.
one of the more elegant expressions of existential angst of which i am aware [and one of the few covers i feel captures the author's intent more effectively than the original].
i try to avoid this song when i drink, because it puts me in a mood.
in this, i don't always succeed--sometimes it sneaks up on me.
Gary Jules - Mad World
Thursday, February 4, 2010
more accidental architecture
.
the other day i found myself in the westlake district of los angeles--a seedy, downtrodden neighborhood just west of downtown whose only stand-out feature (or so i thought) is drug-dealer-infested macarthur park--looking for a side street of sufficient anonymity where i could leave my truck with a reasonable expectation of finding it in one piece when i got back.
walking quickly and looking neither left or right as is my custom when in such neighborhoods, i almost missed the graffiti-covered sign twenty feet down the littered sidewalk from where i finally parked.
knowing my city and figuring ignorance might well result in a $50 ticket, i circled it and glanced up at the other side.
wait--historical landmark in this neighborhood?
my gaze then shifted to the right, through the bars of the security fence which edged the sidewalk, and...holy motherfuckin' shit.
yeah, she's decrepit and decayed, but you can totally see what she once was, can't you?
[and almost completely obscured by unkempt foliage and security fencing, i could make out another house of similar size and grandeur next door to the right
whose onion-domed cupola could only be glimpsed if i stood on top of a car in the parking lot of the burger king on the other side of 818--but what the hell, i'm nothing if not a fool for my art.]
my original reason for being there momentarily forgotten, i wandered down this apparently once-grand avenue and up the next, ignoring traffic and the threatening glares of passersby, snapping pictures with my crappy iphone as i went [some of which actually came out] of the few majestic landmarks of a bygone era which still remain.
and yeah i know you east-coast readers will laugh at this post because you've no doubt seen this sorta shit played out everywhere you've lived in orders of magnitude greater than i can even imagine.
what can i say--i've spent my life in relatively-new places like houston and los angeles, so the real-life decay of history still strikes awe in my heart.
for a brief synopsis of the unhappy history of 818 s. bonnie brae, click here.
for a glimpse of the way said house [and by extrapolation, said neighborhood] looked back in the halcyon days before even the idea of security fences entered the american consciousness, i offer up the following archival snapshot:
and for more images of this once-proud neighborhood in better days, click here and follow the links.
the other day i found myself in the westlake district of los angeles--a seedy, downtrodden neighborhood just west of downtown whose only stand-out feature (or so i thought) is drug-dealer-infested macarthur park--looking for a side street of sufficient anonymity where i could leave my truck with a reasonable expectation of finding it in one piece when i got back.
walking quickly and looking neither left or right as is my custom when in such neighborhoods, i almost missed the graffiti-covered sign twenty feet down the littered sidewalk from where i finally parked.
knowing my city and figuring ignorance might well result in a $50 ticket, i circled it and glanced up at the other side.
wait--historical landmark in this neighborhood?
my gaze then shifted to the right, through the bars of the security fence which edged the sidewalk, and...holy motherfuckin' shit.
yeah, she's decrepit and decayed, but you can totally see what she once was, can't you?
[and almost completely obscured by unkempt foliage and security fencing, i could make out another house of similar size and grandeur next door to the right
whose onion-domed cupola could only be glimpsed if i stood on top of a car in the parking lot of the burger king on the other side of 818--but what the hell, i'm nothing if not a fool for my art.]
my original reason for being there momentarily forgotten, i wandered down this apparently once-grand avenue and up the next, ignoring traffic and the threatening glares of passersby, snapping pictures with my crappy iphone as i went [some of which actually came out] of the few majestic landmarks of a bygone era which still remain.
and yeah i know you east-coast readers will laugh at this post because you've no doubt seen this sorta shit played out everywhere you've lived in orders of magnitude greater than i can even imagine.
what can i say--i've spent my life in relatively-new places like houston and los angeles, so the real-life decay of history still strikes awe in my heart.
* * * * *
for a brief synopsis of the unhappy history of 818 s. bonnie brae, click here.
for a glimpse of the way said house [and by extrapolation, said neighborhood] looked back in the halcyon days before even the idea of security fences entered the american consciousness, i offer up the following archival snapshot:
and for more images of this once-proud neighborhood in better days, click here and follow the links.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
birdwood days (concluded)
.
the story i'm about to tell was intended to be the penultimate installment of a multi-part series that started with this post.
problem was, my alcohol-addled brain couldn't conjure up sufficient detail about our other neighbors to flesh out their stories to my satisfaction, so i let the whole thing die--until tonight, anyway, when this song came up on shuffle.
btw, the picture of our old house which follows isn't quite right; the lawn was better and it was painted a pale olive green when we lived there.
and the left side, at the top of the driveway? that used to be the garage.
