Quel drag, encore

This just in--according to my friend Snappy, it looks as though the BuzzKill Legal Corporation® from Battlestar NBC/Universal has once again defeated the renegade Copyright Liberation Front (not to be confused with that other Kopyright Liberation Front®, the KLF).

The Peacock Network or Google or Homeland Security or someone has had that nifty video of Jake Gyllenhaal pulled from YouTube.

Oh, curse them, curse them, Justified Ancients of Mu Mu!

You can, however, buy the episode on iTunes for $1.99. Still, you might wait a couple of weeks until the offical Saturday Night Live website catches up and possibly offers the clip on their site.

So my bad and copyright infringers beware. I really should have known better, but even lil milquetoast me likes to flaunt the rules every now and again.

All is forgiven. ¡Viva la Commerce!

* * *

And speaking still further on The Glamourous Life of the Drag Queen, I am totally loving Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up," which has the brilliance to sample "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music. True enough, she sampled "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof on her previous album, so she's clearly working her way through the Broadway in the '60s back catalog. On her next solo outing, expect a mash up of Gwen and Robert Goulet singing a hip hop/electroclash/emo version of "Time to Remember" from The Fantasticks. Tee to da Eye to da Em to da Eeeee, vulture-licious, indeed.

I can't say that I really get Gwen's appeal, though. I sort of got her work with No Doubt (probably not much to get, but still . . . hard not to like something like "Underneath It All" or "Just a Girl"). "Wind It Up" is entertaining, catchy, but not what you'd call a pop classic. Apparently, the song was originally written for a runway show of her fashion line, L(ove) A(ngel) M(usic) B(aby). So viva la commerce II; pop and business get their freak on once more.

What I understand even less is her "look." Yes, yes, classic Vargas girl, '40s/'50s pin-up, yadda, yadda, yadda, but she ends up most of the time looking like a farsighted drag queen with a propensity to do her own hair and makeup. Honey, did you really mean to make your lips that Haifa orange red? Did you let the Lady Clairol "Cornsilk Blonde Bombshell" stay in a little too long? Tell the truth: You didn't really mean to walk out the door looking like that, did you? Mmmm, girlfriend, daylight can be so unflattering to those who insist on wearing discount aisle cosmetics and sweatshop-made clothes.

What always makes me chuckle is that Gwen is married to Gavin Rossdale, formerly of Bush, who way back in the '80s during his first blush of fame/notoriety was photographed with (and romantically/sexually linked to? you'll have to read Boy George's Take It like a Man to figure that one out, and even then . . .) British drag artiste, Marilyn.

So whenever I see Gwen performing, I always think to myself, that ol' Gav' traded in one drag queen for another.

* * *

The world's gone all draggy. That or old Sparks! records are new again. Meet Mika. Listen to "Grace Kelly." Put the rather tedious, "it's all about me and my sexy body and pithy comments to the British press!" Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters back in the go-go dancer's cage at the boy bar where he belongs. (More "I Don't Feel like Dancing," less you, please, Jake.) Long live one-hit wonders!

* * *

And finally on this theme, Zarf the transgendered rocker on All My Children. Transgendered is not the same as transvestite. I hope we all get that by now. So why do the soap writers insist on writing (and the actor insists on acting) the part as if Zarf/Zoë were a man who had sat up too many nights in a flowered kimono, combing out his Eva Gabor wigs, eating bon-bons, and watching too many Charles Busch movies on Logo? Dye, Mommie, Dye!, as it were. Preferably with some highlights and then swept back into a tasteful chignon.

Zarf is supposed to be a man who wants to be a woman who wants to love a woman, specifically long-suffering lesbian character Bianca Montgomery, daughter of that one woman drag revue herself, Erica Kane. But, oh dear. His whole act is very, how you say? Ah, yes, over zee top, n'est pas?

Word to Zarf: Channel Melissa Etheridge, not Melissa Rivers. Or, worse, Melissa Joan Hart. Think less chiffon and stiletto heels and more flannel and sensible shoes. Focus on pumping iron and not curling iron.

Too true, you may have the right look. Bianca is definitely more of a "lipstick lesbian," so you may be on to something with your impersonation of a pre-insane Anne Heche. I'm only trying to help. After all, when everything goes pear-shaped--as it will, because this is a soap, and no one ends up happy and partnered for long, especially the town lesbian--you need to be prepared that it ain't all The 'L' Word out there. It ain't even all La cage aux folles.

