Strangest thing seen/heard today, but not really that strange

Sometimes the mildly strange is strange enough.

1) I'm working late tonight and just came in from getting some fresh air. The security guard at the hospital entrance was not one of the guys I'm used to seeing during the day. He was, in fact, a strikingly handsome, middle-aged guy. I'm talking head-snapping, movie star looks, but also definitely well into his 40's, with that thick, middle-aged guy build and a bit of salt in his pepper. Why is this weird, you ask? I dunno, it's just that given the elements "security guard," "really handsome," and "middle-aged," I can imagine an intersection of any two of those, but not all three. He nodded to me as I walked by. Just like they all do.

2) At the coffee shop, I overheard two guys having a lengthy and detailed discussion of strategies for dealing with traffic in... the San Francisco Bay Area. There was a weird moment of mental dissonance as the words "Dunbarton bridge" and "880 South" filtered into my consciousness. The two coastal chapters of my life are rather separate in time and thus in my thoughts, but I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that there are other people in the world who've lived in both San Francisco and New York.

Funniest T-Shirt Seen Recently

"I was told there would be no math"

Heh. I know what you mean.

Speaking of Urban Triumphalism

This is seriously the coolest thing I think I've ever seen. After this goes through, Jetsons flying cars can't be far off.

Perspective

Last weekend I had the unexpected experience of attending a gay softball game. I haven't played, much less taken seriously, softball since elementary school. Anyway, my friend L- dragged me there as a good deed, I think, trying to get me to be a little more social, and he probably had a point as far as that goes. Talking to one of the players, here's the thing that struck me:

The team I saw play was part of a gay softball league based in NYC. There are, I think, about 10 people on a softball team. There are 4-8 teams per division, and there are 5 divisions in the league. Now, I realize this amounts to, at most, a few hundred people in a city of millions. But here's the thing: that's just the gay people who like to play softball, as opposed to the gay people who play some other sport (I know of a gay roadrunner's club, swimmer's club, and triathlete's club in NYC, off the top of my head). And THAT's only the gay people who like some sport enough to play it competitively as opposed to all the others out there who might be playing whatever but don't have the time or inclination. And THAT's only the gay people who LIKE sports, as opposed to those with some other social hobby.

The lesson here: there is a whole mess of gay people in New York City. The Big Island of the gay archipelago, you might say.

A Much Funnier New York Blog Than Mine

www.overheardinnewyork.com

I think this is my favorite. Damn STRAIGHT you can't beat a spicy rock...

I Did Not Know That

You can stick a big fat "?!" after each of these, as far as I'm concerned:

1) Ann Bancroft was married to Mel Brooks
2) There was an attempted fascist coup against FDR
3) George W. Bush is "sex-positive"
4) Orrin Hatch wears a mezuzah pendant around his neck
5) William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor dated, back in the day.

File Under: No Shitting

This is a terribly written article and the scientist in question is rather sketchy but the basic finding of this study is pretty straightforward (ha, ha... did I just say "straight?"): If you take a bunch of guys who say they're bisexual and show them gay, dyke, and het pr0n, they mostly only pitch wood when there are boys on screen. I know, shocking, innit? I believe the investigator's next study involves determining the religious affiliation of the pope.

Internet Movie Dumbass Bonanza

As we all know, there are a handful of websites that have become basic internet tools for anyone who spends much time online: Google, Mapquest, Weather.com and so forth.

If you're a movie fan, there's IMDB, the Internet Movie DataBase. I probably visit at least once a week. Where have I seen that actor before? Damn, that was a good movie - what else has that guy directed? That sort of thing. It's an excellent resource, and the more I've started to explore older and foreign films, the more I rely on it to gain some context for what I've just seen, or am considering seeing.

That's why it's such a disappointment that the forums on IMDB are filled with the biggest bunch of booger-eating morons I've ever seen. You'd think the message boards for the biggest movie-themed website out there would be crowded with tiresome art school cineastes waxing ironic, right? I wish. From what I can tell, they're full, instead, of thirteen year old wankers who expect all movies to conform to the standard of television. There is scarcely one word of considered criticism, either positive or negative, that I've seen there, and reviewers and commenters alike appear to be people who haven't actually seen very many movies. The overriding sentiment is either confusion over some obvious plot development or anger that the movie in question is not identical to some other movie the commenter liked.

