On the Reverse Strip-Tease

A couple of weeks ago, I had to write a paper about an “on campus event” for my queer African cultures literature class. Because the original event I chose turned out not to work for my paper, I made arrangements with the professor to extend the deadline so I could attend a panel discussion facilitated by the Berkeley Center for Race and Gender on “Pleasure, Power, and Profit in Race Performance.”

The panel featured a number of academics and artists, and was attended by a very diverse crowd of older, very academic looking racial and, perhaps, sexual minorities. I was the only 21 year-old, nerdy, skinny, white, gay guy there. I had no clue what was going to be discussed. Every one else seemed like they knew what was going on. It was strange to feel as if Pleasure, Power, and Profit in Race Performance were quotidian topics of rumination, which had just not occurred to my uncouth mind. I felt very out of place, and very ignorant.

To make matters even better, the weak prescription in my glasses lead me to accidentally seat myself among the speaker designated chairs of the front row. Needless to say, it was not the most ideal location to experience the first strip-tease I have ever witnessed in public (even if it was a reverse one).

I took polite notes through the first couple of speakers. I thought that their presentations were entertaining and relevant to understanding the way that mainstream media and pop culture can pervert our interpretations of race and sex. However, I have been told that it is impolite to take notes during a strip tease. I put down my pen and paper when Narcissister, the last speaker and a successful gallery performance artist, began her presentation. She screened an art-video in which she elegantly manages and admirable physical feat. Narcissister’s performance begins butt naked, and over the course of much dance and frivolity choreographed to the classic disco hit “I Am Every Woman,” pulls an entire outfit, complete with yellow stilettos, handbag, and ray bands out of her hair and the various other orifices of her body.

I figure that on the bright side, I did not have to pay cash for my first strip tease. There were no cover charges, I did not have to tip, and there was no drink minimum. However, I paid double in embarrassment. During the entire, rather lengthy video, with the exception of me, the entire audience was dead silent. People were stroking their chins, and nodding their heads in what appeared to be serious academic and aesthetic appreciation of the art projected bigger than life on to the wall directly in front of me. I, on the other hand, could do nothing but wear a stupid smile and try with all my might to not burst into a fit of giggles. Unfortunately, I do have the comic appreciations of a 5^th grader. Why I did not leave earlier, I do not know. But during the question and answer portion directly after the video while Narcissister was discussing the “challenging physical aspects” of her performance, I knew my oh-so-thin mask of self-control was going to split. I gathered my things and left. The door to the lecture hall closed behind me and I burst out laughing.

I have related the shock and embarrassment of my first strip-tease to a couple of my friends. There has been much appreciation and entertainment from my brush with this XXX rated intersection of race and sex. But after laughing, many of my friends have responded with sentiments such as, “the things that pass for art these days,” or even, “this is the sort of stuff that gets funding for the arts slashed.” These responses puzzle me.

The primary reason that I was embarrassed was that out of the event attendees, I thought that I alone was mentally unprepared with the tools necessary to break down and understand the critique articulated by the reveres strip-tease of every woman. Though it is a poor excuse, the shock from my general unfamiliarity with the naked female form, and the dramatized absurdity of the whole situation left me unexpectedly mentally isolated with my own immature sense of humor, which occasionally finds dancing boobs and vaginas funny. The awkward nature of my poorly suppressed laughter in a silent hall perpetuated the embarrassment and caused more laughter. It was a vicious cycle

However, it never crossed my mind that what I was looking at was “not art” or that it was “offensive” or “gross”. In fact, on reflection I think that for me it was the most relevant presentation. You can debate the definition of art and aesthetics all you like. Regardless, as hard as it is to imagine, the art of the reverse strip-tease accurately describes phenomena experienced by a nerdy, skinny, white, gay guy, and perhaps all people who have ever had to understand themselves in the context of race and gender norms.

I was never a “popular person” in middle school or high school. I was awkward, socially inept, lost in magic cards and science fiction novels, and for whatever reason vaguely effeminate. Indeed, many of my peers seemed to know that I was gay before I was personally aware that I had sexual desires for anyone at all. Like a lot of kids, I was harassed and made fun of, to some extent, for the majority of my lower education.

Being made fun of hurts a lot, and so in middle school I talked to my mother. She thought that my effeminate mannerisms were probably part of the reason I was being made fun of (and she was right). It takes a special kid to appreciate cooking, pretty cloths, and singing quite as much as I did. And so, after much thought and the continuation of my schoolyard woes, my mom decided that my father, from whom she is divorced, was not teaching me “how to be a man.” Lacking the appropriate genitals and experience herself, the next vacation we were off to Colorado Springs, Colorado to visit my uncle for what I came to know of as “man-lesions.”