* * *

There now. Is everyone who could be offended totally there and in the moment? Good. My work here is done.

Quel drag

Speaking of Brokeback Mountain, as I was earlier this month, did you happen to catch Jake Gyllenhaal's turn as host of Saturday Night Live the weekend before? I don't know that I watched the entire show--you would think after more than 30 years on the air, they would finally cut the show to a more wieldy 60 minutes and hire a smaller cast of sketch comedy actors, not just folks who can deliver an occasionally funny one-liner on stage (I'm talking to you, Seth Meyers). So I rarely make it through the entire 90 minutes of not-always-funny-but-occasionally-brilliant comedy shenanigans.

So I don't know how Mr. G faired past lift-off. Really, though, all you needed to see was the opening "number" by Jake himself--that, alone, is blogworthy.

Instead of the usual lame-o welcome given by the guest host--another run of fake questions from the audience? yawn . . . maybe I'll turn in early . . . although the one with Annette Benning, where she had to justify her role as the philandering real estate agent in American Beauty to an audience full of philandering real estate agents who had been found out by their husbands was pretty funny--Jake talked about how he had told the show he wouldn't do any BM (uh, Brokeback Mountain) jokes. However, he noted, he had loved doing the movie, and it had brought to him a whole new, "unique fanbase."

Hmmm, where is he going with this?

Flash to the audience, and you see two of the male cast members dressed as a gay cowboy couple, yet a couple that will not acknowledge that it is a couple. Jake chats with them a bit, yadda yadda yadda. Nothing unusual in the comedy tonight. The same ol' same ol' kinda predictable humor.

But then, what happens next had to be by turns one of the bravest, weirdest, and possibly even most cynical moments witnessed on network TV--at least since Paula Abdul starting appearing on American Idol and referring to herself as a "recording artist." (Like that ol' Chris Rock joke, "Paula Abdul judging a singing contest is like Christopher Reeves judging a dancing contest." You can't get mad at me for the joke--I used quote marks to distance myself from the poor taste.) Jake says he wants to use the opportunity he has as host to do "something special for these fans," something "fans of Brokeback would like to see me do," something "just for them."

And you swear he's going to come out. In public. Live. On national TV. The "internets" (as they say) have been ripe with speculation well before Brokeback about which side of the croissant Mr. Gyllenhaal prefers to butter (although I speculate he's using some rather expensive French preserves, avoiding the fat content of butter). Several blind items by Hollywood gay gossip columnist Ted Casablanca and others refer to a somewhat mysterious Toothy Tile, who may or not be Jake Gyllenhaal or any of several hundred other possibilities of A-to-D list Hollywood celebrities.

So I'm watching and I'm thinking, ohmigod! First, T. R. Knight, then Doogie Howser, and now Jack Twist! The year 2007 is going to be fab, after all!

Instead, what Jake does is even stranger and definitely queerer. He dons a black bubble wig, tears off his clothes to reveal a sequined, lamé evening gown, and begins to sing what is possibly the gayest song ever written (at least among drag queens, at least since "I Will Survive" was recorded)--"And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" from the natural successor to BM in Hollywood gay cinema offerings, Dreamgirls.

Thanks to the link to YouTube above, you can see for yourself. [Editor's note: Curses! Foiled by the Kopyright Gestapo once again!]

You'll also see and hear that he does a good job with the song as well. It's comedy, but it's credible, from the strong semi-falsetto vocal contortions down to his Patti LaBelle, Showtime at the Apollo hand gestures and moves. Someone has clearly spent a lot of time in front of the mirror with a hairbrush practicing this number.

So what to think?

Well, it's definitely a "queer" moment in TV, no matter how you define queer. Whether you mean gay or just plain strange, it's queer alright. It seems gay friendly enough, and if it's his way of addressing the rumors and speculation or having some fun at their and his expense or even sorta kinda adding fuel to fondue flame, as it were, it could be considered a pretty brave stance. Almost like a coming out without really coming out. Not as brave as a T. R. Knight, mind you, but not bad for these Hollywood megawatt celebrities, who trade heavily on heterosexual romantic fantasy (Brokeback excepted, of course) to make millions for themselves and their studios.