When I started this post, I had big plans to surf on over and cut n' paste some examples of forum crapitude from the IMDB boards, so we could all have a chuckle but frankly, I just can't do it. I cannot read through that idiocy looking for especially retarded comments because they're all retarded, and I become retardeder by the second as I read them. The best I can offer is to recreate the flavor of IMDB from my tormented memory:

hey guys can anybod tell me who that cute guy was who plaid the brother i think he was gr8t!!!

this movie totally sucked it was just like pulp fixion only pulp fixion was better

Taranteeno sux!!!

no YOU SUck you obviously dont know anything about directign this movie totally stold everything from tarnatino and you cant say anythign intellient about the movie so your just attacking me bc you dont have anything to say

hi everyone can u tell me where getting this movie i am in norway and play area 2 DVD

dude u need to move to a real country

And so forth.
Can it really be true that there isn't a mainstream internet forum where mentally competent adults go to discuss the cinemar?

I Confess

I have to admit that I really dig it at night when there's no traffic around, but the streetlights keep the outdoors pretty light, and I can walk right down the middle of the street in my neighborhood as if it were daylight with nobody around like a ghost town. It's weird, but I like it, I do.

Dilogies

Friday night I was in the mood, for the first time in a while, to see a movie out at the theater. There's a big multiplex right near the hospital, so I headed over after work to see what was playing. The answer of course was all the usual summer dummies. I gave serious thought to seeing Star Wars - I'd seen the other two movies in the 2nd trilogy, after all, and this was supposed to be better than those stinkers. But... I just couldn't get into it. I don't care what happens next. I realized this is the second time recently that I crapped out on a big movie trilogy; the other was The Lord of the Rings. I actually liked the first two movies, but after the passage of time, I just didn't care any more about what happened, not enough anyway to pay $10 and sit there for 3 hours. It seems a little odd to me invest in the first two movies of these two trilogies and pass on the third, not because I hated the other movies but just because... eh.

So instead, in the spirit of filling out a lapsed series, I went to see Batman Begins. I hadn't seen any of the Batman movies after the first two (not counting, of course, the great Adam West original, which will always be the BEST Batman movie) and I can't really imagine why I even saw those. Dreadful. So why'd I bother with this last one? Two words: Christian Bale.

Woof.

As brainless superhero movies go, it was pretty good, approximately as uninsulting to the intelligence as Spiderman was, but with more kung fu. Yeah, I know, kung fu! Ninjas, even! That was a plus, as was watching Michael Caine as the butler Alfie Alfred, just because watching Michael Caine do anything is a plus. On the down side, there was seeing Liam Neeson embarass himself playing a villain who was half over-the-top silly and half take-it-easy-with-the-Osama-bin-Laden-references disturbing, and wanting to smack the puffy lips off Katie Holmes for a) being convincingly self-righteous in the film, and b) having anything to do with Tom Cruise, who, by the way, is why I did not even consider seeing War of the Worlds. On the subject of Katie Holmes, I don't quite see why she's supposed to be such a knockout. Most of her looks comes from looking young - she IS young, for one thing, and she has babyfaced features that make her look sort of archetypally young. But she's not really beatiful like, say, Nicole Kidman, who's so perfect she makes your teeth hurt to look at her. It seems to me like Holmes' appeal is less to an ideal of beauty than to a barely-legal impulse. And now she's a Scientologist. Ugh... Tom Cruise - So. icky.

Yeah, so the summary review for Batman Begins: Christian Bale - hotter than anyone but me seems to realize. Katie Holmes: not as hot as everyone but me seems to think. Batman Begins - fortified with extra kung fu and a much cooler batmobile than that prettyboy sports car of Tim Burton's. Speaking of looks-good-less-filling Tim Burton, I may not like him, but I'm still going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

One note on the movie theater - I like going to the movies alone (as well as with other people) because I get to sit in my favorite seat: the very front row. Friday, though, I actually had to get up and move 4 rows back just to be able to resolve what was on the screen, and because the headrests on the chairs made it impossible to comfortably tip your head back and look up to the middle of the screen. The nice thing is that the screen was huge, but the couple rows were just too damn close to do anybody any good. Now, my question is, what's the point of that? I know that theater owners want to maximize ticket sales and minimize square footage, etc, but there's no way I would sit still for being stuck in the front row in this theater even in a sold-out situation. And I like sitting in the front row. So how could it possibly work out for this theater to have 3-4 aisles that are too close even for first-row enthusiasts like me? I don't get it.

The only other thing to be said on this subject is a little love note to the MPAA. A couple of weeks ago, I went into the bodega here on my street to get some... whatever, milk, bread, beer, etc. The Yemeni guy who owns the place was entertaining himself behind the counter with one of those tiny-size DVD players like you can rent at the airport. The movie he was watching? Batman Begins.

