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"Call Me...No, Seriously..."

As the editor of a teen celebrity magazine—considered somewhere beneath pornography by a lot of NYC media elites—I'd experienced pretty much every form of condescension or outright disdain I'd thought were possible. Everything from, "No, we're passing on letting you speak with the band...they're avoiding the cheesy, teenybopper thing," to "Okay, you can speak with him...I'll tell him to brush up on his 'What's your fave color?' answers," to "You're not on the list after all." A stylist, often the least legit of all professionals IMHO, once sniffed to me that while it was "nice" that I had a star on my cover, "Why not give her a real cover? A whole cover? Without all these...faces all over the cover?" Adult publishing types look down on teen celebrity magazines in the same way a sixth-grader considers a third-grader a little baby. They're both children attending the same school, but the elder needs to manufacture distance to conceal self-doubt.

But I heard a new one recently.

I once attended an intimate "AOL Sessions" taping featuring Pink, an artist whose music I like and who I've met before. The first time, she was brand new and was refusing to stop to speak to me at a tiny radio show situated on the Jersey Shore. Her bodyguard actually physically threatened me, and when I told Pink what I thought of that, she told me what *she* thought of *that.* The next time I saw her was at a photo shoot. I sat with her as she had a pedicure (something she'd asked for last-minute as part of the grooming for the shoot) and she gave me a fascinating and funny interview. I liked her very much and we flirted asexually and took a picture together that captured the chemistry we'd somehow concocted for that afternoon. At this "AOL" taping, she was doing songs from her already-expected-to-bomb CD "Try This," and I had zero interaction with her. Instead, I watched in agony from the booth as she tempestuously figeted with equipment and refused to record until everything was "right." Then she sat and did a charismatic if perfunctory set and then she split and so did I, my legs noodles after hours of standing and pretending to be interested in the Process while Billy Bush chatted everyone up and pretended to be interested in them.

Thanks to my support in attending the Pink taping and my positive mention of it in my magazine, I was rewarded with another invite: This time, I was asked to come listen to and watch Blondie record their "AOL Sessions" gig under what would probably be similar circumstances.

Pink's fun, but Blondie is my #2 favorite artistic entity of all time behind Madonna and ahead of Pet Shop Boys. Deborah Harry's voice does it for me and I've loved just about everything the band's ever done. I once attended a screechingly boring experimental play in NYC in order to see Deborah Harry up close, and later stood outside and had my picture taken with her because if everyone else in the world does that with famous people, I was for damn sure not going to pass up my chance when I was standing next to someone whose work truly has made my life happier.

I arrived at the studio and went upstairs and realized right away things would be different this time. Some other reporters were milling around in a reception room, and i could see Deborah Harry (and oh, yeah, some other Blondie members) in a lounge. The recording area was a little bigger and there were chairs in the actual studio. I knew we'd be seated in the same room with the band, which made it more like a command performance.

We were escorted to our black plastic seats and I sat dead center, counting the inches that would separate me from the band—about 120 of them. The wood floors made it look like a tiny basketball court and my brain was doing pop cultural three-point throws when the band came in (minus Debbie) and started playing so the camera crew could shoot some filler.

There was talk of some kind of technical glitch with the keyboard that threatened to Pink up the schedule, then it was resolved and then as if it were no big deal, Debbie entered. She looked good and more than good looked cool, which is hard to do at 58. I find it hard to look cool at 35 and I never looked cool at 15, 20 or 25, so I think looking cool at 58 warrants some kind of nomination for an award. She had blondeish hair teased artfully and wore a modified army jacet with Blondie stickers. She also had black vinyl stilettoes of the variety seen on the album sleeve of the import edition of their latest album, the sublime "The Curse of Blondie."

At first, Debbie worried me. She was very reserved, like an intelligent baby wandering in a new environment. She wanted her mike to be back closer to the guys (shades of "Blondie is a band"). She kind of brusqely resituated things and spoke to her director with a shyness that reads as chilly, then sort of teased them with it by pretending to be demanding, knowing they were thinking, "God, I hope Debbie Harry is not going to be demanding."

At this point, a woman arrived and sat by me and asked myself and the rest of our row to move a seat down because a friend of hers, "a big, huge guy on crutches," would be showing up soon. I made sure to move more center instead of to the end like she sort of implied I should. "If he's on crutches, won't he want the end?" I asked innocently.Then she asked us to scoot our seats down more, too. If you don't hate her already, you're damaged.

The woman began talking loudly, as if everyone in earshot were an old friend of hers instead of a future enemy. She was trying to be friendly and in her brain probably felt she was gracious as hell. And literally, she was. I didn't feed into her much ("Can't she see I'm busy eyeballing Blondie?"), but when someone asks you direct questions, even if you find them instantly obnoxious, if you don't answer then you're just a jerk in any story they'd tell.

She announced, "I'm one of the editors at 'In Style.'" This is supposed to be wow-inducing because the magazine is lovely and important and, well, stylish. I still remember when it was launched...I saw a bus stop poster of the first, Barbra Streisand cover and thought, "Who the hell wants a 'Photoplay' for the '90s, all fake nice?" I've gotten much better about spotting good and bad ideas since then..I promise.

She then asked what I did. When I named my magazine, she scrunched her brow and wanted to know if it was national? Newsstand? "Oh, a teen magazine!" she exclaimed. "Like 'Teen Beat?' You're too young for Bobby Sherman but he was the one I used to like in 'Teen Beat.' A teen magazine. How...NOSTALGIC."

Bingo! That was the new put-down I hadn't heard yet. Nostalgic. Then she began to talk about Blondie, just out of earshot. "Blondie. I mean, how fun. So...NOSTALGIC." I love that she is having a trip down memory lane, but the fact of the matter is that I'm existing now, my job is happening now, I'm creating a product and supplying a demand and making money and surviving...NOW. And so is Blondie. Nostalgic? Why waste time on the good old days when the band is in front of you? It's like telling someone, "You're dead now. You're dead now," until they stop protesting and die.

Finally, she shut up.

The first song was "Good Boys," the band's latest comeback single. It was a minor hit in the UK (where their inital comeback hit in 1999, "Maria," went to #1) and it's a brilliant pop song, a Giorgio Moroder electro-dance piece of candy. But live, it sounded terrible. The problem is their instruments and in particular Deb's voice were not amped to play out to us; this was not a live show, after all. It was like the sound from her mouth was being sucked into the mike and we only heard a small noise, on key. The synth was almost absent. In typical fan fashion, I longed to tell the other scant spectators, "That didn't count. Listen to the record."