In retrospect, My mom’s choice in “man-teacher” was not the best one; granted there weren’t many options. Whatever his virtues, when one thinks of manliness and virility, one does not think of my uncle. He is a short middle-aged engineer and pianist with a passion for cycling in bright, multicolored spandex outfits. In fact, off the top of my head, about the only conspicuous, heteor-normatively masculine thing that he does is raise two kids with his wife.

Needless to say, after many bike rides and much time spent with an uncle that was way too smug about his “successful life choices,” the only definitive things that I knew about being a man were 1) drinking out of a water bottle without the sports cap was more manly than drinking water with the sports cap on; and 2) that I could not be the type of man my uncle was, and certainly did not want to be. Though the initial result of the trip was confusion and insecurity, it left me with an understanding of just how absurd and arbitrary labels like “girly,” “manly,” “effeminate,” ect. really are.

I started with knowing what kind of man I did not want to be and eventually figured out that though there are things you can do to avoid being made fun of in school, ultimately, it is more important to try and be a good person whoever you are and whatever your gender happens to be. Conforming your personhood to someone else’s ideas about what it is to be a man (or a woman) is always a matter of performance. In such cases, it is funny how irrelevant your genitalia actually are.

My clever mother understood that gender was an act. Inherently it has to be, if it is something that can be taught. My mom was even right in understanding that many of my social woes (social ineptitude aside) came from my gender nonconformity. Unfortunately because people insist that the act of manhood is attached to a narrowly defined set of observable behaviors that often conflict with people’s desires, gender nonconformity is often perceived as a threat to the masculinity of others.

For these reasons gender nonconformity is not ok with a lot of homophobic people or ignorant kids who have confounded the external act of gender performance with internal moral personhood (yours and their own). Unfortunately, this is a confusion that often results in suffering and, in recent news, teen suicide. 

To those who have suffered at the hands of bullies who gay bash and gay bate: these people aggress because their internalized conception of their own masculinity is so fragile that the existence of any queer identity is a threat to their self-concept, which is tied up in masculine norms. In nonacademic terms, though it is no excuse for their behavior, bullies are ignorant and afraid because they think they have accidentally given you the power to decide whether or not they are a man. My recommendation is to do them (and yourself) a favor and show them that as long they labor under this delusion, they have already made themselves the very ungendered thing they fear. Remember, people do learn and things do change with time. Nothing, not even suffering lasts forever.  

It is the dire consequences (in this case teen suicide) of misunderstandings like homophobia, which make art, like Narcissister’s so valuable. In its own lewd and laughable way Narcissister’s art reminds us that “identities” like race and gender are merely specific external acts that must be legible to an external reader for them to be conceptually coherent, or to exist at all. The satirical overly dramatized way that Narcissister takes a racialized costume of womanhood out of her orifices debunks and pokes fun at the notion of race and gender as emanating from our bodies instead of from the way we read each other and ourselves.

What a strange world this would be if gendered garments really did come from people’s sexual organs. The song Narcissister dances to proclaims, “I am every woman, It’s all in me!” and indeed, Narcissister shows us that it is. But how did it get there, for we can all agree that articles of clothing don’t in fact come from a human body? Narcissister is able to pull a scarf out of her ass, a dress out of her vagina, a shirt and gloves out of her mouth, and stilettos, a purse, and ray bands out of her hair, because in reading African American womanhood in the naked form of her body we have already mentally attributed those objects to and of her body. Ironically, it is ultimately the reader that transforms Narcissister  into the figuration of the “every woman.” Here race and gender are represented literally as they are ideologically: just costumes that we pull out of our asses.

Shakespeare once wrote “All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players.” God, how true it is. We can’t stop acting, and we can’t stop reading. Narcissister is merely reminding us that there is a big difference between the way we read the acts others use to convey an internal personhood and the actual internal content of that personhood. Narcissister has shown us that the reading audience defines the content of the performance. In light of Narcissister’s demonstration and Shakespeare’s perception I think that there is a very important question people are forgetting to ask: if all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; then who the hell is the audience, because, god damn it, the show must go on?

