the awesome/terrifying freedom

let me tell you a story.

once upon a time (yesterday) i decided to go to the really gay gym in chelsea.

the really gay gym in chelsea is more about walking around naked in the locker room than it is about working out. i'm totally serious. the locker room was packed. people everywhere. imposible to get a locker. the weight room: empty. it's kind of disgusting, but i'm kind of disgusting, and i'm occasionally compelled to go. mostly it's because there are too many straight people at my gym and after awhile it starts to grate on my nerves. eventually the gay gym will be too gay and i'll happily return to the straight gym. but for now i'm happy to be surrounded by some fellow feys.

anyway. i went to the gay gym, and there he was. working his abs. doing leg raises. looking amazing. sweating up a storm.

lee tergesen.

also known as 'beecher' from 'oz.'
also known as the first guy charlize theron kills in 'monster.'
also known as the lucky bastard who got to make out with chris meloni naked.

later in the locker room i said to him:

me: um. uh. um. is that. is that locker um. taken?

lee tergesen: yeah. that's mine.

me: oh. ha ha. no. um. i mean uh that one. behind you.

lee tergesen: oh. no it's not.

me: (hopeful) oh, okay.

lee tergesen: but there's water in the bottom.

me: (despondent) oh, okay.

and thus ended my conversation with beecher. i'll hold onto that for years.. at least until i get to have a similar conversation with chris meloni.

what's lee doing in the gay gym? surely he knows he's a sort of icon to us homos. did he just feel the need to feel iconic for an evening a la sally field's trip to the mall with whoopi goldberg in 'soapdish?'

charlize totally deserved that golden globe (even though the golden globes are a totally bogus construct designed to coerce american movie stars to appear on foreign talk shows). she better win the oscar.

the most amazing thing about watching the early auditions is seeing the legions of bad high school drama homos parade in and out of that room. do we need any other evidence that gay behavioral traits are innate and not chosen? i wonder when i first started to show my gayness. i have a feeling it was around kindergarten when i desperately wanted a play kitchen to make play food in.

american idol sucks until the finals. i can't stand it. i kept switching back and forth to 'the apprentice,' which is my new favorite show. i love that they are all smart, successful type A personalities at war with each other as they work through creative challenges. damn i wish i was a type A sometimes. i think i'm borderline type A. i get reeeeaaaaaly lazy. and then moderately productive.

after 'the apprentice' i fell upon 'america's next top model,' which is my new favorite show. pure pretty-girls-trapped-in-gay-dominated-enterprise bitchfest.

in other news, michaelangelo signorile wrote a brillant slam letter to dick cheney's lesbian traitor daughter. check it out at www.signorile.com

no, i have not seen american idol! i know i know, it's the very show that put my blog on the map. i'm such a traitor. i'm watching it tonight. i will have my computer on my lap and i will type as i watch. i can't wait to see 'gay delusion' in it's horrific grandeur again. who will be the next closeted homo to take the throne?

i was in barnes and noble last night and picked up simon cowell's book 'i don't mean to be rude but..' and was interested to read his analysis of the first season, and his brutal breakdown of the various contestants. he sums of justin guarini as being tragically average, and gives an interesting portrait of kelly clarkson as calculating and driven - and says that tamyra had no chance of winning because she was too perfect, which left the audience feeling that she didn't need their help to have a career.

somewhere between justin timberlake and chris meloni is ari gold. mmm. wow. he's my new friendster! (btw, if you're a regular reader and are on friendster, click on 'the real me' to the right, figure out my full name, look me up on friendster, and add me as your friend! i wanna know who you are!)

back to ari. check out his site: www.arigold.com. super hot. his music needs to be a little more distinctive before he becomes a superstar, but that will come in time. he's our one great hope for a pop star who is openly gay in a sexy, macho alpha male way, and not in the geeky, aw shucks, yeah i'm a part time penis collector clay aiken way.

a great response to high school blogging from therese:

I'm a senior in high school and about a year ago a few people from my class started using a newfangled thing called 'Xanga.' For a while it was just a group of us, being angsty and giving each other e-props for moral support when we fought with our parents, or posted depressing lyrics. Then when school began again this year, Xanga exploded. I'd say anywhere between one- half and two-thirds of my school now uses Xanga. And it's become a giant popularity contest/method of revenge/the new way to pass note with a cute guy. Now we have a war going on between the "old-school xangans" and the "sheep" who started doing it because it became cool. People who've had their blogs since last winter (the date you joined is on your blog) write diatribes against the newbies, and some are even starting to leave out of protest. It's a giant e-war. Moral of the story: No idea. But sadly, this is also happening with indie music at my school. Things are cool until the majority finds out.

Therese Enders

PS - I got Clay Aiken's new cd for christmas. Wow, is he gay. But the poster's hanging in my room anyway.

okay, read the article on salon.com about 'brokeback mountain,' reported to star jake gyllenhall and heath ledger as cowboys in love.