The cynic in me--which is all-pervasive, in case you hadn't figured that out already--almost sees it in, well, more cynical terms. Is he making fun of the gay community for its speculations about his personal life, for that tendency of gay men to turn every handsome man into some sort of gay wish fulfillment fantasy? Is he trading on gay stereotypes just for a laugh at our expense?

Or is it just supposed to be funny, regardless, and I'm thinking about it all too much?

Like any good Libra, I try to find some balance in the situation. I hope for (1) he's coming out; underneath I suspect (2) he's making fun of us; but I'll accept (3) he's just having fun, being silly, no insult or injury intended. But nothing deeper necessarily meant either. Hard to say.

As usual, I end up with (4) all of the above, the lack of definition and decisiveness, the propensity for seeing things in mind-boggling variations on a theme of gray rather than in the one-note all black, all white--a tendency, I should add, which has driven boyfriends and employers (the twin towers of alleged importance in modern life) crazy for years.

Well, so be it. I've got to entertain myself somehow waiting for these celebs to come bounding out of the closet, singing songs from the original cast recording of Dreamgirls.

Ice dream, you scream, we all scream for ice dreams

Oh, Abrams and Bettes (particularly you, Bettes), how did I ever survive without you?

This week, in addition to my usual water-into-wine activities at work, plus my ongoing quest to become a middle-aged origami master, I've spent too much time watching the Weather Channel, following the central states' ice storm.

No, no schadenfreude here. I now have family in Kansas--my sister and my parents--so I like to keep up with what, if anything, they're facing, which, if truth be told, is usually a barrage of miscasted weather prognostications:

"It will snow a 100-year blizzard! The weather will be so cold and severe that Willa Cather will rise from the dead just to walk through the storm and write another novel about the experience!"

"Ice will be as thick as a lumberjack's arm, and we're likely not to see electrical power ever again. Remember when The Day After was filmed in Lawrence? It'll be like that!"

"Plague of locusts, rain of frogs, the lion lies down with the lamb--I'll have the complete forecast at 10!"

Such is the small-scale drama! of weather reporting in the Topeka-Lawrence-Kansas City market.

If truth be told, though, weather is so variable in that region--will we be visited by a brusque, short-tempered Alberta Clipper today? or maybe something balmier, more languid, yet equally short-tempered, up from the Desert Southwest?--it would be hard to get it right. But like your doctor after your physical, local meteorologists in that part of the world seem to take great pleasure at forecasting the direst of situations, only to revise heavily the day after any exploratory surgery/rain-instead-of-snow scenario. "Oh, it turned out to be just a shadow on the Xray!"/"Wichita and Tulsa got socked, but we narrowly missed the Apocalypse once again!"

Of course, I was also interested in the Central Time Zone weather this week because I still have many good friends from my days in Texas. And, trust me, despite the butch bravado of the Lone Star State ("Don't mess with Texas!"--which, it should be noted, started out as a "don't litter" campaign, not some sort of post-Alamo battle cry), nothing makes a ruff-n-tuff Texan pick up his petticoats, scamper across the dancefloor, and fall into the arms of the first Wyoming cowboy he sees like the threat of snow or ice.

My friend Snappymack has done a good job of conveying how the situation played out this week, so you should read that before proceeding.

Back? Good.

Still, it's hard to fault a population for its fretful aversion to ice and snow when it so rarely sees any. In my nearly nine years in Texas, I think I may have witnessed one steady snow shower (of the 10-minutes-of-intensity variety), flurries a couple of times, and sleet once. (I did have a spell of good luck, dining al fresco in Guadalajara, lounging on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, while friends shivered "up north." Tra la tra la.) Snow wasn't unknown--from nearly my first day there, the conversation at some point in a friendship would turn to the "where were you when we had 13 inches of snow in the winter of 1985?" and the Texas Hill Country, at a higher elevation than San Antonio, would get snow at times, even when the city itself would get only rain or a little ice.

But as Snappy notes, once there was ice--or the threat of ice, or the fear of ice, or the rumor of ice, or an icehouse on which the word "house" had burned out from its neon sign, or even an empty, discarded ice tray spotted on Loop 1604--the world according to the Texas Department of Transportation stopped cold. And, then, so did everything and everyone else.

Some people live to work, some people work to live. I myself am somewhere in between, living to work many days, working to live at other times (at least in comparison with my more goose-stepping-across-campus colleagues), but also looking for any excuse to come in late, stay at home under the covers, try to perfect an origami swan, make waffles and hot chocolate, or keep on keepin' on with my writing. And a Texas snow or ice day was always a wonderfully, cosmically aligned reason to do so--even if all I really ended up doing was sitting around in my sweats eating Nutella straight from the jar and watching back to back episodes of Jerry Springer and Maury all day long.

