Why does anyone care whether Carrot Top is gay? It seems to be news this week—that Carrot Top was seen recently at a gay club wearing eyeliner. Oh, please. I read that somewhere online this week, in the gossip section of some news page, and then again it showed up tonight on Rome’s sports talk show on ESPN, a vehicle for some lame joke and an excuse for Carrot Top bashing, as if we need another excuse. But I just don’t get it. I mean, I don’t understand why it’s been deemed newsworthy. It seems to me that a large percentage of the entertainment industry might be gay. Who among us is gasping in disbelief with the news? Am I being too sensitive in suggesting that there’s a little bit of disguised gay bashing at play? We all find Carrot Top annoying, a little irritating. We’re meant to, I think. And this bit of gossip tops off our annoyance, lending some legitimacy to it, as if to say, “Oh, he’s gay. Yes, he’s annoying.” It’s subtle, and yes, I usually find such claims silly and hypersensitive when made by other groups. I’m not saying this is any different. I’m merely saying that it explains what is otherwise a completely asinine news item and a gratuitous gay outing. Carrot Top has strongly denied the “charge.” (Maybe that’s what I find so grating about this and similar stories—that it seems to be a charge.) Too bad he’s denying. I wish he’d just say, “Of course I’m gay, you loathsome twits. And you can see me at that same gay bar on a regular basis.” Perhaps he’s not gay, but he seems gay to me. I mean, he’s so damned annoying. Hehe Following the Carrot Top story, Rome made short work of the Liza Minelli divorce, and of her husband’s claim that she abused him, by saying “Get a spine.” Hehe Of course. (Mind you—I was at the gym when Rome was on. I don’t watch his show of my own volition. That must be made perfectly clear.)

There’s a woman I see regularly at the gym. She’s always working the cardio equipment diligently. She’s in her late 30s and wears black tights and a black sports bra, her long dark hair pulled back tightly. She steps through her Stairmaster workout in quick, short, measured steps, holding lightly onto the bar in front of her with both hands as if a rabbit or rodent standing upright out of its hole. She is usually carefully reading a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine. Occasionally she’ll highlight a particularly interesting passage with a pink highlighter she keeps in the magazine holder. She does the maximum 30 minutes on that machine and then moves to the bicycle—one of those compulsive cardio people who works herself into a frothing pile of sweat, as if intending to burn off the unwanted extra pounds all in a single evening. She doesn’t really speak to anyone, so I have no way of knowing what she’s like. Why then do I find her so contemptible? I do this more than I should. Someone will grate on me for no good reason, invariably someone I’ve never spoken to. I’ll focus on the person, conjuring up all that I find annoying. And then one day I’ll actually have occasion to speak to them, and I’ll find them very nice, all of my ill feelings quickly dissipating. But until then… well, I imagine her to be a nurse. She’s rather full of herself, or rather, she’s impressed with her professional standing, and much of her personal identity is wrapped up in it. She’s single, a career woman, but sometimes late at night she wishes she weren’t single. She does all that she believes she should, eating well, exercising regularly, keeping current in her profession. I imagine her life to be like a Tupperware bowl lid that you can’t quite get on all the way—you struggle frantically, chasing one little edge around and around to cover the top and complete the seal so that the contents don’t get out, but you can’t quite do it. She lives a life that’s hermetically sealed, complete in all unimportant ways, but devoid of meaning, devoid of things that matter. That’s my harsh judgment on her, and why I find her so annoying, though I’m certain I’ll like her if I ever get to know her.

Tonight someone at the gym, a nice fellow but one I have spoken to only a few times in my life, walked up behind me and said, “Hi Dan.” I turned around and said, “… hi…. “ I couldn’t remember his name until the moment had passed. And then when I arrived home I saw my neighbor. She told me her name once. It was a little odd—Kit, or Kitty. I’m not sure which. How could I risk either one? I mean, really, if you were uncertain, would you risk mistakenly calling someone ‘Kitty’?

Tonight I heard the Wham/George Michael song “Careless Whisper.” It’s a wonderful song, and my only thought is this: I don’t care, George, if you like to slut your way through the sleazy restrooms of the British Empire or suck faceless dick through glory holes at rest stops on the Jersey turnpike… God bless you for that song, and keep ‘em coming. I hope he was unmoved by all of that fuss, or at least not devastated. Who cares what gets George off? Who cares what gets any of us off. None of it matters. We should enjoy our (legal) sexual impulses, try to maintain some discretion about it all, and live our lives. Anyway, who doesn’t enjoy a little sleaze now and again…and for some of us, sucking dick.