Next, the band did "Heart of Glass," affectionately termed "H.O.G." by Debbie. It was better. Then "The Tide is High" came in and Debbie really loosened up. Her singing became much more projected despite the awkward recording set-up and she began doing her white-girls-really-can't-dance defiant dance moves, indicating she was at ease. "That was weird at first, but it's okay now," she murmured. We would applaud after each take and after a few seconds so our approval woudn't register on camera. The third time we did this, Debbie looked at us and cracked a smile, 'Thank you!" It was odd to be singing in front of—and to the side of—about eight "fans," and having to juggle video considerations at the same time. "This is a little clinical," she observed. "It's like having sex in a laboratory. Or a doctor's office...except...unfortunately, not quite!"

The band tore through a spot-on rendition of probably my favorite track from "The Curse of Blondie," called "End to End," which resuscitates "Call Me" for 2004. It was clear they were so much more interested and engaged in performing their new material, not only because it's their latest, but also because they've sold themselves on the idea that it's among their greatest, a concept I don't think they believed of their next most recent CD, the good but not great "No Exit." They were clearly living and performing in the now.

I was simply thrilled to be there, and was excited to hear them do edgier, revisited versions of old songs while still doing new songs, all coming together in an of-the-moment moment that I, as a fan, knew I'd have plenty of time to be nostalgic about in the future, when Blondie ceased to exist.

When the recording ended, I knew I was going to have to pass the band in order to leave, giving me a legit opportunity to say something and hear something to and from them. But it's never that easy, is it?

"In Style" dashed over to Deborah Harry with her friend (who'd arrived mid-set...without crutches...and not so huge) and began a conversation that dragged on as I slowly assembled my things to leave. I wound up having to stand by her, waiting my turn to say something to Deborah Harry, not an enviable position for any fan—the silent lingerer always makes a star tense...'What is this clown gonna say or do?'

Up close, Debbie's not just cool-looking, she possesses an alien beauty thanks to her impossible facial structure and expressive eyes. As she spoke or listened to "In Style," there were moments when she looked like she did at the height of her career, and despite having met a million stars by now and gotten over the dazzle factor for all but the ones who mean the most to me, I was kinda worried I'd chicken out.

"In Style" should have chickened out. Instead, she was saying, "I saw you and Chris in a record store once with these huge sunglasses...I'll never forget it!" This is the kind of comment you might expect to be burped from your embarrassing aunt during a chance encounter with a '50s movie actress at Disney World, not acceptable chit-chat from a representative of a powerhouse magazine to an enduring musical icon. The next one was worse. "You got me my first paid job writing about musc. You did. No, you really did!" Debbie was beginning to glance at me a bit, discreetly imparting her discomfort at what to say, and very subtly playing to me because she recognized the scene was loony to say the least. "In Style" then told Debbie she should do something with the magazine (Debbie reminded her she had, and recently) and then handed Debbie her card. "My e-mail address is on there so, if you get into that, you know, e-mail me...no, really...not to be...but, yeah..." Debbie said (suppressing shock), "If I get into it, you'll be on my list."

In that instant, nothing separated "In Style" from the youngest and most naive girls who buy teen celebrity magazines, who fantasize that they can easily become good friends with their idols—penpals even!—if given half a chance.

At this point, I cut in. "Hi, I'm sorry—I'm not from 'In Style'" [a snort from the rude lady, though I hadn't mean to be bitchy] "but I just wanted to meet you and tell you I've had the record for months and I think it has to be the best Blondie record ever. I love it." Debbie took my hand and shook it and smiled and agreed with me.

Then I left. Because I may edit a teenybopper magazine, and I may love everything that's ever come out of Deborah Harry's mouth just as passionately as today's 13-year-old adores Hilary Duff, but there was no way I was going to ruin this future piece of nostalgia by trying to make a fraction of the impression on Deborah Harry as she's made on me.

"Extremely Annoying Things, or The Lazy Blog"

#1 When newsstands take $4 from me for a $3.99 magazine and assume I don't want the penny back. Of course I want it back. I'm German. And even if a penny is a trifling amount, why should they have it? Do you know how many forfeited pennies it takes to make a dollar? Only a hundred!



#2 My office building has a totally inconsistent security routine. We have picture IDS we must show in order to gain entry. But we can also gain entry by signing in with a driver's license (easy to fake), even with no proof we have any business in the building. After 6:00PM and on weekends, we're supposed to sign in and not just flash our cards. But even then there is no consensus. Sometimes I'm waved on. Other times when I feel like I've been waved on, I'm summoned back with a disapproving "You know you can't just walk in" glare. Sometimes they want me to sign in myself. Other times, they want to physically hold my card and sign me in. Ultimate result? They get to record the names of people who enter the building, period. What does this help?

#3 Whoever writes the "AOL News" headlines often does them in such a way that they seem to be saying the exact opposite of what they're intending to say. Or they write them seemingly with an intentional sense of humor that I don't look for in news headlines. Recent example? "Convicted Child Molester Seeks Release." Well, duh.

#4 People view charges of misogyny, anti-Semitism or homophobic content almost as four-star raves, thus attracting positive attention to projects branded in these ways. Did deeply serious charges of anti-Semitism—bolstered by director Mel Gibson's refusal to repudiate his father's Holocaust-harrumphing—hurt "The Passion of the Christ" at the box office? Heavens, no. If anything, the charges funtioned as a motivating factor for audiences. "More anti-Semitic than 'Cats!'" I know that political correctness gets annoying, but there is a difference between being refreshingly un-PC and being monstrously bigoted...no?

#5 I hate when liberal people (like me) mourn the loss of the old Times Square (unlike me). They say that Giuliani ruined the charm of the sleazy Times Square and Disney-fied it. There was nothing charming about the hellhole that existed in the 1990s and earlier. it's only charming when you don't have to live and work in the area, folks. Times Square is not my cup of tea—it's a bunch of looky-loos who scare the hell out of me by always staring in awe at the flashing headlines above our heads as if something important just happened—but it's clean and it's bringing in good money for the city. When I first moved to New York and had to walk through Times Square, several ladies of the evening surrounded me and walked with me, cooing that they were for sale and not taking no for an answer. When I finally sputtered, "I'm gay," they stopped and the ringleader said to me, hands on hips, "I can give you something no man can give you." I couldn't bear to tell her that there was nothing she had that was not paralleled by anything a man had, and that it was actually men who had one unique advantage over women if you were going to look at sex as nothing more than plumbing. But I never forgot how ickily "Barney Miller" that scene was.

"The Madonna Suite"

PART 2 "The First Time Ever I Saw Madonna's Second Face"

Since her semi-surprise appearance at the Grammys in February, Madonna has been the subject of comeback talk. Not career comeback, but face comeback. A rejuvenation rejoicing. An elasticity revolution. It's an about face, about...face!

