I’ve been trying to think of ways to write about my new Shih-Tzu puppies, littermates Hyphen (boy) and Sash (girl), without being one of those annoying bloggers going e-googly over his pets, but in reality it’s hard to figure out what I even want to say. It’s difficult to put into words how it feels to suddenly be caring for something tiny and only recently alive, so utterly dependent and so fiercely stubborn. When they lie on their backs and kick like babies as we stroke their fat little bellies, it elicits an unexpectedly paternal feeling. I feel like a mother dog with her ears pricked up whenever they yelp (usually while roughhousing) or do something they shouldn’t. Or do exactly what they're supposed to...GOOD BOY! GOOD GIRL! [Insert stock footage of hand offering treat.]
I have noticed there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this brand-new experience (today was their ninth DAY with us), many metaphors. They’re teaching me about time-management, about what really matters to me (not only them, but their pressing needs have helped to push some driftwood aside), about justice (try refereeing) and about simple joy.
Pictures I’ve taken of them suggest different things for me—one, of them running like nothing else in life matters, called to mind the movement to free Tibet since their breed originates in that oppressed country.
But as far as metaphors go, the most important thing I’ve had to figure out pretty quickly is that whatever the puppies might mean to me on a deeper level, regardless of what they’ll bring to my life over time, puppies make lousy metaphors because there is no time to ponder when one is hungry, barking, in distress or searching for a far-away, inappropriate place to poop.
We finally got our puppies, and almost immediately began plotting how to get rid of them.
Not really. Not...quite.
I hired a car service for us to pick them up in Connecticut. The car broke down on the way, so a replacement arrived—it reeked of cigarette smoke, making me worry our tiny-muzzled new Shih-Tzus would get sick, and the service had decided I only needed a one-way job. It was fixed, but got things off to a "ruff" start.
Picking them up was fast and painless. Getting them into their carriers was easy, too. Once in the car, our boy, Hyphen, threw a shrieking fit. I had no idea they’d be able to make so much noise this young, and his panic truly rattled us. She reacted to him, but not as loudly—she’d been to the vet for hernia surgery already, so might be less stressed by confinement. I rode with him, stroking him through the top until he finally calmed down 25 minutes later. This was the first moment we realized our crating experience might be a doozy.
Once home, Hyphen and Sash tentatively left their carriers and sniffed around, then all was forgotten and they began exploring with gusto. Sash seemed really fat to me and her belly was hard. Lesson learned—she inaugurated the living room with what seemed like days’ worth of food. What a dump!
Last Friday, José and I went to Las Vegas to do some girl-watching; specifically, we had tickets for Miss USA.
I'm not a pageant person at heart. When I was young, pageants did fit nicely in my fantasy-world outlook—they had glamour for its own sake, they turned women into sex objects (just like I did with my drawings, though for different reasons) and they were usually billed as "special events" on TV, back when there were only a handful of channels and deviations from their lineups were indeed rare.
At some point, I began listening to the girls' answers to The Final Question and was turned off—they always spoke in ways that seemed to me to be in opposition to all that had just preceded that moment. They trumpeted family, the military, Christian values. They struck me as huge phonies—why couldn't anyone see they were sizzling, sexual monsters, not future homemakers of America? It was like how nobody noticed Michael Jackson was a flamboyant queen. In both cases, maybe sequins acted as a protective force field...?
I was wrong, of course—those values did not contradict conservative values. There is a sexual side to conservatism, too, it's just that the male/female sex roles are much more rigidly defined. It's okay for women to be sexy beasts, to flaunt their assets, as long as it's clear they are aimed at pleasing men. Young, hot girls can avoid being liberal sluts if they use their cleavage to attract old, not-so-hot, established men or use their anatomical gifts to satisfy husbands who did things like playing football or fighting our enemies foreign and domestic.
Bombshells are as American as cherry pie; if she talks the talk of the right ("My platform is saving sick children through Bible study!"), the swath of her hips can successfully pass over both the left and right sides of the catwalk.
Of course, some pageant girls in recent years have seemed to break the mold, to not wear their Christianity like a crusading shield, choosing apolitical answers, floating in an irreligious aura, caring about HIV/AIDS. Perhaps we'll have one soon who's against "bullying," a code for queer tolerance.
