Re-rooting

There can be a time where you become too gay.

Yes.

I said it.

Too gay.

Not too feminine.

Not too pro-gay rights.

Not too much of a stereotype.

Just too gay.

And I am that gay. I have lived in the same apartment for four years, which is a decent amount of time in the greater Los Angeles area. I work for a gay boss who has many gay friends and ideas. I have a weekly housekeeper. I saw seven movies at Outfest. I have two small dogs with soft-back harnesses and pet insurance. My 2010 resolution was to see one musical a month, minimum. Straight people have to come out to me as being attracted to the opposite sex, and sometimes they are nervous about it. I scream at people who ride their bikes on the sidewalk along Santa Monica Boulevard. I, ladies and ladies, am a mega-faggot. If I'd been an adult in the 80's, I'd have been in porn in acid washed, hip-hugging jeans with bleach blond tips.

I live in the hearth of the gay flame near Hamburger Mary's, city hall, and Gelsons. In my neighborhood you can buy designer lube at CVS at discount prices. People will walk to their cars drunk shouting, congratulating themselves because they have straight friends. They walk with their o-beasts (drunken, straight, fat hags) and drive home drunk to the Inland Empire or the Grove singing the same Paul Oakenfold remix of Allejandro that they heard at O-bar 20 minutes ago. It's annoying and it's tired.

My building no longer has Crystal Meth addicts but does have a fair number of angry, Russian taxi drivers and old queens who are angry at their irrelevance. The carpeted hallways reek of online hookups, and worst of all, children are moving in. gaybies live here. They're louder than the pool parties and I can't deal.

I never thought Johnny Carson or Jerry Seinfeld were particularly funny, but one thing that has always stuck with me, is that while no one remembers a single bit from their stand-up, a common compliment to both is "Well, they knew when to leave."

A wise soul said to me recently, when I threw out my thoughts on possibly leaving, "I there should be an ordinance. At 29 you should have to sign a letter of intent to move out of West Hollywood."

My time has come.

I respect what West Hollywood means to gay people. I recognize the significance it has for the Midwestern outcast who just has had it with being a minority and wants to feel included. My problem, is that I've always been an outcast--but not for being gay, for being a weirdo. And I've always been able to make that a strength without attaching it to a street name like Larrabee or Dicks Drive.

I think after the first of the year I'd like to re-root.

A point of view

Around 2006, I stopped liking to perform traditional stand up comedy. I had done it daily since 2003, and credit the hobby/side career as the biggest reason I lost weight so fast, but after leaving Northern California for LA, I realized something. I hate telling jokes. I find jokes predictable, and though the object of the game is to shatter assumptions, to me, there are very few ways to innovate new ways of scripting a funny line.

I also find most stand-ups to be exhausting. They typically think they're funnier than they are. They steal from each other, or they don't but get accused of it. They hate you if you get laughs, the loathe you if you bomb. They eat like pigs. They think it's safe to weep in front of you. And try being gay and being a comedian. Everyone sounds like Margaret or Kathy, and then you catch yourself doing it. Oy.

I started to go up less frequently, maybe once a week or so. Every once in a while I got paid for it. That was fun. But I wanted to create new ways to perform. I produced nights of personal essays. I hosted shows in record stores, clothing stores, and restaurants. I did sober grad nights at high schools. i just wanted to see if there was a different way to do it. And there was. It was rewarding to work with my friends and do things differently and creatively, and sometimes famous people helped us, and we were on our way...to somewhere but none of us knew where.

And then I stopped. I got scared. I came up with all sorts of excuses. I have to work. The guy I'm dating will think I suck. The guy I'm dating will be jealous. The dogs will pee the house. What if my mom hears I've made fun of her again after she told me to stop? I look fat. I don't have anything worth saying.

That last thing was the part that killed me. I really stopped believing I had anything worth expressing a point of view over. I started going up only when people asked me to go up, because I felt I could blame bombing on them. They knew what they were getting in to.

