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Sunday, November 01, 2009

Our Hollow-Ween

I'm really quite envious of you who live where the Halloween tradition is still strong. The last Halloween I actually enjoyed was 20 years ago or more. I was visiting my parents, got dressed up in some sort of impromptu ghoulish makeup and handled the door greeting/candy distributing job. The kids' faces were truly priceless. Being a part of someone else's pleasure is my game I guess. Maybe I'm more secure with being a part of others having fun than worrying about it for myself. Hey- don't look at me like that- I ain't no saint- but "adult" Halloween and/or streets devoid of children are an absolute bore for me and have been for decades.

Frankly Halloween is one tradition- even as a gay man- I've never been overly thrilled with. Sorry guys, but any holiday that features boozing it up to get out of your head as one of it's centerpeices is of no real interest or joy to me.

Sadly, for the fourth year -or so, my partner and I have lived in this gaww-damm cul-de-sac last-dead-end-lane of this dumb-ass trailer park (yes- go ahead and make those jokes, believe me, we know...we know...) the very dark and uninviting street where we live has discouraged any foot traffic. To be honest the only excuse I can think of is that a lot of kids parents are just ninnies. I mean if I had kids I would revel in accompanying them- watching them run excitedly ahead of me to knock on the next door, often with the companionship of the other costumed demons, superheroes, ghosts and ironic/iconic personalities of the day haunting our own or a nearby neighborhood.

This year we didn't get one visitor. Not one! In the previous years we may have gotten five minutes of one or two- or in a heavy traffic year when the truly bold among our neighbors are out and about- three or - gasp!- four visitors. Now I ask you- what kinda half-assed Halloween is that to celebrate?
This year- as ever- I bought candy for the prospective alien invaders to our humble doorstep. The first thing my partner did was tease me about which of us would consume most of the mass quantities of chocolate kisses.
I even went the extra step of buying two small-sized pumpkins and carving jack-o-lanterns out of them- one had fangs (wonder what made me think of that?) and I made the other one a cyclops. I checked them out and they looked good- hell, I would've gone to our door for my candy haul. But noooooooooo!
No luck. No dice. Nothin' doin'.
To quote that Eric Burdon and the Animals song, "we gotta get out of this place"!

The best known Halloween "party" has been in San Francisco's Castro district. Due to louts from out of town who've gone there to vandalize the party and harass its participants the Castro Halloween has become a flashpoint example for excess and unwanted "celebration" and has become scaled down or almost extinct as a cultural phenomenon. I can't actually make heads or tails of it from the news reports I try to read but then become too bored to finish after spotting the handful of fear-mongering buzzwords that seem part and parcel of any story about folks celebrating these days.
The "street" we live on isn't much help either. One next door neighbor we wonder about being a drug dealer or some kinda crap- the guy has had a couple of knockdown, drag-outs with his "girlfriend' including plowing away their wooden porch in a rage and coming perilously close to displacing ours in his Hummer- fer crisssakes!- a few months ago. Their visitors are always in very expensive cars with an unlikely looking hodgepodge of steroidy-looking gym rats and low-lifes and lotsa loud talking too late into the night. Crack, roids, coke, smack? Fuck if I know. Does Amway distribute dope now?? Really- I couldn't/wouldn't make this stuff up. The other next door neighbor is a little old lady who seems nice but is so quiet and seasonally visits elsewhere for a good part of the year we often aren't sure if she's home. Evidently her son and some other family have come to help her recently or maybe are simply now living in her place . Yesterday when I was placing the jack-o-lanterns on our porch I saw her "son"- kind of a grizzled older guy (yeah- like my age)- with longish hair and a surly attitude. He came out of their trailer the same time I was looking at me pumpkins and we made eye contact. I nodded my head and said "Hi.". He grunted, looked disgusted and closed the door back behind him.
Hey happy Halloween you miserable old mutha fuckka!

The other neighbors are basically even more invisible. Though there's a beautiful blond boy -late teens to early 20s with a huge black Great Dane who races motor bikes and often has a cast or some scrapes. He's usually smiling and is really easy on the peepers- he has a girlfriend or a sister as well as a boyfriend or just a friend (hey, those bmx guys seem awfully open to the possibilities ya know?) who is also his age and a hottie as well. But you guessed it- he's almost never there. Gee, I wonder why? At least he's friendly.

It's not just the economy that's crummy these days in the Golden State it's a lot of things.
I'm sure there are still neighborhoods where the kids are still having fun and the folks aren't convinced it's the end of the world everyday- we, unfortunately, just don't live in one of them.

Welcome to California. Now go home.

5:21 PM - 11 views - 4 eprops - 2 comments - email it

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloweenie

Let Us Now Praise Famous Monsters

In mythic tradition Halloween marks the time when the veil is thinnest between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

In celebrating this particular day I have to wonder if the ubiquitous presence of the latest batch of our various favorite fanged fiends has reached a point of over-saturation. But as any afficianado of the vampire knows, once invited in, this sultry specimen of the pulseless is harder to be rid of than Joe Lieberman.