Madonna looked 14 when she strode purposefully onto the stage to introduce Sting, and immediately the glossy weeklies began doing what they do best—they began to speculate wildly as if they were mere mortals sharing uneducated guesses at the water cooler and not infinitely well-connected media minions, perfectly capable of not conjecturing but finding out the truth. If they'd pinned down the truth, that would not sell—the truth is that there's no chance Madonna's had invasive plastic surgery on her face. If she has, she should demand a refund.

This is not meant to insult Madonna. As a fan, I find Madonna strikingly beautiful. But not since she was in her mid-20s has Madonna been conventionally pretty. As soon as she left her "Like a Virgin" phase, Madonna's looks became the human equivalent of haute coutoure—top of the line, rarefied, admired by the most influential folk and not exactly at home on Main Street. Madonna's always looked attractive and stylish and her confidence makes her sex-y even as her literal nature makes her more sex-ual. But she's always looked—even at her best—like a shining example of her exact age.

Now 45, there is no denying Madonna looks, overall, sensational. If you don't like man arms, don't apply here—Madonna's got beautifully toned and muscled biceps that would turn off many. But her body is overwhelmingly fit and yet still desirable. And her appearance is dazzling, even if she is not a typical beauty queen. And while many 45-year-old women look 54, and many others are 45-year-old women who look like 45-year-old women trying to look 4 or 5, Madonna is a 45-year-old woman who looks both fantastic and...45.

Granted, Madonna has not left her looks to chance. I'm not saying she is anti-interventionist in this regard. Madonna clearly embraces Product. Anyone who saw Madonna's lines during her "Girlie Show Tour" in 1993 and then saw the creaseless wonder that was her face during interviews she granted to promote "Evita" in 1996 would have to be foolish not to assume she had partaken of more than just "clean living" (as her brilliantly cool and funny flak says in reference to how Madonna stays looking so good so long). Likely, Madonna has experimented with collagen injections or even Botox—she was spotted and photographed with an item linked to a prominent Botox specialist. Botox is similar to the collagen she pumped into her lips in 1990—not terribly invasive and not even permanent. Seems like a fair—even kinder, gentler—alternative to warbling "Like a Surgeon."

But the glossies got their mileage out of the "Did she have surgery?" angle, and now they're braying on about Botox. I don't know Madonna personally and I feel that with each passing day I know her less and less even from afar, but I can guarantee you it must rankle her to see herself on a shared cover of "Us Weekly" with Jennifer Aniston bookending the lurid cover line "Botox Mania."

I bring all of this up to harp on two subjects:

First, regardless of what Madonna did or didn't do to her face, I think she needs to carefully consider plastic surgery. I lean toward being against it in general, and I'm against it for Madonna. It's her business, of course, but I think altering her appearance in that way (a facelift, say) might alter her business, so to speak. I think part of Madonna's brand is that while a glamour-puss at times, she is also an ironic glamour-puss. There is something wonderfully "I don't care" about Madonna. That is an aspect of her persona that takes an audible hit when she does foolish things like act in movies where other characters refer to her character as beautiful beyond belief. I kind of suspect that if Madonna had a very obvious (even if mainly successful) facelift, something Sharon Stone-ish, it would harm a vital aspect of who she is to a large number of fans...and might lose her the street cred she'a always valiantly maintained, through good and bad times, personally and professionally. So...think twice, Madonna! You never had Catherine Deneuve's face to begin with, but then...she never had yours.

And the other point is...why is the media so fixated on Madonna's visage?

I think part of the reason is the point I've just made. But I think also there is an unfair amount of attention lavished on her beauty choices in this area, and that Madonna provides a good example of the deceptive nature of celeb journos these days. It seems just about any woman in Hollywood over 30 has had something done. Some admit it and some lie, but we all have eyes (whether drooping or magically, tautly wide open) and editors can see who looks mysteriously great...Nicole Kidman, Susan Sarandon, Holly Hunter, Catherine Zeta Jones, Jessica Lange...so why is it fair game to ridicule (c'mon, you know that's at the root of it) Madonna and not call out some of the others?

Like I said, i'm kinda not thrilled with plastic surgery except in cases where you have something pretty unpretty that could be pretty easily fixed. But then, I'm not saying there is anything outrageously immoral about it either. But I do think it is highly unethical to scream about "Botox Mania" and hold Madonna up as the whipping girl while simulteneously PhotoShopping her face even smoother for your front cover. Or how about putting Jennifer Aniston on there only to reveal inside that she hasn't had it yet?

I have no way of knowing what the women I've mentioned have done to make themselves look fantastic (and they all do look fantastic). I can't rightfully say, "it's surgery." But it feels the same when I spot (to me) obviously gay celebs who are parading as straight. It's as plan as the noses that used to be on their faces, whether I can prove it or not.

But if any of that bears mentioning in the press, I would think the press should be a little more even-handed in their coverage and not take a scalpel to the facts.

And P.S.—I think the main reason Madonna looked so stunning at the Grammys was that she gave in to convention and had perfect hair and makeup along with a safe dress in a pleasing color. She rarely gives her fans the easy way out (try getting her to do a "Greatest Hits Tour" and see how many years that takes), and the effect was startling. And if she had some shots here and there, I have to give her credit—she looked good, she still looked real, she looked like herself. And everybody looked and looked at her, too.

"Gay Movies That Refuse to Suck"

The following are reviews of gay films I submitted to a cool Australian site called Outrate (www.outrate.net). I include them because I'm proud of them, the movies are worth seeing and hey, it's my freakin' blog, right?

THE DELTA (1996)
Director: Ira Sachs
Stars: Shayne Gray, Thang Chan
"The Water Is Deep"

Skip a rock across the surface of a body of water - it will cause ripples in ever-expanding rings, defying gravity as it hops along for a split second before disappearing into the depths.

In "The Delta," the rock is a confrontational Vietnamese immigrant named Minh (Thang Chan), the surface is 17-year-old dreamboat Lincoln (Shayne Gray) and the body of water is the mighty Mississippi (playing itself).

We first meet Lincoln Bloom as he indifferently trawls for gay sex along a buzzing Memphis side street. Dark-skinned Minh leans into the window and asks, "'Sup?" before they make out and Lincoln gives him a blowjob, shown (albeit off camera) for such a long time it borders on voyeurism. Except it isn't erotic, it simply is - and the entire film has this same cinema verite quality.

When they're done, Lincoln speeds away. He apparently puts the episode behind him even if Minh, we'll later discover, has put it front and center.
Lincoln is a unique figure in gay cinema. In a film like this, where one would expect to find an all-American BMOC tortured by his budding homosexuality, there is instead an affable, boyish, distracted guy who's more confounded than self-loathing. He neither fits in with the disenfranchised freaks milling on the outskirts of the cruising grounds nor with the cool drop-outs congregated in front of the convenience store he patronizes after sucking a stranger's dick - but he is clearly somehow still an outsider.