Oh, no complaints here, but that panic-at-the-rodeo-approach to climate change did always make even me, a Southerner somewhat used to mild winters and shorts-at-Christmas-dinner, chuckle. To no one's amusement but my own, I used to say that when the temperature dropped below 70F in San Antonio, there were calls for the National Guard to be deployed for emergency sweater distribution--a line, sadly, no one appreciated as much as me.

But reality could be funnier. After it freakishly hit 100F degrees my first February in South Texas (a novel moment I actually enjoyed, having not lived through a Texas summer yet), I remember wondering out loud why the stores even bothered to sell wool garments, and a woman I worked with spoke up and said, "Because of days like today--it's cold!" It was at the time perhaps 60F with a breeze.

A temperature of 50F with a blustery wind was liable to make wealthy matrons break out the furs. I distinctly remember seeing some ol' dowager empress doing said same one January morning down by the public library, which was situated in an area of downtown where such a sartorial display was liable to prompt the snatching of one's chinchilla stole from one's shoulders to be used for bringing out a shine on someone's 4x4 truck or low-rider. But who am I to argue? Anything for fashion, Miz Thang.

It was rarely if ever as bad as it was made out to seem. Yet, during our so far fairly mild and snowless winter, I found myself missing Texas this week. Yes, in part because I'm always up for a few days off at my employers' expense, but maybe too for the Central Time Zone state of mind.

A little ice is dangerous, so why risk your life for work? The freeways must be shut down; so what's your hurry? It's too cold to go outside, and besides you might slip and fall on the icy steps or sidewalk. We're just going to have to wait until that melts away and hope that it doesn't refreeze. So sit back, relax, fire up the digital cable, and grab yourself some beer from the fridge, and chips and salsa from the pantry. If you get too engrossed in the weather reports, Days of Our Lives, or the New Zealand field hockey semifinals on ESPN, maybe the local Mexican or Chinese place will deliver dinner. Oh, and break up the televised monotony by spending the day on the phone calling your friends, saying over and over, "Nuthin', how 'bout you?"

Personally, I think we need more days like that in Pennsylvania, the Northeast, and the Mid-Atlantic. At least I know I do. This afternoon's imminent "winter weather advisory" for 2 to 3 inches of snow--our first of the season--isn't going to cut it though.

Thank goodness I took Monday off, anyhow.

Don't know nothin' 'bout geography, apparently

Is it cruel to make fun of someone's dearth of geographical knowledge? Perhaps. But has a little thing like a conscience ever stopped me from a quick chortle (or even a long, loud guffaw) at someone else's expense? Mmmm, probably not. As a German Austin Powers might proclaim, "Ist schadenfreudelic, baby!"

It was with quite a bit of surprise and a not inconsiderable amount of good behavior that I greeted the following statement from a woman sitting next to me on the return trip from California the other day. Thirty minutes after take-off from Atlanta on our way home to Pennsylvania, looking out the window at the mountains below, she asked me, "Are those the Rockies?"

An innocent if not quite respectable question. But of course even basic geographical knowledge would inform you that the Rockies do not lie between the Peach State and the Keystone State. There are certainly mountains in the area, from Georgia north through Pennsylvania and the Northeast and on into Quebec. They go by many names as they span the eastern side of the continent--the Smokies, the Blue Ridge, the Appalachians, the Poconos, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, the Greens, and the Laurentians, and probably others.

With all those choices, I'll grant that deciding what to call those mountains that run up the Eastern backbone of the country can be a little daunting. But the Rockies, sweetie? No, those aren't the Rockies. If you had paid attention when they used to teach geography in the schools (do they still? or has it gone the way of lessons on citizenship?), you'd now be familiar with the map of the United States and, thus, would now be clued into the fact that the Rockies are a few hours west by plane from Atlanta and have a very different appearance from the Smokies and Appalachians. Sister, are you sure you're on the right plane? Instead of Harrisburg, did you mean to board the Boeing for Honolulu?