I was supposed to go up this past March for the first time in almost a year, but it was the night of Madonna Glee, and no one showed up so the show was canceled. I was pleasantly relieved. I was empty, and I had nothing to say.

My friend asked me to go up tonight, and I'd been dreading it all week. What will I talk about? My life is boring. I work, I sleep, I watch Design Star, repeat. Maybe it would be canceled.

It wasn't. It was a packed house. I walked up not knowing what I would say, and then I said something, and it got a laugh, and it was real. And not doing it for so long made me more conscious of how grateful I was to be back up, and that made me more thoughtful about talking about things I care about, and that made me funnier. And someone who I respect immensely said so. And that made me happy, but not too happy like it did in the old days, when compliments or hecklers gave me sleepless nights.

And that makes me like doing stand up. And the truth is, I never bomb. Some nights I don't kill, but I'm not afraid to bomb and so I never do. my biggest fear in dong comedy is just that I won't have a strong enough opinion about something and won't be able to support a point of view, and I know that's very toastmasters, but it's true. And so the next time I get nervous, instead of telling me I'll be fine, just make me watch fox news for an hour in an enclosed space.

P4

The problem with being fat is that unless you’re really funny, you’re invisible. Being really funny is exhausting, though, and for fat people going to a dance club, it’s like Navy Seal Boot Camp. For one thing...

Starbucks

I go to the Starbucks on Cahuenga Boulevard West almost every day. It's a really weird one. The parking spaces are super-duper small but there are two outdoor patios. There are cops there all the time but they aren't arresting anyone. They are buying coffee or tea or paninis. When you first walk in it's either no line or giant line, never one or two people ahead of you. But no one is upset when there is a line. There is so much to look at. You're eyes wander around at the people on the internet, a giant open refridgerator display with mini donuts and scones and Tazo teas, and the single person bathroom that doesn't require a key from the barista attached to a gallon-sized measuring cup.

50% of the staff is miserable, mean and unhelpful. The other 50% want desperately for you to like them. And then, there is one guy who doesn't care either way. He flirts with boys and girls and ignores boys and girls, too. This makes him candy to me. I think his name is Sean, too. That's kind of hot. Lately, he's never there when I am, though. Once I left him a love note, in my mind. It was something like, "Sean, I'm Sean. When you get a real job, let's fuck."

popSPIN Week 3: Alright with me

I was walking the dogs a few days ago and the weather was perfect. It's Summer in LA! I had gotten up early to take Power Plate class. I wasn't tired and I wasn't hungry. My butt had a little swish to it and my hair was spikey and natural. I wasn't perfect, but everywhere I looked people were smiling with me, and then one of my favorite songs came on. No matter what you look like, no matter how much money you have, and no matter who you're banging, you're Alright With Me--and everythings gonna be ok.

"Summertime" Will Smith
"Mr. Brightside" The Killers
"'Cuz I Can" P!nk
"California Love" 2Pac and Dr. Dre
"Uptight (Everything's Alright)" Stevie Wonder
"Billionaire" Travis McCoy
"Alright" Janet Jackson
"Bootylicious" Destiny's Child
"Flaws and All" Beyonce
"Public Affair" Jessica Simpson
"Single" New Kids On The Block
"Die Another Die" Madonna

P1

I was 21 when I wrote my will. I saved it on my desktop under IF I DON’T WAKE UP.DOC. My primary concern was that I be...

The Meat Grindr

I hate looking online for sex. It’s so easy and so stupid. You go on your computer to somewhere like gay.com or Adam4adam or even facebook and look for someone to chat with. If you’re me, you find someone and say something totally non-sexual, trying to be funny or nice, like “Hey, cool shoes!” when their picture is just of a naked torso.

