Day four…

… of the TV fast. The past few days have been easy, given that I’ve had evening commitments that kept me away from home until eleven every night. Today, however I went to an opening for a group show that I was in after work and made it back here by 7:30. After heating and eating the leftovers, that left me at 8:20pm finishing Pete and Tim (note to moroccomole it is pretty dated, but the main thing is that it reads like a screenplay, not a novel. I find it really weird that I wasn’t even cognizant of it when it was first released)and listening to Hormonally Yours by Shakespeare’s Sister. Which also kinda sucked even though it was one of those pop albums that had gotten a lot of play from me. The early nineties were failing me and I was dying to turn on the tube, when it struck me how sad my desire to be “entertained” is. What is the true nature of that state? What ache am I trying to bury?

Tueday evening the ICP sponsored a panel at the great hall of the Cooper Union with Luc Sante, Brian Wallis, David Levi-Strauss and Seymour Hirsch on the photos from Abu Garab. It became in part an excavation of the election: 800 people sitting in one room and asking each other “What has happened?” and “What could possibly happen next?” Distress and mourning in the face of horrific imagery. As the pictures went by on the screen, I had to ask myself how could it be that this wasn’t enough to turn these creeps out of office? How did they manage to dodge this bullet? I spend my days talking with people about the power of images, and yet these images, so seemingly powerful and sickening slid out of people’s consciousness.

Yesterday I had dinner with three artist friends who have been involved with activism one way or another for over a dozen years. One had been a member of Gran Fury. They told me about attending Larry Kramer’s Address to the Community on Sunday, also at the Great Hall. More mourning, more frustration and despair this time directed at the antics of tweaking you queers, supposedly ignoring or ignorant of the ballooning rates of HIV infection.

Suppose those things are related, suppose we can’t resolve the horrific images of the things done in our names with our desire to be morally right. Suppose we are tearing ourselves apart because we as a nation are tired of being brutes. Two events, two public discussions and then all the private discussions they have engendered. people tired, scared, confused. And now we’ll go into Iran.

And now I remember what it was really like in 1991: the bone weariness that came from twelve years under Reagan and Bush, the sense of being beaten down and ignored, and angry angry all the time, at myself for not doing enough, and at everyone else.

There can be times of bliss, and I want to make some of those grow. They feel far away and fragile now. Last night we came around inevitably to “what are you going to do?” I said “Become freakier”, but really I don’t know what the fuck that means in real terms and it feels like blowing smoke right now. At tonight’s opening my smile felt wan and sickly and I don’t know what was more painful:bing in the midst of young people standing around obliviously, or running into the older people all of us unable to make small talk searching each other’s eyes for flickerings of doubt and guilt.

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  1. At tonight’s opening my smile felt wan and sickly and I don’t know what was more painful:bing in the midst of young people standing around obliviously, or running into the older people all of us unable to make small talk searching each other’s eyes for flickerings of doubt and guilt.

    This pretty well defines the last week in my office: a stream of students seeking me out for solace and encouragement. It’s funny to find myself in the role of “adult” at a time when I feel so profoundly infantile.

    I remember approaching people my age in the late 80’s and early nineties with similar questions and the belief that older people would have answers. One guy just told me to fuck off and to do the work. It pissed me off, but, alas, I find myself relating a gentler version of this to my students.

    I feel like the impulse to “become freakier” is a good one. I’m not sure what it means, either, but it is part of my strategy. My operating modality is to be conscious of the moments when i feel pulled toward arbitrary conformity and to act out a little.

    I find the most jarring part of this moment is when people I respect and genuinely like tell me to smooth my anger and act more civil. I think this is an interesting sytem of thought to interrogate. I believe in civility, but I also believe in transgression. I suspect this is a time for trangression.

  2. At tonight’s opening my smile felt wan and sickly and I don’t know what was more painful:bing in the midst of young people standing around obliviously, or running into the older people all of us unable to make small talk searching each other’s eyes for flickerings of doubt and guilt.