At a family dinner that observes more about race divisions in the South with a few lines than would seem possible, we learn that Lincoln is not held to an impossible standard by his barely-there family, unlike so many heroes of gay coming-out lit and film. He may be closeted in his same-sex desire, but a clandestine wank in the bathroom insinuates that his true secret is broader - like some romantics are in love with love, Lincoln privately lusts for passion.

Lincoln's mediocrity (at best) is further shown in a series of hang-out scenes that lurch with a nihilistic momentum anyone with small-town roots will recognize. His friends are a mix of shruggy whiners and kids with stifled potential, all bonding through cheap, universal distractions like beer, pot, music and Taco Bell.

A fight with his similarly uncentered girlfriend Monica (Rachel Zan Huss) begins with a harmless and typical lie and ends with her observing, "Sometimes you're so full of shit." With the unflinching acceptance of a true sub, Lincoln replies, "I know it." They could be discussing his sexual attraction to men, and in a subconscious way they probably are.

The tiff drives Lincoln back to his favorite pick-up spot. A scene depicting Lincoln sitting slouch-shouldered on the hood of his car as he is reeled in by a horny middle-aged man (Anthony Isbell) is brilliant in its economy, perfectly capturing the void of social niceties in this kind of situation.

When the man asks Lincoln back to his hotel, Lincoln's utter lack of an opinion on the matter is so profound the stranger has to instruct him on what to do next as if he's dealing with a toddler. He is nearly robotic in his obeisance, but when the encounter veers away from somnambulant sex into knowing artifice, Lincoln calmly removes himself from it. His thwarted trick's taste for daddy/boy role-playing is not too advanced for Lincoln, it is actually painfully old-fashioned, from a generation where sex roles were clear and therefore labels held a self-defining power.

Undeterred, Lincoln hits a porno palace, where he's spotted by Minh. If half the place would be too scared or self-conscious to approach a mark as adorable as Lincoln, Minh - who is after all 10 years older, not conventionally handsome and half-black/half-Vietnamese in Memphis, Tennessee - has balls to spare. "You so cute," Minh says. With characteristic and disorientingly thorough incomprehension, Lincoln's reply is, "I'm cute?" "You sexy." "Sexy?" It's as if he's considering the obvious for the first time - probably why he is still available to Minh at all.

Through sheer charisma, Minh talks his dimpled prey into a night drive, one that will take them to Lincoln's father's boat. With a wanderer's sense of the now that infects Lincoln, Minh successfully advocates a Huck-and-Jim voyage along the Mississippi that will temporarily remove the two from their everyday existences, even as it fails to rout them from their involuntarily entrenched positions in the social caste.

Lincoln and Minh have the improbable, palpable sexual chemistry borne of mutual need - one instinctively seeks release from his humdrum path in life and the other yearns for acceptance. It's not surprising that Minh has fallen in love with Lincoln at first sight - abandoned as a child by his G.I. father, taunted in his native land for the color of his skin, of course he would experience an overwhelming feeling when he wins the affection of a cute white guy in the land of plenty. Part of the problem is that Lincoln is a highly charged symbol to Minh, and his embryonic ego is incapable of realizing his importance as such. Lincoln is an attractively empty but ultimately - at least at this early stage of his life - bottomless vessel for Minh's hopes and dreams.

When Lincoln finally realizes Minh's passion is not the kind that arcs with an erection and fizzles with ejaculation, but the kind that sustains itself over time, threatening to supersede the safety of shadows, he suggests he needs to get back. "You already gone," Minh says, and it is the beginning of the end.

Their relationship is as intense and fleeting as the illegal fireworks the two set off at Minh's insistence. This harmless act of defiance will lead to their inevitable, melodramatic flare-out, which in turn leads to violence previously undetectable in either of the lovers.

The oceans (or oceanic rivers) that separate people are identified subtly and surely by director/writer Ira Sachs. There is the white household of Lincoln's family, the Vietnamese pool hall where Minh gets a humiliating lesson and the black bar and restaurant where the two of them escape on their abortive journey. These places could be in different solar systems they're so far removed from each other. Interestingly, when a black man asks Minh where he's from ("China?"), Minh says "Mars."

The production values of this short feature (85 minutes) may turn off some viewers - the sound in particular is a challenge intensified by Thang Chan's broken English and unusual enunciation. But the grainy night shots, stained with hazed-over city lights, impart a sensual nocturnal restlessness that actually suits the subject matter. The sense of place throbs in every shot, and the newness of this place in the geography of gay cinema is arresting.

The overall look and feel of "The Delta" is appropriately muddy, and it's hard to believe a million dollars more in the budget would have been an improvement. You can't buy ambience and you certainly can't budget in depth of feeling.

The use of non-pro actors pays off. Gray in particular leaves a lasting impression as the boy who gets away - from himself and all his pursuers. Chan's performance is less nuanced but still heart-breaking. The supporting players were all recruited from the area and none have made repeat appearances on film. It might be true that many can't act in general, but in this specific film they don't need to and they shore up "The Delta"'s hypnotic credibility as surely as any thespians could have.

From its sultry opening shot of a shirtless man stalking a cruisy stretch of road, "The Delta" has a singular point of view and field of vision. There is almost nothing in the film that is expected, from the flow of dialogue to the trickle of events. This singularity makes for a film that will captivate some viewers with the suddenness of a flash flood, but might wash over others with an aversion to movies that lack a clear narrative or that echo with an eerie, perhaps arty, music-free stillness.

Even for enthusiastic viewers, the flawed tragic ending - which comes as unexpectedly for the audience as the act in question does for its hapless victim - is a deeply disturbing and perhaps perplexing denouement to a film that is otherwise a thrillingly storyless character study far removed from gimmicky gay moviemaking.

I THINK I DO (1997)
Director: Brian Sloane
Stars: Alexis Arquette, Christian Maelen
"The Brunch Club"

With his superior 1993 coming-of-age short "Pool Days," director/writer Brian Sloan displayed a knack for depicting how people bounce off of one another when their paths cross, using a classic love triangle to make the reactions all the more intense.

In "I Think I Do," his warmly received feature debut, Sloan pries apart the triangle and broadens his experiment in human behavior by involving seven tight knit George Washington University chums and spying on them first at school and then, later, at the wedding of the only two who've realized they belong together all along. The others aren't sure if they really love the person they seem to see as more than just a buddy...but they think they do.

The central but by no means only pair of romantic misfits is Bob (Alexis Arquette) and Brendan (Christian Maelen). Bob is a slightly nerdy gay everyman and Brendan is an impossibly gorgeous, presumably hetero hottie who also happens to be Bob's bestest friend and roommate. They are as inseparable as playful puppies and just as oh-so-cute together. Except they aren't together. At least, they think they aren't.

