My ex is out of town this weekend so I'm watching his dog. Dexter is a young puppy and, like my 2 year old Peggy, is a Jack Russell Terrier.

Being with them has been very primal. At some point the three of us were splayed across the bed, lounging like lions on the plain. I realize that I, in fact, am in the minority and as such it's to my benefit to "blend in".

I do. Dexter teeths on my forearm and I try to ignore it like Peggy does when he grabs on her jowls. I share food with them, the half chicken from Koo-Koo Roo sitting amidst us like some felled gazzelle.

Walking with them is like walking with my two chattiest, nosiest friends. Peggy walks like a dowager, briskly noting everything while Dexter flits behind her like a balloon on a string. His feet are enormous and with his white, spotted belly he looks like a baby seal. When he barks in Peggy's face, she looks away embarassed by his lack of brevity.

Dexter is going to Puppy School and has been a quick learn and Peggy is an old hand at the whole schtick. She does all the standards and if provoked attempts to them all at once.

When I got Peggy, she was the first dog I'd ever had. We were officially a cat family and my mother is still border-line "Crazy Old Neighbor Woman" with four. As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, "I abhor cheap sentiment" and I certainly felt the same about boy and dog flicks. After living with Peggy, I finally get what the fuss was all about.

10:51:23 PM    sro home /

I went to my dentist last week and asked him why he thought there weren't any Dental Medical Shows on TV. God knows, it's fertile ground. There's so much baggage about the experience and the physical sensations alone should be worth something. I'd think more people would relate to a root canal than having their arm severed.

My dentist is very handsome in a "TV Dentist" kind of way.and when he leans over for the drill, I can see the faint outline of his T-Shirt through his white jacket.

When his face is close to mine, I take the opportunity to look at someone closely without having to talk to them. The skin on his nose, his sideburns, his earlobes. When I ask him if there is such a thing as a "Dental Emergency", his nostrils flare and the skin on his upper lip twitches.

I imagine, say, Kelly Clarkson in her dramatic debut, rushing in hours before the first stop on the American Idol Tour.

"Doctor, quick! I need braces!"

My dentist rushes her to the chair and shoves a cherry flavored swab packed with novacaine up against her gums. Just the sweet/bitter taste of that alone should kick up the Nielsons a few.

I don't think alot of people die in the dental chair. Not much dying isn't great for a medical drama but on the plus side, it's more uplifting.

I imagine whispering something in his ear, this man I'm examining so close. He quickly finishes and I'm slightly dissapointed the whole thing took less than an hour, hardly one show's worth. The rest of the show would have to be filling.

The entire left side of my face is numb and I feel like a drooling Quasimodo.

8:27:26 PM    sro home /

I just heard the Sex Pistol's version of the Frank Sinatra Cover "My Way" used for an investment firm commercial.

No kiddin'.

They had all these versions of My Way and the last one they used, i.e. the lasting impression, was the Sex Pistols. The music was playing over images that were meant to induce some gooey kind-of maternal feeling - pregnant women, babies, sports. Then there it was, one of the most vile, acid-dripping ironies of rock and roll. The Big Fuck You. Selling... something.

I am so not into investment advertising mainly because I have nothing to invest. If I didn't have feet, I wouldn't look at shoes either. If I did have money, I'm not the type of person easily swayed by pretty pictures, especially after all the muck-muck in the news.

The Sex Pistols. Ok, now we're talkin'.

But what coked-up-ad-exec in a Helmut Lang suit thought he could use this song and absolutely no one would notice the irony? I suppose if we do, we're not the "demographic" they're going for.

To me it's like using Eminem for a Pampers ad. Using Sinead O'Conner for an Irish Spring Spot. Using Jacko for Disneyland. Why take away the Irony when the Irony was all there was?

The Matrix is also on, where everyone in the future dresses like an Old Steven Miesel photo. Slouchy handknit sweaters and caps-a-flappin', sleek custom-made leathers. This style was originally Anti-Fashion, saying "I don't care" while simutainiously caring very much.

Now the look means cool, which is to say common, which is to say bland which was the very thing Miesel held in contempt. In movies this look is Hollywood Shorthand meant to intimidate us into loving the characters, "Be a Cool Dude or Just Look Like One". It's the difference between a burger and a meal.