    This pretty well defines the last week in my office: a stream of students seeking me out for solace and encouragement. It’s funny to find myself in the role of “adult” at a time when I feel so profoundly infantile.

    I remember approaching people my age in the late 80’s and early nineties with similar questions and the belief that older people would have answers. One guy just told me to fuck off and to do the work. It pissed me off, but, alas, I find myself relating a gentler version of this to my students.

    I feel like the impulse to “become freakier” is a good one. I’m not sure what it means, either, but it is part of my strategy. My operating modality is to be conscious of the moments when i feel pulled toward arbitrary conformity and to act out a little.

    I find the most jarring part of this moment is when people I respect and genuinely like tell me to smooth my anger and act more civil. I think this is an interesting sytem of thought to interrogate. I believe in civility, but I also believe in transgression. I suspect this is a time for trangression.

  3. It is hard to balance out the impulse for transgression with the equally valid impulse to provide solace for those around you. Given what the past few months have been like for you I can’t image that it is at all easy to not snap at those in your immediate vicinity. I know that everyone around my office is on edge, chewing at each other. Yet we are not each other’s problem and have to find the places to act that are not simply showing the claw to the nearest person.

  4. It is hard to balance out the impulse for transgression with the equally valid impulse to provide solace for those around you. Given what the past few months have been like for you I can’t image that it is at all easy to not snap at those in your immediate vicinity. I know that everyone around my office is on edge, chewing at each other. Yet we are not each other’s problem and have to find the places to act that are not simply showing the claw to the nearest person.

  5. As the “best little boy in the world,” I am good at compartmentalizing my feelings and presenting a “genial” face to those in my office (think Jean-Luc Picard). Snapping is not really in my daily vocabulary (although I have my moments). More, I am trying to consider the rhetorical devices that activate people rather than condoning their embrace of defeat. it’s too easy to return to a kind of “everyday life” and to drape ourselves in the “blue cloak” of our region.

    I’m writing more of my personal goals (as opposed to my professional obligations — altho I know that’s an arbitrary distinction and one that, perhaps, I am struggling to change). How is it that I will live and act? How do I bring to bear my own skills and passion? How do I leverage my (considerable) power and privilege. I think that these are questions we have to sit with for a while.

    I give us a deadline of the first of the year to struggle. Then I demand answers! LOL

  6. As the “best little boy in the world,” I am good at compartmentalizing my feelings and presenting a “genial” face to those in my office (think Jean-Luc Picard). Snapping is not really in my daily vocabulary (although I have my moments). More, I am trying to consider the rhetorical devices that activate people rather than condoning their embrace of defeat. it’s too easy to return to a kind of “everyday life” and to drape ourselves in the “blue cloak” of our region.

    I’m writing more of my personal goals (as opposed to my professional obligations — altho I know that’s an arbitrary distinction and one that, perhaps, I am struggling to change). How is it that I will live and act? How do I bring to bear my own skills and passion? How do I leverage my (considerable) power and privilege. I think that these are questions we have to sit with for a while.

    I give us a deadline of the first of the year to struggle. Then I demand answers! LOL

  7. Could you elaborate a bit more about that Cooper Union panel discussion? I’m curious as to what was said because I recently posted something about find a signed print (aquatint?) of the hooded Abu Ghraib photo. I found it disturbing in the sense that it was displayed for sale and signed by the artist as if they were attempting to exploit that event. Money hungry and “f*uk you, I can make money off this if I want,” attitudes seems to be what our hedonistic, commercial world is coming to.

  8. Could you elaborate a bit more about that Cooper Union panel discussion? I’m curious as to what was said because I recently posted something about find a signed print (aquatint?) of the hooded Abu Ghraib photo. I found it disturbing in the sense that it was displayed for sale and signed by the artist as if they were attempting to exploit that event. Money hungry and “f*uk you, I can make money off this if I want,” attitudes seems to be what our hedonistic, commercial world is coming to.

