San Sargasso

A First Salvo by Way of Inauguration of the First Collateral Campaign of the Imperial War Against 'Arguably'*

Inarguably, the proliferation of this word "arguably" in our popular writing and speech irks me. I'm not sure what irks me the most:

1. The inarguable fact that the word has cropped up in every journalistic crevice like a little tuft of weeds.

2. The inarguable fact that, for purposes of communication, it is utterly pointless and superfluous. In an era during which whole rafts of people who purport to be sane dispute the big bang in favor of the biblical creation, what statement, opinion, or even fact, is not arguable?

3. The inarguable fact that the term is used by people to signal their supposed intelligence or education, when the only thing it actually displays is pretentiousness or carelessness.

In making an assertion, and inserting that horrid, spineless word, are you not diluting or even negating your statement? If you have no confidence or opinion about what you are saying, why say it at all?

To reiterate: THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS NOT "ARGUABLE"! Which is not to suggest that anyone (other than an attorney who is getting paid for it) should waste his or her time in the futile pastime of argument.

Have I been too harsh? Pedantic? Don't get me started.

Postscript:  on performing some cursory Google research, I find that I am naturally not the first to complain about the infernal word, and that in fact it has been on the lists of usage watchdogs since at least 1993. Since the word is still alive and healthier than ever (appearing in 22,900,000 pages in Google), it is clear, then, that, as usual, I am pissing in the wind.

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* The title of this little rant is intended to be a loving parody of The Man Without Qualities.

Take the Skinheads Lawn Bowling

I once hooked up with a punkish-looking guy with a shaved head, tattoos and convincing blue-collar swagger (this was before those insignia became trendy). I don't think I had ever slept with a skinhead before, though I had always found the look attractive. I had had the obligatory gay fantasies about tying up and having my way with a hot neo-Nazi.

When we went back to his place, it was filled with beautiful mid-century furniture and art. He had a fine eye - I was impressed with his sense of style. And he turned me on to the body art of the Papua, New Guinea natives - he had a big book on his coffee table.

We were well-suited sexually: he was a total face-down-on-the-bed-ass-in-the-air bottom. And he was a pretty good cocksucker, but after I came in his mouth, he would jump up from the bed, race over to the bathroom, and I would hear the water running as he violently rinsed out his mouth (he was HIV negative and naturally didn't trust that I was too). It was a bit deflating and unromantic. Not that I expected him to swallow, but he could have been a bit more discreet about the whole thing.

Anyway, I really liked him and I thought there was some potential. We dated for a few weeks, and it seemed to be going well, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, he stopped returning my phone calls. I left an angry message on his answering machine, and never heard from him again.

Later I would see him out from time to time, and note with satisfaction his embarrassment when he saw me. I could tell he was still attracted, but I, of course, the Guinness-world-record grudge-holder, would act as though he didn't exist (I've gotten better about letting go of grudges since then).

Those last two paragraphs could be repeated and applied verbatim for a hundred short-term love affairs of mine. I don't know why, but I'm still somewhat flabbergasted and hurt when the pattern recurs. But I no longer take it nearly so personally; at least, not for so long. And, at any rate, it's good fodder for therapy sessions.

After the recent experience with Alfonso (not his real name, though if I were as vindictive as I would like to be, I would use his real first, middle and last name and post his picture, phone number and address), I told my therapist that that was it, no more, I've sworn off dating, and I'm just going to concentrate on being an ultralounge playboy, seguing as gracefully as I can into dirty old manhood. At this moment I still maintain this conviction, but I have some doubt as to whether I will be able to avoid slipping into the same tired drama again.

But here I've drifted off into my self-soup, when actually what I wanted to record here was a certain image: I took a walk in the park with the skinhead one day, and when we passed the lawn bowling green, the mature, dignified, gentle men and women players were there, playing in their spotless white garments, rolling the black balls firmly, gently, precisely, deliberately, with no excess of emotion, no hollering, no great shows of triumph or disappointment - but rather, in Zen fashion, simply noting where the ball stopped.