Of the major pageants, Miss Universe is the cool one despite being owned by Donald Trump, the one less likely to produce Ann Coulters in swimsuits—the girls are from outside the USA (except for Miss USA, who this year is from Texas...which might as well be a foreign country to some other citizens). José is my "Mr. Universe" not because of his Schwarzeneggerdly muscle mass, but because as a Puerto Rican, Miss Universe has been an unending fascination for him for 38 years, ever since they won their first crown. (Check out how different Miss Universe 1970—PR's first—and Miss America 1970 looked, at right.) Now, 56 years after the first contest, Puerto Rico is second only to the U.S. with five crowns, and there is every reason to believe they'll snatch their sixth this year with Trump favorite Ingrid Marie Rivera. (Yes, she really was pepper-sprayed...there was proof!!!)
The winner of Miss USA goes on to Miss Universe, explaining why we were arriving at the show at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on April 11.
The universal beauty of Planet Hollywood.
The second we arrived, we got out of the cab and saw Chace Crawford of Gossip Girl—his sister, Candice, was Miss Missouri—checked in, saw Donny Osmond (another Republican childhood diversion and, with his sister, the show’s co-host) and then went to the adjacent upscale mall to eat.
The place we wanted was closed and we only had a few hours before showtime. As we walked to our second choice, I spotted a beauty in pink seated at a Brazilian restaurant. “Isn’t that her?” I asked José. I’ll never forget his face as his blank expression was colored with shock—it was her, it was Miss Puerto Rico. She was eating dinner with an entourage that included some cute guys, her trainer (Miss Universe guru Magali Febles) and her frenemy Miss Dominican Republic. She looked lovely, with flawless hair and giant eyes—every inch una ganadora.
Reinas: José with (L-R), Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza, Miss Puerto Rico Ingrid Marie Rivera and Miss Washington (who is part Puerto Rican) Michelle Font.
I’m sometimes reticent to ask for photos in a situation like that, but this was an emergency situation—it’s not just, “Oh, there is Famous Person A, I should get my pic with her,” it’s, “There is the embodiment of a hobby I’ve had for 38 years. I’m getting the picture if I have to hold her down.”
Ingrid saw José’s reaction and quickly finished a bite (of salad), washed it down with water and stood to greet us and pose for pictures. She was gracious and composed. “Likewise,” she said when I told her I was pleased to meet her, just like a pageant queen would have said back in the early days of the contest.
When they walked past our restaurant later, José had the video on them and they gave him the sweetest video ever, one that overcame any redness-of-face I experienced as our fellow diners stared at us like we were paparazzi storm troopers.
The Chace is on.
The show itself was lightning fast. I was more interested in pageant-people-watching than anything else—I hadn’t seen so many boobies since What Would You Say To A Naked Lady?—and the moms, whether surprisingly disheveled or preserved like lamb fetuses in embalming fluid, were as fascinating to look at as their too-perfect daughters. Our seats were four rows from the stage (you can see us on the telecast), way ahead of Chace Crawford’s clan. Emboldened by José’s earlier maneuver, I was able to get my pic with Chace, who was as gracious as Miss Puerto Rico and is now my choice for Mr. Missouri.
Candice Crawford emerged, after losing, in a spectacular short-shorts outfit.
We had an excellent view of all the judges—yes, Heather Mills was booed by a couple of people, not shocking from a crowd for whom legs are everything—allowing us to see how Rob Schneider and Christian Siriano had to sprint to the restroom at commercial breaks:
The most noteworthy things during the show: How Donny and Marie Osmond would go from “on” to “off” at breaks, huddling with serious faces when the cameras were not on. Professional to the nth degree. Marie at one point mouthed, “I’m too old for this!” of her dress and laughed, clearly to undercut anyone who might think she was, because she didn’t think she was, and she wasn’t. Donny also went over to chat with Miss South Carolina Teen USA Lauren Caitlin Upton, she of the infamous “maps” answer, after teasing her mildly from the stage. I later got a pic with her. I asked, "Could I trouble you for a photo?" and, living up to her rep, she cooed, "No, not at all!" meaning yes. My head's giant in our shot, but she has a Marilyn-in-All-About-Eve quality.
After, all the judges filed past—I got footage of Days Of Our Lives queen Kristian Alfonso, an obsession of my friend Frank Anthony Pllito who is immortalized in his upcoming book Band Fags!—and José got still more footage of not only Miss Puerto Rico and Miss Dominican Republic, but also Miss Venezuela, Puerto Rico’s always-rival for the crown. Seeing those exotic beauties in the audience as America’s contestants duked it out could not have been comforting to the ladies on stage; I don’t see the impressive Miss Texas as a world-class contender, but we’ll find out July 13 at Miss Universe.