Strangest Thing Seen Recently

It's going to have to be a tie:
1) Friday night, I'm in a bar in Williamsburg, a place I wandered into. On one wall, a Japanese anime movie is being projected without sound, while a band plays in the corner, this sort of chill, noodly art-rock sounding stuff. Two young hassidem in black and whites walk into the bar, which is otherwise full of standard Williamsburg hipsters (and me). They're there to play pool, and so they do. Sitting to my right is a mixed-race couple of very beefy and very flamboyant gay men around my age, who appear to be having a recreational argument. Then up to the bar comes a trio of girls who have Long Island written all over them. Nothing wrong with that, but boy, are they out of place. They're all dressed up to look pretty and meet some boys I presume, and here they've come into this mostly empty little Williamsburg bar with its art rock and anime and billiard-playing hassidem and quarrelling queens. I don't think they're going to have a good night. And then... they DO! Two guys who must be barely old enough to drink, look like skaters, come up and start talking to them and buy them drinks (Coronas with lime, of course!). This is when I think, Is it possible that I am sitting in the very strangest place in all of New York right now? Probably not.

2) Last night on the subway, I get on and notice that some teenagers are staring at a man standing near me and giggling. I can't figure out what they're on about at first, and then I notice his ears. Now, it's not such an uncommon thing for old men to have hairy ears. The Sharper Image catalog must be selling those battery-powered ear & nose hair clippers to somebody, right? And in a rare moment of disclosure, I will share with you, my dear readers, that I have this one, translucent hair that grows from the outside edge of my ear; that is, until it gets long enough for me to yank it out. But this man on the subway, his ear hair was something different altogether. All along the outside edge, rather than from the hole (that's pinna and meatus, respectively, if you like the clinical terminology) of each ear grew a dense thicket of long, flowing black hair, flipped back a la Farrah Fawcet. It was a sight to behold. Dear lord, when I become an old man, please see that there is someone to look after me before I go out in public.

Related to both of these stories... the variety of humanity here is one of the very best things about New York, maybe the key to everything good here. But recently I overheard a conversation as I walked by a restaurant. The conversation was in French, although for a moment I couldn't tell if it was in another language or if I just wasn't close enough to hear what was being said. And when I recognized that it was in French, I suddenly felt tired. Because that's the way it always is here - a thousand conversations going on around you, and who knows what language they're in. A thousand strangers around you, and who knows what planet they're from. The variety that is often so pleasantly stimulating is sometimes just overstimulating.

Homo Holiday

It was gay pride weekend here in New York… and everywhere else too, actually, but it isn't as big a deal everywhere as it is in New York. I marched in the Dyke March on Saturday, mainly because the only gay people here I know are lesbians, so if I was going to get my pride on with company, it was gonna have to be with girl company. Today I watched the much larger Pride parade, or part of it anyway, as I walked to work. Here's a "Harper's Index" style run-down:

•Best T-shirts seen at the Dyke March
1) "Hawaiian Girls Grow Nice Coconuts"
2) "Ban Republican Marriage"
3) "Vagitarian"

•Number of breasts seen during the march: 0

•Number of breasts seen immediately after the march, in the fountain in Washington Square: Way too many

•Number of times I thought to my self, "hey, that guy's kinda cute" only to realize it was a girl: Way too many

•Best T-shirt seen at the Pride parade: "Rip Taylor" with a screenprinted picture of the actor's face on it.

•Best slogan seen at the Pride parade: On a sign held by a member of the gay Asians' contingent, "Out, not take-out"

•Most surprising feature of the Pride parade:
1) the number of black and latino faces both in the parade and in the parade audience. Surprising because of how often I still hear about exclusivity in the gay community, and homophobia in the black and hispanic communities.
2) On one of the floats was a gigantic black and white picture of three buff twinks in their underwear, and looking up at it, I realized I knew one of the guys in the picture. In the, uh, biblical sense. Even though there was no-one around who knew this (not even the underwear guy, who of course was just in the picture) I suddenly felt really embarrassed.

•Most disappointing feature of the Pride parade: it may be bigger than the San Francisco parade, but for sheer spectacle, San Francisco's got New York beat.

•Most encouraging feature of the Pride parade: Seeing Bloomberg and Chuck Shumer and all the politicians running for something show up to march in the parade and suck up to the city's gay electorate.

•Number of blocks I walked against the parade before I got tired of the whole thing and went to work: 26

Best Thing Seen Today

On the subway, a young guy, no more than 20, reading a dog-eared, paperback, Hunter S. Thompson book.

Best Thing Seen (and smelled) Today

A fiftysomething man, having the appearance of a blue-collar joe cleaned and dressed for work, standing out on the corner this morning, having his morning coffee and smoking his morning… reefer.

Worst Thing Seen Today

On the First Ave. L platform, a boy & girl duo of dirty, inked, fauxhawked, pierced, hippie-hipster subway musicians, both playing the banjo. The BANJO. It’s as if their very object were to offend.

