Category: Travel

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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…

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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!

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Showtime, Tut, Helen Keller Mole, Kiss Me Kate

I’ve started sending out packets to galleries, feeling good about my new work and ready to work with a new dealer. I got a nibble from one of the 49 Geary dealers, who wants to meet with me and discuss a proposal for an installation. It’s in THE coolest space in the building, so I’m pretty psyched. Cross your fingers, pray to Allah, light a candle… I’m already thinking of doing some super gigantic piece that covers an entire wall, my obsession writ large, but of course accompanied by gorgeous and affordable little things. I tend to work better once I’ve established a structure or context for my art, and this space is a humdinger, so the creaky wheels of my creativity are turning once again.

Big Chrissy flew out to Chicago with me last week, for my cousin Dawn’s wedding, and to visit his family. We saw the King Tut show at the Field Museum. At one point I got choked up, remembering how I had ached to see the Tut show when it came to the US in the 70’s but had to settle for the National Geographic issue and the Steve Martin ’45. Aside from the elegance and intricate beauty of the objects, there was also a simplicity, in either expression or execution that touched me, particularly a portrait bust of Nefertiti that captured nobility, humanity and godliness, all at once, voluptuously. Seeing the various little sarcophogi for this pharoah’s viscera and that pharoah’s organs, I thought how sad it was that the egyptians spent so much time and energy preparing for an afterlife in Chicago.

We had a few good meals out, no Alinea this time, but one memorable meal at a Mexican restaurant in Boy’s Town, or whatever they call the gay ghetto over there. Oh, and the boys are pretty hot. Like milk-fed steak-eating hot. Anyway, I had the chicken mole, and the sauce, in the dim light of the restaurant, was so black that no light was reflected. A dark plate was set in front of me on the table and I couldn’t see anything in it, only empty nothingness, which I prodded with a fork until I found chicken. It was like Hellen Keller’s trip to Mexico.

Katherine Hepburn was interviewed by Dick Cavett tonight on TCM. It was her first televised interview, from 1973. I’ve been watching the Cavett interviews and they’re fascinating. He chats with these stars for a full hour each. You feel like you really get to know them, relaxing into normalness with them. Hepburn was an amazing contrast to Bette Davis, interviewed a few weeks ago. While Davis seemed fully aware and in control of being and being seen as an icon, speaking cleverly and wittily, and clearly to future biographers, Hepburn seemed like somebody totally enmeshed in family life, just a lucky dame who made movies for a living, oblivious to being one of the greatest actresses of the 20th Century, her legs spread apart, one propped up on a table, hair a mess. At the end of the hour, Cavett started to say that the interview was coming to an end and Kate just hopped up and said “Okay, bye,” and ran off the set. Cavett didn’t even have time to finish his sentence. As he pleaded, stunned, asking “Aren’t you going to wait while I…?” she paused for a moment and said, “No, you take it from here,” and disappeared behind a curtain with a quick wave. He just looked at the camera and mumbled something about the interview continuing with Part 2 next week… Can’t wait!

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Summertime pictures

Here we are, leaves falling all around us, the last of the heirloom tomatoes ripening on our window sills… I thought I’d share some photos of a few of my summer-time adventures as we head into the fall and tanlines start to fade.

The summer began with a solo show at Meridian Gallery, “Spring,” in conjunction with a solo show of Dean Smith’s recent films. I previewed some new work, 10 color photos of plum blossoms, hung in a single row. I paired them with a grid of testicles,Symplegades, named after the clashing rocks that Jason and the Argonauts had to navigate in their quest for the Golden Fleece. 12 tiny speakers hung on an advacent wall, each played the sound of a man breathing, like flowers sprouting from the gallery floor, boy bees doing their thing. The dating game was in full swing, love was in the air…

For the 4th of July, I drove up the coast with Bachelor #8, staying in a former boys’ school about 20 miles north of Jenner. Isolated, just the sounds of peacocks–what is that sound called, that “pk-KAW pk-KAW?”–and the ocean… a Quinn Martin production of a contemporary gothic romance…

D and I visited his mom in Reno, taking side trips to Virginia City–a Silver Era town preserved in aspic and salt-water taffy–and Carson City for the museum, which has great dioramas and presentations about the history of the area, and an actual fake mine below the museum!

I mentioned my trip to Alabama and Florida to hang and sweat with the folks and sibs. I didn’t tell you about the annual ball-races that are held in my sister, Carol’s pool, of which I am reigning champion. The goal is to ride a pilates ball as far as one can across the pool without falling off. I’ve made it 3/4 of the way with my deceptively spastic frantic leg and arm waving technique. It’s not as easy as I make it look.

