Category: Travel

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Coco Does Bama I

When I go home, I become the southerner that I never was when I lived there. I drink cheap beer, listen to country music, eat hickory-pit barbeque, and love humidity. I say “Aw-haw” a lot, and use the verb “tump.” I notice things that I didn’t pay much attention to while growing up, like kudzu, which is everywhere I look, and so beautiful and horrific. The humidity is almost unbearable, yet guys look so hot and smell so sweet. I’ve fallen in love with the south by getting out of it.

My high school reunion began with a get together at Whiskey Tango, a bar near our old school. My brother and I drove by the school first, which is now a Muslim Community Center. The school moved and is now called the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate Program, which sounds considerably less special ed than “Resource Learning Center.” We preferred to call in just “RLC” and make it seem more mysterious.

All of the guys, except for Donny, Peter, and Ben, have cultivated cute beer bellies. Rita looks exactly the same, gorgeous and thin, and with the trophy husband. She told me that David, my big high school crush, was gay, but that they couldn’t reach him to invite him to the reunion. “Wait, Rita, like I was totally in love with him, don’t tell me that he’s gay. How do you know this?” She told me that they spent a summer together during which time he made no pass at her at all. “He must be gay.” I told her that she just wasn’t his type, and that her bruised ego did not a homosexual make, although I made her promise me that she’d make it her mission to find out whether or not he is gay. In high school I wrote him a letter telling him I was in love with him. He actually wrote back and told me that although he was flattered, his god didn’t allow such activity and that if I had professed my love to him a few years ago, before he was Christian, that he would have flattened my face. I had already photographed him without a shirt, telling him that my photography teacher recommended that I needed some photographs of the male form for my portfolio. (I pushed that a bit later when I told Potsie, my next crush, that my photography teacher recommended that I take some nudes for my portfolio.)

Here’s David’s picture in the yearbook. I was the layout editor and the photographer, so in my first stab at visual narration, I tried to indicate that the only way to his heart was through me. I was the detective, trying to find the way in, while he stood there guarding his pearl beyond all price. That’s Wendy, below me, in the looking glass, my girlfriend and best buddy (although she didn’t make it to the reunion), representing the illusion of love.

Rita told me that she had always had a crush on Sam, my first boyfriend, who looked like Mick Jagger’s cute little brother. Evidently she didn’t know about me and Sam, so I broke it to her that he and I used to have sex in the Ya-Ya room at school. Sam ended up with his picture on the cover of the Birmingham News after setting up a date with an FBI agent posing as a 14-year old boy. He later made a fortune with Amazon and retired, and is now drying out somewhere on the east coast after a crystal meth addiction. Should have stuck with me!

Liz is still kind of horsey, but beautiful, too, and no longer the awkward kid. She married Sam, not my boyfriend Sam, who is about 20 years older and looks like Santa, and completely adores her. Rodney also married someone older, and surprisingly a woman, and was the only one who said “Nothing, absolutely nothing” when asked what he was up to these days.

Amy.

Amy was a successful criminal defense lawyer for about 10 years, but recently decided to handle a few bankruptcy clients a month instead. She looks like she stepped out of a Hammer film–huge eyes set widely apart on a face with a ruby red mouth and white skin and long fingernails. She married the guy that I would have married–the food broker with the beard and the belly and the heart of gold. (He seemed unusually taken by my art, btw.) On the first night of the reunion, Amy got really drunk and made a prolonged, but ultimately unsuccessfull pass at my brother, whom she dated in high school, but never put out because she was only dating him to make Brad jealous, yet determined to say “yes” 20 years-, a husband-, and a 9-year old child later.

I really connected with Karl, whom I remember as being sweet, but not particularly strange or creative enough to run with my pack. He’s now working in theater and has a gorgeous wife and that cute belly that I mentioned earlier that all of my old mates have grown.