3. our house
the only thing that still haunts me about that long-ago april day is how passive and mindlessly accepting of authority it would prove me to be.
sure, i was only ten, but you tell me: if you woke up in the wee, small hours with flashlights shining in your eyes and two hulking cops clomping around the darkened bedroom you shared with your little brother telling you, "it's ok, kid--go back to sleep," and you did, what would that say about you?
it's a question i've pondered more than once over the years.
* * * * *
i awoke on that sunny saturday morning as usual, wandered out to the kitchen and poured myself my usual bowl of cereal. it was only after settling down in front of the tv for my usual three hours of cartoons that i realized how quiet the house was, suddenly remembered the weird thing with the policemen and the flashlights the night before and wondered if it had just been a crazy dream.
getting up and looking around, i found my little sister's room empty, my parents' bedroom door open, their bed stripped of its bedspread but otherwise seemingly untouched [i never did figure that one out], and my still-sleeping brother the only other person in the house.
as unprecedented as all this was, i sat back down in front of the tv, figuring everybody'd show up sooner or later.
it was mrs. harberger from next door who finally came over and told me my father and sister were in the hospital and my mother was down at the ash's, but not to worry because everything would be ok.
i accepted this news without question and went outside to play with her son (and my best friend) davy.
when an hour or so later my normally affectionate and impeccably-groomed uncle huby unexpectedly screeched into the driveway from 200 miles away looking disheveled and unshaven and without even so much as a hello demanded to know where my mother was, i directed him to the house two doors down and went back to whatever davy and i were doing.
weirder and weirder, but everything was ok--the grownups had told me so, so it had to be true.
when later that day my brother and i were summoned into my mother's pale presence only to be told nothing more than, "your dad was very sick, and he died," i held her cold hands and accepted her words without question.
it was only years later, digging around in the silver metal box for my birth certificate so i could sign up for driver's ed, that i stumbled across the truth; my mother subsequently and reluctantly filled in the details that the official papers
and that cold, godawful handwritten note
left out.
turns out when he went out to the garage early on that saturday morning, cut a piece of garden hose of sufficient length to reach from the exhaust pipe to the backseat of the family car, started the engine, climbed in and lit his last lucky, my father neglected to notice that the window in the door that led from the garage to the kitchen was half-open [at least i hope to god that's the way it happened].
for whatever reason--probably because he hadn't come to bed yet--either the sound of the engine or the smell of the exhaust finally roused my mother from her uneasy sleep.
when she found him, he'd fallen out of the car and was crawling toward the kitchen door [or so she chooses to believe]. when her frantic efforts at mouth-to-mouth failed to revive him, she flew down the street to the ash's house and hammered on their door.
it was harsh, pragmatic laverne who saved my sister--while everybody else was focused on the lost cause sprawled on the garage floor, she was the one who noticed the open window and went in and dragged liz's blue and unconscious little body from her bed in the toxic bedroom nearest the garage and walked her around outside in the fresh air until she started to cough and breathe.
* * * * *
the last thing i remember about that long april day's journey into night is lying in bed next to davy harberger as he slept, radio playing softly in the background, twisting my dead father's too-big timex on its stretchy band around and around my slender, newly-orphaned wrist as i stared at the ceiling, listening to the #1 song of that week of april, 1967 as it came up twice an hour, every hour all night long, and wondering if anything would ever be usual again.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
the state of DADT
.
you're commander-in-chief, mr. president--if you really wanted to end DADT, you could suspend it tomorrow by executive order pending congressional review, and that would pretty much be that.
[but then you'd have to take the heat of the buck actually stopping where it's supposed to, and like that's ever gonna happen on your watch.]
once again, for all of you who still think what these assholes say is more important than what they actually do, here's yet another case in point to the contrary.
________________
correction (maybe): ok, so it looks as if hopey might actually follow through after all, but i still think my way woulda been more fun. whatever--least i got a chance to hone my drunk-photoshop skillz.
you're commander-in-chief, mr. president--if you really wanted to end DADT, you could suspend it tomorrow by executive order pending congressional review, and that would pretty much be that.
[but then you'd have to take the heat of the buck actually stopping where it's supposed to, and like that's ever gonna happen on your watch.]
once again, for all of you who still think what these assholes say is more important than what they actually do, here's yet another case in point to the contrary.
