TANKY WARHOL

I enjoy a good tag (tag me people). This one's courtesy of my Santa Monican bloggin' buddy who comes to us from the worldojeff:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Locate the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
5. Tag five people (nope won't do that again) and acknowledge who tagged me (oui certainement).

Saturday April 8, 1978: Mick wanted us to hear his new record, and we were going to bring it over to Studio 54 but it was at Earl McGrath's house so we went over there (cab $4). Jann and Jane Wenner were there and Stephen Graham who had something wrapped in foil in his pocket. It looked like drugs, but it turned out to be a Rice Crispie (sic) cookie.

About a dozen years ago I went through a period of being infatuated with All Things Warhol. I learned the whereabouts of some of his old haunts in NYC and made a project of checking out where they'd been: The Factory at Union Square, for instance, and Max's Kansas City (the latter, presently incarnated as an Asian deli, where I just had to have lunch. Planted in the dimly-lit dining area on the second floor, I chewed on chicken teriyaki and conjured up images of Iggy Pop and Candy Darling across the room doing lines of blow).

It was around that time a thoughtful friend gifted me with The Andy Warhol Diaries. I devoured it. Today the pages are brittle and yellowed like an old Bible and its contents as pertinent as People magazine. But I hang on to it for sentimental reasons. Plus it's a fine toilet read.

LAST NIGHT I WAS ELEVEN AGAIN or, "Go Habs Go!!!"

I've spent 35 years in Hockey Denial.

As soon as I was old enough to tell my parents what I was and wasn't gonna do on Saturday nights, Hockey Night in Canada was over for me. No more father/son bonding in front of the ol' black & white, me with my quarter-pound of Spanish peanuts and Dr Pepper, he and his rum & coke. Watching games on the box with my dad was a weekly ritual of WASPy suburbia I was anxious to abandon.

One of the perks of my being a very young gay man, many moons ago, was believing my sexuality allowed me to disassociate from whatever made me uncomfortable simply on the presumed basis it wasn't compatible with having sex with men. I'd joined a secret underground society that gathered in public toilets, back stairwells, dark parks and shadowy bars. Who needed sports?

The rah-rah-rah of the crowd at a brightly-lit sporting event was poisonous to me. Besides, I figured I could find more interesting sticks to play with in other arenas.

Yesterday evening I StairMastered at the gym as one of the overhead televisions broadcast what turned out to be the last in a best-of-seven series between the Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers. And lo and behold, I was positively glued to it as if it were an episode of Sex and the City or The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mesmerized. Who was this cocksucking pseudo-alpha male, wincing when the puck narrowly missed the Canadien's net, roaring (albeit internally) when we scored? I know not.

But why does anyone enjoy hockey? It's the speed, it's the stick-handling, it's the tension of a scramble in the crease, of course. Hockey fever. I can't explain it, but I got it back last night. Alluva sudden, the game mattered. I can hardly wait to tell Dad.

CHARLIE BIT ME

Start my weekend with a smile.
Thanks toomuchawesome.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Over the years I've seen a number of movie musicals, shows and concerts that've transformed me into a different person.

During their opening minutes I've felt tingles up and down my spine, my face flushes and my eyes well up. I became emotionally overcome, and the subject didn't have to be sad or sentimental. I believed I was witnessing something bigger than the collective talents of the artists and I'd never be quite the same again.

Chris Isaak in concert and movies Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Grease did it. So did Broadway's Urinetown, Cabaret, Chicago and Avenue Q. I'm not musically inclined myself, but each of these shows gave me a rush like I don't get from anything else.

Maybe it's something about the assemblage of a show - and especially a musical show - that makes me joyous. Audience members as well as perfomers and crew each have a common goal of being a part of a piece of entertainment. They're all on various sides of a single unit for its duration. I'm a huge nut for stuff that unifies otherwise-unconnected people, even if it's just for a little while.



It happened again this afternoon when I saw the Rolling Stones' Shine A Light, directed by Martin Scorsese.

It's like I'm not the person I was yesterday: Now I've seen the Stones up real close in a spectacle unlike a live show or other concert footage I'd already seen.

I thought I was already pretty familiar with their on-stage antics. But in Scorsese's film, the tunes I heard seemed almost secondary to the phenomenon that is the band and their showmanship. It was like I'd never seen them before.

From the opening chords of Jumpin' Jack Flash to the Brown Sugar / Satisfaction encore I sat spellbound, unable to be still in my seat as I wiped my eyes and immersed myself in the firestorm.

I'd have gladly sat and watched it a second time. I'm burstin' here.

PHONEBONE FOLLIES

Had to share this with you.