I dragged James out of seclusion to join us. He is a fugitive from justice, having jumped parole in California after spending 2 months in the LA County jail for dealing crystal meth. Too strung out to serve his sentence, he split for Alabama and the comfort of his mom and dad, where he is currently recuperating. Like all of my classmates, he’s incredibly smart, as well as being very articulate and funny about what was a truly terrifying experience, which included getting his glasses smashed and face bashed in before his dealer/partner pulled a gun on him and ran off with the money they had stashed for the next investment. So James and I sat at the table with the former Brad, now Braden, and his wife—–devoted Christians who recently adopted a Chinese baby girl because God so willed it. Braden is now an OB-GYN, and his wife a former nurse. They have 4 kids in addition to the adopted girl. I spoke with Mrs. Braden for most of the dinner, and we shared stories about our kids. She was very charming, and sincere, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she went to the “thou shalt not lie with a man as thou lieth with a woman” church, or the “love thy neighbor” church. I fear Christians as much as they fear God. I sensed that they were the good kind, though.

More Bama adventures later…

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Class of ’84

Tomorrow I’m off to Alabama with my banjo on my knee and my ipod at my hip, Birmingham Tuxedo Junction bound for my 20th high school reunion. I looked at my high school yearbook today, at the photos that I took of my buddies, and realized that I’ve carried around images of these people for 20 years that haven’t changed. They’re frozen in 1984. Friday night my sweet innocent young friends, untouched by time or pain or careers or loss will suddenly be replaced forever with fat, successful, balding, graying, complacent, bitter, middle-aged people with kids and families and lives and pasts that happened long after my history with them. They’ll instantly become richer, complete characters, but total strangers whom I once loved and dreamed with. The pictures that I take of them now will perhaps add dimension and complexity, but I’m feeling a tremendous sadness at having to amend what was such a perfect moment in time–like watching a sequel to Casablanca.

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Mud Brothers

Big Chris and I have reached a new level of trust, warmth and understanding in our friendship. Yesterday morning we soaked our Chrissies in the volcanic ash of Calistoga, emerging from the mud to watch our toxins and ennui wash down the drain. In our matching “Russian River” t-shirts and Merrell hiking boots, and over a bottle of wine by the River, Chris suddenly blurted out, “You are not Midge, you’re Scotty!” Shocked, I replied, “But I want to be Midge.” “No,” he said, “I am Midge, you are Scotty.” I sat there for a moment, and the light bulb in the thought balloon over my head suddenly lit up. He’s right.

We’re of course talking about the principal characters in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, one of the first films we saw together, and the loose script for our subsequent interaction over the past 4 years–minus the chicks thrown out of the tower and into the bay. Midge is the beloved character played by Barbara bel Geddes, the character after whom our gallery is named, Marjorie Wood, or “Midge” for short, cute and sassy, smart and patient–what I want to be. Scotty, James Stewart, is a former detective who is obsessed with a dead woman. When he stumbles across a woman who reminds him of his presumably dead love, he convinces her to dye her hair and even wear the same clothes. The irony is that she IS the former lover, and it’s one of the best fucking movies ever made, so if you haven’t seen it I’m not going to tell you any more, there’s no excuse not to rent it and watch it tonight.

I am Scotty, trying to impose form on an ever-elusive love. “The gentleman seems to know what he wants.” Chris is Midge, patiently (well, okay, perhaps not so patiently) observing my obsession. “Well now, Johnnie-o, was it a ghost? Was it fun?…”

Thank God we’re not vacationing at the Mission San Juan Bautista, otherwise Midge might throw Scotty from the tower this time.

We went barhopping in Guerneville last night, which wasn’t that difficult as the only 2 bars in town are across the street from each other. We rated the men based on how many beers we’d have to drink before we slept with them. There were only 2 for whom I wouldn’t have to drink anything, otherwise, most guys rated between 4 and 8. Apparently Big Chris rated 3 Sierra Nevadas, 1 mineral water, and half a bottle of wine.

