Camp Summer Camp

A longtime lover of the classic ironic film, “Wet Hot American Summer,” I am a perpetual sucker for a story about summer camp.  Combine that with the waning nights of the summer of 2008, and I’m simply hankering for an experience that allows me to relish the last moments of warmth and daylight before darkness and snow invade New York.  Thank heavens, therefore, for “Camp Summer Camp,” the latest piece put up by the always irreverent PS 122, a performance space in the East Village.  The last time I attended this landmark institution I was present for the always auspicious Avant Garde-O-Rama, an event that culminated in a fat naked man performing a stirring monologue.  

 

Camp Summer Camp, believe it or not, had even less of a narrative line than the disparate, incongruous shorts of Avant Garde O Rama, yet it pleased nonetheless.  Little more than a glorified party where hipsters mingled sipping jungle juice and reminiscing about summers in Vermont, the act was less theatre and more fiesta.  Along with my best friend, I entered a beer chugging contest and lost, though frankly I think we beat the other teams rather handily.  It was a photo finish, no doubt.

After the games, I got two tattoos which read, “I love anal,” and “I love S&M.”  I now have to go shower them off.  School starts tomorrow.

 

A Fort Greene Date

Though my affinity for Park Slope has not waned, wanderlust got the better of me last night as Josh and I ambled north into Fort Greene, the neighborhood once home to Richard Wright and Walt Whitman. Though similar to the Slope in its brownstones, patio dining, and children running through a park with messy ice cream faces, Fort Greene has a calmer, younger crowd, with men more likely to be carrying a tote bag than a baby in a papoose.

Always on the lookout for a restaurant that keeps prices low and food quality high, we settled on The General Greene, a relatively new spot on DeKalb Ave. Like so many others, The General Greene specializes in local, organic food, though this wasn’t obnoxiously displayed or shoved down your throat, that is, until you ate the food. There were no, “We’re Greene!” signs or “Keeping it Greene” plaques. It was nice to know we were eating locally and organically without it feeling like we were at a coop.

The restaurant was packed with Fort Greeners and Greene impostors alike, and when we finally squeezed into a packed bar we decided to settle on an appetizer of heirloom tomato salad, prepared with olive oil, fresh red onion, and mint. It was refreshing and cool and had an almost French feel to it. Jonesing for something a little more American, Josh and I both got the burger, a solid choice for a red-blooded man. It had aged cheddar and a mix of lamb and beef. Masculinity affirmed, we walked down the block to Fort Greene’s greatest attraction, the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

If cheaper rents, better subway lines, and fewer yuppies aren’t incentive enough to move to Fort Greene, its proximity to BAM just might seal the deal. A veritable treasure trove of offbeat entertainment, BAM is always showing something worth attending, and that night we chose to see “Man on Wire,” the story of French wire-walker Phillipe and his quest to cross the World Trade Center towers on a wire.

Phillipe and his crew started small, by scaling smaller buildings like the towers of Notre Dame in Paris and the Sydney, Australia Harbor Bridge. In the early seventies, just as the twin towers were rising, Phillipe made the impossible happen when he and his partners launched wires from across the twin towers and rigged them so that he could dance his way across. If you have vertigo issues, I would not recommend this film. If you can get your hands on some dramamine, however, it is worth seeing just for the purely stunt elements. The movie goes beyond simply recounting the dramatic episodes that lead up to Phillipe’s climb to the top of the world, as it chronicles the eventual disintegration of his team that got him there. Not surprisingly, Phillipe is a bit of an egomaniac and megalomaniac, which can at times distance him from other people.

What was most fascinating about all his travails was just how positively he was received by authorities. People in the 1970’s seemed to have a sense of humor about all this. In the wake of anti-terrorism efforts across the globe, not only could this kind of stunt never be pulled again, but I doubt the city would issue lifetime security passes to the building, as it did for Phillipe when he came off the wire at the WTC. The towers’ eventual collapse made his efforts even more ethereal.

The film, which is part bank robbery flick, part documentary, and part arthouse cinema, never loses its cool, much like its protagonist. Pushing the theme that no one has to have a reason to make something beautiful, “Man on Wire” challenges American rationale while showcasing a daring clown traipsing a quarter of a mile in the sky. How French.

 

Los Angeles on Foot: Oxymoronic?

Having recently been issued a New York state license, confirming my permanent residence in the greatest city in the world, I packed a little NYC hubris along with my cell phone charger on my way to Los Angeles. I would tell friends that I was heading out to the city of angels, and almost in concert they’d say, “Oh, the traffic is just terrible. You have to drive everywhere!“. My expectations were low, and getting off the plane I imagined I’d walk into a field of liposuction ridden former model/actresses all vying for coveted spots on the LA freeway system. While it is true that the fastest way to get around LA isn’t exactly carbon neutral, the city so much surprised me with its gorgeous architecture and stunning geography that I quickly forgot about the traffic. And when you’re stuck in traffic on a cloudless day with a breeze coming off the Pacific, where else would you want to be anyway? Most surprising, however, was how much of the city could be accessed by my own two feet. I put my legs to work to find out just how far I could get fueled only by two bowls of Cheerios. It was certainly cheaper than a tank of gas.