I was polite and explained no, those weren't the Rockies. I did not laugh nor did I make my fellow traveler feel foolish or awkward for her question, even though I was thinking, hmmm, you might should feel a little foolish and awkward over that inquiry. But then, a day without my making a fool outta myself is like a day with a rabidly anti-gay former beauty queen trading on her precarious fame to shill orange juice to the masses. Really, really bad.

Later, while at lunch with my friend NoRella, we enjoyed a little chuckle, however, and riffed a few silly/snarky comeback lines over the moment, which are generously and loosely paraphrased below.

"Nah, those aren't the Rockies--those are the Alps! Look over yonder! There's the Von Trapp family escaping to Switzerland over the Matterhorn! Somebody get me a gun--I'll pick off Rolf the Nazi boy faster than you can say edelweiss! So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye, punk!"

Or maybe . . .

"The Rockies? No, those are the Himalayas. [Pointing to Grandfather Mountain] See Mount Everest over there? Say, is that a Bollywood musical being shot down below? Why, yes, yes it is. [Pointing to where Mildred the Bear should be] Woah--look out! There's a yeti about to attack Aishwarya Rai and Aamir Khan during their dancing-singing love spectacular!"

Or even . . .

"Why, look, it's the Andes. Now how did they get there? [Pointing toward Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.] Hey ho, what luck! We're just in time to join the tourists for the daily ceremonial excoriation at Machu Picchu!"*

I guess I forgot to add "being a kinder person/suffering fools more easily" to my list of new year's resolutions.

As if.

*Yes, I know the Incas didn't do human sacrifices. It's called comedic license, allegedly. Allegedly, because you have to be funny to use take such license. Alas, I fear I've been revoked this go 'round . . . .

They paved paradise to put up some Spanish-styled starter homes, prices beginning from the low $1 millions

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot/
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot/
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone/

Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi," 1970

Why do I forever seem behind in my blogging these days? At one point in my blogging history, my goal was to post twice a week to Blogtucky. These days I'm lucky if I can post every two weeks. Sad, sad, truly sad.

As a result of this constant blogus interruptus, you, dear readers, are forever delayed in enjoying my latest thought burps, as well as my steady experience belches, not to mention my periodic comedic passings of noxious odors. (Please, I said don't mention it.) For my sins of omission (or do I mean emission?), I truly apologize.

Granted, you may not need the apology--you may, in fact, feel eternally grateful and perpetually relieved, kind of like life in a post-norovirus world where you've finally managed to stop wretching your entrails into the toilet bowl and--fabulous!--have lost five pounds in the process. Nonetheless, poor, poor you; at this rate, you'll never get to read my observations on lesbian hairstyles, news of my Midwestern holiday cavalcade, and deep thoughts on pornstyles of the rich and famous, all currently logged in my journal, awaiting transcription from my pathetic, "doctor's orders" scrawl to the more legible, Trebuchet-inflected, binary code of this here Blogspot.

Yes, I do go on.

* * *

Anyway . . . one reason you haven't heard from me consistently of late is because I've been traveling again, this time to sunny Southern California, specifically langorous Los Angeles, or more to the point, cunningly Claremont, positively Pomona, and optimistically Ontario. Down with the O.C., yeah, you know me--except that I was actually in some sort of jurisdictional no-person's land. East of Los Angeles, west of San Bernardino, north of Orange, under the sun, and at the feet of Mount Baldy (appropriately enough), all covered in . . . well, maybe that's snow. Or maybe I need to clean my glasses.

All for work, of course.

I'm back as of 7 pm Eastern last night (or do I mean 4 pm Pacific?) and feeling reasonable fresh (no, thank you, disposable, pre-moistened towelette courtesy of Delta Airlines) and rangily frisky, despite the long travels and the confusing space-time continuun issues. In a zen frame of mind that only a brief sojourn to Lotusland could engender in me, I keep repeating this mantra--

I am Eastern . . . I am Pacific . . . I am somewhere in-between . . . but not sleeping on the floor . . . at the nadir of air traffic control . . . known as O'Hare . . . praise Buddha . . . .

But the discombobulation does not matter. Instead, I'm hoping to work the cerebral distortion to my advantage, that is, continue in the weeks to come to wake up at 3 am, feeling raring to go, eager to start the day, as a way to achieve that new year's resolution about showing up for work on time. Six hours to get ready for work should just about do it. I'll only be 10 or 15 minutes late, instead of my more common 30.

