Who embodies class, masculinity and sophistication?

In today's New York Times -- the paper version of which I receive Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays -- was an eight-page advert for American Airlines. The first page features a picture of a well-dressed, ruggedly handsome and masculine Gregory Peck. I'm guessing American believes these are all the qualities that appeal to the business community: solid, strong and flying off somewhere wonderful to do something important.

And who does American choose to represent those same qualities today? That would be out and proud gay actor Neil Patrick Harris. You go, Neil!

And kudos to American Airlines.

Masters and Servants

It’s been a while since Downton Abbey was last on TV but I've been thinking of Mr. Carson the butler and the rest of the downstairs staff for two weeks now. More than thinking, I've been empathizing with them, though I'd wager that Carson would argue I am nothing like them.

The Yale College Writing Center co-sponsored a lecture on April 8 by David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and several other books. I loved the book, and the film, and was quite willing to do all the work necessary to insure David’s visit went well: ten pages of forms to get an honorarium paid to a foreign national, car service arrangements, hotel booking, hall rental, etc. Everything did go well; the event was well attended and my boss wrote me an especially kind thank you note afterward. I take my job seriously and was pleased he recognized my efforts.

One of the events was a dinner, sandwiched between a Master’s Tea and the lecture; it was for David and nine guests. I was not one of them.

It was perfectly natural that I not be invited and I totally understand that reality. In truth, had I been invited I likely would not have gone: there was too much to do for the evening lecture. (In deeper truth I likely would have not gone because those kind of affairs make me uncomfortable -- why is a subject for another, more soul-searching post). I am not writing to say I should have been invited to the dinner, that I wanted to be invited or to rail against the administrative traditions that kept me from being invited. I am writing only to say I know what it feels like to be the servant. Like Carson, I serve my master; I call him my boss, but he is to me what Lord Grantham is to Carson.

There was a time when it was not “supposed” to be like this. I was a straight-A high school student who entered Notre Dame as an optimistic freshman and managed to make Dean’s List my first semester. I was destined to be, in Tom Wolfe’s words, a Master of the Universe.

Didn’t happen.

I went down a different road. I dropped out of ND, served in VISTA, returned to Notre Dame only to drop out again and then spent 20 odd years in the restaurant business. In 1984 I met Ransom and then in 1986 we reunited and began our life together.

I have few complaints. Just the other day my friend Dan remarked that I had led a fascinating life; I agree. I have been enriched by most everything I ever did and had even one thing been different – think of Bradbury's butterfly – I likely would not have met the man of my dreams and would not be where I am today.

So again, this is not a complaint -- just an observation. There are masters and there are servants in this world. I know which I am.

Theatre queens and selfish bitches

It’s been a busy New York theatre week: Wednesday I saw Once with my cousins, Friday night I was back for I Remember Mama and today I returned to see mothers and sons. But before I talk about any of that, it’s time for an overdue rant:

I HATE SELFISH PEOPLE! I’m thinking of the ones I see every time I ride the train; they spread their (often ample) bottoms over one seat and then pile their belongings on the seats around them, completely ignoring the overhead racks available to carry home their too much stuff. They do it because they're too damn lazy to stand up and lift their packages, backpacks, suitcases and kitchen sinks to the racks, but they also do it because they are building a fort to keep the enemy – other train riders – out. They know that, given the choice, most commuters would rather keep looking for an available seat than ask a stranger to move her stuff.

The conductors try on every ride to get people to take their belongings off the seat, but it does little good. “This is a very crowded train; no feet on the seats please, no bags on the seats. Please make every seat available.” They may as well be saying Ξέρω ότι με αγνοούν. Παρακαλώ να σταματήσει να είναι τόσο εγωιστής.

Back to theatre.

Once was thoroughly enjoyable and the two leads, Paul Alexander Nolan and Joanna Christie, sang beautifully. I would be a bit surprised it won the 2012 Tony for Best Musical if I didn't remember its weak competition: Leap of Faith, Newsies and Nice Work If You Can Get It. I recommend the movie highly; once you’ve seen that you can skip the show, though I did love the show's music and sound. Ben Brantley had this to say about the soundscape in his 2012 NY Times review: 

Once features another rarity in a Broadway show: amplification that enhances rather than distorts the music. (Clive Goodwin is the sound designer.) When the violins begin to play in “Once” — and the accordion and the mandolin and the guitars and the cello — the instruments swell into a collection of distinctive voices melded into a single, universal feeling. 