It's a message about change and my innate resistance to not having things My Way.

8:10:34 PM    sro home /

In 1971, I was cool. I lived in Florida with my divorced mother who liked Black Music, my hair covered my ears and we lived in an apartment like Eddie and his father. I had inherited her white vinyl-covered stereo unit with attached speakers that swung out on hinges to reveal aqua-green burlap.

I played 45's she'd bought. Otis Redding. The Devil With The Blue Dress On. She had Supremes albums, just The Supremes, not D.R. and The. I wanted more. I insisted she take me to K-Mart where records stood in bins that looked like file cabinet drawers on spindly gold legs. Music was not God yet. Groups like Three Dog Night did not rise out of nowhere to become lifestyle icons in one to two years. Madonna may have simultaneously been in New Jersey flipping through the $1.49 bins just like I was. Then, even $1.49 seemed like alot.

So I started safe - The Mamas and The Papas, The Cowsills - records any home in America could be proud of. The Cowsills were a whole family, for God's sake. Even though New York was the capital of America, we knew California was blond and sunny.

One day I came home from school to watch reruns of my favorite TV show, an action-mystery series about a criminal who gives up lying and stealing to work for the government. It was glamorous. Cleopatra eyes and pale lips.

Then there They were, The Fifth Dimension. The plot was something about how this one note They sang at the end of the song Puppet Man shattered glass. Then something awful happened though I don't remember what.

There was a Big Studio Recording Scene where they all gathered around the mike, one hand professionally cupping one ear. One was fat, sort of a black Burl Ives. Of course there was Marilyn McCoo, glamourous big hair that flipped at the ends and I wondered why all black women didn't comb their hair like that. They were fabulous, more than willing to cooperate with the authorities.

I had to have Puppet Man. I imagined the other children playing outside while I sat in my room and watched my favorite Disney glasses shatter one by one. I'd heard "Up, Up and Away". Too happy, too safe. Glasses would hold fast, notes bouncing off like peas on the floor while Pluto malevolently smiled at the useless effect.

We had a Volkswagen Beetle which my mother claimed floated on water and we hydroplaned our way to K-Mart. Mum was the word since I was certain she'd crack if we were pulled to the side of the road, men with sideburns surrounding the car and yanking her screaming body into a black Cutlass Supreme.

They had it. I casually waited for the Teenagers nearby to wander off and buy flip-flops before I stood on tiptoe and slid it from its place. I walked directly to my mother touching the enameled daisies on the earring rack.

We had to leave. Fast. I claimed to have a stomach ache.

Soon we were speeding back to our complex, a gun in a purse, a bomb in a briefcase, a high note in a plain brown bag.

5:59:48 PM    sro home /

During the Nineties I lived in New York City and one of the many jobs I had was managing a retail store in Soho for a successful designer. The store was in a popular spot, right next to Todd Oldham and Comme Des Garcons and we had our share of celebrities as customers.

Urbane as we were (after all, this was Manhatten and fashion still meant something then), we never made a fuss over anyone well known. In fact, I was the worst at recognizing people. During this period I wasn't watching much TV, so that automatically eliminated anyone on a series. I would sooner know Joel Grey than Jerry Seinfeld even though I helped both.

One day, two Young Park Avenue-looking women came in. From the looks of things, they were slumming after lunch and I smelled an impulse buy. They spoke to each other in French, not knowing myself and another salesperson spoke the language, before one turned to ask me a question.

"If I buy things at cost in the showroom, can I here?"

It was a fair question but I was immediately suspicious that she was someone I should recognize.

"Uh, sometimes. I can call Public Relations. Who are you?"

Without missing a beat, she replied, "Marie Chantal..."

I drew a blank.

"...of Greece."

Total blank. "The musical?"

I could tell by the look on her face it wasn't the musical. It was the country. Apparently her husband was the desposed Prince of Greece, hence she was a Princess. A deposed Princess. After choosing some things she brought them to the front to pay and sure enough, there it was on her credit card: Marie Chantal, Princess.

Well.

Her friend was supposedly a Vanderbilt and bought something as well. With a check. That required a driver's license for approval. With a birthdate.

