Damn you, Anderson Cooper

Yes, yes, I know already--I haven't written in a while. Got the message, got the call, got the point! Here, on this lovely Labor Day Weekend, as I sit home alone with my cat and my canary, I'll try to make up for my lack of words.

Oh, you've definitely been forewarned . . .

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It's somewhat pathetic then that my first post in a month's time should be about none other than my former crush, Anderson Cooper, that pasty, prematurely gray, adventure junkie-slash-news puppet who works for CNN but occasionally (and quite bizarrely, I might add) subs for Regis Philbin on Live with Regis and Kelly Lee.

Is this a trend? Having the highly overqualified sub for the mysteriously popular ailing or vacationing celeb? Can we expect Twyla Tharp to pinch hit for Britney Spears when she fluffs her next MTV Awards dance routine? Doctor Ruth Westheimer to stand in for Kim Kardashian the next time she fails to show up for a sex tape audition? Michael Phelps to announce that the show must go on when Lance Bass sprains an ankle on the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars? And, finally, to completely (yet symbolically, PETA) flog a dead horse, when the Jonas Brothers' tour bus gets stuck in some Partridge Family-like hiccup in the rural Midwest, will anxious and overwrought tween girls at the Iowa State Fair that evening here these immortal words over the loudspeaker at the Corn Palace . . . ? "Ladies and gentleman, I present you with the Jonas Brothers' understudy band--Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Arvo Pärt!" With maybe Pennsylvania's own Glenn Branca thrown in, 'cause he can keep a good beat?

No? Sigh. What I wouldn't give to be at *that* concert though, if for no other reason than to see Philip Glass ripped to ribbons by hysterical tween groupies.

And therein lies one of the reasons Anderson got out my car (not a Saab 9.3 canary yellow convertible it turns out, but a silver Mini Cooper) and into my dreams again--before going to bed last night, I was relaxing with some soup, that is, The Soup, formerly Talk Soup, the E! Channel program, which samples clips from a wide variety of TV shows and media events and pokes fun at them. Sometimes it's a little mean, but most of the time, it's quite hilarious, in a schadenfreudian "I love seeing celebrities suffer" kind of way. And who doesn't enjoy that?

The Soup showed a clip of Anderson with Kelly Ripa talking about some celebutards (I think it was the low-hand Lohans this time), with Anderson sagely pointing out that he felt himself unknowingly drawn into the story of these stupid, trashy people (or words to that effect). That's my Anderson, at least he's good at getting to the heart of the matter. Too bad he is so unironic as to realize that's how many of us felt hearing about the life of his mother, heiress and jeans slinger, Gloria Vanderbilt. Oh those camera-mugging, cash-trashing Knickerbockers . . .

So already we have the hypnotic suggestion close to bed time, "Remember the Anderson!" soon followed by a cry from--Jesus H. Christ--Neil Patrick Harris of all people to "Remember the 'Mo!" As it were.

For you see, earlier that same day, I had picked up a copy of Pittsburgh's Out, our horrible, horrible, horrible monthly gay newspaper, which as far as I can tell, does not so much cover the G/L/B/T/Q/?/W(hatever) news in our fair 'Burgh as serve as a sort of bar rag chronicle of who was out (get it!?) and about at various Pittsburgh socials, drag shows, nightclubs, and dear god in heaven help us, bathhouses.

Please note, should I ever be photographed in a gay male bathhouse enjoying "foam night" on the rooftop deck with a gaggle of scantily clad faggles, do drive a stake through my heart, shoot me with a silver bullet, decorate your house with garlic pot pourri pronto. 'Cause clearly I'm already gone and am now only a zombie-like, blood (or whatever)-sucking shell of my former sentient, shy self.

Which, of course, means, now that I've said it, that a) by the time I'm 50, such a photo will turn up in the pages of Out, b) I'll try to write an article for Out but be rejected because of c) the existence or lack of existence of such a photo, and/or d) the existence of this blog critique. Naturally, the article will be returned to me with the words "horrible, horrible, horrible" scrawled over the cover sheet. Because that's the kind of postmodern gal I am.

And, yes, e) all of the above is a valid guess.

