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Sweets

So we celebrated Reese’s 10th birthday this weekend. I don’t want him to get older. I don’t want to get older. Double digits already, he’ll be wanting the car keys in no time. The party that we threw for him in Golden Gate Park could have been thrown by Dario Argento–yellowjackets stung all the screaming kids, a seagull tried to eat the cake, several bees became embedded in it, and Angie and Megan forgot the table. Reese came through with a surprise pop quiz which he passed out to everyone titled “How well do you know Reese?” He even designed his cake this year, which always takes several days for us to execute, based on his own “Uffy Club” comic strip, destined to be a classic, starring Fluffy and Ruffy (a cat and a dog), and Muffy BeautyButt (a poodle). Fluffy and Ruffy are holding hands on the top of the cake, their friendship a source of the fountain, which rains down on poor Muffy, holding the umbrella, and spills down the levels of the cake. Ever the sissy daddy, and an easy target, I quietly slipped out during the water balloon toss.

I sent a little note to Andrew Sullivan after his bear “outing” on Salon.com, inviting him to check out my studies of the bear body, and he wrote back! with a concise “how beautiful.” Wasn’t that sweet?

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Not at Swim, Two Boys

Big Chris and I, after pancakes at Orphan Andy’s, decided at the last minute to spend the day lounging around, instead of frolicking with the Dore Alley boys. Chris looked really cute, too, dressed all in white for the fair, sure to stand out in contrast to the black cowhide and lobster tans. So instead of shaved penises, I’ll be reading At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill, which promises to be a good read. The summer’s rocketing by and I haven’t made much of a dent in my summer reading pile. I’m looking forward to reading Little Me next, and then some Leo Bersani, if only because I feel that I have to. I actually forget what else is in that pile, but I’m needing a big hit of Nabokov, which I thought would be great to follow with Shelley Winter’s Shelley, Also Know as Shirley, which I’ve always wanted to read, and Lampedusa. Okay, to the book…

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I Just Got Back

I just got back from Reese’s summer drama camp recital. He was, of course, a smash as Oliver!, even brought a proud tear to my eye during the “Wha-a-a-a-aaaaat is looooove?” number. Tonight I’m off to hear Adam Klein (the former Miss Rena MacDonald) read from his most excellent book Tiny Ladies, previously reviewed in this blog somewhere. Adam is also in a band called “Roman Evening,” a multi-talented word stylist who’s unfortunately off to Bangladesh or somewhere with the Peace Corps, so we will commence with the bon voyaging tonight. Last night I had dinner with Michael, his boyfriend Rob, and Bob in Oakland to celebrate Michael’s new 18th century canape–no, not the appetizer, the sofa–and chairs. Michael’s getting quite arch in his gay affect, which I love and encourage. I had just read in the most recent NEST an article about Cy Twombly’s palazzo in Rome, with pictures taken by Horst in the mid-60’s for a Vogue article, and Michael’s place reminded me of it. “Oh, Cy…” he squealed with a roll of the head as I mentioned the article to him, and produced some hot juicy nuggets of gossip about his experiences in Rome. I wonder if I’ll ever attain the status of being the subject of trashy gossip tossed about a dinner party 30 something years after the Diana Vreeland/Horst exposé of my palazzo in Guerneville?

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LAB show coming up, Puppy- and Muscrat Love

Glen Helfand, our cute local critic is curating a 20th anniversary show for the LAB, and has invited me, and some 19 others who have had solo exhibitions there over the past 20 years to participate. I first showed there in 1992 (‘ish), a very large installation/gender spectacle/showdown called High Noon. Glen asked if I’d like to revisit the piece for the show, and I’m thinking of proposing something containing similar conflicts that I explored in High Noon, but starring the inhabitants of the new West, my furry West. The show opens in October. Mark your calendars, and stay tuned for details…

Tonight I dogsat for my neighbor Arnie. His dog’s name is Shimon, and I am in love. We ate burritos, drank a bottle of wine, and watched No Man’s Land and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning together. Arnie came home to us in a tangle of arms and paws on the living room floor. I had passed up a last-minute opportunity to have dinner with Toirac, a famous Cuban painter whom I met in Havana a few years ago and who’s in town, only because Bob has so unsettled me over the past few days that I didn’t think I could be around him without the evening quickly dissolving into Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe–well, it already had for starters. I needed a non-human companion for the evening, and Shimon didn’t mind having a soused Liz Taylor for company.