What threatens to separate them forever is that exact inexactness of feeling, Bob, who isn't initially out to his friends even if he is out on sight to the audience, certainly has a crush on Brendan; but how does Brendan view Bob? Could all those references he keeps making to Bob's lips be meaningless?

The other, heterosexual, friends are cute couple Carol (Lauren Vaclez) and Matt (Jamie Harrold), loveable pothead "himbo" Eric (Guillermo Diaz), good sport Beth (Maddie Corman) and the friend nobody likes, not really, the man-hungry Sarah (Marianne Hagan).

Carol and Matt have found their passion - for each other and, oddly, given that the film is contemporary, for David Cassidy - and serve as the shining example. Beth archly endures Eric's girl-devouring while doing everything but bite her palm in frustration behind his back. Sarah craves Brendan, who seems on the fence.

Despite the mixed signals, these friends as a unit manage a genuine warmth, achieved through witty banter and a cheerful recognition of each other's shortcomings. One of the most obvious strengths of the film from the very beginning is that its milieu is not exclusively gay. More adventurously, it's also not only male, and not only white. The seven friends are on the same wavelength, but they're also unique individuals from various ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Rarely has a group so large been so believably and charmingly captured on screen - you may find yourself wishing you were a part of their clique...

Love is in the air, but the uneasy status of Bob and Brendan's relationship comes to a head when the latest of one too many wrestling matches ends with a possibly accidental grope of Brendan's ass and a rather deliberate pounding of Bob's jaw. The gravity of this outburst makes for high drama and hints that Brendan may have as much of an issue with Bob as Bob does with Brendan.

The group reunites five years later for the wedding of Carol and Matt. The ways in which Sloan sketches his already astereotypical characters' development since college are as amusing as they are plausible. Most interestingly, slutty Sarah is now a political conservative working for a realllllly cool senator (the film's DC locale is referenced sparingly since it was mostly filmed in New York). Bob is now a successful writer for a daytime soap. He shows up with his boyfriend of one year and 18 weeks, who is the show's resident heartthrob and a household name: Sterling Scott (Tuc Watkins). A still sheepish Brendan arrives with an agenda that includes a heartfelt apology and a confession: he's gay and in love with Bob. He drilled Bob five years earlier when he really wanted to nail him.

Will Bob and Brendan become Bob & Brendan? Will Beth finally succeed in capturing Eric's attention? Will any of their friendships suffer for all this, this change?

"I Think I Do" is a frothy romantic comedy of the sort that's usually done expensively and sluggishly by mainstream moviemakers. It's a genre that's taken for granted to the point where some of the works that fall into this category are far better casting coups than actual, end-result movies. "I Think I Do" has a lot to teach these bigger, yet somewhat smaller, films.

Most importantly, the direction is snappy. While "I Think I Do" is not exactly the “screwball comedy" it hopes to be mistaken for, it moves at a clip that forces maximum amusement from its above-average lines.

The cast is so uniformly excellent it's hard to single out MVPs, but making the most of a role that could easily have been window dressing, Tuc Watkins - probably benefiting from his real-life soap experience - is delightfully funny at every turn. From Sterling's rah-rah excitement at being in a relationship to his understated but hilariously self-satisfied dealings with his many fans, Watkins is a revelation. "No wedding, no relationship and no residuals!" he memorably pouts when he feels he's lost Bob to Brendan.

Arquette, who is now more known for his drag persona than as a film actor, is sturdy in his anchoring of the antics swirling around him and Maelen brings a Cary Grant quality to Brendan, the heartthrob who's just gone gay all of a sudden. The duo has great chemistry, which makes them sizzle, in the same way that the film has genuine heart, which is what enables any romantic comedy to succeed.

Maddie Corman is so kooky and cute as Beth it's a shame she isn't more prominent, but an obviously impromptu fit of giggles between her and the always spot-on Guillermo Diaz is the film's realest and funniest moment.

Sarah should be really unlikable, but Marianne Hagan manages to make her simultaneously bitchy and an underdog worth rooting for, like a lost character from "Seinfeld." She receives and makes the most of some of the film's best zingers.

Sloan's love affair with the soap opera “One Life To Live” first surfaced when he cast Josh Weinstein in Pool Days. In "I Think I Do," not only does he give Tuc Watkins a fabulously funny part, he also casts "OLTL" vet Patricia Mauceri as a controlling mother of the bride. She turns out to be a hoot and a half.

In the "why not?" column, Marni Nixon (among other jobs, she provided the singing voice for Natalie Wood in "West Side Story") makes her first feature appearance in 30 years as Aunt Alice, a buttinsky wedding guest, and Uma's brother Dechen Thurman appears as a randy photographer who helps Beth forget about Eric for about three seconds.

A half-hearted use of title cards is pointless and goes nowhere and the happy ending, as welcome as it is expected, is not as skillfully executed as earlier and middle scenes. But overall, "I Think I Do" delivers.

It’s by no means a timeless classic. Rather, it is a timeful (references to "I've fallen...and I can't get up!," Dole/Kemp and raves) and kinda slight romp that nonetheless shows Hollywood how it should be and could be done - with a respect for the genre, the actors and the audience. "I Think I Do" makes romantic comedy look like a snap, and makes its many cousins, particularly those with gay principals, look even more agonizingly forced than they already are.

PARTING GLANCES
(1986)
Director: Bill Sherwood
Stars: Steve Buscemi, Kathy Kinney, Richard Ganoung
"The Mirror"

Widely regarded the best "gay film" ever made, "Parting Glances" holds up almost 20 years after its release thanks to the inscrutably accurate vision suggested by its title. In the same way that a good-bye glance between friends - or a furtive look back over the shoulder between gay men - can impart volumes, this 90-minute indie still feels like it knows all there is to know about the gay experience. It communicates this understanding through knowing vignettes that unfold while following a simple narrative peopled with the resonant real-life archetypes from which so many other films draw watered-down stock characters.

Writer/directed Bill Sherwood died of AIDS at 37 in 1990. This was his only film credit, thus serving as a parting glance at his own uncanny ear for dialogue, eye for social constructs and skill as a filmmaker.

The film takes place in New York at a time when AIDS was in its infancy, but not so early on that it had not already created a new language and a new social order where monogamous gay couples were neither merely admirably proper nor charmingly old-fashioned, but also damn lucky.