We watched together for a few moments, and the skinhead said that he intended, at some time in the near future, to put on his own white garments and join the lawn bowlers in their game. He was absolutely serious about it, there was no irony in his tone, and I could tell that he had the highest respect for the players and the game and the spectacle. I admired him for being so certain about something that seemed so improbable, and I pictured him out there on the lawn, his pale round hairless head integrating itself harmoniously into that beautiful dance of white, green and black.

Gogol-heim: A Place for The Elderly, The Disoriented and The Intoxicated

In reading Gogol's Dead Souls for the first time, I come across the following passage, which summarizes a lengthy description of a dilapidated estate overgrown by its garden:

In a word, all was somehow desolate and splendid, as it is given to neither nature nor art to devise, but as happens only when they join together, when across the often senselessly accumulated toil of man, nature passes a finishing touch of the chisel, lightens the heavy masses, eliminates the crudely palpable symmetry and the beggarly rips through which peers the unconcealed bare plan, and confers a wondrous warmth on everything that has been created in the chill of calculated purity and tidiness.

For a long time I have been trying to formulate what it is about much of so-called modern/minimalist architecture (as, for example, one may see lately in Dwell magazine) that doesn't sit well with me. It's in the geometry of the straight lines and right angles. There seems to be an arrogant assertion that inherent in the rectilinear structure is a sort of eternal truth. This seems to me to be based on an elementary school notion of geometry, which in turn is based on the discoveries of Euclid. Hasn't anything happened in the field of geometry since the year 300 BC when Euclid strolled about in his robes contemplating the shape of the universe? Are we really still stuck with 3 dimensions? Doomed to live in Skinner boxes? What about Fractals? Lobachevsky-Bolyai-Gauss geometry? New cosmologies?

Even Euclid contemplated the wonderfully distorted ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas, and would have welcomed even the torus and the Klein bottle, yet the anathematic curve seldom creeps into the design of new residential or commercial architecture. The urban dweller appears still to be living in slabs and structures that look like, well, giant architectural models. As though to be taken seriously, one must be making ARCHITECTURE, which bears no relation to nature or the natural environment of sky, water, air, minerals, growing things, but only to other ARCHITECTURE. It even has the gall to thrust itself into the wilderness and suppose that it is in harmony with nature merely because it has some big guillotines of glass glued to the sides of it.

And, what about all the wasted space? What can you put in a corner? There's a reason children were made to go stand in one as punishment.

Not to mention the fact that all these sharp edges of furniture and builtins are bound to be dangerous to the elderly, the disoriented and the intoxicated.

There is also a false and pathetic sense of order in the rectilinear, as though the dweller's ego were so fragile that it would crumble to pieces if not propped up by the supposed perfection of the lines and the sterile placement of one slab in relation to another.

Well I guess I'm just carping here. What can a know-nothing like me presume to offer to ameliorate this state of affairs? All I can think to say, is, ladies and gentlemen, think on how the birds and the bees build their dwellings; think on the amorous bower bird especially; think on the majestic spiral which occurs in the cochlea of the human ear and in the shell of the shy nautilus and in the magnificent tornado (yes, thank god for the Guggenheim). Think on the forms developed by Nature, which has had infinite resources, infinite time, to try everything, to fail at everything, and to hit upon what is successful in form and function and attractiveness (yes, even that, for, after all, the flower must attract the bee and provide a lovely environment in which to linger for a critical and languid moment).

Hello, Stranger

It's been a long time since I've written here, and I have SO many things to tell you. It's overwhelming. I may or may not be up to the task. You may or may not hear from me in another long while. (As I say this I feel as though I am speaking into an empty tunnel or void, since I have no idea whether anyone will be reading this. But I'm not lamenting it or fishing for sympathy, because my words sometimes make a nice echo in my head, and that's good enough.)

The Fastidious Freak

Time and again I find that some of the most interesting things that happen to me are sexual experiences, or experiences I've had in the pursuit of sex and intimacy. I feel an urge sometimes to write down some of these things, but a certain fastidiousness makes me hesitate. Since my sexual encounters tend to run on the debauched or excessive side, it seems difficult, if not impossible for me to convey these incidents without sounding vulgar or prurient, or without giving the impression (whether rightly or wrongly) that I am a sexual compulsive, or a pervert, or an alcoholic or a drug fiend, or something worse.