You'd have thought I asked her if she liked smelling her own farts. Just a little? Just under the sheets late at night when you're too tired to get out of bed? No? That year again?

5:07:17 PM    sro home /

L.A. has a bad rep for being "self-absorbed". Who wouldn't be? You can see the actress on TV playing a woman chasing her career at the corner newstand being a woman who's an actress chasing her career. It's like living on The Truman Show and all there is on TV is The Truman Show.

I was writing an article about a popular local comedy group and after seeing a performance, spoke to a known comedic actor over the phone. In the show, he openly spoke about being gay. I wasn't surprised and, if anything, was impressed by his candor.

When I called him, the first thing he said to me was "I know what you're going to ask me. The gay thing, right?"

Well, as a matter of fact, I was but only to mention my admiration.

"I have an idea about where my career is going and it isn't there."

Hmmm, let me think, where was his career going? Skits about quirky, effite sissies? Sit-com parts playing the roles Paul Lynde once monopolized? Either way, he obviously wasn't Leading Man Material and in that second, we both knew it.

I made arrangements to speak to him at another time. When I got off the phone I felt, I don't know, icky. So eventually I called him back and told him I'd gathered information elsewhere and didn't need to bother him.

"So what are you writing about?"

I explained I was writing about the comedy group.

"What about me? Are you writing anything about me?"

I said no, I wasn't mentioning him at all.

In his well-rehearsed whine he replied, "You're not going to write anything about me?"

I saw him about a week later at the supermarket. We'd never met face to face so he had no idea who I was and I entertained the idea of talking to him. Instead I watched as he cruised the aisles sipping an extra-large soda cup through a straw and decided to pass. If I wanted real life, I'd just watch TV.

4:42:39 PM    sro home /

Before the last few years, the only photographic nudes I'd seen were professional models, men and women who (I assumed) were paid to pose naked. Other than that, the only ways to take a naked picture were either a Polaroid or risk Photomat where everyone could gawk in the window over your pasty skin.

When the internet was born, along with scanners and digital cameras, any longing I had to see someone naked was satiated forever. It's primary jobs - shopping and sex - culminate in Amateur Nude websites where everyone can display their body like a product and the rest of us can peruse the merchandise at will.

After about two minutes of surfing Amateur sites, I safely assumed people generally look better in clothes. What compels people to do this? Nudity is as common as Starbucks, yet the cheap thrill (and the sex it implies) is the last holdout in Hollywood. Actors don't balk at obscene language or kicking ass, but, as with Halle Berry, a Big Name flash makes everyone giddy.

Even though we all know it comes down to bucks, the standard M.O. for young actors is "I'll do it only if it helps the story." Regretfully, my stories rarelly involve anyone exposing themselves. Thousands and thousands of people obviously have a very racy story needing online help.

The settings, though not the point, hover like quirky supporting actors in these private biopics. Background interiors in Amateur Nude photos usually fall somewhere between trailer park and cheap motel. I was surprised how many people don't even put things away. I was raised when company is coming, you straighten up and I'd certainly do a quick tidy if I was taking pictures I planned to send the whole planet.

If evidence on the Web is to be believed, we're a species of clutter. Amateur nude sittings are packed with coffee tables, recliners and stereos, all covered in clothes, bottles of unknown origins, magazines and stuffed animals. If you've ever been in Wal-Mart and wonder who buys the stuff, here's the record of the demographic. Tip: anything done in the frenzy of horniness that ends this messy will be regretted later.

I have a bad habit of mulling over interiors but the real action is on the King Size. Here is the oyster upon which the pearl is displayed. Everyone has a clean slate, a blank sheet upon which to expose themselves. Spread across beds like bugs on windshields, the average Amateur nude puts preening baboons to shame.

I think people get weird around nudity because of some baggage about "reputation", one staple of a "good" reputation being keeping your clothes on. It might have once been sophmoric to moon the camera but now there's an endless stream of people eager to expose themselves regardless of age, weight, career or interest.

