I have a huge crush on the guy in the Gap ads, the one where he's wearing loose jeans and dancing by himself to the song "Stuff Like That". What little we see of his body looks great - the unshaven face, his shaggy hair, the brief glimpse of his bellybutton and lower back showing the indentations above his butt. I certainly wouldn't turn him away but it's his attitude that snags me.

He dances like a kid, like some possessed tribesman, like so many drugged dancers I've seen over the years. He cocks his head back and forth, his toungue lodged in his cheek, and gives the camera a look that says "How cool is this?".

His sexuality isn't about holes or sticks, the bare bones, but about presence. He dares you to appreciate his fluidity while pushing against it himself.

And he's selling you jeans.

While I can't really relate to who I assume they think he represents, I'm all for it. If this is what Gap customers aspire to, this carefree ignorance of labels and ego, I'll go one better and say there's hope and if that comes with a new pair of pants, all the better.

10:56:27 PM    sro home /

The first job I had when I lived in New York City was working at Studio 54. I was very young, new to Manhattan and thought it was important for me to get a job. I scanned the Village Voice Help Wanted ads and immediately found one that interested me. It was working at a nightclub, Studio 54.

I was so green, I didn't blink an eye when the man on the phone said the job interview was in Queens. Later, after years of living in Chelsea, I would have no more gone to Queens than I would have flown to the Moon. At that age, it was an adventure and I hopped the subway and went.

I'm big, six-foot-six. I knew that would be an advantage for this work, at least physically. However it wasn't until I was in the office facing a man who looked like an ax-murderer that I realized the job was for security... a bouncer. I was applying to be a thug and frankly, I felt very glamorous.

I had to wear a suit to work but otherwise it was an opportunity to cruise. I was smart about where I got stationed. The front by the ropes was preferable, the exit doors at the back of the dancefloor were a good place to smoke. I would light a Dunhill and watch the churnings of the huge crescent moon and coke spoon that lowered from the ceiling.

I was offered lots of drugs. I realized a bump of coke was a polite gesture, like a tap on the shoulder or a firm handshake when leaving a friend. I didn't mind, it kept me up, it made time go by faster, it made me feel like everyone else.

Often after the club would close, a group of us - bartenders, door men, "dates" - would hop in a cab while the sun was rising and go downtown to a club in the Meat Disrtict called the Anvil. Even though dawn was breaking, inside the Anvil it was always four in the morning.

At six o'clock, we'd walk into the dark, smoky club packed with night people. Once there was a black drag queen lip-synching "Shame" on the pool table, shirtless boys waving their arms like seaweed around her feet.

This was the bar Andy Warhol brought Liza, Bianca and Halston to, all of them shaking from the coke or the sheer vibrancy of what they saw. There was leather and sweat and sex and boots and tuxedos. There were men, women, drag queens, drag kings, light and dark...

And me.

I'm an open sort and made many acquaintances during the brief time I held the job. The bartenders were all handsome, I was young and drinks were on the house all the time.

It all caught up with me rather quickly, thank god, and one night I just didn't go in.

Even years later at another club called Area, I would eventually always end up by the front door, talking to the bouncers and turning down drink tickets. I'd wait for the dance floor to empty so I could have one last spin and just go home.

9:06:53 PM    sro home /

In the South, you can go in a restaurant and order what is called "sweet tea". It's just like regular iced tea except it's already been sweetened for you. While this may seem like the pinnacle of laziness, it actually serves the function of the sugar having been easily dissolved in the hot water.

The problem is after about two sips, you realize the flavor is akin to drinking cold Karo syrup. The ratio of water to sugar tastes about even. Still, some people swear by it, saying it's the best iced tea you'll ever drink.

"Sweet Home Alabama" is being touted as the "best date movie" of the year. Personally, I don't see it happening unless maybe my date was Vin Diesel. Otherwise, I'd quickly shy from someone who suggested it.

For straight men, it's a no-win situation. Either they get into it and earmarked as "marriage material" or it's used against them by the female as a test of their emotional hoo-ha. Certain women may view it as a testament to the power of love, but do you want to have this realization with a stranger? One who's taste in movies sucks?

My expectations for movies have gotten so low, I only go to a theater if I'm hopeful it's something worth seeing fifty-feet high. Otherwise, it's a renter and weak acting benefits from a smaller screen. At least at home, I can maintain some distance from all the strained earnestness.

I usually keep my ear to the ground about these things and so far, the natives don't seem that impressed with S.H.A.. Great Box Office, tepid reviews. So what else is new? Optimists are pointing to a "changing of the guard", Renee Witherspoon grabbing the torch from worn-out old Julia Roberts. Yeah, right.

Where was I when Julia Roberts became the "old guard"? I didn't think she was the "new guard", I'm not that clueless, but I still kind-of thought she was the "guard". The "guard guard", neither old or new. Shows you what I know.

Whoever's guarding the Palace, someone's not doing their job. A little less reaction to the tourists would be a good start. Finally, if I were doing the hiring, there'd be a lot more Buck and a lot less ham.

4:38:41 PM    sro home /

When I was in sixth grade, integration came to public schools in Florida. Up to that point, all my classmates had been white. None, as far as we knew, were Jewish and one, the smartest girl in the class and hence my nemisis, was a Jehovah Witness. We knew this because she had the privilege of sitting out anything to do with the flag or God and you'd be surprised how much she sat out back then.

My two best friends (girls, natch) were Michelle, blond and tall for her age which made me think of her as a stewardess, and Roxanne, dark-haired but with a nice personality. Ok, she was a little chunky. For our sixth grade graduation, we were to have a Talent Show.

