After writing about Dan Fishback’s wonderful concert last week, I began this week by meeting with Dan about his play, Thirtynothing, which I am going to direct later this year. It’s about the missing generation of gay men, of artists, lost to AIDS, and juxtaposes Dan’s experience of this today in his 20s with his experience growing up as a post-Holocaust Jew. In preparation, Dan is researching gay life in the post-Stonewall/pre-AIDS era and I was eager to share with him my love of the gay fiction of that time, which I read voraciously in college and still hold dear to my heart. It felt like college as Dan and I sat on his bed, listening to Joni Mitchell, comparing and contrasting the higher and lower brows of gay writing from the 70s, Edmund White vs. Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran vs. David Feinberg, etc.
I encouraged Dan to read it all, from the Ivy League WASPs coming of age to the Jews alone on Christmas on poppers, and not to be put off by the rampant drinking and drugging and indiscriminate sexing throughout the stories. (Dan brings Kombucha to parties, eats a macrobiotic diet, you know the type…) Assuring him that the hedonism of these characters was essential to the freedom of that time, I drank the 15-year old Chivas Regal he randomly has in his house (inherited from a non-teetotaling grandmother… got any Virgina Slims, Dan?) as Dan and I opened up about our own experiences feeling imprisoned by gay liberation or alienated by the gay community or vice-versa. It can all get complicated and I felt grateful and excited to be living in 2010 and have the chance to attempt to break it down with Dan Fishback.
The next night, I went to The Big Gay Variety Show, the ACLU’s marriage equality benefit put on for the third year in a row by my friend Bill Augustin.
It was an exciting night at Le Poisson Rouge with celebrities and all kinds of performers and Our Lady J singing the shit out of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” and an open bar. I was drunk and feeling no pain, flirting with a silver fox TV star, but decided to pull a Cinderella and get out of there when he asked me to mess around in the bathroom. I’m no lady, but this was only Tuesday!
Wednesday was a quiet night, Korean barbecue with a straight friend. We discussed his wife, Patti LuPone’s book cover, just catching up. I was saving my energy for Thursday. The big night began with drinks at PJ Clark’s on the West Side with a guy who hadn’t wanted to date me before heading to a reading of a musical I had wanted to direct. I tried to drink just enough to relax, let go of the desire for what is not mine and be open in the moment to enjoy hanging out with a new friend, hearing some wonderful songs. I no longer see the glamour in being a Betty Bitters. I was dressed to the nines (and exfoliated and moisturized to the bone) and I felt like the belle of the ball when I walked into the ASCAP reading room to a flurry of waves and kisses and hugs and hellos from the dozens of friends I was surprised to see there. Channeling my best Scarlett O’Hara, I heard myself rebuke three different people for not replying to social invitations, “Oh, I’m mad at you.” “Simmer down, Benjie,” I thought to myself as I took my seat for the presentation.
My non-date and I had to rush out to get down to the Delancey on the Lower East Side if we wanted to make it in time for Reading for Filth, the opening segment of Pussy Faggot, downtown impresario Earl Dax’s epic tri-level marathon celebration of queer creative diversity. Counterculture, intellectual and frank sex talk sounded like exactly what I needed to get real again, and I was thrilled to arrive in time for Glenn Marla’s hilarious muff-o-phile monologue. I may fit the gay cliché of the boy-crazy boozehound Barbra Streisand-freak, but I am very comfortable stepping away from the familiarity of my Hell’s Kitchen Broadway scene and I’ve been loving so much of the undergroundy performance art I’ve seen lately. I can get goosebumps over a Lower East Side legend as much as a Tony-winner. So it was a real LuPone-esque thrill when the iconic Downtown Diva Penny Arcade walked into the room, sidled up to me and smacked me in the chest, proclaiming, “Scratch a transman, smell a dyke.” I almost asked her to sing something from Gypsy.
Most of the rest of the night is kind of a blur, regrouping and un-regrouping with various friends, scurrying up and down the stairs to smoke or drink this or that. When I ultimately was ready to leave, I made one last trip to the basement to retrieve a friend who had run down to say a couple of goodbyes. There he was, nursing a cocktail on a couch, transfixed by “drag pariah” Needles Jones’ audience participation call-and-response hip-hop barnstormer “No, No, Homo.” It was 2 AM and it was like being in church. I sat down next to my friend, took a sip of his drink and joined in the chanting.
Friday night was just sweet inspiration, making dinner for Jeffery and Cole and the newly breasted Our Lady J, who looked gorgeous and stunning and oozed positive energy, power and pride, playing us amazing tracks from what will be her first studio album. I’ve said it before, but Our Lady J’s metamorphosis continues to be a shining example of self-realization. We even got her to sing “Suddenly Seymour” with Cole!
After brunch on Saturday with my friend Sean, with whom I produced my Off-Broadway flop, Joy, we retired to my apartment for an afternoon bonding and bemoaning all that isn’t going on in our careers and love lives, on Broadway… I was still exhausted from Pussy Faggot, but after dinner with my friend David, dragged him to the Duplex to see my old friends Scott Schneider and Tim Aumiller’s musical Hello My Name Is Billy, with my talented friend Casey McClellan in the title role.