I Remember Mama was dazzling in a very quiet way. Very dazzling. It’s a play by John Van Druten based on Kathryn Forbes' book Mama's Bank Account.  The play dates from 1944 and there was a 1948 film. If you know it at all you are likely remembering the TV show, which aired from 1949 to 1957. The play focuses on the Hanson family, Norwegians who immigrated to San Francisco in the 1910s. It’s tender and wise and moving but, most remarkably, is here acted by ten women whose total years on the stage pass three centuries. Barbara Andres stars as Mama and Barbara Barrie plays Katrin; they are the two “stars,” but the other eight women (Alice Cannon, Lynn Cohen, Rita Gardner, Susan Lehman, Heather MacRae, Phyllis Somerville, Louise Sorel, Dale Soules), who all play multiple roles, male and female, are just as brilliant and just as much stars. I name them all because, while I didn't recognize any of them, you might -- and they deserve to be acknowledged as true queens of the theatre.

It was a mesmerizing performance at the Gym at Judson. We were a full house of perhaps 125, sitting against all four walls of this unconventional theatre space. Among the playgoers, sitting a few feet from me, was Meryl Streep. I only travel in the best circles!

If Mama was quietly moving, mothers and sons, Terrence McNally’s latest work, is profoundly sad and emotional at times and wildly funny at other times. It features a brilliant Tyne Daly, doing work every bit as good as her dazzling turn in Master Class, another McNally effort. This powerful drama is a continuation of his 1990 TV play, Andre’s Mother. Andre died of AIDS while living with Cal and now, twenty years later, Andre’s mother has come to pay a visit to Cal and his husband and their six-year-old son. Unlike lesser plays this one has the conviction to not hand us any feel-good endings; it speaks truth and truth is, as we all know, sometimes brutal, sometimes hysterically funny and always multi-layered.

Daly was intense, frightening, wound tight and on the verge of losing it through the ninety minutes of mothers and sons -- she too is a queen of the theatre. Frederick Weller as Cal (center) and Bobby Steggert as Will (left) were each compelling and convincing. The writing though was my favorite part. I've liked everything by McNally I've ever seen -- Love! Valour! Compassion! / Kiss of the Spider Woman / Master Class / Ragtime --  and this one joins that vaulted list. I laughed, I cried; it was better than -- well, most anything.

Cast and playwright of mothers and sons

My favorite, once removed

Growing up in places as disparate as Tokyo, Richmond, VA, and Jessup, GA, my sense of family was very small. It was my brother and my folks -- that was it. I mean, sure, I had grandparents, uncles, cousins and all the rest, but I rarely saw them. Except for fifteen months when I was four and five, we never lived in the same city as any relatives. Those fifteen months were spent in Rochester, NY, my Dad’s hometown, but, ironically, he wasn’t there; he was in Korea.

Another sad fact of my family story is that “family” pretty much meant “Dad’s family.” They were the ones we traveled to see when we could; they were the ones we spent an occasional Christmas with. My Mom’s family lived at times in Puerto Rico, California, Texas and New Jersey and, although we did travel to the last three, going to visit family usually meant a trip to Rochester.

I’m sad about that, but I understand it. In the 50s many Americans from other places wanted to be as Anglo as possible. My Mom certainly did; she dyed her hair blond, taught her two sons only English, learned to cook American favorites and generally fit right in with all the other suburban housewives. She sacrificed her culture and her family for her husband’s; it’s a shame, but I wouldn’t come to realize that for dozens of years.

It’s still true that I am closer to the Foerys than I am to the Toros. More Foerys live in Rochester – still – than anywhere else. Three cousins and their offspring live there, as does the senior surviving member of my Dad’s generation, my about-to be-ninety-four year-old Aunt Sally.

Yesterday though I spent the day with a much younger Foery, my cousin Bill’s fifteen year-old son Brendan. Bill was there too; the three of us went into the city to see the Broadway musical Once (based on the wonderful film of the same name), to have lunch, and, likely most important to Brendan, to hang out in Times Square so he could play his guitar and sing some of the songs he’s written.

