How Will the Wolf Survive?

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Well it’s another lazy Saturday. I’d like to apologize for the posting fiasco last night. Word Press is set 4 hours ahead to Greenwich Mean Time or in the middle of the ocean, I don’t know. Thanks to my sister Annemarie for asking me what happened to last night’s entry.

I was surprised that Harpy or bhikku didn’t say anything. Then again, I think they might have lives that are not centered around this drivel passing as a blog, this mutton disguised as lamb. There I said it! Drivel! Mutton! I don’t really think of it as such.

It’s a column.

It’s a diary.

It’s a letter.

It’s a discipline.

It’s an exercise.

It’s a blog.

Last night my sister in law mentioned that I had to get home so I could write. Not that she reads this. I doubt it, she’s not that involved with computers and proudly so. She certainly doesn’t like Facebook.

Bill and I watched Bill Maher last night which was pretty good. Mos Def and Salman Rushdie were the panel and Christopher Hitchens was the special guest. Mos Def was hilarious. He sounded a lot like Pedro.

Then it was off to bed. I woke up a little before 9:00. Bill was busy doing something as I shuffled though into the shower. Went out and got a few items and that was basically it. I went to the library and dropped off the Freaks and Geeks DVD set that I had out. Didn’t watch all the discs as I had my fill of the early 1980’s.

I tried watching What Just Happened, directed by Barry Levenson and starring Robert De Niro and Catherine Keener with Bruce Willis and John Turturro. Midway through watching it my brother Frank called. Had a long talk with him about yesterday and music. He mentioned a few days ago that talking to me was therapeutic for him.

We’re alike in a few ways, but unlike him I will talk to him even if I’m watching a TV show or a DVD. He tends to get very up tight if you call him during on of his shows and will let you know. The flow of the movie was disrupted and I couldn’t get back into it.

I did go almost all the way back to the beginning though. Bill was headed out the door since he had watched most of it while I was on the phone with Frank. Then as I get back into the movie, Bill calls. He was on the slowest bus heading into the city and proceeded to tell me all about it.

I guess What Just Happened is an apt title for the movie since I kept asking myself that exact same phrase before I eventually gave up and put the DVD back into the Netflix envelope. That got me out of the house.

I headed to the post office and dropped it off and then strolled around Hoboken on a partly sunny day, enjoying a Padron. There must have been a baby boom since there are more strollers around and they tend to travel in packs.

Last night my niece Corinne told me I was the coolest gay man that she knew. Not that she knows that many. She mentioned one friend of hers which by the way she imitated him, was a bit swish.

That got me remembering how years ago, in the 1980’s in the midst of the AIDS holocaust, I had a feeling that heavy set, overweight men would suddenly be desirous. I thought that since one of the symptoms of HIV/AIDS was a sudden weight loss, emaciated bodies.

That was something to look out for then. Still is I guess though I couldn’t tell you since when I happen to go to a gay bar I become the invisible man. Neither customers nor bartenders see me, and I rarely go out to gay bars, or bars in general.

Anyway, as a way of showing that they were healthy, relatively speaking, that beer belly would somehow become attractive. This might have given cause to the rise of the Bears. Bears in gay culture, are heavy set, hirsute, overweight men.

At the other end of that spectrum are the Twinks, who are younger and generally hairless and extremely body conscious men. There are more breakdowns in each set but I think you get the idea.

Corinne’s friend would be a Twink and I guess I would lean more towards Bears. I tried to identify as such, but Juan strongly disagreed a few years ago. I guess he might be a Bear aficionado. I suppose I would be a Wolf then.

More Wolf than Bear, that’s me.

Boom Boom

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Well it’s Friday again. I just got back from a quick dinner with my sister in law Elaine and my niece Corinne. I was going to take a train home but they insisted on dinner before that and since I had pizza 2 times last night, pizza in Garfield was out of the question.

We wound up going to a restaurant named Charlie Blood’s where Corinne was able to schmooze with a few board of education people since she’s trying to get a job in education when she graduates from college this year.

I didn’t mind, I got some food and all I had to do was leave the tip. Elaine picked up the tab since I paid last time on St. Patrick’s Day. I was out in Garfield to play guitar with my brother Frank. The original plan was for me to go out there around noon and be back in Hoboken around 4:00.

Of course when dealing with Frank time is never of the essence. He thought he’d drive me home around 7:00. I first said no and stuck to my guns but as the morning passed I found that I didn’t want to hustle for a noon train. Plus I was still doing laundry.

I got it together eventually, burned a handful of CD’s for him, getting some old Mojo and Uncut magazines for my brother, brought some songbooks of Bowie, The Beatles, Macca and a download of Graham Parker & the Rumour’s Squeezing Out Sparks. Loaded them all into a now quite heavy bag.

It was good to see Frank, and I think he got a lot out of my visit. The train ride was uneventful. I wasn’t
the only person with a guitar. That was unexpected.

Across the aisle from me was a young man with a military type jacket with brass buttons, bed head and a Jay-Z patch as well as a Pink Floyd patch with hammers from the Wall movie. You’d think we’d communicate since I had a guitar and so did he, but no, it didn’t happen.

This wasn’t the early days of rock and roll where you would see someone else with a guitar and strike up a conversation and perhaps start a band.

I got off the train at 3:00 in Garfield and Frank showed up a few minutes later. He was the only one at home, now that he’s retired. Frank likes to warm up playing along to the blues channel on cable. He was surprised to learn that I don’t know anything about the blues.

Surprised since so much of the music I like is based in the blues. I’m not an Elvis Presley fan but a few bands that I like loved Elvis. Maybe it’s because I had seen too many bad blues bands, and I tend to avoid the blues at any cost. Maybe a John Lee Hooker song every now and then but really, no thanks.

I think I did a good job of following his lead but I tend to spend too much time trying to figure out the chord formations as he played. When it was my turn I started playing She’s A Woman by the Beatles. Easy enough, 5 maybe 6 chords total. Frank was playing lead to my rhythm since I can’t play lead to save my life.

It was going well until Frank turned the TV back on and threw in a DVD of Ken Kesey and Neil Cassidy at the World’s Fair in 1964. I learned years ago from Ann Boyles that a TV really takes away from a party or scene that might be happening.

I think next time I will have to insist that no TV will be turned on after he gets warmed up. Despite the stroke I think Frank is still a good guitar player, still way ahead of me on that.