Later, in one of the screenplay's most powerful moments, the two men -- each married and a father -- meet again after a separation of many years, supposedly to share some platonic, ass-slapping drinks as straight men. But when they meet on the very visible stairway to Ennis' apartment, they "seize each other by the shoulders, hug mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying sonofabitch, sonofabitch. Then, as easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths come together."

It's the kind of sad-happy-hot scene that -- when well-cast -- can shoot sexual currents off the screen, sparking the hearts and libidos of receptive audiences. But those audiences are used to getting singed by Bacall and Bogart, by Deborah Winger and Richard Gere, by Kate and Leo. Are they ready for the unbridled lust of Gyllenhaal and Ledger?

okay, this movie has got to be made.

craigslist freaks me out!

This is an ideal situation for someone who wants to share costs so we can each pay off some bills, make friends and hopefully more. Not really lookin for a relationship, but foolin around never hurts so it's either the love seat, or we share the bed. Everything else is included such as electric, cable etc.

so i guess the question really is, how much am i willing to "pay" for a $450/month apartment in manhattan?

not that much. ahem.

this is a great article about how blogging has changed high school social constructs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/magazine/11BLOG.html

i can't imagine if i had a blog in high school. the thought of all those millions of angsty authors out there, venting simultaneously.. it's pretty amazing, and actually, i think, bodes quite well for future generations to be more literate, better in touch with their feelings, and more critically analytical. go angsty bloggers, go!

been reading 'tropic of cancer' on the subway during those rare days when i can actually stay awake. this passage really struck me:

New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glittering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit. A constant ferment, but it might just as well be going on in a test tube. Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre. Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated.

When I think of this city where I was born and raised, this Manhattan that Whitman sang of, a blind, white rage licks my guts. New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the kikes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and above all, the ennui, the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters, jobs, crimes, loves. . . . A whole city erected over a hollow pit of nothingness. Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. And Forty-second Street! The top of the world, they call it. Where's the bottom then? You can walk along with your hands out and they'll put cinders in your cap. Rich or poor, they walk along with head thrown back and they almost break their necks looking up at their beautiful white prisons. They walk along like blind geese and the searchlights spray their empty faces with flecks of ecstasy.

maryindiana wrote me a poem:

There once was a blogger named Joe
His lack of sleep filled him with woe
With bedtimes so erratic
My question isn't Socratic
Why is Morpeus your foe?

awhile back walt also wrote to tell me about 'american idols on the road,' which i started to watch but had to turn off because it was giving me a rash. after that , i did watch 'world idol,' where kelly was beatn by the 'hobbity' polish guy, who, in terms of geekiness, is the world's clay aiken. i don't think he's gay, though.

the guy from south africa was hot. cheesy hot in that casper van dien way, but hot.

do you know about these freaky ass people on craigslist?

i'm looking at apartment listings and on more than one occasion i've come across listings that are more or less applications for people to become sex slaves. like this one:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/roo/21965918.html

"I would prefer someone who is submissive and/or an exhibitionist because all common areas will be shared"

what?

"i'm sorry sir, i'm going to either need you handcuffed to the chair, or standing on the chair with a whip if we're going to share this common area together."

then he (or i suppose she, but somehow i doubt that this is a female posting, though if it is a woman, i suppose it would be an empowerment, in which case i applaud her, but male or female: creepy) asks you to send a picture.

is this the amount of power one has in new york city when one owns an apartment?

i suppse it's better than the creepazoid posting a totally normal ad, meeting the guy, moving in, and then slowly discovering what you've gotten yourself into.

fantastic article about the changing face of high school sociology:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/magazine/11BLOG.html

really must
learn to go bed
on time

frenchie davis rules the world

http://www.playbill.com/features/article/83601.html

haiku from my dad:

Seventeen, no more.
Simply a poem format,
Not a lifetime lived.

can i be mariah carey for a moment? can i post to my website in a moment of personal crisis shortly before being shipped off to rehab and releasing a shitty album?

i'm not attractive. i possess no social skills. i specialize only in alienating people. i have a modicum of talent which has gone wasted, which is actually a much sadder prospect than had i no talent at all. i am selfish. i do not know how to share. i do not know how to include. i do not know how to reach out. i am nervous and obvious around people from whom i want something. i find it extremely difficult to be honest. not that i lie, but that i find it very difficult to be upfront about the complete truth. to be free. to not care. to be a participant in life. to play. to laugh from a deep, real place. is this because i am an only child or is it because i am intrinsically assholish?

blah.

snippets of my new years eve:

twenty minute chat with debbie gibson's sister's husband while holding a plastic cup of wine at debbie gibson's apartment.

running into my ex boyfriend's ex boyfriend at the second party and having a weird moment of victory or smugness or something when betsy tells me 'he keeps looking at you.'

thinking the strange red haired girl at the third party is a crazy woman when she puts her hand on my shoulder and slyly says 'what a surprise to see you here' and then realizing twenty minutes after the party is over that i met her two months ago and actually had a long conversation with her, and how really i must have seemed like the crazy one.