Sometimes they chat back and sometimes they don’t. I always go for the older guys, or the Asians, because it seems they never turn me down. There have been times during the last five years that I have literally chatted with guys for five hours straight, without a potty break or a meal and no sex has occurred. This is mostly because I’m afraid to have them come over. What if I look fatter? What if they’re crazy? What if they think my bedding is too feminine? What if they are lying about their STD status? What if they’ve hooked up with my roommate or neighbors? I panic. I close the window. I call my mother.

There is this thing for the iPhone, Grindr, which I was kind of obsessed with for a while. It’s really Satan’s tool against time. It’s a Gay-finder. It GPS’s you and lets you see all of the gay or bi or questioning people who are near you. I initially installed it in Sacramento at a hotel over New Year’s Eve. I literally spoke to no one all night, just staring at this giant gay Hollywood squares board. I deleted it driving home down the five. I reinstalled it a day later.

Over the next six months I would discuss it in therapy, the time I was losing, the guys I was meeting on it—all fatter than the last, never looking like their pictures. I was both impressed and horrified by how much time I spent on it, like all those other web sites NOT having sex, just trying to make a connection with other gay guys. How I used it so unsafely while driving, loading it with glee anytime I was in a different part of town to see new people. I would talk about the mechanical nature of the rare sexual encounters I actually did have, how no one wanted to chat when we’d meet in person, that I felt like a paper tooth-shaped number at the deli counter at Gelson’s blowing this guy or that guy.

I deleted and re-installed Grindr something like 60 times. Each time I deleted it I washed that app right outta my hair, only to reinstall just before bed. And then I’d go back into therapy talking about how the only time anyone would chat with me was late at night, how if I pretended to have left it on by accident overnight, I would wake up delighted by 30 messages. I was amazed when a guy I had hooked up with, who never returned my “hey that was fun” text, would find me six weeks later and ask me how hung I am, as though we’d never met. The fourth time that happened, I was less amazed and more defeated, numb, by how I’d been reduced to being a gay guy looking for validation from sex. It’s weird how technology brought that out of me, fanning the flames of loserdom.

A couple weeks ago, I uploaded a picture from my new spin class on the site hoping to attract local gay people to visit the gym on Mondays at 5:30 (shameless plug). It worked actually, and a few people came, who were all very nice. But the worst part was that the Grindr gods banned me for life for advertising a product other than them. Grindr misses the social network sharing concept that Facebook, Wikipedia, and Mozilla share and thrive on with their users and I guess that’s sad or something—but there is good news: I’ve lost the loser leaves town match with online sex-seeking. And it’s weird, I have hours of free time now. Yesterday, I read the paper and saw a play. Today, I wrote to you all and looked at new places to live. And the connection that I’d been seeking through the keypad on my phone through this useless battery-killer had been there all along. I just had to smile back when walking past a good-looking fellow on the way to the gym, or ask the waiter if he’d like to go see a movie. And this way, they know I look like my picture.

popSPIN Week 2: We MADE it

At 5:30PM on a Monday, the last thing you want to do is exercise, so this week's theme is WE MADE IT! Here is the Week 2 "We Made it" playlist:

"You Shook Me All Night Long" ACDC
"Dance and Shout" Shaggy
"Diamonds and Pearls" Prince
"Let's Go Crazy" Prince
"Islands In The Stream" Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
"Bad Girl" Rihanna
"Larger Than Life" Backstreet Boys
"Tears Of A Clown" Smokey Robinson
"Baby Got Back" Sir Mix-a-Lot
"Ego" Beyonce
"I Made It" Kevin Rudolph
"Celebrity Skin" Hole

popSPIN Week 1

Thanks for the energy tonight. WHAT A FUCKING RAD CLASS!