While I've never read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" the appeal is yet not lost on me of a lurid yet seductively handsome creature knifing into the misty tide of a foggy night to find a delectably warm-blooded human to suck.

Blood- that is.

Sure- that's what I meant.

In fact, vampires have had a presence in the folklore of many cultures for a very long time but the first literary vampiric characters only appeared around 1800 according to this article.

And though the vampire in art is fairly old (- especially to those young 'uns who can only wonder how humans ever found a way to find each other for sex before the internets was invented-) and the myth much older, we truly have to turn to face the fictional, iconically moss-shrouded New Orleans of a century or two ago and genuflect in the demi-astral direction of the still living author Anne Rice for bringing these creatures back to contemporary life.

Mrs. Rice must be paid homage to for inventing that singularly modern creation-- the vampire-with-a-conscience. That creation in particular is the vampire Louis from her 1976 novel "Interview With The Vampire". Critics and readers both bowed before Anne for audaciously giving us not just one unique creature at odds with it's central nature in Louis, but a vampire of terrible strength, competitive with any era's Count Dracula, effortlessly adaptable to the modern world and princely in his joyfully malevolent persona, the vampire Lestat.

Mrs. Rice single-handedly eschewed some of the older vampiric legends and added a few unique twists of her own manufacture to the field that have proven to be lasting and popular among her descendents in the mod vamp world- that is, she has been stolen from often and by everybody and their brother.

Anne must be given her crown as recasting the vampire species as the thoroughly modern, chic denizens of the undead as they live in contemporary literature...or at least in fiction (- for you one or two "snobs" who may still be diffidently indulging my prattle thus far).

Of those other main citizens partaking of the realm of deadery ghosts seemed too tied to their particular situation at the time of their demise to have the vampires' aura of comparatively house-proud, amoral freedom and zombies- well, ugh!- what with all the spattered brain matter on their erst Sunday bests are, how you say?... simply icky!!! El yuck-o grande!

No "chic" for thee-- ye, vile, empty-headed, foot-dragging slaves to gore!

But from this relatively recent primal fount of blood another master has emerged to claim his own crown in painting the world in dark, ironic vampy and campy colors. That would be Joss Whedon who appropriated the "vampire-with-a-conscience" theme for one of the central characters, Angel, in the brilliant "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series on television which was preceded, less importantly, by his original film of the same name.

In the "Buffy" world and later in the "Angel" spinoff series Mr. Whedon continued the construction of the modern vampire pop realm to include and enhance the unlikely attraction, need and even love between members of what should be the forces of life and faith and those of death and nihilism.

Opposites not only attract in WhedonWorld, they also rut like crazed weasels from time to time, feel horribly conflicted and then do it again and again. I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned from this.

Crucifixes? Silver? Sunlight? Holy water? The truisms of the vampire reality have been turned on their ravenously hungry heads and suffered a plethora of adaptations and modifications to give the "New Moons" and "Blades" and "True Bloods" and "Vampire Diaries" as absolutely an open field to romp to paydirt with.

But today's important question:

If I had to pick one of these new-fangled vampires to be sucked by and suck on who would that be?

Bachelor Number Two would be from the BBC series "Being Human".

The vampire Mitchell with that lovely Brit accent, his pretty floppy locks and those dark, smouldering good looks. Yes, for him I would convert me'self into a 7-11 style, one-man blood bank for easy access hoping he would let my anxious heart hold onto a last lucky beat before din-din ended so we could live (more or less) to mutually feast again.

Bachelor Numero Uno...drum roll, please.......

James from the "Twilight" film.

Hubba -ouch, that hurts!- Hubba!!

Yeah, baby.

Turn me on dead man.

James is the kinda boy- dead or alive- who has turned me on since I was a teeny-bobber. Beautifully blond , irredeemably evil and dangerous just to think about. For him I'd try to be at my best- good to the last drop.

Of course, I wouldn't exactly kick Lestat out of the crypt, either. And lovely, lovely Louis- it's just that. Oh, gee, it's just that after a night of passionate suction you'd hate to see the guy you're with wilt up with guilt before he begs off suddenly to go somewhere "he has to be". Hey- some of us guys have been there before, ya know.

Well, on that note I'll just say "Happy Halloween everyone" and I wish you luck in conjuring the monster of your fondest dreams.