Moreover, I don't really have any descriptive language to draw on except the language of pornography, or - even worse - the language of the clinician. And even if I did manage to invent the kind of elegant language I envision that would be required to relate these incidents - a daunting task in itself - even then, I would run the risk of being misunderstood, judged, etc.

But, um, who gives a shit, Martha? After all, some day I'll be all dust and ashes - or, put another way, there will be no "I" to be thought well or poorly of, and all that will be left are these words, if that much. Again, not trying to be maudlin, just stating the facts to put things in perspective.

Some of the thoughts and ideas that arise from these incidents are quite interesting, or at the very least they have some value because they are simply true, because they really happened, and because they were filtered through my consciousness and burned to their essences as though by an acidic compound.

So, in spite of all these obstacles and baffles and scruples I've manufactured for myself, all I can do is try, one sentence at a time. Or not.

Delicate Dam

Even though I find my friends charming and eminently lovable and have frequently felt the urge to sketch them in words, I've so far been hesitant to do so, for fear of inadvertently hurting someone's feelings (I've already done so once, to my horror) or because I feel in some ways it is disrespectful and inappropriate to turn the real people one cares about into "characters" or subjects of semipublic scrutiny (though that is surely a scruple that would be smiled at by most "real" writers).

And yet there have been times, while in their company and while overbrimming with love for them, that I've wanted to tell them once and for all time the extent to which I love them, and the extent to which they've nurtured and sustained me; but nothing comes out except for an embarrassed grin; it's as if I'm choked or paralyzed by the emotion.

Or perhaps a certain moment of intensity comes, and I want to voice, once and for all time, in a gently reproving way, as though it were our last moments on earth together, some old stupid resentment I've been nursing for a decade, a hurt or disappointment which, by not forgiving, I've allowed oh-so-delicately to contaminate and dam-up my relation with my friend.

When the recollection of my inexplicable reticence makes me want to beat myself to a pulp, I calm myself by saying to myself what the sages have said: Everything is as it is. There are those dams that dam and there are those dams that burst, and all is a very precise and beautiful balance and flow of energy.

On Sex, Dating and Mental Cruelty

I have had a handful of what I would call "serious" relationships in my life, and the pattern always consisted of an immediate sexual connection and infatuation, followed by a fast intense bonding, gradually seguing into a comfortable and pleasant companionship. On average these lasted 3 years, and ended amicably. This is probably a typical pattern for gay men; however, it does not seem to be working for me any longer.

In the past too-many-years-to-name, I have had plenty of infatuations and plenty of exciting sexual liaisons, but none of them seem to develop into anything lasting. I'm not sure what (if anything) is different now, but it is clear I need to shift gears. I believe I need to slow down the process: by that I mean I need to take the time to build a foundation of loving friendship and trust (which may or may not involve a sexual component) before trying to jump headlong into sex and intimacy.

I don't have any guilty or negative associations around sex, but when you start out on that basis it can cloud and complicate things. For example, recently I met a man with whom I had an amazing sexual connection (best sex in 20 years, I would venture to say), and after a few dates I felt he would make a great boyfriend. Once the sexual intoxication had worn off a bit, though, I realized that we didn't really have much basis at all for a long term relationship. Thankfully he showed more wisdom than I by keeping me at arm's length when I started prematurely to try to get involved with him.

To take another recent example, I met a guy who appeared to be more than tailor-made for me: a master's degree student in English literature; close to my age; attractive and muscular; extremely intelligent and witty; romantic; wise; loving; spiritual. But again, the sex happened immediately, fueling an intoxicating feeling of intimacy and mutual understanding which turned out to be quite tenuous. In a matter of a month, as a result of misunderstandings and false assumptions we had made about each other, each wound up inadvertently hurting the other's feelings, which quickly escalated into a defensive conflagration in which we did and said very hurtful things to each other, pretty much destroying any chance even of friendship.