Since I belong to the "I always look fat in pictures" school, the sheer chutzpah needed to pose naked for a photo, let alone send the image to anyone who cares to see it, still strikes awe on my part. And not just naked. People have a definite idea of what posing nude entails, spurned it seems by years of garage calendars and seventies Playgirl. The standard poses are pansexual, useful for any gender, any orientation, inspired by the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Burt Reynolds, Barbi Benton. Even passive tableaus demand to be examined, some orifice centering the photo and pulling us into the vortex.

Over time, the acrobatic ante has slowly been upped. Now just being nude is not enough, you have to be doing something. Then you have to be doing something with someone or something else. Then you have to show us places on your body we have not actually seen on our own bodies.

Not all these people could be oversexed drugged-up losers, an assumption I usually fly to. Some must be respectable members of society and given how many are in their twenties, chances are some will be running society in the future. There are lots of Amateur Nude Frat sites, Frat Boys apparently being the male equivalent of Teen Cheerleaders. Pics of startled pledges must be the hazing ritual of choice for the new millennium - cheaper, faster and cleaner than drinking till you pass out. I guess we missed Dubya caught blindfolded and naked crawling across a lawn, but who knows how many of these impetuous young men will end up winning elections? The scrotum you see today could be the POTUS of tomorrow.

So much for titillation. Here's hoping seduction doesn't fall prey to the internet like snail mail or the printed page. Diana Vreeland said "Elegance is refusal" and seduction's ace card is we might not get what we want. Amateur Nude sites replace seduction with gluttony and as anyone who overeats can tell you, chances are you'll end up with heartburn.

4:14:33 PM    sro home /

The title of the new TV comedy "Good Morning Miami" is not a hopeful omen. Two of my least favorite things, morning and Miami, sliding into my third least favorite thing - "meet cute" sit-coms. In a perfect world, there would be more meat and less cute. The show is heralded as the sophmore effort of the creators of "Will and Grace" although this may become a burden as W&G spirals into something closer to "Home Improvement". I thought baby plotlines are saved as a last resort? Oops, maybe they are.

Nuns are too. Especially trucker-talkin' spunky ones. Having one in the serie's debut isn't a good sign. I suppose if you went to Catholic school it's amusing but to the rest of us the joke got old, oh, about 1966. Maybe I'm showing my age here (41), maybe anything pre-1980 (about when these writers were probably born) is fair game, wilderness once again ready to be pilaged. I don't know, I seem to remember other sit-coms with snooty, vain newscasters - ALL OF THEM.

The few good moments belonged to Suzanne Pleschette who puts her familiarity with the genre to good use. Even if she's not always funny, she's at least human. The rest of the cast is trying so hard to be a "funny type" they may as well be CG. I wholeheartedly support the Older Actress Syndrome, where former romantic leagues segue into crazy kooky seniors. It worked for Debbie Reynolds and it works here too.

When the show was over I was confused about what happened but mainly I was depressed. This is the best the creators of a "ground breaking" show could offer? A Ted Knight-wannabe, a Charro-wannabe and a nun? Will and Grace trumpets the idea we queers are just "normal folk", Good Morning Miami treats normal folk like freaks. Either way, the joke's not that funny.

3:33:11 PM    sro home /

Years ago, before RuPaul, before Dame Edna on Ally McBeal, before Harvey Fierstein on Broadway, before Mrs. Doubtfire, To Wong Foo and Priscilla:Queen of the Desert, there was drag. I'm talking strictly about gay men dressing up like women, hence the phrase "drag queen". At one time drag was either something you did professionally or - and here may be the hard part to believe - a ritual of self-acceptance. Gay men became terrified of being perceived as "sissies" or "fairies" during the seventies, it all became about being macho and shedding decades of stereotypes. It was levi-wearing, deep-voiced posing and frankly, it wasn't always very fun.

Dressing in drag - even at a celebration like Halloween - was a statement that somehow, someway, you had gotten in touch with your, shall we say, sensitive side. The side that dug a nice heel on a strappy sandal. The side that instinctually knew how to pick the perfect purse. The side that denied my being six-foot-six and 230 pounds of hairy beef.