As Project Runway's Nick Verreos told us, "There's the Miss Universe Top 3 right there!"
I had a lot of fun with my Miss USA experience, even if I suspected I’d have little in common with most of its most hardcore devotees, mainly because I focused on the aspects that united us—a shamelessly visual appreciation of startling beauty, a kneejerk tendency to tear it apart, a voyeuristic love/hate with celebrity and a tribal worship of anything on the tee-vee.
Sash & Hyphen to Matt & José: "Which one of you bitches is our mother?"
Our Shih-Tzus, Sash (left) and Hyphen (right) continue to "bake" as we close in on their pick-up date (May 3). They're the cutest, most terrifying things on the horizon for me...it's hard to imagine how much work they'll be looking at how easy-going they appear. But I harbor no illusions—they're going to teach me the meaning of dog-eat-dog.
I spent a few solitary days in Puerto Rico, during which time I snapped some images that summed up the experience for me. Some are prototypical, some are anything but. Puerto Rico is that way—you go expecting it to either be just like another state or more like an exotic foreign country. In practice, it's both and neither.
My partner was born and raised there, but never experienced a gay side. It wasn't until we visited together as a couple within the past 10 years that he became aware of a small gay scene, which did us no good as an old married couple anyway. He'd never felt free to be gay in Puerto Rico, and so he was surprised to find the beginnings of a new openness.
On this trip, walking solo from the Caribe Hilton to Old San Juan, I discovered another kind of gay scene—a scenic offshoot of the main drag that was lined with parked cars whose drivers wore sunglasses and stared holes into each other. I didn't get it at first, but it crossed my mind that this was a classic, old-school gay pick-up area. The second time I walked through, I was embarrassed that I'd even questioned this impression. The third time (only three—I taxied on one of my excursions to the casino), there was a hot guy standing apart from the cars. I walked past, thinking I could snap an iPhoto of him, but when he turned and revealed he had "forgotten" underwear to go with his thin track pants, I became distracted and snapped an excellent picture of a wall.
For me, it was at first kind of a campy experience—I'm not looking for an award, but I've never even considered hitting up an area like that, I've never been attracted to furtive sex in a men's room, I've never been on either side of a glory hole, I've never been to a bathhouse and I've never hung out in a porn theater. Don't cry for me—I've indulged in plenty of perverted things and realized plenty of personal fantasies. It's just that for me, sex is far more psychological than physiological (which is sometimes more of a curse than a blessing), so it's only natural that I'd be turned off by anything hinting at desperation. I can't help focusing on the bleaker aspects of these meeting grounds...for some, they may represent abandon, but it's limited, only a tease of real freedom.
The men I saw in Puerto Rico in that cruising space—hiding out right in the open, right in the sunshine—struck me as married guys regretting their self-imposed prisons. They are gay and straight, both and neither.
I'm not arguing against any of the ways gay men meet each other, even the ones that I might personally consider potentially more harmful than helpful as a result of how my sexuality works, my upbringing or my hands-on experience—it's a free country. It's just, even in the pockets where the rules are broken and animal sexuality is unleashed, it's still not free enough.
In early May, once they're ready to "come home" (as breeders put it), José and I will be adding two Shih-Tzus to our family. They are (left to right) Sash (a female) and Hyphen (a male). Sash was chosen for the iconic element of beauty pageants, a hobby of José's, and Hyphen is a dog name I've had for a decade, referring to my profession and also to his diminutive size. Scared. Shitless. Have not had a dog since my family got my Cairn terrier, Cinnamon, over 25 years ago, and most of the care fell on my parents. But we're excited.
Promises I intend to keep:
(1) I won't post endlessly about their progress or about how amazing every one of their bowel movements, spills and yawns are.
(2) I'll keep pictures to a bare minimum.
(3) I won't become one of those dog owners who feels it's cool to march into restaurants and stores with my dogs.
(4) I'll never let my leash block off 75% of available space on a sidewalk, oblivious to the fact that people can't get past.
(5) I won't be heartbroken forever if either of them ever gets sick or dies.
I'll definitely keep these promises, or at least some of them. At least for a while.
It's so strange to me that it's Easter...I'm notorious for forgetting holidays these days, to the point where people will have to spell it out to me why they're not going to be able to call me back on a given special day. Easter is a holiday I equate with Reese's peanut butter eggs, chocolate bunnies and the vinegar stench of Paz Easter-egg dye, applied with the aid of a flimsy wire dipper that'll do more for your hand-eye coordination than Atari 2600 any day.