1:24 PM - 24 views - 6 eprops - 4 comments - email it

Sunday, August 30, 2009

THE YEAR OF THE EAR

I have been doing a lot of research. For the traditional Chinese astrological calendar this is the Year of the Ox. The Vietnamese celebrate it as the year of the Water Buffalo. Here are some associations:

Attribute
Associations
Zodiac Location
2nd
Ruling hours
1am-3am
Direction
North-northeast
Motto
"I Persevere"
Season and month
Winter, January
Fixed element
Water
Stem
Negative
Lunar Month Dates
January 8-February 5
Gemstone
Aquamarine
Colors
Yellow, Forest Green
Roughly equivalent western sign
Capricorn
Polarity
Yin
Countries
Switzerland, India, Cuba, Yemen, Finland, Ukraine

Now that may all be fine and good but, seriously, has anyone else but me noticed the preponderance of males with one rather larger than normal physical attribute?

Hmmm?

Well, have you?

And that attribute would be very sexy, ripe, luscious.....

EARS!

Yes, that's right boys and girls. The ears have it this season!

I will cite some examples.

*************************

Of those shows people routinely refer to as a "guilty pleasure" would be two of the BBC's entries into the world of popular television- even here on the Philistinean side of the Atlantic ocean.

One of those shows is "Merlin".

The young actor playing Merlin in this modern, updated variant on the legend of Albion's most revered mythical royalty is named Colin Morgan. He's really quite handsome. So is the actor playing Prince (and future regnant personage) Arthur- that would be Bradley James. My PLC hipped me to the rumor , or should that be "rumour"?, that this latest incarnation of the Arthurian tale had homoerotic shadings.

Of course, to PLC and myself a handy cookbook or tablecloth might qualify with so nebulous a characterization. But- I digress. I guess.

Gaze at the following images and tell me what you notice.

Colin Morgan Merlin & Arthur

Um hah! Just as I thought. That delicate looking cranium is possessed of a well-endowed set of ears.

The other BBC offering in the world of fantasy is the show "Being Human" which just concluded its 6-show season last night here in The Colonies. Hmm- I remember when a "season" consisted of 39 shows but then you know what workaholics we Americans are often deemed to be. Fortunately the current trend of throwing people out of any reasonable semblance of gainful employment may yet make a dent in that armor -or is that "armour"?- of eros-delayed-for-monetary-impermeability our more successful citizens possess.

Of the three attractive characters- a smouldering , darkly handsome vampire, a wistful, vulnerable ghost and a conflicted, geeky werewolf it is the last mentioned who possesses the aforementioned attribute of being superiorly eared as it were.

Behold:

Russell Tovey, Lenora Chrichlow, Aidan Turner

Russell (in middle- well, duh!) with other actors from another production

The actor's name is Russell Tovey and he is cute, cute, cute! And for the record Russell has come out as openly gay. Isn't it wonderful to be in the world sometimes?

I'm too damned old for him, not to mention otherwise committed but, oh, for the fantasies alone anyway......

"Cute" is the right word- or should that be "cuoute"?- oh, sorry that one doesn't work.

Now then, the vampire character, Mitchell (Aidan Turner) , is, as the saying these days goes, "smokin' hot". I'd be tempted to offer myself if he needed a quick bite to tide him over for dinner. I find him more appealing than almost any of the filmed Anne Rice characters of any of the vamps on "Buffy", "Angel" or "True Blood". I know he's not reading this but it's too bad- at least I could pump up his...ego.

But, but- it's the werewolf, George, who is adorable in a nearly unique way. He retains a nerdy hesitancy while yet being one of the more viscious, id-driven demons in all of mythology. Those damn Irish, Scots, Welsh and English actors- they can do anything it seems.

A loveable werewolf- who knew?

I also mentioned an actor from an American "guilty pleasure" tee vee show from CBS called "Harper's Island" in a previous blog. Starring in a show that was short-lived, well-done and yet tacky all at once I have praised the visual virtues of one Christopher Gorham. See below:

Ear! Ear! I say. Now, kids, this one is married- to a gurl! But please note "fantasies", above.

Am I missing anyone from this trend? Has there been a central figure to presage the Year of the Ear?

And lastly is there any precedent for this "earrie" phenomenon (sorry I couldn't resist)?

Well, as I was gazing at the multiple images from the nets in sloppily composing this dithering ditty of a blogging entry I recalled an image I first saw a number of years ago-- Lukas Haas.

Notice anything?

11:19 AM - 21 views - 6 eprops - 4 comments - email it

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Look What I Found

While searching for an old clip from a slapstick comedy I stumbled upon this amazing site that has a lot of older, free movies and private films:

http://www.archive.org/index.php

I saw the site through this original page.

Also, while there, I found this movie about the 1939 World's Fair at Treasure Island I thought might be of interest to at least one former resident.

Above and below, 1939 Treasure Island Images

P.S. The Treasure Island World's fair was 70 years ago,of course. On this day 43 years ago I went to Candlestick Park and saw the Beatles in their last ever public concert (excepting the impromptu rooftop one they did for the "Let It Be" film- and that doesn't really count).

****************

And then just for the heck of it here's a pic of Nijinsky that has nothing to do with the fair:

Our Hollow-Ween

Happy Halloweenie

THE YEAR OF THE EAR

Look What I Found

The Dream That Never Dies