In my short educational career, I had already made a name for myself in the Theatre. In our Fourth Grade Christmas Pagent, I was the narrator. I actually stood to one side in a choir robe reading from a huge Broadway-like scroll that had pages from, well, the Bible. The Christmas Pagent in a Public Elementary School in Jacksonville, Florida in the late sixties was about the birth of Jesus Christ. It's like remembering some Strange Alternate Universe.

When asked whether I wanted to narrate the day or evening Pagent - i.e. the Students or the Parents - I chose evening, feeling that would give me more exposure.

It worked. In Fifth Grade, I was one of the two male leads in our class Christmas show. More of just a revue, really. I was Teddy, The Bear. My mother made my costume from a pattern for Footsie Pajamas. It was alot of work but the Maternal Payback was priceless.

So of course I was primed for a Talent Show. The three of us, Michelle, Roxanne and I would form a singing group, like the Supremes. Only shorter. And white.

My mother had quite a collection of Supremes Albums. "Where Did Our Love Go" and "The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland" being my two favorites. We had just bought our first cassette tape recorder. Back then, they were the size of a small briefcase and the microphone sat at the end of a long black wire, like something you might see in a Senate Hearing.

I recorded both albums off the stereo and began the long transcription process. I wrote all the lyrics in neat poem-like paragraphs on lined paper and re-wrote two copies, one each for Michelle and Roxanne.

The next day I went to school, anxious for recess when instead of playing dodgeball, we would loiter on the sides and plan our career.

Michelle spoke first. "Guess what?"

"What?" Did she have leads? Costume ideas? I would have certainly considered some kind of Prop Schtick.

"I'm going solo. Sorry."

And she walked away, like so many little feet on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

When I showed Roxanne what I'd written the night before, she looked at the pages like they were crime scene photos and we never mentioned the whole subject again.

The night before the graduation, I awoke in the middle of the night and couldn't breath. My parents took me to the emergancy room and I was admitted to the hospital. We were told I had "croup", which apparently is something usually only babies get. I'm still not even sure what it is but I was in the hospital for four days and missed all the festivities.

1:34:15 PM    sro home /

Last night, while waiting for Law and Order: Criminal Intent to start, I caught the last fifteen minutes of the new TV drama "American Dream". Drama is a mild word for the show. Melodrama would be better, kabuki even, so heightened were the shows emotions for optimal impact.

The actor playing the Father is a stud which immediately makes him an odd choice for a mid-class All-American dad in my book but he at least adds eye candy. How depressing it must be to find himself cast in a roll where he has a teenager for a child, he can't be that old. Men don't feel the pressure to stay young longer like women do but even actors have feelings. I know, I saw it once in a movie.

The Mother is a pretty dead ringer for a young Ann Margaret. Not too young, after all she has a daughter on the show who doesn't look that different, but enough to illuminate her resemblance and hence become another piece of Nostalgia to pine over.

The plot in the sections I saw had to do with three things - one, could the daughter appear on American Bandstand, two, will the parents have more kids and, oh yeah, President Kennedy dying. The third was a big let-down, after all most of us hopefully knew this was going to happen. I want to see something we don't know about. Sucking gravity from a public event to add weight to the private events is a cheap shot, and if anything just makes the girl's cult-like obsession over American Bandstand all the more trivial.

When the Mother tells her husband she doesn't want to have more children, the twist was our being shown the Father's dissapointment. I know because he said things like, "What about my plans? Don't you think they included more children?" They already have two and he's not the one risking his Ann Margaret figure to have them, so I don't see this conversation going anywhere.

Kennedy's assassination was used as another example of the current vogue for "Nostalgady", historic events recreated not for any illuminating value other than an emotional trick to have us attach personal feelings to the vapid events of the characters. In American Dream, Kennedy dies and we hear sad music, we see shocked people, we have a brief bit of camara work where we zoom into the black and white TV and then... it was over. It had no more relevance to the "plot" or lives of the people on the show than the Roswell Incident. The show's writers know everyone's trained to have the same emotional reaction to the event and they take the easy way out.

Daughter goes to a Catholic School and two of her friends are either Italian or MIddle Eastern, it's hard to tell because they just look like Young Sades. It's an obvious statement that not everyone in America in the Sixties looked like Barbi and Ken, just the leads.

Where are the rest of the teens in Pleasantville? Where are the ones who, in a few short years, will be leading demonstrations against the war on college campuses? The ones on the verge of taking acid, exploring free love, getting into the Stones? Where are the interesting people?

Leave this crap with Beaver, I want to see the birth of Rock and Roll.

10:32:42 AM    sro home /

I may be officially addicted to E-Bay. I arrived at this decision when I found myself pricing everything on TV shows. You're watching television and I'm calculating the average auction costs for the stage props.

You'd be surprised how even the dumpiest locales on TV have the most expensive settings. Old lamps - adding a little lower middle-class edge, a little Hopper to the mix - will cost you. If the characters on the show were E-bayers, they'd be sitting on a gold mine.

The big payback on E-bay is finding something someone didn't want or didn't want to keep and returning it to a more supportive environment. It's the dog shelter of on-line shopping, thousands of wagging deals waiting to be housed. However, like most people, my apartment only has room for a certain number of pets.

E-Bay makes it easy to buy cool things. Really cool things. So many, in fact, that where I formerly had a selection of Really Cool Things, now everything I own is a Really Cool Thing and parting with them gets harder. The ante has been upped and I have reached saturation point for fabulous mid-century vases. Then it becomes about signatures and certain colors. Soon I'll be cooing over some matte green Roswell and bemoaning how they don't make vases like they used to.

I've learned to pace myself, set boundaries and try and picture where, if I were to buy it, I would set another vase. This works because, sadly enough, I can't picture another place.

12:43:30 AM    sro home /