***If you are adventurous, you can find the "Every Woman" video Narcissister screened  during the discussion here.***

On Honey and Lavender Brioche and Breakfast Potatoes

Last Saturday a friend and I had a lovely breakfast at a very cute French café on the south side of Berkeley. Amid the provincial décor and pleasant service my friend and I dined on brioche with honey and a touch of lavender, served with berry jam, butter, coffee, breakfast potatoes and roasted tomatoes. Needless to say I was pleasantly stuffed. Yet I still needed two to-go boxes for my leftovers. I had a very nice time.

I live on the north side of Berkeley. So, I was looking forward to walking off my meal. In order to get home from the café I walk along Shattuck, a street that is populated by restaurants, banks, little shops, and B.A.R.T. stations. It is also sports one of the most depressing homeless populations I have ever encountered. 

The large and ever present homeless population around The Bay area has been a huge thing for me to “adjust to.” In LA my understanding is that the police, for the most part, keep the homeless population out of the “nice streets.” In Berkeley this is not the case. Most of the time it is hard to walk down the street without being asked for change. I have lived here for only about a month and a half, and I think that I might have internalized the work of the LAPD:  I avoid streets where I am going to be “heckled.” Normally, I try to avoid streets that aren’t nice, but those who live in Berkeley can attest that Shattuck is relatively unavoidable. 

Normally I don’t notice that my brisk walks along Shattuck are punctuated with the stench of unwashed bodies, stale urine, and cheep alcohol. And as long as I am telling little fibs: I have not noticed that they are ornamented with sick, malnourished, and filthy bodies propped up against prim shop windows; I didn’t realize that they are scored with the sounds of pleas for change and the whispers mumbles and shouts of the mentally ill wanderers of the streets; no, I never have never noticed any of those things. That day, as usual, the friction of my feet on the dirty pavement and an ability to ignore my surroundings would have guided me happily home, but a woman asked for the leftovers out of my hand and I gave them to her.

My gut reaction was to ignore her. I was half way down the block before the request had registered. I had moved on to the next block when for some reason I turned around, walked back, and gave both boxes of food to the woman who had asked. The remainder of my lavender and honey kissed brioche and garlic breakfast potatoes went to woman in her late twenties or early thirties with festering sores on her face and stench that could wilt the lavender she was about to eat. I gave her the food and without a word stalked off.

The rest of the way home I really did manage to lose my self in thought. Right now the taxpayers of California and to a lesser degree, the United States pay all of my expenses: from pleasant breakfasts and school tuition to rent and B.A.R.T. trips. I have a full scholarship to Berkeley. I am reliant on the good will, perhaps the charity of the state. Weather I look at my education as a gift, a job, or an investment (perhaps it is all of these), I can't help but wonder what brings some people to Berkeley to beg on Shattuck and others to learn in the one of the best universities in the world.

I have asked around and received a number of different answers. Some people say that I got into Berkeley because I worked hard. Some people insist that the poor are on Shattuck because they are lazy. Some people tell me that I am at Berkeley because I have been lucky. Some people declare that the poor are on Shattuck because they have been unfortunate. Some people say I am at Berkeley because I wanted to be a student. Some people assert that the poor are on Shattuck because they want to be beggars. Some people have told me that I am in Berkeley because I am smart.  Some people think that the poor are on Shattuck because they are stupid. But regardless of our wants, the unfortunate, stupid, lazy truth of it is that you should not give a rat’s ass about what some people say, because some people don’t know their asses from cream cheese.

The list of pusdo-explanations goes on and on. But unless provoked, for the most part I find that people don’t even bother to make them. There is as little will to explain the problem, as there is to fix it. It is more simple to just walk by and completely ignore it. But the fact remains that with regards to the above psudo-explanations I can only make one counter claim: that regardless of my wants, my luck, my intelligence, and my work ethic I would be nowhere without the help, and yes, charity, of others.  Without the help and guidance (regardless of whether I wanted or not) of my parents, friends, mentors, teachers, and the society in which I live, I would be nowhere.

To say the least, homeless people smell bad and are often ill and dirty. Even walking by them can be an assault on your senses. Admittedly my immediate gut reaction is to have as little to do with them as I possibly can. But, regardless of gut feelings and rationalizations, there is no denying that we owe more to humanity than to allow others to suffer merely because we don’t want to think about the problem or because the intervention would be too dirty. No one is any more deserving than anyone else food, shelter, medical care, and a good life. We do not help people because they deserve it, we help them because they need it, and we all do whether we want it or not. The self-made-man is a myth. It is little more than a fiction used to rationalize away the fact that some people have so much and some have so little.