This last affair was quite upsetting, but one lesson I hope I learned is: GO SLOWER. Get to know the several aspects of a person you are interested in before making a move toward intimacy and commitment. This probably sounds like a "duh" to many people (even to myself), but I have simply never operated that way, and it seems very few men I've been meeting are interested in taking the time to build up to that point. And I admit my feelings of loneliness combined with horniness at times compel me to use the pursuit of fast-food online sex as a substitute for pursuing real friendship, which takes time and may or may not yield fruit.

Helmut Lotti

I was feeling kind of depressed earlier because a friend told me he couldn't see me today because he was "overbooked." What the fuck? And another loved one of mine has been neglecting me (and I'm mad at her because she never kept her promise to take photos of me that I can use for online dating, which I'm too embarrassed to say is SO important to me). And I spent yesterday with my dear friends who are a straight married couple with an adorable little almost-2-year-old boy. I love them with all my heart and when they visit it is so blissful and pleasant, but when they go back to Glendale I feel so melancholy because they have the kind of love I am so heartsick for. And even though they are so warm and loving to me and call me "Uncle Lee-Bird," I still feel alone and melancholy after they leave.

To add to it, I bought this chic new ultracompact digital camera (Fujifilm Finepix Z1) and got my straight friend (who is a Hollywood screenwiter and knows how to take good pictures) to take some snapshots of me for dating purposes (which is very difficult for me to ask of anyone), and they came out quite good, but I couldn't get them to download to my computer. FUCK! It's a cosmic conspiracy to keep me perma-single!

Anyway, here I am feeling sorry for myself and drinking beer and watching KPBS, and they're having a membership drive, and they start showing this video: "Helmut Lotti: From Russia With Love." So, it's this very cute, boyish and sweet- and gay-looking Belgian singer - sort of a cross between Engelbert Humperdinck and Nana Mouskouri.

And he traveled to Russia to be filmed singing all these incredily campy and sentimental Russian songs. I mean DRIPPING UNBEARABLY OVER-THE-TOP sentimental songs. Some of which I didn't even know were originally Russian - like "Those Were the Days", which was a pop hit in the 70s sung by Mary Hopkin - I actually bought the 45 record when I was a kid. And he sings "Lara's Theme" ("Somewhere my love, think of me now and then ...")

The visuals totally destroyed me - staged shots of Cossacks riding on horseback - Russian folk dancers in garish dresses dancing and spinning around insanely to the music. Helmut lipsynching at the Kremlin. Helmut in Red Square. Helmut in front of Russian palaces. Helmut in Siberia! And the shots of architecture and countryside are actually incredibly beautiful. I have never before in my life seen any images that made me want to visit Russia. Not even after reading Dostoievsky.

And, needless to say, it's all making my head explode. And I am TOTALLY falling in love with Helmut Lotti (sorry but I have lived in CA for 10 years and we do say "totally" without irony). I wondered whether I could actually love someone like that who, one part of me would be laughing at, and the other part of me would be completely wanting to possess him and fuck his brains out. Would that work? I would have to let him in on the joke. But how could I do that without completely spoiling his purity?

But I have a feeling that whatever I did I could not destroy his purity. Of course that's why I'm falling in love with him: It's the innocence, the complete lack of irony, the sentimentality, his charismatic nature, his open heart. So, so, far from me, like that beautiful innocent young girl Marcello sees at the end of La Dolce Vita ...

Sad Omelette

I was reminiscing about one of those quintessential lessons in love, depressing at the time, but now the story makes me laugh. It was a drunken night at the Metro, the mega-warehouse dance club in Boston in the early 1980s. I was cruising a very pretty guy, about 20 or so, blond and tanned. Of the type a friend of mine refers to as "pretty ponies."

We were both soused; he kept grinning at me in an obvious way; I pounced. There wasn't much talk, and we started making out there in the club almost immediately. I dragged him to my place and down into "the cave." We had a pretty good time, though he was quite passive and basically lay back while I panted over him, which I was happy to do since I thought he was gorgeous.