It was a lovely, if all too short, trip to the Golden State. Because of the fast-paced nature of the conference I attended, as well as the fact that the conference organizers had to bus us in and out of the Sheraton Fairplex to a nearby meeting space (aside to urban planners: talk about your no-person's lands within no-person's lands--stuck in a gorgeous hotel in the middle of the L.A. County Fairgrounds with limited, close-in public transport does not lend itself to easy exploration of your environs), I saw exceedingly little of the sights--other than, of course, the foothills on the northern horizon, the palms toward the south, Claremont Village by moonlight (very charming), and a 10-lane slab of asphalt known as the San Bernardino Freeway.

Not exactly the lush life, but then it was relentlessly sunny, with cerulean blue skies, clean (yes! clean!) air, and 80-degree temperatures. There really was no downside to this little cross-country jaunt, other than being away from home so soon after the holidays.

On Monday, during a break in the action from the professional meeting, we persuaded the staff at the meeting place to open the doors of one of the rooms so that we could enjoy our break outside in the perfect clime. The Easterners and the Northerners among us sipped our bottled waters and coffees, nibbled on our fresh fruit and granola bars, and basked in the kind of California meteorological dreamin' you can do on such a winter's day out that way.

"Welcome to paradise," said one of the natives, in reality a transplant from Texas in the '80s.

And, given the following factors--i.e., the climate, the scenery, the low humidity, the friendliness, the architecture, the fine dining, the shopping, the tidiness and cleanliness of it all--it was very difficult to argue that point.

But then, you open the real estate section of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and see ads for overwroughtly designed, medium-sized, Spanish-styled homes, heralded for their affordability with prices starting in "the low $1 millions," in some tinderbox subdivision in an embarrassingly monikered town like Rancho Cucamonga, and you start to think, hmmm, sounds like you gotta pay through the anus to enjoy some of this paradise on earth.

Granted, they were new homes, but even the older, smaller, less effusively rendered dwellings--the little ranchers and split-levels from the '50s, '60s, and '70s, occupying the mid-century strata of suburban development--were all ballparking at $450k to $750k. And, yes, that's in U.S. dollars, not pesos or lire.

Of course, it's not just the homes that are expensive down California way. Pretty much everything will cost you, from healthcare (the new trend is for some health insurance plans in the area to cover access to medical care in Tijuana, 120 miles away, because it's so much cheaper--at least for the insurance companies) to groceries (I'm still scarred from the experience in San Francisco several years ago where I paid in the neighborhood of $5 for a half-gallon of orange juice).

With the aim of full disclosure, I have to admit, though, I do have an on-again, off-again, love-hate, Eminem-and-his-wife-Kim-styled relationship with California. The Golden State is like some guys you meet--friendly, beautiful, sexy, full of possibility, not to mention too easily able to charm the trousers right off of you. But like so many flirtations run afoul, there's this nagging sensation that it's not going to last, it's just a too-good-to-be-true hopeless fantasy, it'll all turn out horribly wrong, blow up in your face, and you'll end up alone and feeling worse than before. Then, before you know it, you realize that that "nagging sensation" turns out to be some sort of "personal body parasite" in your nether regions, and poof! Reality bitchslaps you off your cloud and into the "aisle of shame" at Rite-Aid once again.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Still, like a moth to the embers of Suzanne Somers' smouldering Malibu manse, I find myself often feeling seduced and sucked in by the California Mystique. On my first trip there in 1989, I somehow maneuvered myself via the LA freeways to the Huntington Library and Botannical Gardens in San Marino, which to this day registers as one of my favorite memories. At the time I was living in Washington, D.C., a city I pretty much detested at that point. Then, Washington seemed cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and mean-spirited year-round. But the Huntington! The landscape, the hills, the vegetation, the climate, the ambience! My then rampant East Coast snobbery was overturned, upended, and shown a good time by the West Coast sublime. It finally made sense to me why everyone wanted to live in Southern California. It was just such a shame that so many of them came--and that they insisted on bringing their cars.