I decided if I was going to do drag, I wanted to do it right. I would be Marilyn Monroe in How To Marry A Millionaire, the outfit Madonna would recreate in her Material Girl video. Now imagine that dress on King Kong and this was the challenge before me. Fortunately I was in the position of being able to make a dream come true. Armondo, my best friend at the time, was - surprise, surprise - a clothing designer and volunteered to make my dress. We also decided I would have a pink silk stole to match.

I can't begin to describe how complicated the dress was. He bought a corset and constructed the whole thing around this enormous flesh colored tube that hooked on my side. The dress and the stole both took fifteen yards of fabric we'd bought on Fourteenth Street - forty-five feet of pink satin. The bow on the back was 3 feet across. When hanging on it's hanger, the dress looked like a good-sized pink puptent.

The most emphatic advice people gave me was to buy my shoes far in advance to practice walking in heels. So approximately one month before Halloween, Armondo and I went to the one place in Manhattan we knew I could find women's shoes to fit my men's size 13 foot. It was called "Lee's Mardi Gras" up an unmarked stairway in the West Village and was, technically speaking, a store intended for transsexuals, not drag queens. For transsexuals, the big thing is "passing" or supposedly looking so much like a woman, noone would know you were born Bobby with a "y" not an "ie". I had pretty much taken "passing" off the table. Lee's, however, was all about the "shopping experience" where they "treat you like the woman you really are".

Whatever. They sold size fourteen spike-heeled sandals. I finally picked a pair I liked, the choice wasn't exactly Barney's, slipped them on and - surprise, surprise - walked fine. I walked, I sashayed, I danced in the mo-fo's without a second's hesitation. I was, and still am, totally like "what's the big deal?".

I ended up painting the shoes pink too. I found a satin clutch purse at the Salvation Army and dyed it pink along with some satin elbow length gloves. I bought some cheap costume jewelry - rhinestone earrings, necklace, ring and tennis bracelets to wear over the gloves of course. I bought white sunglasses, Ray-Bans like I imagine Marilyn might have worn. I put them in my purse with lipstick, a compact and handfuls of loose rhinestones I'd found in a trimmings store in Brooklyn.

I did not shave my legs. Instead I did an old drag trick of wearing two pairs of panty hose. My hair under the nylon looked like little black worms swimming over my body. I also didn't shave my chest or arms. Again, who was I fooling? I shaved off my goatee, fully aware that a smooth face the day after was an obvious giveaway that I'd done drag on Halloween. It sounds drastic now, even to me, all this worrying about wearing a dress (albeit a fabulous one) for just a few hours.

Armando was to accompany me. He went as Arthur Miller, wearing a tuxedo and black horned-rimmed glasses. I knew he would also do a kick-ass job on my makeup. We decided to go to the Halloween Party at a disco, THE disco of the times, The Saint. After donning the shoes, the dress, the platinum wig, I was over seven feet tall. Believe it or not, despite the hair covering my chest and arms and aided by the fact I was in my mid-twenties, I actually looked a little like Marilyn Monroe. Ok, maybe Marilyn after a long night with the Kennedys but I definitely felt... different. We left my apartment, walking to a corner ATM before I stepped onto Seventh Avenue and brought a cab to a screeching halt.

At the Saint, and this will show you how times have changed, I was one of only two dozen drag queens out of the approximately 2000 men there. I wasn't, however, the only Marilyn, my competition being some Puerto Rican who was in the white dress from The Seven Year Itch. However, he was not and would never be seven feet tall.

I was Uber-Marilyn. I was Imax Marilyn. Even without drugs, I was Marilyn knocked out of the park. I posed for pictures and smiled at the slightest flash of light, not hard to do at a disco. At one point, I heaved myself onto the bar and re-applied my makeup in my compact mirror, scattering handfuls of rhinestones all over the floor around me. On the dancefloor I removed my sunglasses from my purse and complained to Armando about how bright it was.

"Queen", he said, "they have a spotlight on you."

And so they did, my bright white wig floating above the dancers like some huge teased cloud. I have pictures of us that night. Some we took when we got home, showing the soiled, dirty hem of my dress. The shoes also took a beating and though I kept them for years, I never wore them again. For months afterward, I would be approached, even by strangers, who realized I was the fifty-foot Marilyn that Halloween. I had officially gone through some primal gay ritual. I was a six-foot-six hairy man and I was Marilyn Monroe, even if just for a few hours, and how many men or women can say that? It didn't make me a sissy or a drag queen, it made me a miracle worker and in my book that's a good thing.