It was a thrill for him, and for me too. A security guard told us that Brendan couldn’t play for money – something he wasn’t interested in doing – but before I closed his guitar case a man threw in a coin that turned out to a US $1 coin – pretty rare, and a great souvenir.

Brendan told me later he was stepping out of his comfort zone to do this, but he did himself proud. Several tourists took his picture and one new fan even Tweeted about the experience.

I love my cousins in Rochester, but Bill, who lives in Vermont, is the one I see the most. We have a history that dates back to the winter of 1970 when he was just a kid and I was a ski bum, working and living in his parents’ restaurant/inn. We did several roller coaster road trips in the 80s and 90s and he claims we were once involved in some petty larceny, but I'm taking the fifth on that. We have seen each other in CT and VT somewhat regularly over the years. Ransom and I were there when Bill married the lovely Denise Young in 1998.

Now we have even more reason to get together as I realize that, along with a favorite cousin, I have a favorite cousin once removed. Rock on Brendan!

Here's a one-minute video of the event; it's almost inaudible, but at least the moment's been captured for posterity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLjvqwNiXnI&feature=youtu.be

Proud Papa with Up and Coming Star

Happy 26th

My friend Dan turned twenty-six recently. Dan is the son of Tom, my dearest Notre Dame buddy. It is deeply satisfying to me that I have a close relationship with both father and son. I wrote about them in an earlier post you can read here if you'd like.

In remembering Dan's twenty-sixth I told him about mine. It was long ago and a very different time -- a time when the local draft board often determined a young man's future -- or, in fact, whether or not he had one. My eighteenth birthday had of course been exciting and twenty-one made me legal in all sorts of ways, but twenty-six was the big one.

I started at Notre Dame in September of 1966, turning eighteen on my third day there. After a year and a half I dropped out to join VISTA -- for those of you who don't know it, that's Volunteers in Service to America, kind of a domestic Peace Corps. As soon as I dropped out I heard from my draft board; they called me in for a physical.

My VISTA acceptance papers arrived two days before the scheduled physical, but when I phoned the draft board they said, "you'd better come in for the exam; we'll likely give you a deferment, but if you don't show up they might go looking for you and the deferment won't matter."

So I went through the long, mostly boring, occasionally humiliating, pre-induction physical demanded by my friendly Uncle Sam. And then headed to Chicago for VISTA training a couple weeks later, with my II-A (Occupational) deferment in hand.

A year-and-a-half after that I returned to Notre Dame, securing a student deferment again, but then dropped out once more in the aftermath of Kent State. I headed to New York where I started my first job waiting tables, at Steak and Brew, 51st and Broadway. My pesky uncle wrote me again, wanting another pre-induction physical.

This time I had no student deferment and no occupational deferment and was likely to be given a ticket on the government's Vietnam Express.

I was opposed to the war but, more than that, I was opposed to killing. I was willing to serve my country, but I felt I had just done that with seventeen months of VISTA service. I would NOT be drafted, so this time when I completed the paperwork I "checked the box." The question, to the best of my memory was, "Do you now have or have you ever had homosexual tendencies?" It was one of many questions on the form that asked about my physical/mental status. Saying "yes" meant that I was scheduled to see an Army shrink a week later.

That conversation was remarkably short and easy. The officer asked, "what's this about being homosexual? You didn't claim to be the last time you were here." I told him I had come out since. He asked what I did. I thought at first he was asking about my sex life; he clarified the question, asking, "What to you do? The bars? The street?" I told him that, no, I had a boyfriend. And that was pretty much it.

I was told to wait outside the office and was then given a form to "take to desk 10." When I handed it to the uniformed man there he smirked at me and said, "Ok."

"Ok?" I asked.

"Ok to go; get the hell out of here."

"Yes, sir!" I replied, wanting to salute but thinking better of it.

A week or so later I received the official letter from the my local draft board, stating that I was classified I-Y. That meant I could still be drafted, but only in time of national emergency, i.e. we were under attack. Relieved, I went on with my life. It was June of 1971; I was twenty-three years old.

So what's this about turning twenty-six? Well, that was the age that the draft board was officially done with you. They only wanted young men to send to Vietnam. Anyone twenty-six and over could take the Selective Service off their worry list.

