Life imitates art

Peyton Place aired on American TV from September 15, 1964 until June 2, 1969. I never saw a moment of it. I had spent first and second grade in Japan, as well as seventh through ninth; five years without TV broke the habit for me. There have been dozens of shows that “everyone” watched – everyone perhaps, but not I: Mary Tyler Moore, M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Friends, Seinfeld, All in the Family, Cheers – the list goes on and on.

I never watched Peyton Place – or read the book or saw the movie – but ten years after it went off the air, I lived it. I was in Georgetown, living with Chris, who had returned to finish his degree. Our relationship broke apart and one of the ways I coped was to throw myself into the crazy social/sexual world that revolved around Georgie’s, the restaurant/bar at which I worked.

There was a line cook there named Orin who I really liked. He was straight and a weed-smoking rock and roller like me and we would talk music trivia for hours (Who played that killer organ on Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone? What did the Mamas and Papas used to be called?) There was a hostess named Felicia who was soft and sexy and married to a brute of an Italian named Fabio. Georgie’s was where I met my buddy Malette, still a dear friend 33 years later. Fynn also worked in the kitchen, another straight boy who I got to know a bit.

We were a crazy, addicted-to-too-many-things family and we worked hard and played harder. My apartment was just a mile up the road from the restaurant so, after Chris moved out in December, it became party central. We’d gather there at 11pm or later to drink, smoke, snort and talk.

As one of these evenings dragged to its end I noticed that Orin was the last guest standing. That was noteworthy because, cool though he was with me, he was still a bit wary. He was as butch as they come and I was, after all, an out gay man, so he kept some distance. When I asked what was up he looked me in the eyes and said he wanted to sleep with me.

I think I literally turned around to see if he were talking to someone else. It was just not believable. Water’s wet, the sun’s hot, Orin’s straight.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Anyway, he meant it, and so we did it. The next morning we were awoken by a romance shattering pounding on the door. Felicia was there with her sister and a friend, demanding to be let in. In vain I tried to refuse, til Felicia gave me a this-is-serious-resistance-is-futile look. Just as I was wondering what to do with my surprise upstairs, Felicia’s sister says, “and tell Orin to come downstairs; I don’t want to have to go through this twice.”

Whoa! The look on his face when I told him they knew he was here was as painful as I have ever seen on a man. But its intensity fell short of the look he and Felicia shared as he came down the stairs. I couldn’t begin to understand that.

Until a few weeks later when I learned that the two of them had been having an affair.

So let’s recap: Felicia is married to one man and having an affair with another. He has a girlfriend I haven’t even mentioned but is also sleeping with me. There’s only one thing more that could make this a suitable plot for Peyton Place: for me to sleep with Felicia.

Yeah, that happened that summer.

I thought of all this recently when I learned that Fynn, mentioned above, had come out of the closet – more than thirty years later! (Oh the power of homophobia – though that’s just a guess). How does Fynn fit in with all this? Well, the crisis that sent Felicia and company to my house the morning after Orin’s debut started when Patty’s father, who didn’t want his daughter in bed with another woman, threw Felicia’s sister out of Patty’s house. And who’s Patty? Why, she’s the woman Fynn married, had kids with and then, all these years later, came out to.

Am I making any of this up? Not a word! Except that I changed all the names, save for Chris, who was my lover, and Malette, who is still my friend.

Hmmm, maybe I should write screenplays.

This fat lady might stop singing

Powder Her Face, The Turn of the Screw, Moses in Egypt, La Périchole. Quick, what do those four titles have in common?

What? You don’t know? You’ve never heard of any of them?

You’re right! That’s it! You – and most people – have never heard of them.

And what else do they have in common? They comprise the entirety of New York City Opera’s 2012-2013 season! This is the company that, as little as five years ago, offered 110 performances of 13 different operas. This year they offered four performances each of four operas. At least the current season includes pieces that you’ve likely heard of: La Traviata and Così fan tutte as well as the lesser known Orpheus by Telemann and the new Prima Donna by Rufus Wainwright. The numbers are still staggering: from 110 performances to 16, but at least most fans had heard of two or three, maybe even all four, productions.

Next year? Powder Her Face. Really?