Hiding in plain sight, 1984.
I know from childhood it has a bigger meaning—a command performance at church.
An '80s Easter with blown-out eggs decorated to look like Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper & Michael Jackson.
One year, as a kid, I remember my dad helped me with a Flint Journal contest to find impossibly well concealed eggs all around the city. We didn't find any—I think the prize was cash, but the fact that he indulged me was more of a treat. I was into mass contests at the time, like the book Who Killed The Robins Family, and was no more successful a detective than I was a deteggtive.
Mass contests and...Garfield???
Ever since I left home, Easter's been meaningless for me. José used to like to make something special, like a ham or maybe corned beef and cabbage. Today, it's down to Weight Watchers spaghetti (only six points! tastes like nine!) and I didn't get any candy this year. I did find some egg whites this morning concealed in a whole wheat wrap.
With washcloth bunnies made by my late grandmother.
The only holiday that has any impact on me whatsoever is Christmas, because we make an effort to see our families on and around it. I kind of miss caring about holidays, but you can't just make yourself care again like you can just make yourself stop eating Easter candy. Maybe for me holidays worked best when I was young, like overeating or my shoulder.
Marilyn Monroe was my first love—I was quasi-obsessed with her before Madonna, before Debbie, before Cyndi. I think it was because she was such an icon to people of my mom's age, and I think what moms want, gay sons want. They even wind up wanting their very own daddy! Or wanting to be one. And I don't mean in the adoptive or procreative senses.
I didn't identify with Marilyn so much because she was tragic—I hate that explanation for why gay men identify with her or Judy or Edith Piaf. It wasn't that she was like me in some sad way, it was just that I loved her because she represented an unrestrained sexuality blossoming in an environment that claimed not to condone it. That she had died was not what caught my attention, it was that she had really lived.
That goes a long way when you're trapped in suburbia with a secret desire to see your buddies nekkid.
I used to buy up every cheesy, mass-produced poster of her and tacked them all over my walls, directly competing with my own then-current, very much living idols. It was as if Marilyn had lived so intensely she was still kind of alive for decades after her literal death. And just as a fan, there were always "new" photos I'd never seen popping up.
Sometime in college (see me at left...idolizing Marilyn wasn't my only beard), I began to lose my Marilyn fervor. I think to me she'd become so omnipresent she was almost like Mickey Mouse. People I didn't even like liked her—she meant so many different things to so many different people that I kind of backed away. But only from being a kooky collector; her movies and photo shoots are still mesmerizing.
My friend Gordon sent me to this link to a story at Times Online about Marilyn's early years, featuring images from Marilyn Monroe: Private And Undisclosed by Michelle Morgan, published by Carroll & Graf last year. I've seen some and haven't seen some of the images, but they're all captivating. I still feel like a former Norma Jeane myself, currently living as my own Marilyn Monroe. Even if I never got the voice right, I'm ever so happy I had her as an early inspiration to be myself, even if my self was not at all what others expected it to be.
I spent an afternoon last weekend walking. When I first moved to the city just over 15 years ago, I walked until I had no weight to lose, not in order to lose weight, but in order to lose myself. Immersed in a city of foreigners who were nonetheless citizens of my own country, I wanted to see how New York lived, worked, socialized, bought and sold. No sooner had I gotten a taste, I started to habitualize my wanderings until they became more like treks. When I walked, I walked with such a regularity it reminded me of hamsters in a Habitrail, methodically covering already covered ground.
Got the KooKoo lightbox at my Chicago version of Record Runner—Flashback.
On these walks, which echoed similar walks I’d perfected in Chicago, I went looking for Madonna’s face on magazine covers, for her voice on CDs and vinyl, for books, for other ephemera. I collected things, and things could only be found if they were hunted down—it was rare that I happened to find something I desperately wanted. More likely, I heard it existed and went in search of it.
FREE TIBET!
figure out what I even want to say. It’s difficult to put into words how it feels to suddenly be caring for something tiny and only recently alive, so utterly dependent and so fiercely stubborn. When they lie on their backs and kick like babies as we stroke their fat little bellies, it elicits an unexpectedly paternal feeling. I feel like a mother dog with her ears pricked up whenever they yelp (usually while roughhousing) or do something they shouldn’t. Or do exactly what they're supposed to...GOOD BOY! GOOD GIRL! [Insert stock footage of hand offering treat.]
Pictures I’ve taken of them suggest different things for me—one, of them running like nothing else in life matters, called to mind the movement to free Tibet since their breed originates in that oppressed country.