In the morning, being my desperately lonely self, I naturally wanted him to stay as long as possible, so I asked him if he wanted some breakfast. He said sure, and sat there looking pretty and vapid for a while. While I was preparing the meal, he said he needed to go out and get some cigarettes but he'd be right back.

So I laid out breakfast and waited, and waited, and waited, and there was my beautiful omelette, made with love and tender anticipation, getting cold and congealing on the plate like the saddest thing in the world, because of course THE BITCH NEVER CAME BACK!

Now, this kind of insulting rudeness is so commonplace that after a while you come to expect it and learn to smile when it occurs.

What's even stranger is that I often hear certain of my friends expressing surprise and indignation when they get stood up or treated disrespectfully by people they are dating. I hesitate, perhaps out of cowardice, to point out to them that I have observed them to behave exactly the same way to other people whose company is of no consequence to them. For some reason we seem to ourselves to be of such great importance that the idea we might not be so important in the eyes of others seems incomprehensible.

The Water-Torture of Conformity

When I hear about high school massacres, my automatic response is, well, what do you expect? If it's anything like my high school experience, those environments are so horrible and the kids are so viciously cruel and arrogant and stupid day after day, that it seems perfectly understandable to me that it would eventually push someone off the deep end. I'm only surprised it doesn't happen in every school.

Although I am nonviolent by nature, I identify more with the shooters than with the jocks and cheerleaders crying on the lawn. And, yes, there is a secret, evil part of me which says, if people are going to mercilessly taunt and push someone to the point of suicide, then, yeah, give them a taste of their own medicine, go on a fucking rampage, make them understand the gravity of what they have done. Isn't it the same idea as capital punishment acting as a "deterrent"? If people know that when some people are cruelly taunted they are liable to go on a killing spree, perhaps they'll think twice about it.

I'm being facetious, of course: I don't believe capital punishment is an effective deterrent to murder, and I don't believe going on a killing spree is a deterrent to cruelty, either. But there is a sense in which those kids needed to die and the other kids needed to see them die. I don't mean they needed to die physically, but that their false taunting destructive egos needed to die. That was where the shooters made their mistake: they identified the egos with the persons and killed the persons instead of the egos.

When I see the way these incidents are treated in the press, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Naturally everything's got to have a neat little digestible prepackaged spin to it, so they say, oh these individuals were insane or emotionally disturbed. Well, duh, who wouldn't be emotionally disturbed if you're treated as an outcast by everyone around you, including teachers and other adults who should know better.

Or they say, well, it's the parents' fault or the school's fault, they should have seen it coming. Well, yeah, but instead of looking at these troubled persons as a disease with warning signs, why isn't anyone held accountable for the environment which helps to produce such extremely troubled persons? Why doesn't anyone say, gee, that kid was probably treated cruelly and/or neglectfully, is there anything we can do about that? No, because the cruelty is not only taken for granted, but tacitly condoned and even encouraged.

The disease is not difference, but rather the pressure to conform. This pressure is simply a product of fear. The word "conform" is not adequate, because it has a taste of complacency, but what conformity really tastes like is fear. And not only that, but it's like a dripping faucet, drip, drip, dripping on your head day after day until you want to scream or die. It seems like a small thing, but the sheer accumulation, the insidious implacability of it, is enough to drive a person to murder or suicide.

The members of certain subcultures, like some of the punks and the goths and the gays, have come to understand this fundamental fact of life; others will never understand it. The ones who don't understand it see their own insanity as sanity, and so to conform is no more than to obey and follow the natural order of things. To fail to do so can only be perversity and insanity to them.

The best response to this state of affairs is not despair or outrage or going on violent rampages, but irreverent humor, satire and parody. For example, I think that the way that South Park treats these issues is brilliant and extremely powerful. If you present the ignorant, stupid, cruel, self-serving rules and behavior of persons in a certain way, it is astonishing how quickly they are exposed and dissolved in the fire of laughter. And it is encouraging that the creators of South Park have hit upon a format that appeals to people of all ages. South Park gives one hope for the future.