3:12:24 PM    sro home /

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is so gay. This may be bad news to some of you, either because you haven't been watching or because of your own issues with the label. It's not quite Auntie Mame but it kicks Sparticus' ass. In my professional gay opinion, Buffy is way gayer than Queer As Folk and I've been doing gay for forty-one years now. It also holds the distinction of having been voted the Least Family Friendly show on primetime TV by the self-proclaimed "Parent's Television Council" whose complaints include the use of the words "piss" and "ass". This doesn't make it queer but anything that group sneers at does make it promising. I don't have children and the voters should thank their lucky stars because I would encourage my offspring to pay attention to Buffy, a show about family (real or created), friends and being honest to oneself. What scares them so much?

Ok, there was the whole Willow/Tara thing. But it was very lipstick lesbian and wasn't treated like a Big Deal. There wasn't some "Oh my God, I think I have feelings for someone of the same sex" drama, the moral always being that there's nothing wrong with being sensitive, blahblahblah.

There's also the whole vampire/hidden-self metaphor. If anyone knows what it's like to act normal with a big secret to hide it's queers... and vampires. What a cheery thought.

Third, and this may be the most compelling argument for Buffy's total off-the-gaydar reading, the show revolves around a fierce-asskicking-Glamazon. One who's surrounded by her best friends and lots of sex. One who never wears the same outfit twice. Hello.

Josh Wheadon really pulled the female zeitgeist out of the airwaves with Buffy and he's apparently ready to tackle the boys with his new show Firefly. Fox/Warner produces Wheadon's TV vehicles - Buffy and it's spin-off Angel - and has decided to house this potential blockbuster itself though I wouldn't blink an eye seeing Wheadonism spread to CBS (Buffy: Miami) or NBC (Buffy: Special Vampire Unit).

Buffy's transfer to UPN was a Big Deal in TV-World but the show survived and this past season were some of the best episodes ever. My only guess is UPN passed on Firefly because of conflicting interests with Enterprise. In Hollywood, having two hour-long sci-fi shows (the only two on network TV) makes you the Sci-Fi Network and UPN is too busy being the Black-Sitcom Network to take on another crown.

Enterprise has remained a Trekkie dream. If I was a die-hard fan obsessed by Star Trek, I'd also drool over the super-model aliens and the in-jokes about the birth of "beaming". As it is, and despite my interest in earlier Trek series, I got quickly bored with the goody-goody preaching about how we're all united by a common bond. Enterprise lacks fun, something we've come to expect from post-Star Wars sci-fi.

Buffy's joke starts with it's title, both Buffy and Slayer packed with double entendré and irony. I'll assume Firefly is no different. One things men's pants have that women's don't? A fly, and the whole name sounds like something you'd read stenciled on a belt.

Since space was anointed the final frontier, the mythology has remained testosterone laden and Firefly's space-cowboy theme follows suit. In the New West of most science fiction, women are either saloon floozies (e.g. Barbarella) or gritty pioneers (Weaver in Alien), rarely do they flex their independence like they have on Buffy. If we're lucky, and Wheadon is as savvy as he's been thus far, this too may pass. The trailers for Firefly promised a "girl in a box" (like a magician's trick) and a "cosmic-hooker", two words I never expected to hear hand-in-hand.

The most affectionate moment on Firefly's debut was between said "hooker" (or 'Registered Companion" as she's referred to on the show) and one of the crew members - a female. The RC is brushing her crewmate's hair and they have a brief conversation about her career choice.

From what I gather, in the 24th century hookers are highly respected, well paid and can choose their clients. On the down side, they wear the most makeup and dress like an extra in Camelot. Medieval gowns are Hollywood shorthand for "Important and Beautiful Yet Wise", highlighting women in all manner of entertainment from Cher to Kate Blanchett. Firefly is no exception and even the dying citizens of one planet gawk like teenage fans because they've never seen a Registered Companion before. I'd gawk too because so far she's way hotter than any of the guys.