One such pair includes the film's central character, Michael (Richard Ganoung), a fastidious book editor charged with shaping up an "SM/sci fi/porno" manuscript. Michael's frustration with the overwhelming task of making something out of nothing is an adroit parallel with his relationship. Though Michael in his fussiness is a clear precursor to Will Truman, unlike the less fun half of "Will & Grace", he has a demonstrable sex drive, still enjoying a twice-a-day routine with his "Ken-doll" boyfriend, Robert (John Bolger, the great-nephew of Ray Bolger of The Wizard of Oz fame). If Robert only had a brain...or a heart...but he has all the other parts in spades. Refreshingly, Michael and Robert do not have an idyllic existence - Michael is a bit of a pill who's hung up on his AIDS-infected ex-boyfriend Nick (played with mesmerizing authority by Steve Buscemi) and Robert is a self-absorbed careerist.

Ganoung and Bolger have a fun, believable rapport and their exchanges are laced with a tension that is sometimes erotic, sometimes endearing and sometimes seems to communicate that they're essentially mismatched as life partners. In short, they could be the couple next door.

The film peeks at roughly 24 hours in the lives of Michael and Robert, a time when their relationship seems to be winding down because Robert is being transferred to Africa (where AIDS was born...coincidentally?). The couple's agenda includes a dinner at Robert's boss Cecil's (Patrick Tull) home and an engagement that will turn out to be a surprise going-away party.

Prior to the dreaded dinner, Michael pops into his favorite record store to pick up some opera LPs for Nick. He is embarrassed and pleased to be hit on by Peter (Adam Nathan), a twink-in-heat whose flirtations earn him an invite to Robert's going-away party. Asking this stranger and possible future trick to his lover's farewell party is Michael's way of telling himself he will be all right without Robert - or is it his way of showing Peter firsthand why it would never work out between them?

But before the party is the dinner, and this feast is starved for honesty, attended as it is by four pretenders: Michael is faking cordiality, Robert is keeping the secret that he engineered his own transfer, Cecil's wife Betty (Yolande Bavan) is keeping from her husband the fact that Michael and Robert are a couple and not just a couple of roommates and eccentric Cecil is hiding from his wife that he's well aware of who's bonking who - and has in fact for years been bonking boys, exotic locals in exotic locales such as Nairobi and Beirut.

Ironically, it is the cock-cuckolded Betty who utters the film's central theme, that people are blind to things they don't wish to see. Despite her equally wise belief that in every couple one is kissed and one does the kissing, she is oblivious to her own partner's proclivities. Michael pities her ignorance, but he gets a rude awakening to his own tunnel vision when Robert rather coolly informs him that his transfer was his own doing - his new title will be "liaison officer" even though he is deliberately tossing aside his own lengthy liaison with Michael.

If he is disconnected from his lover, then Michael's deep connection with Nick is the core of why the film succeeds - they have a palpable chemistry in their Felix and Oscar way and their utter devotion to each other is shown rather than explained through touches like Michael's parroting of Nick's fuck-the-establishment observations and Nick's willingness to try opera on for size simply because it comes recommended by Michael.

Nick is a no-nonsense New Yorker, a New Wave rocker (he's not a punk...a punk wouldn't sit around monitoring MTV for his latest video) who's got $100,000+ in the bank according to his trendy video will, a Keith Haring on his wall and HIV in his bloodstream. He's a surprising success in life who radiates an equal amount of surprise that his life is going to be cut short due to a disease he couldn't have seen coming. Clued in to the joke that is life, Nick enjoys ignoring doctor's orders, smoking, drinking and eating as if he were healthy - or as if his time is running out and may as well be spent happy. This vitality serves to liven up Michael's outlook even as it reminds him, time and again, that Nick is the only man he's ever truly loved. His confession of this fact to Nick comes in the film's most touching exchange, one so deeply felt and expressed it's worth the price of the DVD alone.

Michael and Nick's bond is further memorably illustrated in a Kenneth Anger-like flashback to a recent childish prank played by them on boorish Douglas (Richard Wall), the auteur of the cheesy book Michael is attempting to edit, at his Fire Island home. It is a risky choice that pays off in its haunting portrait of the two men as conspiratorial boys. One of the secrets of why Sherwood's depiction of gay men rings so true is his capturing of our tendency to refuse to abandon youthful whimsy even as we crash into adulthood.

The party is the most impressive aspect of the film technically (Sherwood also served as editor), a series of rapid exchanges that culminate in multiple rewarding character developments. Whereas most movies that show New York parties (or, especially, downtown art shows and plays), tend to make them farcically loopy, the party scenes in "Parting Glances" provide glimpses into gay social life (especially in the period) that ring compellingly true. With the same scruffy charm of "Desperately Seeking Susan," the party - hosted by fag hag royale/artist Joan (Kathy Kinney) - becomes a collection of social interactions that range from hilarious to heart-tugging.

Most importantly, Nick and Peter confront each other playfully on the stairwell in what can only be described as a juxtaposition of both the old (well...28 is old if you're gay, right?) and the young (20 is young no matter who you are)...and the old and the new. Peter is like Nick in reverse - he even resembles a younger, cuter, healthy Nick with his haircut and slight frame. He represents a possible diversion for Michael or a new direction altogether, and his presence can not be written off as mere window dressing. Nick himself is Michael's past - but he, too, may also be a new future.

The party also leads to a crisis for Michael and Robert when Michael overhears his boyfriend hypocritically advising a female friend to stick with her relationship even as he is hurtling ever closer to a safari away from his own. The rift is deepened when Robert stays out late boozing and dancing shirtless with his pals. (If you're going to have a soap opera veteran like Bolger in a movie, you might as well liquor him up and strip him down occasionally, right?)

The struggle between the lovers is never fully resolved despite a twist ending involving a last-minute change of plans and a highly manipulative gesture by Nick to test Michael's feelings, but even in its abrupt, untidy, but ultimately positive ending, "Parting Glances" never veers from reality and never second-guesses its lack of easy dramatic devices.

The movie is not perfect in every regard, though it has been called a perfect movie - the two sentiments are not mutually exclusive. The acting does have an amateurish quality to it, but I would argue that it actually heightens the almost documentary feel of many of the scenes. Ganoung and Bolger settle into highly charismatic performances and Steve Buscemi and Kathy Kinney deserve retro Oscars for the best work of their careers so far. The entire cast should be reunited by a gay glossy a la "Vanity Fair"'s reassemblings of the lineups of film classics...because that's what "Parting Glances" is, a film classic.

"The Madonna Suite"

PART 1 "The Hanging Offenses of Bette Midler"

By the time I was becoming aware of pop culture and choosing my favorites, Bette Midler was lumbering through her "Beast of Burden" phase. (Is one song enough to constitute a phase?) She'd had her supposed peak and was simply surviving, teetering on the verge of becoming a nobody again. Of course, the later '80s would save the tart-tongued T&A star's A with a string of Disney movies, and then there was that career-repositioning Johnny Carson finale. But back to the earlyish '80s—Bette was capri pants on toast, so I was never a fan or admirer.