Anyway . . . and I do have a point here and a story to tell . . . there is one regular feature in Out, "Quote Unquote" that features, as best as I can discern, gay people and their hags making fools of themselves in the media. A case in point, this quote from (Sir) Ian McKellen:

My own death threats have declined considerably. I think I've become rather boring now to the public at large on this [gay] issue so I'm thought to be unremarkable.

Oh, Ian, you just don't get it, do you? You are boring and unremarkable to the public at large because you're a navel-gazing, scenery-chewing douchebag. Jeez, to thine own self be true, Hammy-let.

Or this one from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom:

I don't have much patience--particularly for people in my party, the Democratic Party--that are arguing for [civil unions for gay people] as somehow equal. That's not audacity. That's not authenticity. That's not about conviction. That's about accommodation and political posturing. And I'm done with that.

Well, you're not quite done with that, Gav. I mean, you're a politician: Posturing is in your blood. Goodness gracious, Mitt Romney as governor of liberal Massachusetts supported gay marriage at one point, and you see how that turned out when he ran for national office, don't you?

And then there's this quote from Doogie Howser, which got the dream ball rolling along a little further last night:

Mmmmmmmm. Anderson [Cooper]. He's dreamy. Just dreamy. I've been a fan of his since Season 1 of The Mole. I just thought he was so cool when he talked in this cool, low, secret-agent voice--'If you can accomplish this task . . . .'

Firstly, Anderson Cooper hosted The Mole?!?! Just how desperate was this guy to get noticed way back when? And, wow, I never realized that Doogie was still a 14-year-old dweeb; I thought he was older than that by now, even though he does certainly talk like one. Dreamy, indeed.

And that's pretty much what got the dream wheel turning last night. And the dream went something like this . . .

[Insert wavy TV image and trance-like music here]

Somehow I ended up in Baltimore, in a working class, rowhouse neighborhood (why I couldn't stay for that in Pittsburgh, I haven't a clue), at a family party of sorts. Whose family, I don't exactly know. It wasn't mine, and it certainly wasn't some Vanderbilt shindig. The weather was lovely, early September, sunny, and pleasant, so the party was held outdoors. There was potato salad and cole slaw and burgers and hot dogs and nary a morsel of tofu or seitan to be sniffed or suffered. Real food, real imaginary people.

Anderson Cooper accompanied me to the party, and I introduced him to the family who resembled something less than the freaks in a John Waters' movie and more like those out of Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, except that there were white people at the party and maybe only 10 or 15 or so, not a Cecil B. DeMille (or Demented) cast of thousands.

Then Anderson and I ended up in the back of a limousine (now, now) as it traveled across the Brooklyn Bridge (of course), talking with one another, sitting close, and enjoying the conversation and the growing physical and emotional warmth between the two of us. Our hands kept touching each other, and at one point, I enveloped his in mine, as we continued to talk. Before long, though, he stealthily removed his hand from my grasp, because, don't you know, even in my dreams, guys don't commit.

Suddenly, once again, we were back in Baltimore, around the corner from the party, talking to some other neighbors and wondering why a little boy covered in mud was trying to crawl through a doggie door to get back into his house. I invited the neighbors to join the party and walked back around the corner, holding hands with Anderson and a young hausfrau from the 1950s, ready to introduce them to the family matriarch.

And then, as they say, I woke up, Pam Ewing.

I should add, too, that other than the pasty Anderson and the neighbor lady, I had a hard time discerning who was black and who was white in the dream. It kind of kept changing, in fact. Why it should matter, well, I leave that to you psychology majors and minors in the reading public to dissect and reflect. All I will say further on that particular point is that it wouldn't be a dream of mine without a celebrity, some sexual and social discomfort, and at least one mode of transportation.

Make of that what you will.

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None of this should imply that I still have a crush on Anderson Cooper. Yes, I did once, but that was right after I met him and before I saw him cry one too many times on national TV over god knows what. I don't mind a man that cries, mind you, and Hurricane Katrina was a horrible, horrible, horrible travesty that we've yet to deal with in any meaningful way. But, really, Anderson, no one, post-Regis and Kelly, is buying the tears anymore.

Besides, Anderson never bothered to track me down, get my number, start calling me at all hours of the night, and showing up at my workplace or home at inappropriate times--all things I would have done for him (and done quite well!). So why should I bother further with him?

Yes, you students of psychology, while there's no more to the dream, there's always more to the story. But it's a long holiday weekend. Best to pace myself.