Now, before you call me a conservative stick-in-the-mud, yes, of course, I recognize the importance of bringing new, unknown or lesser known works to the public. I in fact just attended -- and LOVED -- a fabulous production of the 16-year-old Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione by Gotham Chamber Opera. But City Opera is fighting for its very survival. Who in their right mind would program four operas that wouldn’t make anyone’s A-list? (And for the record, that excellent Mozart took place at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre at John Jay College; seating: 595. And even this terrific company had trouble selling all those seats. The two venues City Opera will use next year both seat well over 2,000).

It’s beyond comprehension.

I think they need to add a concert to the end of the season. The Verdi Requiem comes to mind.

In case you care, here’s more info, and their web site:

Powder Her Face (Feb 15-23, BAM) 
Thomas Adès’ biting satire on our scandal obsessed culture, directed by Jay Scheib

The Turn of the Screw (Feb 24-Mar 2, BAM)
 Benjamin Britten’s haunting version of Henry James' acclaimed novella, directed by Sam Buntrock

Moses in Egypt (Apr 14-20, New York City Center) 
Rossini’s grand yet rarely-performed retelling of the story of Exodus, directed by Michael Counts

La Périchole (Apr 21-27, New York City Center)
 Jacques Offenbach’s sparkling farce set in Peru and directed by Christopher Alden

http://www.nycopera.com/

A cupola things

I was at the doc yesterday for a routine blood pressure check – my last reading had been too LOW – and was talking to the lovely nurse Donna. When I gave her the short version of the fifteen-month boring saga known as Walter’s Knee -- not to be confused with Claire's Knee, the lovely film by Eric Rohmer -- ND commented that I sounded like such a cynic, but I clearly wasn’t, since I was a nice guy.

“Wait a minute,” I cried, “how dare you call me a nice guy?”

More to the point though, can one not be a nice guy AND be a cynic? I think one can. I think I can. I think I am.

The world is going to hell in a Target shopping basket and we here in the US are leading the way. Most Americans are overweight, unintellectual, easily pleased by television drivel and unschooled in the arts – but that doesn’t mean I’m not nice to them.

I learned my nice skills in the restaurant business. I never taught my waiters that the customer was always right. They knew better. The customer is dead wrong a lot of the time. But the customer has the right to believe he’s right. So be nice to him, sniveling idiot though he may be.

Cynicism and niceness go hand in hand, say I.

Homophobia and heroism do not.

Going up against the Red Cross is like going up against the Boy Scouts or apple pie. Luckily, I love the latter, for I have fought both the former. The Boy Scouts are homophobes, adding to the bullying that’s been much discussed here of late. The Red Cross doesn’t bully gay people so much as demean them.

Every time I see a poster announcing a Red Cross blood drive I want to grab a thick-tipped felt marker and add, “Gays need not apply” since the Red Cross, which always needs blood donors, never needs them enough to accept my blood. Men who have had sex with other men are not allowed to give blood, not if the venerable American Red Cross has anything to do with it.

So here’s what I sent back to them today in response to the solicitation they sent us:

Note: for the record, yes, I know that the Red Cross is following FDA policy and I have read that they, by law, must. But what would happen if the Red Cross did the right thing and refused to follow this homophobic, outdated policy? Well, of course. The FDA would drop it, post haste.

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RIP Levon, and thanks for the music.

Part of my youth, part of my life

Richard Wagstaff Clark: 11/30/1929-04/18/2112

There are so many memories, from watching American Bandstand for hours on end to rushing home from confession (!) on Staurday night to catch the countdown show, to the New Year's Eve celebrations. He has always been part of my life and I will cherish the memories forever.

RIP Dick Clark; thank you for all the great music and for teaching us that we are as young as we want to be.

Betting against marriage

There was a piece in the NY Times over a week ago that is still bouncing around in my brain. Written by Ann Carrns and titled “Refunds for Wedding Gifts After the Couple Splits Up” (April 7, 2012) it was about a new service for people who fear being burned by spending money on a wedding present only to see the marriage fall apart. At WeddingGiftRefund.com you can insure your gift at a cost of 8% of its value. If the couple splits up within 36 months, you can get your purchase price back. So if you spend $100 on a gift, you’d be out only $8. (Read the whole article here).

The article explains that to claim your money you supply the company with the city, county and state of the divorce filing so that the dissolution can be verified. I marveled at that, imagining the phone call you’d have to make; “uh, hi Tom, sorry to hear about the divorce. You mind telling me what court you were in?”