My gracious host Rachel swept me up from LAX late Thursday night, after a mere 4 hours on the tarmac plus 5.5 hours in the air. I could have been having brunch in Bangkok by the time we arrived, but inclement weather plus the tortuous, Beckett-inspired runway waits at JFK delayed my arrival significantly. After waking up in my eastern time zone frame of mind, I decided to make of day of it, thereby maximizing my exposure to sun, palm trees, and celebrities. I would have no trouble finding all three.

Rachel lives on the glitzy line between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, a delightful intersection of palatial houses, nightclubs, and rainbow flags. Armed with fresh socks and comfortable sneakers, I strolled down her street until I reached the epic Santa Monica Blvd, an east-west thoroughfare that cuts through the entire city. Traveling east on Santa Monica, I explored West Hollywood, a neighborhood so gay that even the cop cars have rainbow flags on them. Passing underwear boutiques, coffee bars, and pet stores, I ambled slowly popping into bookstores and thrift stores along the way. Most excitingly, I picked up a book called Queer 13, a collection of stories from outstanding authors about their experiences in 7th grade. I think it will make up for the undeniably heteronormative collection currently in place.

Thirsty from schlepping around LA’s gayborhood, I ventured into a juice bar. Electronica music blasted from the ceiling speakers as beefy tanned men ordered smoothies infused with protein powders and steroids.  I placed my order with a gentleman wearing bright blue contact lenses and spiked blond-tipped hair.  My carrot ginger juice burned a little going down, but I did my best to fit in among the California crowd.  Coming from New York, where service with a smile is just about as rare as an empty subway seat, I was almost thrown off guard by the “How are you doing today?” comments from the staff.  Full from the juice and the chit-chat about Michael Phelps, I soldiered on into the wilds of Beverly Hills.

As thousands of cars whizzed by me on Santa Monica Blvd, I was the only person walking on the broad Beverly Hills sidewalks.  That is, besides the bevy of crazies spewing incomprehensible epithets on park benches.  The mix of wealth and poverty was as shocking as the fact that no one else was walking along the same street as me on gorgeous Friday afternoon.  I imagined Broadway empty at lunchtime and thought it only possible in some sort of Vanilla Sky-esque science fiction scene.

I walked through the fancy streets of Beverly Hills, taking in the tourists and the astronomical prices of Rodeo Drive.  Not quite having the necessary $3000 for a new sweater, I continued my trek west toward the ocean.  A half a mile outside of Beverly Hills and kind of manifest destiny settled over me, and I decided that my journey would not be complete until I saw the bright blue Pacific from the shores of Santa Monica.  I’d already made an ambitious walk of it, striding through WeHo and Beverly Hills, but the need to “go west” was too strong to keep my lanky frame from stopping.  I thought that Santa Monica Blvd would take me to Santa Monica, and it did.  The only small catch was that it took 9.4 miles to get me there.  Here is a map of where I walked.

For any New Yorker reading, I walked the equivalent of going from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan to the Cloisters on 205th street near the Bronx. The walk wasn’t as interesting as it would have been in New York, but it wasn’t too dangerous (only 1 man tried to follow me) and I got to see the Pacific Ocean at the end of it, something the Cloisters just can’t offer.  I wouldn’t exactly call LA pedestrian friendly, but I honestly think that has more to do with the fact that no one wants to walk, not that walking isn’t an option.

My next move is to start a tourist business/weight loss program that makes people hike dozens of miles through Hollywood, simultaneously star-searching while burning calories.  That has to fly in LA.

 

The Great Gay Debate over Manhunt

Despite recent victories for equality in California, Out Magazine writer Michael Joseph Gross claims gay  activism is still coming up short, perhaps due to the explosion of internet hook-up sites like the infamous manhunt.net.  Its web prominence, he writes, with member numbers gay organizations like the Human Rights Campaign or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force can only dream about, signals the priority in the gay community is sex, not rights.  His piece, Has Manhunt Destroyed Gay Culture takes a crack at what’s become the single largest online gay community in the world, with almost 1 million members globally.

Gross posits that a “post-gay” community has emerged in the last 15 years, one that has become less concerned with politics and more concerned with getting off.  Sites like Manhunt feed this trend, as the site’s very slogan, “Get on, get off” certainly promotes using the internet for quick sexual gratification.  Aside from this, the site treats sex like going shopping, as men search for what they want by scrolling through x-rated descriptions of potential flings.  He’s not preachy, noting that he’s even a subscriber, but he does manage to question the immense growth of this site as warning sign for gays that our mousepads might not be clicking in the right direction.  He writes, “We still don’t know how to have enduring relationships. We still don’t have examples. We still don’t have mentors. We still don’t have courtship rituals. We are still getting HIV.” Gross generalizes, to be sure, but the reality of gay culture moving away from a political group to a predominantly social one is worth at least recognizing before logging on and getting off online.

Check out more on the owners of Manhunt, two former real estate businessmen who tackled the online hookup scene together: