Well, yesterday was very boring. I basically took my cousin to work and came back to the apartement. But don't get me wrong, boring is really the wrong word. It was just uneventful.
Today was a bit different. I got up and got some coffee. I needed it because I have had some heavy little revelations over the past couple of days. First, was the book of poetry that I bought. I read a bit of Cavafy and a poem by Luis Cermuda called "Birds of Night". Both were very nice. They talked about relationships between men in a way I forgot. Now with the electronic age, men don't even talk anymore. It is like sex is up for grabs, but I am afraid that HIV is too.
Which brings me to another deep point. Here in Atlanta I see so many spas that are catering to positive men cosmetically. The latest thing is injectable poly-L-latic acid for the "restoration of facial fat loss". I think it is a great idea, don't get me wrong, but HIV seems to very industrialized, sort of like diabetes (my thing right now). It is a bit nerve racking to me, because it is the idea that you can be and will be healthy by looking healthy . . . and is that the case? And what does your world and life look life if your drug cocktail run you 1500 a month. My little diabetic bill has effected the quality of my life dramatically, especially in the last 12 months . . . add HIV to that. Gee whiz? And if you are a college adjunct, a writer or an artist, forget it! You will have to change professions. Or what about a place like Germany, where doctors turned me away because I did not have insurance (a gay doctor in Stuttgart did that to me, and I thought he would show some solidarity . . . fuck him and the whole fucking city . . . fucking ass wiped, custard lipped motherfucker . . .sorry, had to let that out . . . I got that random cursing syndrome brought on by extreme moments of stress . . . I think it my be hereditary).
Which brings me to gay cowboys and Brokeback Mountain. A bunch of white gay guys are telling me to see and support this movie, but something deep inside of me -- next to my Spike Lee bone -- is not responding in the same way as people saying, go see Malcom X. I am wondering what this is about? This deaden feeling inside. In analyzing my feelings, I get that same ackwardness I felt when an old co-worker talked to me about Jane Austin and Pride and Prejudice as if I would naturally "identify". Like, I dislike Jane Austin just slightly less than I hate doctors in the city of Stuttgart, Germany and the German insurance industry and their way of explaining things to me about it and my chronic sickness. I had to read Ms. Austin in university and I was awashed in dinner parties, and years later I had to hear all these women at my publishing company and the archive I worked at talk about Jane Austin movies and a scene where Mr. D'arcy came out to the garden with no shirt on. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
And that is what I hear when I hear about Brokeback Mountain. I think Ang Lee is fantastic. The Ice Storm is the most perfect movie ever, American Beauty you can have, and as for Jake and that other guy playing in this movie, I think they are cute, but would prefer to see them get done right by a homothug from uptown or a papi from Jersey City. That is just me, otherwise all that 'kind' of beauty just cancels itself out to me. But I am going to see the movie eventually, I just wonder with whom. I have to admitt that I feel like it will bring up issues with me and Das Experiment and why it did not go so well, and therefore I kind of want to sit it out. Aside from having to sit and listen to a bunch of evil fags from work say I am a confused bitch, I don't want them to beg me to see a film that includes a married man falling for another man and dealing with the aftermath. They act as if they do not understand me anyway, so who the hell are they to tell me to support this movie, whose premise they mock in me?
I normally save my support for something more militant. Like the documentary on article 175 and the Nazi era's persecution of homos. Then I will get a Spike Lee tingle in my spin. Every queen I know has gone to see the movie because of a chance to see fucking on the big screen (I did that in NYC's red light district when I was 20 something. I don't think those theaters exist anymore. Pity.). And, like you can see dick on your computer or DVD and pop your own popcorn. I just don't understand. I hear that other countries have given the film a PG-13 rating anyway or maybe even PG. America gave it an R. I kind of am over certain things concerning the trivalizing of sex and it being turned into a childrens taboo for adults.
I will see the movie because of Ang Lee, because it is beautifully shot and because I may find something new in it. I am not so sure I will identify with it though, and the other half of my heart says that it might remind me of Das Experiment (his racist and homophobic mother that referred to me as "the Gay Nigger", his now ex-wife, then wife, whatever). This is a tragic movie from what I understand. And one day in the not so distant past, Das Experiment said that our situation was tragic. And he was right. I was being an American optimist. Fucking German Realism.