Not exactly the kind of call I’d like to receive. Or make.

More amazingly though was this comment, from one Susan Orlins of Washington:

I love the originality of this idea . . . I had my own starter marriage at the age of 19, divorced at 20 while still in college. Then I had my middle marriage which lasted 18 years, until 1997.

“Starter marriage”? “Middle marriage”? WTF?

I’m once again thunderstruck by an apparent heterosexual talking about marriage as casually as if she were shopping for living room furniture. “Well, we started with some hand-me-downs from Goodwill and then spent years with a set from Ikea before settling on our permanent collection.”

And we, gay and lesbian lovers, husbands and wives, are a threat to marriage?! As I’ve said before, heterosexuals don’t need us to destroy the “sanctity of marriage.” They’ve been doing a fine job of it for years.

Bully Redux

After writing recently about the campaign to get the uptight conservatives who run the MPAA to lighten up and change the R rating they gave Bully, the film arrived in New Haven and I was there for its first showing.

No surprise, it’s powerful stuff! No surprise too, there are few surprises. The only one that really jumped out at me is how clueless so many parents are about their kids’ lives. The star of the film is a 14-year-old Iowa boy named Alex. He is tormented every day at school and, especially, on the school bus. His mother claims to be totally unaware and when she learns of the magnitude of the problem, she marches to school to complain to the Assistant Principal.

This clueless woman responds by claiming that Alex’s bus is “good as gold” and then, in an astonishing attempt to deflect responsibility, shows off pictures of her new grandchild, cooing about how precious all kids are. She’s also shown reprimanding two boys who were seen fighting, but in doing so she praises the bully and berates the victim.

This scenario is repeated by at least two parents who blame their child, at least partially, for the bullying.  You have to fight back, says one, while the other, Alex’s mom, complains that he needs to ditch the so-called friends who are hurting him.

In perhaps the hardest moment of the film to watch, Alex responds “If not for them, what friends do I have?”

There are even sadder tales: of young Tyler Long, a 17-year-old who killed himself in Georgia, where a school superintendent denies there’s a problem with bullying; and of Ty Smalley, an 11-year-old (ELEVEN!) who committed suicide rather than live through another day of bullying.

Considering all this you’d think the film is depressing. It is, of course, and I cried more than once, but that’s not the feeling with which I left the theatre. Partly because of the efforts of Kirk Smalley, Ty’s father, who started the Stand for the Silent anti-bullying program and even more so for the remarkable resolve and bravery of Kelby Johnson, an Oklahoma high school student who came out as a lesbian and refused to let the bible-thumpers run her and her family out of town.

It’s a very ugly world in Bully, but there are some amazing points of light. As usual, the kids lead the way; the adults stumble behind.

This is progress?

An artist rendering of Yale's new colleges

Yale College, the undergraduate division of Yale University, is modeled after Oxford and Cambridge Universities in Britain. Students live in residential colleges. This took a bit of getting used to on my part; I remember asking a student what college he was in, expecting an answer like “Engineering” or “Arts and Letters,” but instead heard “Calhoun.” Say what?

There are twelve residential colleges; the last new one was built in 1961 and Yale has now drawn up plans to build two more. The following is from a Yale Daily News story the other day, “Firm completes construction documents for two new colleges”:

I would love the colleges to start in the fall of 2012, which means that they would be finished, furnished, and up and running by fall 2015," Stern said. "It's one of my great dreams.”

That’s Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert Stern of Robert A. M. Stern Architects.

That struck me as odd. Three years to build two colleges. (I should say that Yale’s residential colleges are far more than dorms: they encompass student living quarters, dining halls with their own kitchens, libraries, meeting rooms, workout rooms, computer rooms, courtyards and a wealth of other amenities).

But still. Three years? And that would be a “dream.”

When did we learn to dream so small?

By comparison, excavation of the site for the Empire State Building started in late January of 1930, with actual construction beginning on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. The building was officially opened on May 1, 1931, LESS THAN FIFTEEN MONTHS LATER! The project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

What the hell’s wrong with us? A building that reigned as the world’s tallest for forty years took fifteen months to build and yet a renowned architect dreams that his two new colleges can be finished in three years?

The older I get the more I understand the phrase “the good old days.”

The Empire State Building, under budget and three months early!