The day I turned twenty-six, September 19, 1974, I celebrated big time, playing "I'm Free" from The Who's Tommy over and over and over again.

So happy birthday, Dan. I'm happy you haven't had to go through what I did.

ps: I should state that I have mixed feelings about this tale. Being gay should never have been a criterion for keeping someone out of the Army. But it was, and the war in Vietnam was such a horrible injustice that I would have done anything to avoid it. Many young men, gay and straight alike, told their draft boards they were homosexual in an attempt to get out.

I also want to add that, on the morning I went down to see the shrink, I first had coffee with my Dad, a career military man. I told him that, whatever happened, I would not go in the Army. He said I would break his heart if I refused induction; hearing that nearly broke my heart, but I told him again I wouldn't go. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

Finally, I should add that my feelings about the Army have undergone many changes over the years. I was opposed to the Vietnam War, and to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, but I support the men of women of the armed services and I applaud their bravery and dedication. My parents are buried together at Arlington National Cemetery and I am immensely proud of that.

When you want it too badly, nobody wants you

The above is from More Tales of the City, the second installment of Armistead Maupin's delightful series documenting the lives and loves of the tenants -- and their friends and coworkers -- at 28 Barbary Lane, San Francisco. Maupin just published The Days of Anna Madrigal, bringing to an end -- so he says -- the nine-book series which started in 1978. Some are better than others, but each book in the series is worth reading, and each can be read in an afternoon.

In 1993 PBS aired a mini-series based on the first book but then caved to right-wing pressure and refused to do the second book. Showtime picked up the thread and released More Tales of the City in 1998 and Further Tales of the City in 2001. In the last month or so I have read or re-read all nine books and watched all three mini-series.

Tales revolves around Anna Madrigal, landlady of a wonderfully atmospheric Victorian spread hidden away in the hills of San Francisco. Mary Ann Singleton moves from Ohio to Barbary Lane and thereby changes almost everything about her life. She meets the eternal romantic Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, the womanizer Brian Hawkins, the frizzy redheaded hippie Mona Ramsey, the black fashion model D'orthea Wilson and a host of other characters representing all stripes of the political/sexual/social rainbow that was San Francisco in the 70s and 80s. Over the arc of nine books we travel from California's Gay Mecca to Westernmost Alaska to Jonestown to the Blue Moon Lodge whorehouse in Winnemucca, Nevada. The plots are silly and over the top and include cannibalism in the cathedral, kidnapping at Barbary Lane, a clandestine visit to Russia, a pool party with a closeted Hollywood movie star and, in the last book, a memorable road trip to Burning Man.

I love these books-- can your tell? The videos are less successful, but still a delight, and the two minute clip I'm sharing with you today -- an unused scene from Showtime's More Tales -- speaks to the truth of this series for me. As a gay man I am expected to identify most with Michael, and I do. But not just because he was oversexed in the 70s, as was I, but because he was such a romantic, always looking for Mr. Right while despairing he would ever find him. The secret to success, he realizes, is to be strong enough to handle being alone, to not put your faith in someone else, to not look desperate -- most of all, not that! Desperation evokes pity in people, not love. When you spend all your energies trying to be coupled you will surely end up single and shamed.

It took me years to learn this lesson. I started my first relationship with Sandy not terribly long after coming out. We were together two years. My next boyfriend moved into our apartment while Sandy and I were still living together as roommates. When that man and I broke up, there was another, and another, and yet another. Every boyfriend was in fact auditioning to be my husband, whether he knew it or not. And when I wasn't involved with someone, I was out looking for more entrants to the cattle call.

It's no wonder it took me years to find my husband. I had to learn to love myself, to live by myself and be happy with myself before I could truly love someone else. I hadn't fully incorporated all those lessons when I met Ransom, but I was on my way. His patience and support allowed me to finish my studies and finally become a man who was worthy of love.

As I watch this video of Michael painfully complaining of his life, I empathize entirely. I've been there. I've even been a cruise ship looking for a husband -- several cruise ships in fact, each one a search. I know for a fact that I scared some men away by coming on too strong too soon. Like Michael, desperation guided my sail. Like Michael, I too eventually learned that's never a good idea.

The quality's not great, but you can view this video here:

 http://youtu.be/OrmP6w-1Ni4