________________
correction (maybe): ok, so it looks as if hopey might actually follow through after all, but i still think my way woulda been more fun. whatever--least i got a chance to hone my drunk-photoshop skillz.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
a couple charts
.
one pleases me greatly, the other fills me with horror [i'll leave you to figure out which is which].
first, this one:
[h/t tom iacono]
whoever said growth never occurs in a straight line surely never reckoned on the combined ambitions of the municipal, county, state and federal politicians who run the united states of america--i mean, just look at that red line go, wouldya?
in 2007, the inevitable finally happened--the number of government workers in this country surpassed the number of workers in industries which actually manufacture and produce shit.
and now, in 2010, the gap between manufacturing- and public-sector has risen to about 4 million jobs--and looking at that chart and doing a little extrapolating, i don't see any reason to imagine a reversal of this trend, do you?
do you finally get it, people?
this simple chart demonstrates an eternal truth far more effectively than any of my inarticulate rants ever could: government is a ravening beast, and its only imperative, regardless of whichever party's at the reins, is to grow--even if that growth ultimately results in the strangulation and death of its host.
which is why i almost peed down both legs with incredulous joy when scott brown won teddy kennedy's senate seat last week.
is he gonna be a good senator? who the fuck cares--long as he serves as a roadblock to the healthcare fiasco and whatever other dumbass shit these idiots had planned to further grow the beast of government and erode the productivity of this once-great country, i'll be happy.
and speaking of happy, here's the other chart that caught my eye this week:
as it does every year, the pew research center recently polled the public on its priorities for the president and congress for the upcoming year. the results were very similar to last year's, with one major exception.
whether due to all the inconvenient truths that have recently emerged concerning the manipulation of facts and downright self-serving dishonesty surrounding mr. gore's "settled" science, or merely because everybody woke up and looked at what the weather's actually been doing for the last ten or so years, global warming as an area of concern has in the hearts and minds of the public dropped to--get this--dead last.
once again: any of you naifs who still cling to the notion that the global warming movement is merely a coalition of well-meaning scientists and world leaders intent on saving the planet, rather than the pure and simple power/money-grab by governments and greedy, messianic public figures facilitated by bought-and-paid-for "research" and manufactured hysteria it actually is, go spend a little time on this site.
or if you don't have the necessary attention span, just go back up to chart #1 and look at it until it sinks in.
one pleases me greatly, the other fills me with horror [i'll leave you to figure out which is which].
first, this one:
[h/t tom iacono]
whoever said growth never occurs in a straight line surely never reckoned on the combined ambitions of the municipal, county, state and federal politicians who run the united states of america--i mean, just look at that red line go, wouldya?
in 2007, the inevitable finally happened--the number of government workers in this country surpassed the number of workers in industries which actually manufacture and produce shit.
and now, in 2010, the gap between manufacturing- and public-sector has risen to about 4 million jobs--and looking at that chart and doing a little extrapolating, i don't see any reason to imagine a reversal of this trend, do you?
do you finally get it, people?
this simple chart demonstrates an eternal truth far more effectively than any of my inarticulate rants ever could: government is a ravening beast, and its only imperative, regardless of whichever party's at the reins, is to grow--even if that growth ultimately results in the strangulation and death of its host.
which is why i almost peed down both legs with incredulous joy when scott brown won teddy kennedy's senate seat last week.
is he gonna be a good senator? who the fuck cares--long as he serves as a roadblock to the healthcare fiasco and whatever other dumbass shit these idiots had planned to further grow the beast of government and erode the productivity of this once-great country, i'll be happy.
and speaking of happy, here's the other chart that caught my eye this week:
as it does every year, the pew research center recently polled the public on its priorities for the president and congress for the upcoming year. the results were very similar to last year's, with one major exception.
whether due to all the inconvenient truths that have recently emerged concerning the manipulation of facts and downright self-serving dishonesty surrounding mr. gore's "settled" science, or merely because everybody woke up and looked at what the weather's actually been doing for the last ten or so years, global warming as an area of concern has in the hearts and minds of the public dropped to--get this--dead last.
once again: any of you naifs who still cling to the notion that the global warming movement is merely a coalition of well-meaning scientists and world leaders intent on saving the planet, rather than the pure and simple power/money-grab by governments and greedy, messianic public figures facilitated by bought-and-paid-for "research" and manufactured hysteria it actually is, go spend a little time on this site.
or if you don't have the necessary attention span, just go back up to chart #1 and look at it until it sinks in.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
mkf plays a practical joke
.