Muscrat Love, the song by Captain and Tennile, is buzzing in my head tonight. I haven’t heard it in years, and only chanced upon a brief snippet of it several months ago, so it’s a faded sort of memory of it that is serenading me, but Toni’s sincerity and lush voice, and that bizarre electronic muscrat sound toward the end have seized me in this iron vice of sugary pop innocence and nostalgia.

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Hot weekend and the next hot reality TV show

It’s supposed to be really warm this weekend. I don’t know if I could get through the weekend without hopping up to Guerneville to help keep the boys cool at Lazy Bear. The thought of all that exposed fur, without ME there with my palm fronds, kind of, I don’t know… hurts. Incidentally, I’ve come up with a new reality TV show idea called Femme Eye for the Gay Bear, with me, of course, dispensing advice about collectible pottery, beard trimmers, pants, closet organizers and low calorie popsicles. I posted an ad on bear.net a few days ago, soliciting potential models. My username is NotABearBear, which most accurately describes my bearness. I’ve only heard from one guy, whose brother, incidentally, is the lover of the director of one of the most desirable galleries in town for an artist such as I (Lorelei Lee) to be in. Woo hoo!

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Sigh

My Tim grid isn’t any closer to being resolved. Unlike other works in progress that don’t come together, this one I can’t walk away from. I’m so intrigued by the single images, they’re so strange and alluring–I know that there’s a piece in there somewhere. Instead of chiseling away at marble, slowly releasing the soul inside, I sit at my little table, day in and day out, shifting these little furry test prints around, waiting for the image to come together, to breath life into the fur. Nothing. It’s been weeks, months? and I’m beginning to feel like the Jack Nicholson that Shelley Duval discovered writing nothing but “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over again. It’s the 5th year since my return to photography and my exploration of the grid, and I’m feeling, again like I’m ready to move on to something with a less rigid structure. It was a lot easier to create during my affair with the bipolar borderline bear, oddly, drawing from my sensual immersion rather than from formal and aesthetic problems. It’s the difference in engagement with my subject matter that’s left me dangling. And no, I don’t want that kind of drama in my life again, I just want my work to thrill me in the same way. Without the drama. Stay tuned, gentle reader, I’m sure I’ll figure it out, and then, who knows.

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Poet’s Theater at the LAB

Tonight the LAB hosted a fabulous evening of disjunct and experimental poetry and theater, put together by Carla Harryman. Dodie Bellamy read from her Cunt Ups, a novel of cut ups, that contrasted well with Camille Roy’s dynamic poems called “Grenades,” based on the Iraq war. Dodie’s work is so well-written and interesting, but the extreme pornography in her work is rendered in terms that are practically devoid of emotion, just the sensation of sex, while Camille’s words are little bombs of feeling, starting with the line, “Dude…. I mean dad…” delivered with kittenish bravado. The headliner was Kevin Killian, who presented a play in collaboration with Craig Goodman, about the “Smith” family–featuring Wayne Smith as father Wayne Smith, with daughters Susan (who drowned her two kids) Smith and Liz Smith, son Jack (experimental filmmaker–Flaming Creatures) Smith, sister Jaclyn Smith, Morrissey (of The Smiths), etc… Kevin’s plays tend to be camp extravaganzas with characters and situations culled from contemporary pop and highbrow culture, featuring local artistic and literary celebutantes. I had a little fling with Wayne long ago, who recently broke up with his boyfriend (I knew it wouldn’t last), and had fun watching his lips move as the other characters delivered their dialog. He’s so like a little boy. With a cute belly, a deep voice, a little gray goatee, and a nice package. I ran into Sandy (MoMA chief photo curator) Philip’s boyfriend, who always calls me Tim. “Tim, Sandy says you’re doing great work! They’re buying something, right, or something like that?” Right.