Waiting for the show to start, David and I were discussing my overdoing it in various areas of my life and I tried to put a cap on the conversation, stating, “I’m just very passionate.” David observed that I’m passionate in the moment, but that I seem to be struggling to extend that passion long-term, to put it into something concrete. “If you ever channel that energy, Ben, you’ll be unstoppable,” he said as the lights dimmed on the crowded cabaret room. It was like the camera suddenly zoomed out and I saw the bigger picture of my life. I thought about how in the years after Joy, I looked down on the shows Scott and Tim were doing because they were at the Duplex, and how much I wanted to work in the “legitimate” theatre, to be a part of the professional mainstream of Show Business. Watching Scott and Tim’s hilarious story of a young gay man spiraling down the road of addiction to everything and anything, I was so moved and impressed. They aren’t worrying about where they do what they do, about the context in which they say what they have to say. They’re just doing it and saying it. I felt humbled and inspired. “No, no, homo,” I said to myself as I quickly congratulated my friends and hurried home, determined to go to bed early and write today.
The next night, I went to The Big Gay Variety Show, the ACLU’s marriage equality benefit put on for the third year in a row by my friend Bill Augustin.
It was an exciting night at Le Poisson Rouge with celebrities and all kinds of performers and Our Lady J singing the shit out of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” and an open bar. I was drunk and feeling no pain, flirting with a silver fox TV star, but decided to pull a Cinderella and get out of there when he asked me to mess around in the bathroom. I’m no lady, but this was only Tuesday!
Wednesday was a quiet night, Korean barbecue with a straight friend. We discussed his wife, Patti LuPone’s book cover, just catching up. I was saving my energy for Thursday. The big night began with drinks at PJ Clark’s on the West Side with a guy who hadn’t wanted to date me before heading to a reading of a musical I had wanted to direct. I tried to drink just enough to relax, let go of the desire for what is not mine and be open in the moment to enjoy hanging out with a new friend, hearing some wonderful songs. I no longer see the glamour in being a Betty Bitters. I was dressed to the nines (and exfoliated and moisturized to the bone) and I felt like the belle of the ball when I walked into the ASCAP reading room to a flurry of waves and kisses and hugs and hellos from the dozens of friends I was surprised to see there. Channeling my best Scarlett O’Hara, I heard myself rebuke three different people for not replying to social invitations, “Oh, I’m mad at you.” “Simmer down, Benjie,” I thought to myself as I took my seat for the presentation.
My non-date and I had to rush out to get down to the Delancey on the Lower East Side if we wanted to make it in time for Reading for Filth, the opening segment of Pussy Faggot, downtown impresario Earl Dax’s epic tri-level marathon celebration of queer creative diversity. Counterculture, intellectual and frank sex talk sounded like exactly what I needed to get real again, and I was thrilled to arrive in time for Glenn Marla’s hilarious muff-o-phile monologue. I may fit the gay cliché of the boy-crazy boozehound Barbra Streisand-freak, but I am very comfortable stepping away from the familiarity of my Hell’s Kitchen Broadway scene and I’ve been loving so much of the undergroundy performance art I’ve seen lately. I can get goosebumps over a Lower East Side legend as much as a Tony-winner. So it was a real LuPone-esque thrill when the iconic Downtown Diva Penny Arcade walked into the room, sidled up to me and smacked me in the chest, proclaiming, “Scratch a transman, smell a dyke.” I almost asked her to sing something from Gypsy.
Most of the rest of the night is kind of a blur, regrouping and un-regrouping with various friends, scurrying up and down the stairs to smoke or drink this or that. When I ultimately was ready to leave, I made one last trip to the basement to retrieve a friend who had run down to say a couple of goodbyes. There he was, nursing a cocktail on a couch, transfixed by “drag pariah” Needles Jones’ audience participation call-and-response hip-hop barnstormer “No, No, Homo.” It was 2 AM and it was like being in church. I sat down next to my friend, took a sip of his drink and joined in the chanting.
Friday night was just sweet inspiration, making dinner for Jeffery and Cole and the newly breasted Our Lady J, who looked gorgeous and stunning and oozed positive energy, power and pride, playing us amazing tracks from what will be her first studio album. I’ve said it before, but Our Lady J’s metamorphosis continues to be a shining example of self-realization. We even got her to sing “Suddenly Seymour” with Cole!
After brunch on Saturday with my friend Sean, with whom I produced my Off-Broadway flop, Joy, we retired to my apartment for an afternoon bonding and bemoaning all that isn’t going on in our careers and love lives, on Broadway… I was still exhausted from Pussy Faggot, but after dinner with my friend David, dragged him to the Duplex to see my old friends Scott Schneider and Tim Aumiller’s musical Hello My Name Is Billy, with my talented friend Casey McClellan in the title role.
Waiting for the show to start, David and I were discussing my overdoing it in various areas of my life and I tried to put a cap on the conversation, stating, “I’m just very passionate.” David observed that I’m passionate in the moment, but that I seem to be struggling to extend that passion long-term, to put it into something concrete. “If you ever channel that energy, Ben, you’ll be unstoppable,” he said as the lights dimmed on the crowded cabaret room. It was like the camera suddenly zoomed out and I saw the bigger picture of my life. I thought about how in the years after Joy, I looked down on the shows Scott and Tim were doing because they were at the Duplex, and how much I wanted to work in the “legitimate” theatre, to be a part of the professional mainstream of Show Business. Watching Scott and Tim’s hilarious story of a young gay man spiraling down the road of addiction to everything and anything, I was so moved and impressed. They aren’t worrying about where they do what they do, about the context in which they say what they have to say. They’re just doing it and saying it. I felt humbled and inspired. “No, no, homo,” I said to myself as I quickly congratulated my friends and hurried home, determined to go to bed early and write today.