My little brother Mark turned 40 last month. We’re now the same age until November. He was like my twin growing up, we were in the same grade and everything. His buddies threw a big party that went until 6 in the morning, a rollicking affair with a “roast” by his friends, dancing and much merrymaking. Here we are as kids, the sheik and the clown, and below are pictures of us at 40…
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Reno, schlemiel, schlimazel, ready for next chapter of The Dating Game

I took D to Reno to visit his mom a few weeks ago. D’s got new glasses and had me trim his beard into a goatee. He looks like a european film director. The countryside and mountains are beautiful, the air thin, dry and cool. The casinos are just awful. Everybody smokes and sits in front of these machines pushing buttons over and over as their money disappears. There are no windows or clocks to remind you of how long you’ve been there, and all the big casinos are connected with overhead bridges that completely separate you from reality, nature and fresh air. It reminded me of something that Jesus would have flipped out over if Reno had made it into the New Testament–overturning slot machines, rolling roulette wheels over the hacking heathen.

Bachelor #8 got really mad at me because I bailed on going to his friends’ wedding in Boston. My brother Mark’s 40th birthday shindig is that weekend and I just can’t miss it. He said that if I really cared for him I’d go with him. I told him that’s co-dependent language and a perhaps more useful response would be, “I’m disappointed and angry, so give me a little time, I want to respect your reasons, which I’m having a hard time understanding.”

It’s apparent that we’re not going to make it as a couple. Not that it ever wasn’t, it’s just getting harder and harder to not acknowledge.

Over a recent lunch, he drove the wooden stake into the barely-pumping heart of our co-demented love. He refused to acknowledge that my feelings were open for discussion, going so far as to say that I was selfish. Me. I didn’t talk to him after that. He claims that he will have only fond memories of our time together. He should, since everything about our relationship was geared towards that–his happiness. Goodbye, Bachelor #8, I’m sorry our lighthearted screwball comedy took such a convoluted plot turn.

Bachelor #8 really did take me on a wild ride, with me hanging on trying to keep us on some track that took my interests into account, but I never felt that I could wrestle away the reins from my furry friend in the driver’s seat. I told you all along, Dear Reader, right, where this was headed? So this isn’t, like, a surprise?

Hop on the Love Train! Catch me on the rebound! I’m vulnerable! And needy!

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On the Road to St. Pete

Mom and Dad are in the front seat, I’m in the back. We just switched off, my dad and I, in Suwannee, and he’s going to drive the rest of the way to St. Pete. The drive with my mom and dad has so vividly illuminated the background for countless behavioral patterns that I’ve spent thousands of dollars in therapy trying to unlearn. I thought about audio taping their conversations to bring to my next session with a therapist and telling him, “Listen to this, Doc, it’ll save you and me a lot of time and money–respectively.” They’re incredibly happy with each other, my mom and dad, yet they’ve settled into an almost comic routine of control, annoyance and bewilderment. Listening to them I think, “Oh, that’s why Bachelor #8 thinks I’m controlling.” During another exchange, it’s “Oh, poor Bob, how did he put up with me?” and then, “I wasn’t telling BC that I needed him to get it together, I was telling myself!” Now I’m sitting here thinking, “What is Reese going to be complaining about to his therapist in 20 years?”

It’s raining now. Pouring. The windshield wipers are moving as fast as they can and it’s still not fast enough to provide visibility. It’s like we’re under water. In another two seconds the clouds will part and we’ll be back in the sun. These showers come out of nowhere and then go right back to nowhere. See? It’s all clear again.

We’re now crossing the Withlacoochee. I want to name my child that. I love all names “oochee.”

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Junkin’ With James, Drive-In With Susan, Biscuits With April

James, now sporting a humdinger of a goatee and living with his parents, picked me up yesterday in his 30 foot 1989 Lincoln Town Car (Cartier Edition). One sort of falls into it, and then it’s really hard to get out, as it’s so super comfy. We went to every Jimmy Hale Mission Thrift Store (“Mission/Possible”), from Pinson to Bessemer. I bought several interesting shirts, including…

– a “Set Free by Jesus” t-shirt (backside: “Serving Jesus 24/7”) which can be worn simultaneously with sincerity and irony
– several sporty t’s, including a “Huffman Baptist Girls” shirt; a “Ramsey Physical Education” shirt with a beautiful ram; a lovely glossy basketball shirt with “Moody” printed across it; a “Birmingham Police Department Police Athletic Teams Basketball” t with a stylized Vulcan popping out of a police badge.
– a vintage large-collared striped fitted polyester short-sleeve partly see-through shirt

I passed up several things that I now regret, including an “Alabama Rest Stop” worker’s jacket (it was an X-L), and a well-worn size 46 pair of farmer’s overalls (with my 32″ inseam) with denim as soft as a baby’s butt.

Total spent= $4.95

James dropped me off at my place and stayed for dinner with my parents while Susan and I went to see Talladega Nights at the Argo Drive-In. The sign at the entrance says, “Pay at Window,” which was probably the only sign available at the drive-in supply store, as there was no window anywhere. The drive-in didn’t have the old speakers that you used to pull up to, instead they broadcast the soundtrack on radio waves, so you could listen to the movie on your car stereo. The movie was just silly enough to not warrant our complete attention, so we were free to chat. During the credits, a voice came on to very seriously announce that the next movie would be shown after the first movie.