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On a lighter note. I was at a dinner party with a fireman, a porn star and an embalmer today. Very enlightening. I will hold on to the details. I have to save somethings for myself.
And I bought the latest album by Eros Ramazotti (I think that is how you spell it and pronounce it). He makes me feel like a teenage girl inside, 16 to be exact. But I am much different outside. The fireman said he thought my butchness was cute.
I am not trying I promise.
Just being myself.
I like Atlanta.
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9 comments:
It sounds like you're having quite a visit down there. I agree with you about "Brokeback Mountain," and I love how you point out that the "beauty" of the two male stars "cancels" itself out. Neither does anything for me, but I think the fact that they're both young and attractive and masculine-performing, a kind of idealized representation that millions of (White and other) gay men project themselves into, is one reason for the hype. Another is that instead of presenting gayness as an identity, it's viewed as a series of acts held together by an erotic bond (and in eros there is always something lacking, desire being constituted on a lack). I should of course add that supposedly it's beautifully filmed, the two stars act to the limits of their skills, and it's quite poignant. But I think one of the gay men dies, so it's in keeping with Hollywood's longstanding narratives about gay life. I just blogged about Tropical Malady, which features two Thai men, one a soldier, the other a bumpkin, who fall in love. There's no backblowing, no White people, and a highly metaphorical narrative that I'm sure would send many viewers screaming. Something tells me this representation of male love and desire is far more interesting than Brokeback, though I do admit to getting weepy over straight Black hetero romance movies, and I don't have a hetero bone in my body. Anyways, please keep blogging. Germany sounds like it was a bitch...and Das Experiment. "Gay Nigger." Oh my!
Oh, was the porn star Ty Lattimore?
I loved Brokeback. The marketing (the promise of a Big Gay Movie or Gay Heartthrobs or a Big Gay Cowboy Movie) and hype (the idea that this is a Good Gay Movie gay people should all support) kind of makes you want to run away, but if I don't think of it as "showing what it's like to be gay" -- which many audience members may in fact take from the movie -- I can enjoy it as a good story, well told. What finally convinced me to see it was Rey Pamatmat's blog on it. I do have to say, though, Littlemilk, that you are onto something as you are exploring resistance you feel when someone tells you you should care. I am in the middle of writing a blog entry about a similar issue, myself. More when I get to that. Much love.
Well John K, it is good to hear it from somebody else that there are a ton of mixed messages concerning this movie and that the media hype is not jiving well with my love of Ang Lee. But I will see the film pretty soon, I just have to find that right person to come with me. The Persian Prince is always good for stuff like that. Don't know why.
And yes Germany was a bitch, but there were many experinces with and without Das Experiment that were very good and fortifying. I think it is all about moving out of the world in which you are familiar and trying to survive on the cultural terms of another place. Assimilation is part of the game wherever you go, or you don't eat. Sometimes that can be harmful and sometimes that can be liberating, it just depends. And it was Das Experiment's mother that was calling me "The Gay Nigger" to her family, but that came about after her other son revealed my sexuality to "seine Mutti". And she was a Mother about it. This other son was interesting. His response to me being bisexual was basically: "Wow, first Colin Powell makes it to secretary of state and Bill is bisexual. I guess black men can be anything now."
Me and Das Experiment thought it hilarious, gulping down beers in a local pub/Weinstube.
But . . .
. . . as my father would say: "This son, is what we are dealing with."
Oh, and the pornstar I had dinner with is named Harry Woof. His website is blkhrywoof.com
Mendi O.
Thanks for the words of encouragement. The Persian Prince said I should see it too. So I get word from here and there that it is worth while, just check the baggage at the door I guess.
Ok, yeah, Harry Woof, the dude who is into old white daddy bears. Ty and lots of other pornobrothas are down there too.
You know him . . . I mean know of him. Interesting. I will spill know more Tea at this dinner.
Well, I always think it's best to bring my baggage to the movies, but that's just me. I'm just saying I liked the movie and I understand your reservations, that's all.
I think my reservations are softening. I kind of had to express them then deal with them. I would like to see The Hostel and Munich then Brokeback Mountain. That is how my brain is registering it.
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