The drive back was soothing, in and out of fog, with stops along the coast and barbequed oysters in Tomales Bay. More tomorrow, gotta run…

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Escape From San Francisco

BC and I have escaped to the wild Russian River, to an Argento-esque setting in the windy woods, on the muddy river. Last night we shared a frighteningly caloric dinner in Duncan’s Mills, at the aptly named Cape Fear Cafe. Perhaps we shouldn’t have downed the bag of chips and beers before winding our way down the road to the restaurant. I started with oysters, which were some mutant variety probably used in a 50’s sci-fi film in which they take over the bodies of the inhabitants of some small town like the one we’re staying in. This was followed by a salad, which wasn’t mentioned on the menu, but was a delicious tower of mixed greens, set in a moat of vinaigrette, and crowned with a bushel of cranberries and the cheese of a small goat herd. I was stuffed at this point. And then came the entree, scallops covered in a reduction of pernod and cream, way too thick, way too rich, with potatoes that tasted of some sort of cheese, oh no, please somebody get me outta here, and thank the lord up in heaven, some broccoli. When the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, I almost threw up on him, but some inner voice with a green spinning head asked to see them, and they looked great. Go there for dessert, folks, but be forewarned: don’t eat the bag of chips before, and don’t get an appetizer.

We’re deciding which way to bond with Mother Earth today–mud baths or wine tasting? Both? The beach? Hiking? Bulimia?

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Days of Ginger Wine and Hybrid Roses

Greetings from sunny Florida! Yes, that’s why I haven’t returned your e-mail. And your call. And not picked up that package. I’ll be home Friday, so ring me up then. I’m having a swell time, playing cabana boy at my sister Carol’s, watching sunsets on the beach, pruning everyone’s bay and citrus trees, drinking my niece’s homemade ginger wine…

A few nights ago we had dinner at a friend of Sue’s, a wonderfully eccentric fellow who raises chickens and corn out back, and hybridizes roses out front. Inside, he listens to Yoko Ono’s latest dance music cranked way up, and has mirrored the entire floor, walls, and ceiling of his fabulous little house, interspersed with sparkly glittery things, like walking into a Jack Smith film, or a Jerome Caja painting.

I’m being very low-key on this trip, or trying to be, but there’s always something too interesting to do. Tuesday we’re off to see an exhibit of Cabinets of Wonder at the Platt Museum. These “cabinets” were the forerunners of museums, collections meant to arouse a sense of wonder at the amazing objects on display. There was an interesting book a few years ago by Lawrence Weschler, Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, about the Museum of Jurrasic Technology in L.A., which is one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been to–displaying genuine works next to elaborate fabrications. Read the book, and then go to the museum.

Speaking of books, I’m reading The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a book about a man who starts life with the body of a 70 year old, and develops backwards, physically, as his mind develops normally. It’s just delightful, very inventive, with dazzling prose. Plus it’s set in an historically accurate San Francisco of the late 19th Century, which is fun to imagine, and there’s much about love and longing that’ll just break your little heart.

So anyway, the thing I love most about being in Florida is all the guys walking around without shirts on–or much of anything else. For those of us living in chilly climes, it’s like going to a bathhouse. I am in a constant state of titilation. And of course I cruise the scantilly clad dudes with the bellies and the beards, only these aren’t the Lone Star versions, these are the real (and straight) prototypes. Sigh. “Look and perspire, but don’t touch the Hell’s Angel, little Chrissy.”

I would love to talk about the distressing and amazing Sopranos episode tonight, but I’d blow it for those of you back home who don’t have an east coast feed. It’s about to start–go watch it and we’ll chat when I get home. Oh Adriana…

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Lunches, Dinner, And Five More Pounds of Me

Thom Gunn died Sunday night, peacefully in his sleep, found by his partner. How sad. He and Jess, who also died earlier this year, were guests at my and Bob’s house every odd year for a birthday lunch, their births falling relatively close to each other, as now their deaths. I loved the accessibility of his poetry–sparse and lyrical. Jess and I were the relatively quiet ones at lunch, while Bob and Thom jabbered on, Thom usually sharing details about his latest drug-n-sex fest. He always seemed happy.