April and I had an authentic southern breakfast this morning, of eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon–no fruit or vegetables to hinder the pure experience of lard.

Final thought before leaving for Florida tomorrow: Southern boys are still, and always will be, the hottest boys around. And when I say “hot,” and I say “around,” I’m not just whistlin’ Dixie, I’m talkin’ red hot, and spin your little heart all around every whichway!

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At Home with the Folks in Birmingham

Here I am in Alabammy, sippin’ sweet tea with my mammy and pappy. It’s hot here. Like as soon as I step outside I’m moist. Which we all know is the essence of beauty, right? Actually, my body has evolved out of its former adaptation to this environment and my moistness is closer to soppy wetness. I’m like a cat that’s overheated, panting and staying as close to the cement (that’s pronounced “SEE-ment”) as I can, always sprinting for the shade.

My parents are doing well. Their life and home are as orderly and neat as ever. We took a walk around the block this morning with their dog, Bootsie–the same walk that I’ve taken with them since they put in the street behind the house making it possible to have a block to walk around. We first bumped into Trudi–Mrs. Simms–who lives next door. She’s married to a railroad man, who used to be this really large grumpy character but who found Jesus a few years ago and was told to take better care of his “temple,” so he lost 100 pounds and prays on the lawn in the morning. The Simms’ house is like where Hansel and Gretel’s parents would live, with a densely planted blackforest-themed front yard populated with little gnomes and mythical figures, big fake geraniums on the porch. Further up Red Hollow Road Dad pointed out where a car recently smashed into–through–Mr. Neighbor’s field stone mailbox and into his beautiful old cherry tree. The driver broke a leg, ribs, and some other bones, saying that he was blinded suddenly by a bright light. If he had been blinded by anything light, it was a 12-pack of Light beer. As we made our way around the block, I noticed that almost every other tree near the road had a big chunk taken out of it. And then we bumped into Mr. Ousely, “Otis,” who’s 80 now. He always shakes my hand and says, “You’re from San Francisco? I was there in the Navy–came in under the bridge and left over it,” just like he always does. I get fidgety whenever we chat with Mr. Ousely because my Dad, who’s this real liberal intellectual character, suddenly reverts into a racist cracker. He assumes that all white older southerners with thick accents are racist, and bonds with them by making gross generalizations about the cultural, religious, or ethnic background of the subjects of their breeze-shooting. Whenever I point out that he’s making a racist comment, he just laughs, like my lack of humor is elitist and to be pitied. The last high point on our walk was the little doggie who lives with the Vietnamese neighbors, of whom my dad, surprisingly, has never made any racist statements. The little pooch, who has this mega huge backyard to play in, is always smushed up against the fence, yearning for the world beyond his 3/4-acre enclosure. His fur is like white velvet, and looking at him elicits an involuntary “awwwwww,” like looking at one of those sappy framed studio dog portraits that every dog-loving great-aunt has in her guest room that you giggle at but really want to cuddle up with.

Tomorrow I’m going Junkin’ with James, my fabulous homosexualist friend, no longer a fugitive from justice, but still living with his mom and dad, who, incidentally, smoke like chimneys and whom I adore but can’t visit for very long because of the air-conditioned Chernobyl-like cloud of smoke in their house, and then it’s off to dinner and the drive-in with Susan!

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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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Buttons

BC and I started today’s adventure at Tender Buttons, a tiny store on the upper east side that sells buttons. They have buttons that were made for George Washington’s inauguration, buttons of intricately carved vegetable (palm nut) ivory, buttons made of horn, miniature 18th century portrait buttons, flapper stocking buttons from the 20’s, deco buttons of silver and lucite–a museum of fabulous tiny functional artworks.

We walked down Park Avenue and paid homage to Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building. The few elements–glass, bronze, tile, space, reflecting pools, columns–and complete lack of ornament create a harmonious and grand sculptural presence of form and meaning.

We visited a few more buildings, including the art deco General Electric building, with its zigzag motif evoking electricity, and crown of spires designed to complement nearby St. Bartholomew’s–the power of modern man firmly and phallicly towering over the power of the Almighty.

A bit further down the road, we made a brief stop to visit Nayland at ICP, and were briefly charmed by his graciousness and tour-de-force facial hair. Nayland, there should at least be a band named Nayland Blake’s Beard, or a wig and beard replica sold alongside Jeff Stryker’s penis! We checked out the contemporary African photography exhibit across the street, and then went DVD shopping near Bryant Park and scored several super cheap films, including a pirated version of the out-of-print Criterion Salo (which has sold for $1,000 on ebay). When I first saw it on the shelf, my heart stopped–Had I found the last cache of copies left in Region One? Should I buy them all and sell them on ebay and keep rent-bears into my old age? Well, it’s not even a copy of the Criterion release, filmed in a movie theater somewhere by someone sitting not quite in the center of the theater.

After a brief rest, it was back on the bus, for drinks with Donna and Bev at a lesbian taco bar in the West Village, and lots of laughs, drinks, dish about working for Louis Malle, and discussions of past life regressions.