Words I am Tired of Hearing

1)Stadium
2)Insurgent
3)Hoodia
4)Freedom
5)Hipster
6)Waterfront
7)Partisan
8)Online
9)Rhombomere
10)Opening

Best Subway Ride Ever

First of all, on the first truly hot day of the season (high 87°F), it is my intense, dehumidified, pleasure to announce that MTA subway cars are air-conditioned. After a sweaty trudge to downtown(ish) Williamsburg to catch the J (because the F-ing L is down again!), I transfered to the 6 and there, on a mostly empty car, is a middle-aged black lady in a flowery church dress, plugged into her diskman (when I said everybody has an iPod, I didn't really mean everybody) and singing her ass off. I mean, full volume and full head-bobbing action. There were a few disapproving or "what a loon" looks cast her way by other riders, but I, for one, couldn't suppress laughter. Sing out, sister.

At the first stop, a guy gets on who screamed music nerd, complete with thick-rimmed engineer-glasses and black & white checkered Vans on his feet. He no sooner sits down than he's pulling his new treasure out of the plastic bag: a big, worn, double-album of some forgotten hippy/psychedelia band, by the looks of it. As he looked at it, you would have thought he was a 13 year old boy with porn from the look on his face. I have so been there, dude. I can almost smell old-record smell and hear the crack of the double-album spine just writing about it.

And then, the Uptown 6 transformed into the Treat Train. With every following stop, all of these hunky guys just kept getting on the train, striking pouty poses and taking advantage of the tricep-tightening overhead handles to give full benefit to their new tank-tops. I don't know if there was a male model convention on the Upper East Side or what, but that train was positively crowded with beefcake by the time I got off. Of the train, I mean.

Yep, that trip's gonna be hard to beat.

The Jacko Paradox

It's a common enough observation that while Michael Jackson has sold something like seven gazillion records, it's hard to find someone who will actually admit to liking him. Obviously somebody likes him enough to buy all those records, but I sure don't, never did, and not only do I not know anyone who does, but I'm pretty sure they're telling me the truth when they say so.

So what I wonder is, by the same token - coverage of the Michael Jackson trial has been all over the news. Even the BBC can't shut up about it, for pity's sake. And yet... do I actually know anyone who cares about the outcome of the trial? Like, at all? Not that I know of. And yet, somebody must care, right, to justify all that news coverage? What is it with Michael?

Best Thing Seen Today
It's a tie:
1) A bunch of people lined up along the fence at the baseball diamond in the waterfront park, rapt before a dramatic game being played by local Little League teams. The impromptu audience was clearly made up of people not planning to be there -- runners, dog-walkers, etc, and the players were little Little-Leaguers.

2) A man getting on the subway in full pimp-regalia. I'm talking, white suit with tails, wide-brimmed hat, gold-tipped cane and everything. Now, this man may not have actually been a pimp, but from his demeanor, I have no doubt that he was not wearing those threads ironically.

Things I Find Unsettling

1) Finding homeless people sleeping in the ATM lobby of my bank every time I go there.
2) The sheer number of black women I see in New York pushing around white babies in strollers and creaky old white ladies on walkers.
3) The shrine for unborn "children" I walk by every day on the way to the train.
4) The frequency with which I hear someone trying the knob on the door to my apartment when I'm home, day or night.
5) Seeing a big, colorful ad for an HIV drug on the subway station wall, amidst all the big, colorful ads for movies, teevee shows, and FreshDirect.
6) The amount of hair I pull out of the shower drain on a regular basis, and not knowing whether it's mine or my roommate's.
7) Having our trashcans set on fire.
8) My landlord's crazy -- I hope -- theory that the garbage men set the trashcans on fire because they were mad about bad recyclable-sorting.
9) The way my boss makes me repeat every thing I say to him even when I know perfectly well he heard me the first time.
10) The way goldfish will follow you with their eyes when you pick them up out of the water, even when you turn them upside down.
11) The fact that Spanish is the primary language spoken on the payphone outside my apartment even though I do not live in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood.
12) The way my cell phone displays my voice-mail PIN in gigantic, full-color, back-lit digital glory when I check messages in public.
13) The fact that everyone I've ever heard making smalltalk on a cell phone sounds like an asshole, leaving me to conclude that when I'm making small talk on my cell phone, I must sound like an asshole, too.
14) Practically everything I ever hear on the news anymore.

Strangest Thing Seen Today

At the laundromat: a man, approximately late 30's/early 40's, tall, beer belly, beard, balding, hairy forearms, wearing bluejeans, untucked button shirt and well-worn sneakers -- appearing, in other words, to be your basic white ethnic Brooklynite straight guy -- occupying himself between loads by... knitting (crocheting? I dunno) what looked like a pink lace antimacassar.

You know, I realize that by now, violations of gender stereotypes shouldn't seem strange. And yet, I still just wasn't expecting to see that.