavor…
I am indeed grateful to have so many companions that I’ve never actually met, who fill my days and nights with such interesting tales and thoughts. Thank you, all!
40th Birthday Dinner #6: Peter and Luis
Peter and Luis are my dream buddies, like Auntie Mame on steroids x2. They’re not only well-read, brilliant conversationalists, pop culture vultures, and fabulous cooks, their interests extend to all levels of human experience, but most passionately towards the decorative arts. They’re currently focused on mid-Century modern, with a Southern Song twist. Every time I go to their house, there’s some fabulous new piece of furniture, pottery, or pepper mill that is the most rare and exquisite example of its type. Tonight I was swept into their living room for a viewing of not one but two pristine vintage Hans Wegner Pappa Bear chairs. My envy was easily suppressed by the knowledge that I will get first dibs at their hand-me-downs when they move on to another era. They’ve been together for 100 years, my best friends for half my life. They decided on Range, another new American cuisine restaurant in the Mission, for the setting of my sixth intimate 40th birthday dinner. It was a pretty wonderful meal. I started out with the chicken liver pate, served with crispy toasts and an arugula salad. Lord bless the many chickens who gave their livers to treat my palette to such a divine sensation. For my main course I had the lamb shank served with Israeli cous cous that was cooked with chard and chevre, almost a risotto. The lamb just fell off the bone, tender and moist and flavorful, but the intense sauce overwhelmed the lamb-iness a bit. By the time we got to desert, which included a chocolate cake, a souffle, and a waffle of sorts, and a wonderful bubbling muscat that the staff treated us to, I was pretty overwhelmed by the many delightful flavors and sensations, and quite ready to drop dead. Which I’m going to do now.
Next chapter: the Last Supper, with Philip.
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Birthday Suit #6
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Luis | Peter |