"Country Grammar (Sweet Home Alabama Remix)" Nelly
"It's Gonna Be Me" N Sync
"Right Here (Human Nature mix)" SWV
"Runaround Sue" Dion
"Independent Women Part 1" Destiny's Child
"Love Child" Diana Ross and the Supremes
"Over You" Daughtry
"Dress You Up" Madonna
"You Haven't Done Nothin" Stevie Wonder
"Doesn't Really Matter" Janet Jackson
"One Moment in Time" Whitney Houston
"When Love Takes Over" David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland

Interview time!

Check out my interview with the amazing Josh Kilmer-Purcell, right now!

It's So Hard to Find A Hero

The wrestler "Bret "Hitman" Hart is my hero. Well, not the man so much as the character.

Bret is the guy on the right. I always thought he was really cute. Kind of like a Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora kind of look, but more clean cut because he was a wrestler, not a smoker, doper, rock n roller. Bret is from the infamous Hart family of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Calgary is like Austin, Texas in a way. It's the rugged part of Canada, where you might find a cowboy and deer antlers in a bar, but it's Canada, so those cowboys are for universal healthcare and gay marriage. I always sensed that in Bret. If for no other reason, because he wore pink.

Bret was a tag team wrestler in the beginning, but around 1991, when I was in junior high, he went out on his own and had a match with the late Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig, in which he applied his signature hold, The Sharpshooter, to win his first of many singles titles. Yes, wrestling is fake. But the belts are real gold. And for a young guy watching the hero win the title, I learned something I didn't always have an example of at home. When you stood up for what was right and told the truth, you got to accesorize.



As Bret's career raged on, he varied his matches, and instead of opting for the bloody, head through a wooden table route that wrestling was changing into, he got more arial. By 1996, when I was a senior in high school, Bret had been through a major feud with his brother Owen, that saw him face his brothers jealousy head-on (Bret won, proving that excellence always defeats envy) and was now defending his title against then up-and-comer Shawn Michaels. the behind-the-scenes drama in this feud, which would rage in and out of the ring for nearly 15 years was epic. It ended in the infamous Montreal incident in which WWE owner Vince McMahon reworked the matches ending without telling Bret, and leaving him to go to competing company WCW humiliated. Bret's unscripted temper tantrum and farewell to WWE post match is cathartic to anyone who has been betrayed, and is to this day, one of my favorite things to watch when I'm pissed off.



Shortly after leaving for WWE, Bret's brother Owen was killed in a stunt accident in the ring. his wife divorced him. His brother in law, "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith passed away, and Bret suffered a stroke that forced him into retirement. He vowed never to work for WWE again, but in 2005 he accpeted the invitation to join the WWE Hall of Fame and wrote a memoir that is as good as any memoir you'll ever read (wrestling fan or not), and trust me, I'm a picky bitch.

Bret was never afraid to tell the truth. Did I already mention that? If that meant losing fans he didn't care. he spoke out about the excess of America, about the aggressive ignorance of American patriotism, and he refused to lose matches in Canada. bret Hart stood up for himself, and is now regarded as "The Best There Is, The Best There Was, and The Best There Ever Will Be" when he is introduced anywhere. I like that. That's a legacy that can only be built by taking risks.

Bret forgave Shawn Michaels in 2010 in the center of the ring and created a new online role for himself as RAW general manager. He stil wears pink and he even wrestled a couple of times. He inspires me to reinvent myself, to let go of grudges, to tell the truth, and to aspire toward excellence. In the constantly foggy world of Los Angeles show business and gayness, my memories of the Hitman keep me from becoming yet another tool in traffic on the 101.

From Mom

You may recall this email from mom a couple days ago...Here is the follow up.

To: Sean
From: Mom
Subject: Cricket

Hey, I was just kidding about Ralph. I know that he's not gay, but I think Cricket is another story. He's awfully feminine for a male. Tell Cricket it's ok to be gay. Don't make him hide it as long as you did. I hope he doesn't get Ralph confused about his sexuality. Maybe when you come home for Christmas you can leave my grandchildren with me when you go out. Give them hugs and kisses for me.

Love,

Mom