Big Chrissy and I spent the weekend in Moline, visiting his mom and sisters, and in Chicago dining with his dad, Stephanie. This time I only had one Martini the size of my head, at Jack’s on Halstead, and Bambi’s mother, and sour cherry pie. In Moline I woke to perfectly trimmed impossibly green grass, redbuds and plums in full bloom, a little squirrel scurrying across the road, birds tweeting, deep blue sky, and a rabbit in the neighbor’s yard–a guest at the Cleavers’–Eddy and Lumpy around the corner. (Eddy and Lumpy are now married and have recently remodeled their house across the creek and constructed a screened gazebo to accentuate their considerable landscaping.) We visited the Saarinen-designed headquarters of John Deere and Company, interconnected rusty steel-framed and glass rectangles, crowned with a horizontal steel lattice, set into a lush landscape of rolling hills and flowering trees. The architecture is integrated into the landscape in such a way so that it’s nearly impossible to see a complete building. It sits like pieces of abstracted farm machinery, rusting in the fields. On Sunday night we had a “progressive” dinner–meaning we progressed from house to house, course to course: appetizers and Harvey Wallbanger’s at Pat’s (Chris’ mom); lasagne and salad at Beth’s; and then Hershey Bar pie, Chai, and Sopranos at Margie’s. Yumzoodle!

I gained 5 pounds on the trip, from all the sweets and fatty snacks, which I couldn’t tear myself away from, despite the strategically placed grapes and watermelon. My family never snacked. The Little Debbie Snack Cakes, Hostess Cupcakes, and highly refined things at my friends’ houses were like bombs of pleasure that my mom kept from us, offering us fruit instead–which actually continues to be my only snack. When I’m around those kinds of foods, something happens, the sub-taster tramples over the super-taster and the grapes, and can not be satisfied. Help! Give me whole grains, olive oil and a pear–vit!

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Monte Rio

“Sometimes you feel that you’re part of the scen-e-ry, ohhhh, the green-e-ry.” This morning on my way to a hike through the Armstrong Woods, Supertramp on “The River” boldly proclaimed the theme of the day. It’s just beautiful up here, classic rock and all. Forget the plan to mope under the dripping redwoods, the sun is shining and the outdoors calling. Green everywhere, that delicate bright early-Spring green. The redwoods are magnificent, as always, everything below covered in green moss, and me all by my Chrissy. The Russian River outside the deck of my room is swollen and brown, rushing past the pussy- and weeping- willows, tiny green leaves almost glowing. My middle of the week weekend began as planned with a visit to Pierre, who kindly offered me a nice deco bar on wheels at an attractive price, but I think I’m going to pass it up, who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind tomorrow. I’m so like Jack, of and-the-beanstalk Jack, selling my cow for a few beans. I really should be buying things I need right now, shouldn’t I? A bed? Kitchen table? A deco bar?  Anyway, last night I watched Platinum Blonde on my laptop, which was probably the worst film of the era. Why don’t they release the good films from the 30s on DVD?

This morning after my hike, I had coffee with Steve, my cute neighbor in Guerneville, and former lover of Denny, former lover of Bob, former lover of me… Shouldn’t we be boyfriends by some mathematic principle? Steve and I excitedly discussed novel ideas about preventing standing water due to redwood-needle-clogged downspouts on our flat roofs, and photography.

Since when did they start pronouncing Diane Arbus “Dee-ohhn?” Antiquing on the Gravenstein Highway, lunch at the Pine Cone in Sebastopol, and back to the Rio Villa for Ichi the Killer, compliments of the young and charming Davide. It was violent and disgusting and I TOTALLY LOVED IT, the violence tempered by dark humor, horror-inspired fakery, and thrilling editing. Again, I would have preferred less plot, but I’m willing to let go, plus they threw in a slightly perplexing ending which made up for the over-reliance on narrative. For something completely different, I made my way over to the Rio Theater, conveniently about 50 paces west from here, to see Mona Lisa Smile, which wasn’t really that bad, a cut-and-paste chick flick. Did anyone else see The Rapture? It’s such an interesting film about the end of the world, faith, and human nature. I don’t know why I thought of that just now, perhaps it’s being the only vacationer in Monte Rio. I’m totally alone up here, except for the cricket in my room, whose chirp is joined by the tick tick tick of the clock and the occasional WHOOSH of the toilet. It’s very David Lynch, with frilly pink window treatments.

Next day. Sigh. Vacation over, enough time to myself, time to get back to work.

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Vacation All I Ever Wanted

I’m getting out of Dodge. Tomorrow I’m driving up to Monte Rio, holing up in Vacation Wonderland, for a few days of intense movie-watching, antiquing, and hopefully some creative isolation and musing under the rain-drenched redwoods. One of my favorite new mid-century antique stores in Petaluma is on my list of must-stops. Pierre, the proprietor, is this serious but friendly, smart and charming dealer who, while hovering over a Hans Wegner sewing cabinet, says things like “This piece TURNS ME ON…” in an un-French Governor Schwarzeneger-like accent. Holy Eameses, please smile down on your humble servant and put a moderately-priced but not too beat-up Wegner Papa Bear or Grasshopper Chair in my path tomorrow. In Wormley-for-Dunbar’s name I pray…

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Crisis Resolved, Bath Buddies

Well, it looks like Stephanie’s financial crisis has been resolved. BC and I began the day addressing our newly separated lives in intimate detail, moving swiftly from boyfriends to girlfriends, awkwardly at first, and then with quite a bit of enjoyment. We know each other so well, and both seem to be moving quickly in the directions that drew us together in the first place, so perhaps that contentment is an acknowledgment of the success that we’ve wanted for each other.

At 3:00 the pizza came. A stuffed pizza, with mushroom and sausage–good lord who dreamed of such a divine combination of sensation and pleasure.

Later we took Steph out to a really nice dinner at Erwin, in Boystown, a new American cuisine restaurant, where they serve martinis that are as big as my head. I had only one–tonight I wasn’t the guy with the lampshade on his head–the crab cakes, and the duck confit/venison dish (is that like mid-western surf and turf?), and the sour cherry pie. Dedicated to my commitment to new experiences, we put Steph in a cab and made our way to the Steamworks.

Now, I’m sure that many of you have experienced this kind of sexual environment before. My relation to my sexuality is quite complex, involving a lot of romance, intense emotional bonding, and eventually sex, which steamrolls into an ever more and more involved and complicated experience. I’ve never been to a sex club. The closest I came to a public sex experience was at the Folsom Street Fair a few years ago when Bob forced me into dropping my pants to compete in the “Hot Cock Contest,” loudly exaggerating, like a proud stage mother, the length and circumference of my faithful friend, which much to his horror, and mine, shriveled like a walnut once on stage. The guy taking the picture even asked–“Does it get bigger?” There is a picture of my loser penis somewhere, not even Miss Congeniality. Okay, back to the Steamworks… Chris was a great guide. I wore my contacts, which I hadn’t worn in perhaps four years, my vision a bit blurry, so it was like walking through a dreamy landscape of naked bodies and artificial attitudes. I can’t get past the attitudes and artifice. I like to talk during sex, to communicate, laugh, say stupid things, promise this and that… I giggled the entire time, not the least bit excited. In the steamroom I fell asleep for a moment to wake up to all these guys gathered around me, suddenly the center of a phallic devotional movement. I giggled again, closed my eyes, and then they were gone. Just like that. Chris led me through the maze, where all these pee-pees jutted out from the walls above like the arm-held candelabras in La Belle et la Bête. Some heads bobbed up and down on the projectiles, while Chris was cruised by this really cute guy, who kept trying to reach for Chris’ special place, only to be cut off by an intercepting mouth or hand, the two only connecting visually. Chris told me that all these guys were cruising me, but I was completely oblivious, even to the two hairy backs in the place. He even guided me toward one of the hairier backs in the hottub, who evidently was interested in me, but I really just wanted to talk about the decorative arts.

It was great to have had this experience and to embrace the mono-sexual me. I’m just not into bodies, that is, bodies free of intellect and humor. A part of me has pined for the sexual freedom of the late 70’s, perhaps because so many of my lovers came of age during that time. I see a great deal of gay identity tied to such freedom and I needed to address my estrangement. I’ve been married since age 18, and always felt a sadness at having missed out on anonymous and voluminous sexual romps. Well, I’m just not not that kind of guy it turns out. I love deeply and madly, and that’s about it. Maybe for only a few hours, but never casually. Ho hum.

Tomorrow it’s museums…