  9. 1. It’s interesting; we’re both depriving ourselves of something at the same time. You’ll hear about mine on Monday…

    2. OMG! Shakespear’s* Sister! I LOVE their song and video “Stay With Me”! And I know none of their other songs. Anything I should check out?

    3. it struck me how sad my desire to be “entertained” is. What is the true nature of that state? What ache am I trying to bury?
    This echoes a poem I wrote some years ago, which I’d like to share with you (I’ll have to wait til I get home).

    *yep, it’s spelled without the ‘e’ at the end.

  10. 1. It’s interesting; we’re both depriving ourselves of something at the same time. You’ll hear about mine on Monday…

    2. OMG! Shakespear’s* Sister! I LOVE their song and video “Stay With Me”! And I know none of their other songs. Anything I should check out?

    3. it struck me how sad my desire to be “entertained” is. What is the true nature of that state? What ache am I trying to bury?
    This echoes a poem I wrote some years ago, which I’d like to share with you (I’ll have to wait til I get home).

    *yep, it’s spelled without the ‘e’ at the end.

  11. I predict that 2005 will mark the Return of Gay Anger.

    (And you’re right — Tim and Pete is like a screenplay. Which isn’t really surprising, knowing what I know about Baker.)

  12. I predict that 2005 will mark the Return of Gay Anger.

    (And you’re right — Tim and Pete is like a screenplay. Which isn’t really surprising, knowing what I know about Baker.)

  13. It is hard to balance out the impulse for transgression with the equally valid impulse to provide solace for those around you. Given what the past few months have been like for you I can’t image that it is at all easy to not snap at those in your immediate vicinity. I know that everyone around my office is on edge, chewing at each other. Yet we are not each other’s problem and have to find the places to act that are not simply showing the claw to the nearest person.

  14. OMG! Shakespear’s* Sister! I LOVE their song and video “Stay With Me”! And I know none of their other songs. Anything I should check out?

    I only know “You’re History.” I found it a bit shrill

    Wasn’t one of the gals in the duo a former member of Bananarama? Dave “Eurythmics” Stewart’s* (ex-?) wife, I believe?

    *as opposed to “Canterbury” Dave Stewart, keyboardist and paramour of singer Barbara Gaskin.

  15. OMG! Shakespear’s* Sister! I LOVE their song and video “Stay With Me”! And I know none of their other songs. Anything I should check out?

    I only know “You’re History.” I found it a bit shrill

    Wasn’t one of the gals in the duo a former member of Bananarama? Dave “Eurythmics” Stewart’s* (ex-?) wife, I believe?

    *as opposed to “Canterbury” Dave Stewart, keyboardist and paramour of singer Barbara Gaskin.

  16. I only have their album “Hormonally Yours” which is what “Stay” is from. Nothing else as compelling as that song, I don’t think. It’s a well made album, but a little too glossy for me these days

  17. I only have their album “Hormonally Yours” which is what “Stay” is from. Nothing else as compelling as that song, I don’t think. It’s a well made album, but a little too glossy for me these days

  18. Thanks for the review – I’ll probably continue to ignore the rest of the album, then.

    Oh, and here’s that poem:

    no food no sex or
    entertainment
    nothing to distract me
    from the presence in the room
    I am left with
    I am alone

    like a remorseless glass
    a gaze that burns
    like acid
    on my reflected image
    I am alone

    all the absences
    all of the things that underscore
    come to the fore
    the volume turned up
    they burn me up
    oh the noise is never so loud
    as when I am in silence
    and alone

    I must give thanks
    for this purest form of being
    only now
    may I start from nothing
    knowing full well though
    that eden is doomed
    to be tarnished again
    we can’t live unless we die
    we can’t live unless we die

