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today:
8.8.99 (short and short) i was watching my favorite television program this evening -- America's Funniest Home Videos: "You Had To Be There" Edition. this show is yet another reason i can't possibly cancel my platinum subscription to cable. tonight's winner was contributed by six thirteen year-old girls from branson, missouri. the video was shot at a slumber party hosted by one of the girls and it's completely pitch-black, except for the time code running in the corner of the screen. (which read, 3/22/99 2:38AM, so i'm assuming these girls were supposed to be sleeping) the video is also largely silent, though some rustling can be heard occasionally, as well as what sounded like one girl snoring. the video runs like this for 3 minutes and 42 seconds (if timecodes tell the truth) and then, out of the stone-silence and blackness, one of the girls announces, "Mr. Lentini's moonboots," and the other girls erupt into spasms of uncontrollable laughter. no question: those girls earned every penny of the $90,000 weekly prize. * * * * * i am not a huge fan of most theme bars. i suppose that isn't much of a surprise, but there it is. truthfully, if the theme is really nonsensical and makes no attempt to even brush lightly against the side of experiential reality, i'm actually all for it. in fact, nyc hosts a great theme bar -- Mars 2112 -- that purports to exist in a space station on the rocky terrain of the planet mars. having never been to mars, i'm perfectly willing to accept that its surface might be cluttered by eames knock-off furniture and television monitors playing earth "sports." but, having visited Mars 2112, i have a pretty good idea why earthlings have never attempted to colonize the planet: the nachos suck. thursday night found me at a friend's birthday party. he's a wonderful person but unfortunately chose to throw his birthday party at a theme bar. this was a weird theme bar, though, and i wasn't crazy about it at first. though it wasn't stated on a plaque by the entrance, or anywhere on the premises, i'm pretty sure this bar's theme was "Everyone Here is Gay Except You and Perhaps that Woman Over There Who Hangs Out Exclusively with Gay Men." the bar staff wore neat costumes -- skin-tight black polyester shirts tucked into equally tight black cigarette pants. it was very Fosse! got to talking one of the other party guests about male-male relationships. i asked him why so many gay men seem so completely horny all the time. he gave me an answer which should have been obvious to me. he informed me that most gay men experienced an adolescence that was deprived normal dating rituals. naturally, high school has a way of squashing anything that doesn't wear a baseball cap, but this was an interesting ramlification of the kind of left-streaming high school enforces, and one i hadn't really considered. as a result, he said, many gay men just hop right into a sexual relationship without the usual sweaty-palmed indecision heterosexuals are accustomed to suffering through. sex comes first because the game of getting to sex has never been played at its proper pace. and here's where i ruined it: i was listening to this person the entire time and thinking to myself, "yes! just like gilbert and booger and takashi in Revenge of the Nerds. they were left out of traditional dating/mating rituals as kids because of their various awkward qualities and now, when takashi screams, 'hair pie!' he's really just telling us that this is the only kind of relationship he knows at this point. just as gilbert points out in his moving speech from the final scene of the film, nerds come in many forms -- smart, dumb, white, gay, robotic. that film really informs male-to-male relationships. and in a way, aren't all the answers to our inter-social queries found in the text and subtext of Revenge of the Nerds?" thanks goodness this time i kept my thoughts to myself and ordered another Orgasmo-politan from the bartender.
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these words © 1999 todd levin. |
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