[this one's for noblesavage--he'll know why]
one day back in the day, i suddenly found myself anointed day supervisor of a document-services department for a law firm here in los angeles--i say "suddenly," because right up until it happened, i was just a lowly part-time temp who had been brought in a couple nights a week by the then-night supervisor [and my friend and former roommate] paul.
when the previous day supervisor of fifteen years unexpectedly up and quit and i was offered her job, my overnight ascendency to the throne came as a shock to many, but no one more than my former roommate--all of a sudden we were equals on his home turf, and while paul smiled stiffly and wished me well, i could tell he didn't particularly mean it.
at first it wasn't much of a problem--my shift ran from 8 to 4 and his from 2 to 10, so we had a two-hour overlap; it only became an issue as our individual styles began to conflict.
see, i'm mild and easygoing by nature, the morning crew i inherited was a joy to work with, i took great pains to ensure that subsequent hires fit right in and we all got along great.
paul, on the other hand, was difficult.
while he could be [and often was] brilliantly funny, he was just as often cutting and cruel, and his captive night crew mostly reacted to him with all the mixed emotions of battered wives.
he was especially hard on the girls--a true heterophobe, everything about women and their physiology repelled paul, and he made no secret of his revulsion whenever anything even remotely related to the subject came up in general conversation.
and, like all bullies who love dishing it out, he couldn't take it worth a damn.
whatever--point is, the minute paul walked in the door, the laughter stopped and everybody tried to gauge his mood, see what kinda night it was gonna be.
everybody, of course, but me.
see, being suddenly bulletproof, knowing him from way back when and not giving a rat's ass either way, i delighted in fucking with him--mostly mild shit at first, but the road to hell always starts small.
why i chose to up the ante exponentially on this particular day i cannot tell you--it might've come down to nothing more than a combination of paul's misogyny, my perverse sense of humor and his unvarying routine.
here's what i'm talkin about: every day at 2:00 like clockwork he'd sail through the door bitching about something, grab a handful of whatever had been left in the communal snack area and pop it in his mouth, dump his shit on his desk, pluck the bulletin outta his in-box and settle back in his chair to catch up on the events of the day.
the bulletin, you ask?
the bulletin was the firm's daily newspaper--who's outta the office, who closed a big deal, who's having a birthday, who's selling girl-scout cookies for their kid, that sorta thing.
as the first guy in, it was my job to pull together and distribute the bulletin firm-wide each morning. being a creative type, i decided early on to liven up the dry, uninteresting rag i had inherited by adding graphics and shit.
on the morning in question, whilst searching the corel archives for a piece of clip-art to spice up a notice for some secretary's kid's candy-bar sale, amongst all the usual inoffensive images of balloons and birthday cakes popped up one that was so completely outta place and inappropriate it almost made my eyes bug out outta my head.
but it also started the wheels turning in my evil little brain, and in a flash, la leche de la madre league was born.
please understand: normally, i can't abide practical jokes--not merely because they're juvenile, but because (when i do 'em, anyway) they tend to become incredibly detail-oriented and time-consuming--but when presented with an opportunity of this magnitude, i simply couldn't resist.
once it was saved and distributed, i pulled up the day's bulletin, made a copy, excised the item regarding said secretary's kid's candy-bar sale and replaced it with something very much like the following [sadly, this was back before i realized the importance of saving shit]:
i printed one copy of this faux-bulletin, which went directly into paul's in-box in place of the real thing.
i then dropped by the secretary's desk who was selling chocolate bars for her kid, bought a bar for a dollar, removed the label and, bringing to bear my not-inconsiderable desktop publishing skills, created a new label which was identical in every way to the original--except for the shit i chose to change, of course.
once i was satisfied it was perfect, i wrapped the old candy bar in its spanking-new label, opened it, laid it out in the communal food area, broke off a piece for authenticity's sake, informed the room of what was up, calmed their fears, told 'em to play along--they were almost all actors in their other lives, and good ones--and sat back and waited for 2:00.
it went like clockwork.
at the usual time, paul breezed through the door, paused at the communal food table, snapped a piece off the candy bar somebody'd thoughtfully provided, popped it in his mouth, rounded his desk, dropped his shit, reached for the bulletin as he chomped his newly-acquired mouthful o' milk chocolate and settled back in his chair.
i counted maybe 30 seconds before he looked up, eyes wide, came outta his chair cursing and spitting chocolate, rounded his desk, grabbed and read with all-consuming horror the wrapper which elaborated the all-too-human ingredients of the chocolate he'd just ingested
and maybe 45 seconds before the room finally erupted in laughter and i told him to relax, it was just a joke.
[that this bit of harmless levity would later and very decisively come back to bite mkf in the ass is a given, but that's another story for another day. whatever--on this day at least, i got the last laugh.]
[this one's for noblesavage--he'll know why]
one day back in the day, i suddenly found myself anointed day supervisor of a document-services department for a law firm here in los angeles--i say "suddenly," because right up until it happened, i was just a lowly part-time temp who had been brought in a couple nights a week by the then-night supervisor [and my friend and former roommate] paul.
when the previous day supervisor of fifteen years unexpectedly up and quit and i was offered her job, my overnight ascendency to the throne came as a shock to many, but no one more than my former roommate--all of a sudden we were equals on his home turf, and while paul smiled stiffly and wished me well, i could tell he didn't particularly mean it.
at first it wasn't much of a problem--my shift ran from 8 to 4 and his from 2 to 10, so we had a two-hour overlap; it only became an issue as our individual styles began to conflict.
see, i'm mild and easygoing by nature, the morning crew i inherited was a joy to work with, i took great pains to ensure that subsequent hires fit right in and we all got along great.
paul, on the other hand, was difficult.
while he could be [and often was] brilliantly funny, he was just as often cutting and cruel, and his captive night crew mostly reacted to him with all the mixed emotions of battered wives.
he was especially hard on the girls--a true heterophobe, everything about women and their physiology repelled paul, and he made no secret of his revulsion whenever anything even remotely related to the subject came up in general conversation.
and, like all bullies who love dishing it out, he couldn't take it worth a damn.
whatever--point is, the minute paul walked in the door, the laughter stopped and everybody tried to gauge his mood, see what kinda night it was gonna be.
everybody, of course, but me.
see, being suddenly bulletproof, knowing him from way back when and not giving a rat's ass either way, i delighted in fucking with him--mostly mild shit at first, but the road to hell always starts small.
why i chose to up the ante exponentially on this particular day i cannot tell you--it might've come down to nothing more than a combination of paul's misogyny, my perverse sense of humor and his unvarying routine.
here's what i'm talkin about: every day at 2:00 like clockwork he'd sail through the door bitching about something, grab a handful of whatever had been left in the communal snack area and pop it in his mouth, dump his shit on his desk, pluck the bulletin outta his in-box and settle back in his chair to catch up on the events of the day.
the bulletin, you ask?
the bulletin was the firm's daily newspaper--who's outta the office, who closed a big deal, who's having a birthday, who's selling girl-scout cookies for their kid, that sorta thing.
as the first guy in, it was my job to pull together and distribute the bulletin firm-wide each morning. being a creative type, i decided early on to liven up the dry, uninteresting rag i had inherited by adding graphics and shit.
on the morning in question, whilst searching the corel archives for a piece of clip-art to spice up a notice for some secretary's kid's candy-bar sale, amongst all the usual inoffensive images of balloons and birthday cakes popped up one that was so completely outta place and inappropriate it almost made my eyes bug out outta my head.
but it also started the wheels turning in my evil little brain, and in a flash, la leche de la madre league was born.
please understand: normally, i can't abide practical jokes--not merely because they're juvenile, but because (when i do 'em, anyway) they tend to become incredibly detail-oriented and time-consuming--but when presented with an opportunity of this magnitude, i simply couldn't resist.
once it was saved and distributed, i pulled up the day's bulletin, made a copy, excised the item regarding said secretary's kid's candy-bar sale and replaced it with something very much like the following [sadly, this was back before i realized the importance of saving shit]:
Support la Leche de la Madre League
In order to promote the healthy practice of breast-feeding of infants
in poor Latin American countries, la Leche de la Madre League
is selling these delicious breast-milk chocolate candy bars to
demonstrate that human breast milk is infinitely superior in taste
and nutritional value to ordinary cows' milk.
Please, stop by [secretary's] desk, buy a bar and show your
support for this most worthy cause.
i printed one copy of this faux-bulletin, which went directly into paul's in-box in place of the real thing.
i then dropped by the secretary's desk who was selling chocolate bars for her kid, bought a bar for a dollar, removed the label and, bringing to bear my not-inconsiderable desktop publishing skills, created a new label which was identical in every way to the original--except for the shit i chose to change, of course.
once i was satisfied it was perfect, i wrapped the old candy bar in its spanking-new label, opened it, laid it out in the communal food area, broke off a piece for authenticity's sake, informed the room of what was up, calmed their fears, told 'em to play along--they were almost all actors in their other lives, and good ones--and sat back and waited for 2:00.
it went like clockwork.
at the usual time, paul breezed through the door, paused at the communal food table, snapped a piece off the candy bar somebody'd thoughtfully provided, popped it in his mouth, rounded his desk, dropped his shit, reached for the bulletin as he chomped his newly-acquired mouthful o' milk chocolate and settled back in his chair.
i counted maybe 30 seconds before he looked up, eyes wide, came outta his chair cursing and spitting chocolate, rounded his desk, grabbed and read with all-consuming horror the wrapper which elaborated the all-too-human ingredients of the chocolate he'd just ingested
and maybe 45 seconds before the room finally erupted in laughter and i told him to relax, it was just a joke.
[that this bit of harmless levity would later and very decisively come back to bite mkf in the ass is a given, but that's another story for another day. whatever--on this day at least, i got the last laugh.]
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
this one's for stevie, wherever he might be
.
spring 1991 (i think)
they lived on clark drive just south of wilshire, these three boys, in a pretty little salmon-colored stucco bungalow they paid too much for just so they could say they lived in beverly hills.
high-school chums, they'd all come out together from florida the year before--that's what steve told me as we stumbled drunk into his house that first night after having found each other at rage or somewhere.
he flipped on lights, showed me around, pointed out pictures of himself and his roommates accompanied by running commentary as to their personalities and characters that was as unsparing and offhandedly hilarious as it would later prove to be spot-on.
robert I was an ethereally pretty boy whose pictures mostly featured him on polo ponies--it was his family's money that allowed him and his friends to live on clark drive
and it was only later i'd find out his fragile, luminous beauty was the result of the way AIDS first shows itself in the very young.
robert II was this ralph lauren-model type with a sociopath's smile whom i immediately wanted
and i'd get my shot--the line that made it easy was, "don't worry, steve said it's ok," which turned out to be the lie he always used when he took one of steve's toys away from him.
steve, as appealing as he would've been anywhere else, was the ugly duckling of a very pretty house; try as i might over the next several months, i could never convince him of his beauty, his singular wit or his value to the world.
whatever--we fags all seem to hate ourselves for something or other. point of this post is,
on the very first morning i awoke in the house on clark drive, it was to bright sunlight and clean, white curtains flapping in the warm breeze above the bed, the smells of bacon and coffee, and the haunting strains of this song wafting through the air.
i lay there and listened, transfixed.
as its final notes faded into the ether, i got up, dragged on my clothes, wandered out to the kitchen to join steve, robert I, robert II and their respective tricks du jour, and asked
who the fuck was that?
the incredulous looks on their faces i'll never forget.
what can i say--i was new.
spring 1991 (i think)
they lived on clark drive just south of wilshire, these three boys, in a pretty little salmon-colored stucco bungalow they paid too much for just so they could say they lived in beverly hills.
high-school chums, they'd all come out together from florida the year before--that's what steve told me as we stumbled drunk into his house that first night after having found each other at rage or somewhere.
he flipped on lights, showed me around, pointed out pictures of himself and his roommates accompanied by running commentary as to their personalities and characters that was as unsparing and offhandedly hilarious as it would later prove to be spot-on.
robert I was an ethereally pretty boy whose pictures mostly featured him on polo ponies--it was his family's money that allowed him and his friends to live on clark drive
and it was only later i'd find out his fragile, luminous beauty was the result of the way AIDS first shows itself in the very young.
robert II was this ralph lauren-model type with a sociopath's smile whom i immediately wanted
and i'd get my shot--the line that made it easy was, "don't worry, steve said it's ok," which turned out to be the lie he always used when he took one of steve's toys away from him.
steve, as appealing as he would've been anywhere else, was the ugly duckling of a very pretty house; try as i might over the next several months, i could never convince him of his beauty, his singular wit or his value to the world.
whatever--we fags all seem to hate ourselves for something or other. point of this post is,
on the very first morning i awoke in the house on clark drive, it was to bright sunlight and clean, white curtains flapping in the warm breeze above the bed, the smells of bacon and coffee, and the haunting strains of this song wafting through the air.
i lay there and listened, transfixed.
as its final notes faded into the ether, i got up, dragged on my clothes, wandered out to the kitchen to join steve, robert I, robert II and their respective tricks du jour, and asked
who the fuck was that?
the incredulous looks on their faces i'll never forget.
what can i say--i was new.
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