Of course, it's not all reruns of the opening credits of Santa Barbara or Sunset Beach out that way. And that's part of the appeal--that wonderful, enticing juxtaposition of the exceptionally beautiful with the extremely insipid, the excessiveness smack dab rubbing up against the pretty vacuousness of it all. The golden possibilities of freedom and self-discovery coupled with the outrageous reality of wage slavery and unaffordability. The multi-million-dollar crackerbox palaces prone to go up in flames when there's a static electric charge from someone wearing a wool sweater and touching a car door handle ten miles away. The mesmerizing, lighted grid of the streets at night as seen from the air up against the grinding, daytime reality of two-hour commutes one-way. The beautiful people, pulled, primped, and plumped within an inch of their lives, contrasted with those among the extravagantly OTT set, like Carol my cabdriver back to the airport--blonde and zaftig, all dangly jewelry and fake nails, talking several miles a minute without taking a breath or waiting for a response. (All with a yinzer accent, no less. Quack!) The mountains and the palm trees. The ocean and the desert. Forever and ever, ah dude . . .

Even as recently as 2003, I contemplated a move out there. In fact, over the years, I've interviewed for a couple of jobs there--one in the north in (*shudder*) Fresno, one in the south in Irvine. I even tried to live in San Francisco one long, cold summer in the early '90s--with the original intent of staying put and starting over during one small part of my first midlife crisis at age 30.

But despite the fantasy, the allure, the constantly boosted serotonin levels, and the hot-and-cold-running homosexuals in every walk of life, something keeps me East, South, North, and West--just not that far west. Never say never, but it's never worked out that I should live in California, and I doubt it ever will. When the push of relocating comes to the shove of moving, I realize that I just don't fit into the cultural milieu (or whatever) of the Golden West. My roots are Southern, my roots are Eastern. I'm just not quite right unless I'm uncomfortable in my own skin, the way my forefathers intended it.

I could see living in the Midwest or even the Plains, and Texas certainly felt like home and may again someday, once they turn down the heat. But California is a whole 'nuther country, and I think I've been banned for life because of an ugly passport photo.

* * *

After trips like these, it makes me feel a little wistful, thinking about what might be, who I might become if I'd only take the plunge and cliff-dived into the Pacific state of mind. After all, life's too short to live some place boring or ugly, and I'm overwhelmingly footloose and somewhat fancy-free at this point in my life. I have expenses, I have obligations, I have responsibilities, but . . . .

But then I go to the Giant in Camp Hill and spend less than $5 on a bottle of Bolthouse Valencia O.J. and a carton of Stoneyfield Farms organic milk, instead of paying $5 for just one of those items. Or at the beginning of the month, I write out my rent check and realize that I still have tons of pay leftover with which to blow on Steve Madden shoes and Skagen watches (not to mention Bugatchi Uomo shirts--even if I have to drive to Philadelphia to find them), remembering that I spend the recommended quarter of my gross monthly income on housing, rather than half or most, as I would if I lived in the all-that-glitters-isn't-quite Golden West.

And then I start to think that, all in all and fair skies be damned, I am a happier man living in my some kind of low-rent, blissful paradise, where I have room for a garden, extended visits from friends and family, an all-out assault on my fully stocked pantry with cookbooks and a kitchen island as my weapons of choice, a 6-foot Martha Stewart Christmas tree, and a 1,000+ item CD collection, to name but a few of my Central PA pleasures and pursuits.

And then I realize further--Good lordy, like the kid president in the movie Wild in the Streets, I'm old.

A realization that comes just in time for yet another midlife crisis.

. . . And a happy Brokeback Mountain new year

Ha, you think it's been weeks since I've written anything, but au contraire, mon Hollywood Square.

Actually, I've drafted several postings of late--some on paper while waiting at O'Hare (my new, default "third place," apparently) for planes to the Plains; some in my head while driving to and from work (my old, default third place); and others still in the bits and bytes of Bloggerworld (which, coupled with Microsoft Word for processing the occasional story or article, and accompanied by Lavazza espresso roast brewed in a lovely stainless steel, Frieling French press by courtesy of Vivian Leigh and Weaver's Department Store, Lawrence, Kansas--simply the best department store ever--represents my preferred third place these days).

Now that we've cleared that up . . .

None of these postings, however, have I deemed complete or even readable. True, a lack of anything to say, intelligent, coherent or otherwise, has not stopped me from posting before, but, hey, it's a new year. Why not establish a new standard for blog postings, along with all those resolutions to exercise more, get to work on time, use the "f" word less generously in daily speech, and have more fun in 2007?

If truth be told, every now and again, I get a case of "blogger's block," this mild panic that seizes my psyche and makes me start to wonder whether I'll have anything else to say ever again. What if--horrors!--my life is as it should be--reaonably normal and, thus, deadly dull? What if I become, dare I say it, contented with my existence? Surely then my inspiration would dry up quicker than Kevin Federline's line of credit at the back bar at [fill in trendy-trashy L.A. nightspot here].