As I was standing on the corner, a block away from the woman I had just given my brioche too, an old woman with long grey hair attempted to cross before the light. She was almost run over by a car. The car didn’t stop. It didn’t honk. It just drove on.

When she reached my side of the street, assuming that I had actually been paying attention to her near brush with death, she turned to me and said “you know, they will run right over you.”  There was a queer look in her eye as she said again, “ I tell you boy, they will run right over you, they will run right over you.” And again, “they will run right over you around here.”  Just as the light was about to change, she asked, “Hey, you go to UCB?” I mumbled an affirmative as I stepped off the sidewalk. I walked away and she said, “Good, you have a cool look about you. ”

Until last Saturday I had not given a penny to homeless here, and technically I still haven’t.  In that respect I think I am just like the man in the car. People “will run over you”, but even in Berkeley, it involves a choice to not see. The near miss might have been an accident. The woman was crossing against the light.  But it was wrong of that driver to not stop and make sure the old woman was ok. That driver knew that he had a very near miss, but he chose to drive on and not see.  He could not spare a second to make sure that he had not killed or maimed someone.

How many times do we on the sidewalk choose to not see, to not hear the beggar on the street? They are no less invisible than the old woman. How many times do we not stop to makes sure that some one is ok? Perhaps we don’t stop because we already know the answer to that question. But perhaps better questions to ask are why aren’t we helping, and how can we start?

On Pick-Up Lines

There are many dilemmas that come with being an eligible gay bachelor. One of the primary ones is dating. Between upper division classes, work, and an eligible population well under 5%, it is difficult to find the time or the man.

Today, gay bars and clubs have deteriorated into little more than cesspools of awkward, drunken, over-sexualized social interactions, which are more likely to lead to something dangerous than meaningful. In short, they were thrilling when you were 16 and stupid. All it takes is little life experience to ruin what used to be a good time.

Evidently, the new “solution” for the eligible gay bachelor is online dating. Though I must confess that I was at first enamored with the concept, I now understand that online dating has merely taken the disaster of the club and transcribed it, minus the flashing lights and bad techno-remixes of over played pop songs, into indelible digital letters.

Remember all those come-ons and one-liners that you uttered in the relative anonymity and frivolity of a bar? Thankfully it is easy to forget such things. Today Pick-up lines, which, by the grace of god, used to be muddled by alcohol, loud music, and a crowded bar appear on your computer screen in perfectly legible black letters. Indeed, whether you are G.L. (good looking) or V.G.L. (very good looking), D.T.F. (down to fuck) or looking for a L.T.R. (long term relationship); such Pick-up Lines are now the universal currency of online dating. The First words you email someone are the first axiom of an augment whose logical conclusion is a hang-out/date.

Counter to fact, one might even assume that typically such legible words would be at minimum polite, complementary, and inquisitive. Lets face it, regardless of your “stats” (variables such as height, weight, body build, ethnicity, and yes… cock size) there are only so many ways to respond to introductions such as “Dude” “Hawt,” “Sup,” “cute,” or “☺”. Most of them do not involve a return email. These introductions are the calling card of the desperate, sex staved, beggars of the online dating scene.

Though I have received such calling cards, by virtue of my poor eye sight and vintage (from the 90s) Calvin Kline round black mettle glasses, there is an even more obvious and “original” come-on for me: “has anyone told you that you look like Harry Potter?” I suppose posting picture where I am wearing glasses (as well as cloths) might invite this come-on. I suppose that being told that you remind someone of Daniel Radcliff (only taller) is a compliment. But the proper answer to the question is yes. “Yes, I have been told that I look like Harry Potter.” This answer usually implies that ”no, your not the first person to make that observation. No, you’re not clever or original after all.” So I usually don’t respond, and if I do, I say thank you and move on.

Last night, fed up with my homework, I decided to check one of my dating sites for emails. I was excited to have received one from a beautiful (if the picture was real) tall, muscular, tan, blue eyed man who’s profile included poetry. Call me a sucker.

Him: Hi how are you? I find you interesting so far.

Yay! Not Harry Potter! It seems like he might actually have something to say.

Me: hahah why is that?

Hell, I was curious. Generally you don’t tell someone they are interesting without a reason

Him: I could no sooner answer that question than answering the purpose of the universe.

Grammatical problems aside, you have got to be kidding me right?

Me: Ha! I will take that as a compliment. But I don’t think you can answer the purpose of the universe. It is not asking you a question.