I, for one, think a little homo in the heavens could only do the space program good. After all, icons of male bonding - cowboys, cops and soldiers - have all been fetishized into the common conscious by the fashion industry and made socially attainable. This was due largely to Gay designers and queer fascination with close quarters and warm bodies. Why stop there? Where is the astronaut Village Person? If there's a breakout waiting to happen, here it is. For all we know, aliens are really just interested in mid-century furniture and we queers know exactly where to send them.

However there are no aliens on Firefly and if there were, the first thing they'd ask is where we buy our clothes. Firefly's fashions are tight and accented with low-slung belts, the standard uniform for traveling around the galaxy. A little loss of gravity doesn't hurt if you're drawing attention to your hips. Dressing like a Herb Ritts' model has always promised a good "first contact" and apparently 300 years in the future things haven't changed. If Outer Space is where the men wear vintage Armani, I'm all for it.

For better or worse, this recycled future has been done before. Anyone who's seen Bladerunner will feel right at home and if anything, our familiarity saves a lot of exposition. We instantly know there are guys in white hats and guys in black hats and everything ends at Noon. The titular ship, the Firefly, even resembles a horse with the control room perched at the end of a long neck. Before cutting to commercials, we're given a brief shot of what's either desert ground or distressed leather. It looks to be great computer wallpaper or at least a cool background for the DVD version of the show (c'mon, you there'll be one).

If Wheadon is doing this to prod our lazy minds and remind us we're watching a western, he can save his time. The clothes, the settings and Firefly zooming over horses in the opening homáge to Bonanza all shoot us right back to the dusty Earth. What we want, and something Buffy's already done in her own way, is to get out of Dodge and fly.

12:51:12 PM    sro home /

When I was a boy, in the Seventies, there was a singing group called Up With People. It wasn't exactly a group, it was a collection of college age kids from around the country who were chosen to tour for a year with this "musical goodwill mission". Kind of like the Peace Corps but with costumes. Their message was "let's love one another and just get along", one last gasp of Hippy-ism.

That was were the similarity ended. Otherwise Up With People was about as conservative and strait-laced as you could get with out actually saying the word Sin. They were hip but not lewd, young but not rebellious and from what I remember they were distinctly Aryan. The few minorities in the group (or at least the ones you could tell) all had this glib expression which was somewhere between "I can't believe I'm doing this" and "Maybe they think I'm blond."

I was immediately attracted to the idea of free world travel, desperate as I was even at the age of ten to get out of Jacksonville, Florida. Maybe this Anywhere But Here feeling signaled my first Gay Stirrings. Maybe I just dug their white bell bottoms.

I, of course, thought I was a shoo-in. I was already blond. I loved to perform (gay). True, I was only ten but I was tall for my age. Most importantly, I was anxious to spread the message of Brotherly Love. Or at least get to watch.

I think I went to two of their concerts, wearing white bell bottoms natch. Afterwards, I would mill around the front of the stage, hoping my propensity for choral rock would draw them to me.

Ok, maybe just by me.

Now we have American Idol and fortunately I'm too old to entertain the thought of joining. Oh, I got sucked in by the idea of an unknown being "discovered". But now the show is over and what have we been left with? Up With People. Young college age kids singing choral renditions of old songs. We used to call this "elevator music" until somewhere along the line someone decided Coldplay was more appropriate for standing in a box.

They're trying to sell the idea that this is "cool" or phat or whatever they're calling it now. Idolishous. We have become Idolholics, addicted to Idolhol. Me, I drank at an early age and got it out of my system. Thank god, cause there's nothing worse than an Old Drunk.

12:30:33 PM    sro home /

What good is sitting alone in your room? None, according to Liza Minelli and David Gest, unless of course the sitting is transformed into a reality TV show. This fall, VH1 begins airing a new series documenting the "everyday" lives of the newlyweds. I, for one, am on pins and needles about the idea. I've never been an Ozzy fan and Anna Nicole had nothing to prove, she's pretty much like we figured and any shock over her camera antics is hollow at best.

Liza on the other hand, brings tons of baggage, Louis Vuitton no doubt - a stellar career start, one of the great performers for a mom and a pharmaceutical heritage lurking everywhere she turns. Her, for lack of a better word, presence in entertainment has been given one last shove by a man who could pass as her twin - the evil one.