But before I had a clue, Bette Midler was a truly ground-breaking gay icon. When I was a baby, she blithely told Johnny Carson on his "Tonight Show" that she was performing at a gay bathhouse, shocking anyone watching who had the faintest idea what she was talking about. She performed in "venues" where the star attraction was marathon fellatio, co-headlining with sodomy, and possessed a knowing wit that spoke volumes to gay fans. How could any Bette Midler fan of the '70s think she was anything but a gay man trapped in a woman's body, that now most overused of then anything but meaningless clichés? She wasn't just on our side, she was one of us. (She even later had to 'fess up to doing Geraldo Rivera when he showed up to interview her during that era...what straight woman can relate to that kind of WTF-for-now, embarrassing-later shag, and what gay man can't?)

The odd thing about Bette Midler was that while she seemed so brassy and modern, her vocal stylings were a throwback to the '40s. She remade "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" for chrissakes. Bette wasn't so much a sexual revolutionary as she was Fanny Brice reincarnated, a broadly funny burlesque broad—and it's not like those are ever anything to turn away.

In the ’80s, there was no need for Bette Midler. Madonna came along and, where Bette tiptoed around the line, went all the way. Madonna, who before she got religion sneered at the middle-brow mawk that Bette Midler had come to embody, quickly and efficiently took over as the definitive gay icon. Where Bette was a wink, Madonna was an unblinking stare. Bette was fun but Madonna was exhilarating. And Madonna made music that didn't make you feel 78 and a half years of age. (Bette took a famous and hypocritical stab at Madonna at 1985's "Live Aid"—she introduced Madonna, who was in the middle of a potentially career-ending nude-photo scandal, as a "woman who pulled herself up by her bra straps...and has been known to let them down oh-ccasionally.")

With some bounce-back success in the '80s, Bette stood a chance to assert herself as the ex-Madonna, the old-school Madonna, the elder icon. One for the older crowd and someone who we'd look up to with equal parts respect and giddy, too lazy to stop devoting ourselves to her devotion.

Then Cher happened.

Cher, who'd always been consistently inconsistent, whose career had followed a circuitous, dangerously dilettante-ish route from hippie chick to Vegas she-lizard to Oscar bait to one-woman nude USO show, came back. And it took. Cher's film career culminated in an Oscar, her painful infomercials simultaneously ratcheted up the camp value and the sympathy factor, her music went from Top 40 to Eurodisco club soundtrack and she gave a typically face-value, admirably real speech while eulogizing her dead ex-husband/ex-foil, Sonny. Cher aggressively took over the mantle of 'the first gay diva who admitted it.' She hadn't been. Bette had come before her in that department. But Cher had come before Bette in the world of entertainment. Cher swallowed Bette whole in the same way Madonna has swallowed just about everybody else whole—with no shame and no regrets...and frankly, for the betterment of pop culture anyway.

So Bette had no choice but to just keep going. She got married and had a kit. She made movies, including her deeply personal "For the Boys," which snagged her an Oscar nomination more for sheer determination that for nuanced emoting (and in spite of a Jabba the Hut makeup job that was bad even then let alone now). She's continued recording. She shows up from time to time. And somehow, along the way, Bette Midler has become not only redundant but disappointingly traitorous to her gay fans, whether they (are willing to) realize it or not.

The first time I remember thinking, "What's up with Bette Midler?" was when I read a 1992 "New York Times" profile on her. The whole thing was about how she was happily married and a mom and settling down and looking to be a good role model for her child—unless you're a total radical, you can't begrudge a gay icon or any maturing person a little late-onset conservatism (in the apolitical sense). If people stay crazy too long they die or lose their brains. Is anyone really upset Debbie Harry stopped drugging? She toned down and got to survive and just put out the best record of Blondie's career, "The Curse of Blondie." Madonna could not have continued as a force or salvaged any of her Q rating if she'd continued being sex-absorbed and bratty. Good for her that she got married and is enjoying issuing Dietrich-like quotes about the joys of motherhood and monogamy. Same goes for Bette. Glad she's happy.

But in this article, when asked about her bathhouse days, her quote was, "That was long before AIDS. People just went there to have fun. These days it upsets me terribly to think about it. Sometimes I'm sorry I had a part in it. And I guess I feel a little guilty. I kind of had blinders on. I refused to think about a lot of things that went on there. But in retrospect, I guess I was helping to make a big, fun party."

This struck me as totally bogus—there's not a chance she didn't know exactly what was going on around her. She'd literally have had to be wearing horse blinders and been led around by her pianist Barry Manilow (no blinders for him because they'd have cramped his style) not to realize what was happening there. Does anyone honestly doubt she didn't observe gay sex happening firsthand?

And while I can understand why anyone who'd been partaking of the fun and didn't get AIDS would be haunted by the near miss, and how someone singing there could later realize, 'I wonder if they're all dead?' and be haunted by that, Bette's point seemed to vibe more politically. She seemed to me to be saying that by being the life of the party, she was assisting in the death of the party-goers. And while no one knew you would die from having sex back then, she kind of retroactively regrets condoning the behavior. It seemed to me the right response to AIDS would be, 'How unfair. Who knew?' and not 'You play, you pay, but I didn't understand that then.'

I know it may seem I'm reading into it too much, but I tend to think people read into things too little.

Once I had this thought about Bette, I began building a case. Yes, I have better things to do—I just mean that each time I read about her, I found a pattern. It seemed to me that Bette Midler had turned into a closet Republican (collective gasp). Yes, I am anti-Republican. But they started it.

Interestingly, whether Bette's right or I'm wrong, many of Bette's projects could safely be read conservatively (in the poltical sense). For starters, she's never done anything subversive or edgy or independent in film. She's only ever stuck with $afe roles. "The First Wives Club," which I found hilarious but I should re-watch because people look at me like I have a mental hump when I admit this, is nothing if not the ultimate anti-girl power girl power movie. The feminism in it is dumbed down to a '50s "I Love Lucy" level. In "The Rose," she who fails to just say no just drops dead. "For the Boys" is a valentine to the good old days. Her music since the aforementioned "Beast of Burden" has been almost resolutely adult contemporary schmaltz. It's a wonder she didn't do a version of "God Bless America" to coincide with a war at some point. Let's not even talk about her doing a Rosemary Clooney album. Good music or not, how retro can you get? (And then removing her name from Grammy contention out of respect for the late Ms. Clooney...was that respect or hubris at the assumption Bette was a shoo-in?)

There's no question in my mind that the Bette Midler who started life as a take-no-prisoners outsider has become a woman pining for a time when she was hardly even born...not just old-fashioned, but a generation off to boot.