  19. Thanks for the review – I’ll probably continue to ignore the rest of the album, then.

    Oh, and here’s that poem:

    no food no sex or
    entertainment
    nothing to distract me
    from the presence in the room
    I am left with
    I am alone

    like a remorseless glass
    a gaze that burns
    like acid
    on my reflected image
    I am alone

    all the absences
    all of the things that underscore
    come to the fore
    the volume turned up
    they burn me up
    oh the noise is never so loud
    as when I am in silence
    and alone

    I must give thanks
    for this purest form of being
    only now
    may I start from nothing
    knowing full well though
    that eden is doomed
    to be tarnished again
    we can’t live unless we die
    we can’t live unless we die

  20. I only have their album “Hormonally Yours” which is what “Stay” is from. Nothing else as compelling as that song, I don’t think. It’s a well made album, but a little too glossy for me these days

  21. Here’s one of those times when i had a reply mostly typed up, let it go, and then it was lost.

    I’ve been walking down the street a little more eyes to the pavement of late. Even at dinner club with friends, I wonder in my head, ‘Did they vote for Bush?’

    Most of the times I know, but there’s some doubt every once in a while and I dunno, getting freakier seems like a natural course. Then again, so is getting more normal. Infiltrating. Bending minds.

    *sigh*

  22. Here’s one of those times when i had a reply mostly typed up, let it go, and then it was lost.

    I’ve been walking down the street a little more eyes to the pavement of late. Even at dinner club with friends, I wonder in my head, ‘Did they vote for Bush?’

    Most of the times I know, but there’s some doubt every once in a while and I dunno, getting freakier seems like a natural course. Then again, so is getting more normal. Infiltrating. Bending minds.

    *sigh*

  23. what do we do?

    “sing along with the common people
    sing along
    and it might just get you through”

    What did you do?

    what did you do with your evening of wanting to be entertained?
    you didn’t flick the tube on?
    what did you do?

    did you masturbate?
    write on line?
    cruise porn?
    long for someone?

    what did you do?

    pop albums..

    Yeah
    that Shakespear’s Sister album is a let down
    but that song “Stay” is fantastic
    and i told you where that reference is from
    right?
    from that Smiths’s song?
    The Glass Menagerie

    am i too pompus?

    what do we do?
    faced with such horror
    we’re left limp-dicked in a bed filled with maggots
    what do we do?
    try to make love to a rotting corpse?
    but there are so many living and breathing and eating mcDonald’s aroudn us
    so many still alive, kinda

    it’s
    living with them
    what do we do about Bush and Regan?

    sometimes it’s best to have a beer (bear?)
    and forget the monsters
    and just party with the best of them

    you’re an Artist
    that’s y[our] job
    make something beautiful out of the mess

    like Allen Ginsber being a voice for the Buddhists
    “breath in the filth and breath out extasy”

  24. what do we do?

    “sing along with the common people
    sing along
    and it might just get you through”

    What did you do?

    what did you do with your evening of wanting to be entertained?
    you didn’t flick the tube on?
    what did you do?

    did you masturbate?
    write on line?
    cruise porn?
    long for someone?

    what did you do?

    pop albums..

    Yeah
    that Shakespear’s Sister album is a let down
    but that song “Stay” is fantastic
    and i told you where that reference is from
    right?
    from that Smiths’s song?
    The Glass Menagerie

    am i too pompus?

    what do we do?
    faced with such horror
    we’re left limp-dicked in a bed filled with maggots
    what do we do?
    try to make love to a rotting corpse?
    but there are so many living and breathing and eating mcDonald’s aroudn us
    so many still alive, kinda

    it’s
    living with them
    what do we do about Bush and Regan?

    sometimes it’s best to have a beer (bear?)
    and forget the monsters
    and just party with the best of them

    you’re an Artist
    that’s y[our] job
    make something beautiful out of the mess

    like Allen Ginsber being a voice for the Buddhists
    “breath in the filth and breath out extasy”

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