David Gest has the air of a maitre'd crossed with Karl Lagerfeld and much has been made of this so-called odd coupling. Frankly I think it's a match made in heaven, a win-win situation for everyone, rolling idolotry, fetishism and nerve-shattering need into one Broadway spectacle. Act II opens with a new adopted baby - a whole other kettle of fish - but for our and the show's purposes the baby is non-existant. The Gests are keeping little Bubala With a B out of the spotlight, a break in family tradition that may rob us of the only human trait we might recognize.

Something about the show brings out the piano bar in me, the part that longs for her to burst into a medley of songs from Cabaret and, uh, Cabaret while touching up David's eyebrows. Another part of me can't wait to see how much she's like her mother. I've actually seen Judy Garland films other than The Wizard of Oz and that excludes me from any useful demographic. If anyone under 30 is interested, they're drama students who've rented Cabaret for, like, a thousand times to mimic her Fosse moves. Boy are they in for a shock. Think Carol Channing cast as the lead in Moulin Rouge. Yeah, like that, except dressed head to toe in Halston.

My interest originates from when I lived in NYC - nights at Studio 54 and the few times I saw her around town. Once I was walking to my therapist office on 56th Street, deep in introspective thought, when a limo pulled up to the curb next to me and out popped a tiny woman. It was Liza and she instinctly stepped out smiling and posing to me alone on an empty street. I was flattered yet secretly terrified at having to immediately represent all her adoring fans. Had I a pocket camera, I would have gladly flashed wildly around her but instead I maintained Big City Cool and kept walking.

My loss. Every time I came across her remains a "New York Moment" but I never went to her house like we're promised on the show. Supposedly her new guests will be famous folk from different arenas - a veritable salon, if you will, with Liza playing Gertrude Stein while the guests are, well, Gest Stars. Mary J. Blige is one name bantered about and I can't even begin to imagine how those two met. Bringing in "hipsters" to attract "the young people" must be a marketing ploy suggested by her close-personal-friend Mr. Jackson.

Blige's end of the deal is where I'm stuck. I was there when her first album came out and now she's being courted by the Old Diva Club. For all I know, Elton, Donatella and Liza have moved in next to Mary at the Dakota and promised her anything if she'll deliver Satan's baby.

The whole lot of them are relics of another era and the thought of watching Liza pose as blushing bride and new mother just makes me feel very, very old.

11:58:51 AM    sro home /

I frequent a cafe near where I live that also has the distinction of being an attraction for Young Hollywood. The spot has outdoor seating which is a bonus for smokers and since most of them smoke, especially the women, it's a popular Industry gathering hole.

Recently I found myself seated outside at a table next to two girls and a guy, one girl was intently pouring over a magazine while the other girl and the guy were talking. I discerned that the girl talking was a journalist and she was interviewing the guy, who apparently was an actor.

The questions sounded pretty standard - "What character would you most like to play" - and the actor earnestly struggled through most of them.

His cell phone rang, we all jumped and checked our own, and he excused himelf to go have a conversation.

The girl with the magazine set it down and turned to the journalist.

"He's really nice."

"Yeah, he is."

"Cool. All the actors I work with are cool. I work with musicians too and they are so, like, not cool."

She obviously was a publicist and I can't even begin to imagine what a musician did that she thought was not cool. Something involving obtaining hookers or huge quantities of drugs.

The journalist was now fiddling with her tape recorder, finally setting it in the middle of the table and staring at it like it was a crystal ball. Maybe it was sending her Alien Messages: "Go back and buy the Prada boots..."

The guy finally returned and they resumed their interview.

"The theme this month is ghosts, so we're asking all our celebrities if they've ever seen a ghost."

Apparently he had. "Once my girlfriend and I were in the kitchen and we got up to go in the living room and we heard this big noise and we were like, wow, what was that and when I went back into the kitchen to look, it was nothing."

At this point the tape recorder must have been telling her she needed to pee, as she quickly excused herself and went to the bathroom.

PR Girl turned to the guy.

"What was that?"

"What?"

"The phone call! Like, that was so NOT cool."

11:52:51 AM    sro home /