But I haven't lacked for inspiration of late. (I suspect as long as the war in Iraq continues and Britney Spears continues to ride Lady Godiva-style from the waist down in Paris "Celebutard Barbie" Hilton's dream car, I'll always have something to write about.) Some of the silence is due to a lack of time, and perhaps some of it is due to a holiday malaise of "no, I couldn't possibly have another piece of cake and open another present . . . oh, what the f***?" More significantly, though, my "inside voice" has been shushed considerably by the fact that none of the topics or themes playing out in my head has lent themselves to holiday cheer, even of my most cynical, snarky variety. A rewriting of the pop classic Christmas tune, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" as "I Saw Lindsay Lohan Giving Santa Claus a Lapdance and an STD" is cute but not really in keeping with the spirit of the season, even for me.

A Brokeback Mountain calendar doesn't exactly scream "Season's Greetings" either. Yet it is what I now choose to write about. Go figure.

I was browsing the new calendar section at the Borders in Camp Hill the other evening, and this is indeed what I spotted for sale--a Brokeback Mountain calendar for 2007. A month-by-month collection of stills from the motion picture that, despite some initial misgivings, I have come to respect and recognize as a much-better-than-I-originally-thought piece of modern filmmaking. Still, despite my newly found admiration of the movie, plus any particularly photogenic moments--real or imagined--of the Wyoming mountains the season's first snow, a nekkid-except-for-his-boots Heath Ledger, or a buttless-chaps-bedecked Jake Gyllenhaal, I can't really say that I would cherish reliving every month each moment of Brokeback Mountain.

My friend Sophia and I discussed some months back how, despite the best efforts of movie marketeers, Brokeback really isn't a romantic love story. You can populate the cast with cowboy versions of McDreamy and McSteamy, you can set it down among the glorious sun-and-snow-dappled peaks of the American West, you can film it all in a shimmering light and through a gauzy lens, and you can set it all to a haunting, swooning score. But when it comes down to it, mostly Brokeback is a sad, tragic tale of love between two men who, given their upbringing, the culture, and the times, never had a chance. Heck, it's even hard to describe the movie as a love story because love, at least the love that Ennis feels for Jack, is never explicitly voiced until it's way too late to do anything about it.

The calendar tends to focus on the boys' enchanted time outdoors, huntin', fishin', and sheepherdin', on the land, in the woods, on the mountain--the more idyllic aspects of the Brokeback Experience. It's a lovely souvenir--but is Brokeback really suitable for the glossy, wall calendar treatment?

It seems like an odd choice. I mean, while we're at it, why not turn Crash into a calendar, or maybe Monster with Charlize Theron, or Boys Don't Cry with Hilary Swank? Hey, shoppers and New Year celebrants, let's relive those special moments of celluloid-captured human behavior at its worst with monthly reminders from your favorite, gritty Hollywood dramas! Now you can keep track of all your hair appointments and pick-up-kids-from-soccer-practice days with scenes of tire irons against Jake Gyllenhaal's skull, a menacing Matt Dillon's hands up Thandie Newton's skirt, Charlize Theron plugging another brutal john, and Hilary Swank enduring what has to be the longest, most disgusting rape scene ever committed to film! You'll never look at your life the same way again--or your money back!

I'm not offended by the Brokeback calendar; more than anything, I'm just puzzled by the audience for it. Given my sporadic, self-induced, homophobic fear of drawing attention to myself and my sexuality, I might not be the most likely consumer for this merchandise. I mean, nothing says "I've thought about that scene in the movie when Jack and Ennis first discover the pleasures of each other's bodies--a lot, in fact" to a holiday-surly store clerk than buying a Brokeback Mountain calendar. I suspect a few other members of Team Homo have the same concern, but, granted, with my particular brand of social anxiety (see DSM IV--cf. "foolphobia," the fear of looking like an extreme goofball in public), I may remain the dilled Havarti standing alone on this one.

Thus, I probably won't be buying the calendar, even when it goes on sale at 50 percent off at the end of the month. Nonetheless, if you want to mail me one in a discreet envelope, in care of "Nervous Nelly Occupant, Harrisburg, PA," I will consider finding a place for it on a wall somewhere in my apartment.

Probably in my closet.