The latest thing that ticked me off about Bette Midler had to do with Madonna, my own admitted idol. As you'll read in the future, I love Madonna and most of her work and will go to the mat for her when she deserves it, but am not such a Madonna apologist that I can't, say, be annoyed when she sticks up for Eminem, curses out David Letterman or insists on making movie vanity projects that blow massive holes in her dwindling reserve of cool.

But back to Bette. When Madonna kissed Britney Spears, I was shouting at the TV, "This is historic!" I loved it. I think it was one of the Top 5 coolest things Madonna's done in her career, and I am not even much of a fan of Britney Spears. I felt it was pure entertainment, politically tangy and funny all at once. To call it a mere publicity stunt is to strip it of all the levels it actually has. But Bette didn't call it a publicity stunt (which is at least a reasonable stance for someone who's bored by Madonna and/or Britney and/or celebrity). Bette told various outlets ["Access Hollywood," Larry King and Frank DeCaro in "The Advocate" (the latter of whom is a journalist who unless I'm totally misremembering...and please remind me if I am...once hired a hustler and wrote about it for a magazine?] that she found the Madonna/Britney kiss "tacky and irresponsible." DeCaro not only didn't challenge Bette on the broader implications of her observation, he supplied the adjective "desperate" for Bette to approve. She also specified in "The Advocate" that "not to insult your lesbianic readership but...ew!" Her reasoning? That Madonna and Britney (and oh, yeah, Christina, Christina, too, don't forget her) should have known that "11-year-olds" were watching.

Forget that Bette is insulting a fellow diva—that is expected and certainly Madonna has not been demure over the years about sniping helpless bystanders caught in the crosshairs of fame, from Bette to Celine to Janet/Michael/LaToay to Kevin Costner to Sinéad O'Connor to...Jesus, that is another post. But what exactly is tacky about a seme-sex kiss, and why exactly should an 11-year-old be protected from seeing it? Keep in mind, Bette's not criticizing violent video games, the near X-rated fare MTV rotates 24/7 or any number of other issues that might actually be harmful to developing minds. She's singling out homosexual affection. It disgusts her ("Ew!") and offends her. It is something over which to exchange tsk-tsks and knowing eye rolls with Frank DeCaro, a guy who represents the typical, knee-jerk gay reaction of protecting old-time gay icons, his stated goal when he began reviewing movies for Comedy Central. (Bette was one of his example then, so to be fair, he was probably only doing what any fan would do when interviewing a personal idol—cower and say anything at all in order to be approved. I'm sure I'd say anything Madonna wanted to hear in order for her not to dislike me and therefore make me dislike her.)

And as far as the sexual provocation of the Madonna/Britney kiss, I found it pretty unbelievable that Bette Midler of all people would look down her nose at it, considering her entire career has been one extended shake of the rack.

The noose, for me, tightened when Bette was on Larry King to promote her Clooney CD (which I'm sure is beautifully sung and suitably adoring). When the topic of gay marriage came up, I gave Bette Midler her last chance. Surely of all people on earth, Bette Midler would pipe up immediately with her support of gay marriage. Right? Wrong.

Instead, Bette Midler noted that lesbians tend to mate for life and that gay men might be too promiscuous to get married. Unlike, presumably, straight men—who have such a better track record, right? Avoiding the basic civil rights angle, Bette Midler went for old-fashioned gay stereotype humor. Nothing crazy like 'Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,' I'll admit, but reactionary nonetheless and a squirmy effort to dodge the question. And, I would put forth, the final straw that should break the caterwauling camel's back.

Of course, any Democrat hoping to be elected has to say he's against gay marriage even if he's down with gay civil unions. And yet I still support them, right? Well, that is a case of politics and of accepting the unacceptable as a clear preference over the alternative—Bush. But I don't have John Kerry CDs or John Edwards posters on my wall (okay...one shirtless one, but c'mon). These people are people I'm supporting. Idols are people (are they even?) who are thrown support not as a means to an end, but as representatives of who we are. When an idol lets you down, you may not want to chuck him or her entirely, but you're entitled to be hugely disappointed and say so. If Madonna became anti-gay I have to believe I'd lose some part of my 20-year infatuation with her artistry.

Bette Midler is a good singer. She can be a funny and sometimes a dramatially satisfying actress. She was an important gay icon. Note the tenses on those statements.

Whatever you think of Bette Midler's talents, the woman is at best a fair-weather friend to gay men (and apparently not even that to those of the "lesbianic" persuasion). To me, she's the kind of fag hag who's a blast to hang out with when you're both young, someone you go clubbing with and do stupid things with and take pictures of and have high adventures with and think is your friend till the end. Then she hits 30 and gets married and doesn't invite you to the wedding and doesn't want you around her kids because your gayness might rub off on them. Because your old adventures now embarrass her and represent to her a degraded time in her life.

Like Liberace, Bette Midler always had a gay and a clueless straight audience. She's playing exclusively to the latter now, and against the former. In every sense of the phrase, Bette Midler is no longer for the boys.

One of my hobbies is to pretend I'm humble—it's the best way to be well-liked—and I'm very good at it if I do say so myself. I recently repeated, during a critiquing session, "I have no ego" so many times my critic began to say it of me, and to believe it of me. I could barely choke out the words they were such disinformation. Not that I'm cocky. But then I'm not fun to play board games with, win, lose or draw. So maybe I am cocky.

I'm secretly a big believer in myself, and I feel like more often than not I'm right. I suppose anyone who doesn't subscribe to his or her own opinions at least nine times out of 10 is stupid or lacks self-esteem, but I tend to agree with me wholeheartedly. When I'm wrong, I know it. But I'm too loyal to admit it. I would never do that to me.

As a show of support for my powers of observation, I'm keeping a promise to myself to start this blog.

I'm calling it "New York Eyes."

The "Eyes" is because it will be an observation, my favorite thing to do. I love to be the quiet one checking out what other people are doing and saying, then deducing what they're thinking. I like consuming and computing the difference between when I was told I consumed and what I actually consumed. I'm a pop-culture addict, its biggest proponent and most exasperated critic. I hate people and love trying to figure them out.

The "New York" is because it's where I will be sitting and I believe that context is everything.

And putting them together, I think the cutting, second-guessing nature of the phrase "New York Eyes" is a fair and balanced tip of the hat to "fair and balanced." It's a self-reproach to defuse anyone's reasonable thought that things are not always as they seem from Manhattan. It's my acknowledgment that..."I know, I know."

I hope to post often and passionately, if not always at length. If I don't, tell me off. Enjoy it and tell me if you do. If you hate it, roll your eyes and go away because while constructive criticism is the #1 best way to improve anything, I'm not looking to improve how I see the world.