The New Jerusalem

Senioritis

Junior Senior sound very much as though Beck and the B-52's made a baby. which is actually what they kind of look like, too.

I guess I'm Dark Skinned

There's a thing on VH-1 about being gay today. Apparently being gay today mainly involves being a very tanned square-jawed model. There was this article in the NY Times by a lesbian about a new Showtime series about Catfood and the ladies who love it. The article ends up more broadly looking at the issue of representation of minorities in the media, and the trouble of going from being ignored to being present. Very "is that all there is". Particularly wonderful is her narrowing on the degree to which actual representation precludes the beauty of figurative representation previously possible. Once there are actual lesbians on tv, who needs to see themselves in Peppermint Patty or Bruce Willis?

Basically, i feel like now that there is a thing we can be, everyone is rushing to be that thing. Tragically that thing is the shallowest, most venial race ever known to man.

And I love the shallow. I appreciate them with a great deal of professional respect: They make a career out of something I could never do, but as a man, I am at least a recreational shallow bastard. I just know i could never make it in the pros. Still, i'm dazzled by the efforts they exert. the tanning, the clothes, the 40 year olds aching to make people think they're 20.

It'd all be fascinating if it weren't for the fact that i have to actually have relationships with gay guys. And i don't. i'm not pretty enough to make it.

I feel forgotten by homosexuality. I feel like homosexuality wants to forget me. and as much as i appreciate it and love it when i see gay stories or concepts being represented in the media, i am no less alienated from them because i know i'm not the sort of gay they're intended for. At least with straight stories, there necessarily has to be a level of abstraction. with gay stories, the only thing holding me from identifying is my own personal shortcomings.

I guess it's like being a lower class african american in the 80's and watching an episode of the cosby show thinking "who do these people think they are".

Also, gay guys don't think or argue or say wonderful things as much as they should. when you have biceps to talk for you, there's no more need for words that can crackle.

Wicked Queen

I appologize to those readers uninterested in my frequent rumination on my self-image issues, however, i find they are a frequent hub for some thoughts i find interesting and would like to preserve through this forum. your pateince is appreicated.

Meteoric Mediocrity

I watched about 10 minutes of Average Joe last night. The new Hawaii one. It is brilliant. I only watched because Dahlia Lithwick, the Jurisprudence Editor of Slate magazine and my personal hero (universally my hero worship ends in disallusionment. is that the purpose of hero worship? dunno, but Dahlia has yet to be tainted, so let's move along) wrote a really great column declaring her love for the original series.

Essentially, the magic is rooted in two things, a macro and a micro. Most immediately, the issue separating it from reality television is the liberation of non-naturalistic meathods. Rather than fill a screen with young and sexy folks, it doesn't, it gives a bracingly honest cross-section of american men. some are kind of attractive, but most all are dorks. It seems cruel to put people in the position of being "less desireables", but at least it doesn't simply ignore them. I don't exist in a blind date universe, and blind date propagates a sentiment among so many people, i think, of self-hatred. it seems like such a satisfying world that you kind of wonder if the world wouldn't be better with only sexy people. Hitler seems so EVIL when he's whiping out the mud races, but if we concede he was simply using a flawed methodology of weeding out the less aestethically pleasing, it hardly seems that different from what your average television producer does.

Next week Average Joe is shipping in a boatful of sexy model guys. apparently last time they brought in sexy model guys they went out of their way to ensure they were guys with virtually nothing else to reccomend themselves. The guy who ended up winning was 27 and still lived with his parents. I simultaneously relish the honesty of forcing us to confront the dehumanization of rank and the caricature of the pretty boys presented. We're not supposed to participate in stereotypes of people based on appearance, but realistically, pretty people DO get away with more. They are able to coast on looks, parlay meager talent into success, all based on the fact that people, including me, would like to be around them. All pretty guys may not be model/waiters living at home, but they CAN be, and Average Joe admits it.

Oh, and the producers have pumped them to be arrogant bastards. Sometimes i wonder if my parents hadn't tried so hard to beat all possibility of arrogance (and even simple pride) from me in childhood, would i be a sexier guy? That may not make sense. I was always wierdly gigantic, always the biggest kid. So my parents were so freaked out i was going to be a bully, i mean, i did enough damage just inadvertantly hurting/breaking. But they tried to make me very self-circumspect about such things. the result was puny little guys being physically confident and arrogant and me being freaked out i would hurt someone, always so aware of others' feelings and all.

So what i'm saying is that my parents decided to make me an astoundingly empathetic gigantic guy instead of a sexy gigantic bastard. and suddenly decisions make more sense.

the point is, on average joe last night, they previewed one of the arrogant bastards pulling up his shirt and saying "they're gonna have this to deal with", refering to his torso, which looks exactly as you'd imagine.

making that text was very compelling to me. It's so often an unspoken reality, and a reality i'd hazard far more bracing among gay boys. I just ain't got the firepower to hook most men. i have to contend with those pebbly torsos, and i can't.

Average Joe forces the girl to be a bitch, to weed out the fat guys and make clear that she's scared to relate to anyone too physically unappealing. it is a non-reality television i can understand as reality.

And that, in the larger picture, is what makes it great, that its non-naturalism is being used to a particular artistic agenda. Scripted television has been decimated by the low production costs and high ratings of reality television, but so infrequently has the reality show been truly compelling, because it lacks a point or objective. You can turn a camera on an anthill for 48 hours and have a season of programming, but like a good war, you can't have good tv unless you know where you're going or what you want.

In sum, Average Joe is brilliant.

I love shakira more than i should.

The Peer and the Peri

I need to go back to titling my entries. is that how you spell "titling"? gerunds are hard