If only he could have picked up on the sarcasm…

Him: I beg to disagree. We all are matter and matter is comprised of the universe. It has been proven that every human being accounts for 1 % of the universe within them, therefore, you being made up of universe particulate ...it is asking through you

Bang!... Most profound metaphysical statement of my life: matter is comprised of the universe (silly me, I always thought it was the other way around. Wasn’t energy in there some where?), which consists, in its totality, of 100 people (1 person = 1% then 100 people = 100%).

---End Conversation---

So I just ridiculed a guy that I have never met in a public forum where he has no opportunity to respond. That’s right, I can be an ass and a coward (I am really bad at come backs) at the same time. In exactly 100 words (I counted) we can both walk away with profound yet almost completely unsubstantiated negative judgments about each other. To a certain extent that is what dating is about. It is a judgment about who you want to spend time with and how you want to love. He was handsome, funny, nice, polite, and inquisitive, hell… I will even give him poetic. Yet, I can honestly say that I wont talk to him again and have no desire to ever know him. Would you?

I think that it is sad when an institution, which is supposed to promote people being together, becomes a new way to arbitrarily ascribe negative qualities to one another. One of the great talents of the human brain is something called “theory of mind”: we are aware that other people are independent agents capable of their own thoughts. Furthermore, to a certain extent we can anticipate the thoughts of others and make judgments based on this modeling.

This task becomes extremely difficult and complicated when the person you’re modeling is someone that you have never met sitting at a computer anywhere with an Internet connection. How do we judge? Do we rely on a pick-up line? What about “stats”? How about 100 words? But I guess the better question to ask is how should we think about each other? How should we love?

A Rose for LA

I have always found that whichever dark (and possibly smelly) place your head has been, it is never too late to reflect. Though I didn’t realize it till I left, over the course of 20 years living in LA I accidentally managed to establish a pretty nice life. I have lived in Berkley now for just over a month. My mother and sister have moved from LA. It would be hard for me to go back for anything but short visits now. But LA still feels like home.

So I hope it is also not too late to give a tip of the hat to the city that I came from. I have waded through a boozy nightlife, slaved in pristine century city penthouse firms, and fought the vicious old ladies and wild bimberinas of Brentwood. Admittedly, I would like to think I learned something along the way.

Though LA is often thought of as a haven for superficial judgment and shallow thought, I have found it to be a land of principles and standards. Not even the most superficial judgment can be made without the acknowledgment of some higher standard. The reciprocal is also true: no standard can be relevant without the judgments that bring it to life.

There is no denying that there are a lot of judgy people in LA. On the grand scale of things these superficial standards might be foolish. But it seems to me that in the attempt to evaluate we also affirm and perhaps create a meaning that transcends the mere implications of our actions. Though this is no protection against cause and effect, it is insulation against the bitter cynicism and determinism that fools people into not being involved. You cannot deny that in LA people are involved, even if it is only with them selves!

Movie stars and fancy billboards; slutty nightlife and snobby ladies, gaudy mansions and gutted ghettos; in my experience, no matter how superficial or foolish, people in LA people act and treat them selves as if they matter. LA is an illustration of how even the vacuous, supercilious, and just plain silly can produce something worthwhile.

The result is an LA that burns bright enough to attract people like moths, from all over the world. Despite the threat of a fiery death, they stay. There is a magic and beauty when a life is transmuted into a flash, pop, and puff of smoke. Perhaps in the end it is magic such as this, which gives us the meaning and light that sustains and guides us all.

An Introduction

I live, quite happily most of the time, obstinately confused. When I was in third grade I once read in a story  “as long as the answer is right who cares if the question is wrong. If you want sense you will have to make it your self.” The Dodecahedron’s sarcastic point to Milo is an idea that frames my existence. It is the questions we ask that define us, not the answers that we think we have. “Sense” is something that people often make for themselves, and, as much as we may wish it not to be the case, it often has limited relevance. The absurdity of life itself is beautiful, terrifying, and perhaps a bit funny, if you can step back and put your understandings aside. In other words: you don’t know that you don’t know; the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.

You might find anything on this Blog. I am an eccentric and a bit of an anachronism.  I am a curious student, an avid chef, a veracious reader, and an adventure. However, I profess to have nothing but questions to answer questions, and I have already admitted to interminable confusion. Given the circumstances then, I firmly believe that there is no higher purpose in life than to ask the right questions, because Fuck Me If I Have A Clue!