There are moments nearly every day that make the rest of the day bearable. I always revel in them. For me they are always intensely private, solitary moments, part of my inner life which, although perhaps it’s a hallmark of my self-absorption, is the most important part of my life. (I must sometime soon write a little about my mild autistic behavior, which has recently surfaced as a topic of conversation.) Tonight I noticed such a moment, that moment after I’ve finished my workout and am walking through the parking lot on my way to my car. Perhaps it’s part of the normal post-workout high, but so often, as I walk to my car in darkness, or as the sun is beginning to set, I imagine being in a strange new place, a new city, or a different part of the world, some place unfamiliar to me. And it fills me with momentary excitement and anticipation, a feeling of newness and possibility. I imagine, as I often do when looking at the open sky, that the ocean lies just a short mile or two from me, just beyond that row of houses, perhaps. I conjure up the sound of the ocean, and wonder what new things await me at work in the morning. I imagine a secure but charmed life of good friends, quiet nights, and new challenges. I think of sharing a bottle of red wine at a friend’s San Francisco loft, one with high ceilings and hardwood floors, the controlled laughter of beautiful, soulful friends, the sort of scene one might see on a commercial for a board game—scruples, trivial pursuit or some such game. I don’t really wish I were someplace else or had different friends—I think it’s just the feeling of possibilities, that I *could* or might face new challenges and new surroundings, that they might be even better than what my current situation holds. Or maybe it’s the reassuring feeling that this, whatever this might be, is not all there is. There is more, if you care to discover it, to risk a little for it. It’s fleeting, though. By the time I reach my car, I open my car door, throw my clothes in the back seat, and turn on the same CD I’ve been listening to for days, and drive off to my dingy apartment. It’s fine, really. Routine is good too, familiarity, and the reassuring, mild contempt one feels for it.

I was racing around on Saturday morning this past weekend to leave on a road trip and wanted to quickly grab a few things from my CD collection to listen to in the car. What to listen to? Well, I thought perhaps some classical piano--Haydn or maybe Mozart. I opened my collection of Mozart piano concertos, 1 through 9 CDs in a boxed set, a very fine, and satisfying complete set, full and complete--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8!!! 9. CD # 7 is missing! Fucking missing. My complete set is ... incomplete. I'm missing fucking CD # 7! Where could it be? It troubles me. I was happy, so happy to have added that to my collection--It's a major hole filled--the Mozart piano concertos. But now a small hole has sprung up.

I have a hole that needs filled. (Now now, let's keep this a clean discussion--I'm speaking metaphorically here.) I have clothes that need washed. Ann tells me these phrases are possibly a "regionalism," which is to say "You, Jethro and the rest of the Clampetts sure do talk funny." hehe Well, no, she didn't mean that, but... She believes, and I think I remember others saying, that it's incorrect to say "I have a hole that needs filled." It's correct to say "I have a hole that needs TO BE filled." "I have clothes that need TO BE washed." What do others think? I want to know.

Incidently, I took Haydn piano sonatas instead. I can't face the whole issue of the missing Mozart. Once let loose, that demon will inhabit me and I'll be unable to function until the full set is restored. I think #7 contains concertos numbers 20 and 24. I'll never open the box set again. It's truly become my own private Pandora's box.

In honor of yellow shirt guy, here's a little pearl from Proust (Within a Budding Grove): "Each of us has a special god in attendence who hides from him or promises him the concealment of his defect from other people, just as he closes the eyes and nostrils of people who do not wash to the streaks of dirt which they carry in their ears and the smell of sweat that emanates from their armpits, and assures them that they can with impunity carry both of these about a world that will noctice nothing. And those who wear artificial pearls, or give then as presents, imagine that people will take them to be genuine."

I can't stop. "In the human race, the frequency of the virtues that are identical in us all is not more wonderful than the multiplicity of the defects that are peculiar to each one of us.... In the most distant, the most desolate corners of the earth, we marvel to see it [human kindness] blossom of its own accord, as in a remote valley a poppy like all the poppies in the rest of the world, which it has never seen as it has never known anything but the wind that occasionally stirs the folds of its lonely scarlet cloak."

I sleep so much more in the winter time. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s just a fact. I have this tendency to begin playing the piano, say around 10 PM. By, oh, 10:05 or so I begin to become a little bored with it. Heheh Soon I long to crawl upon the couch and pull my electric blanket over my head. Eventually I do this. I want nothing more than to lie there under the warmth of the blanket and space out in silence. It’s all I want. I’m not sad. I’m not anything at all really. I just enjoy the silence, the warmth, and the stillness. Of course soon enough I fall asleep in this state. I’ll awaken an hour, maybe two, later, sometimes to just find my way to bed, and other times, like tonight, I’ll awaken refreshed and ready to be productive for a little while. Honestly, this winter time trend doesn’t disturb me at all. There’s little that’s more satisfying than lying curled up and zoned out under an electric blanket, with the tv on but muted, as my kind of silent companion.

On a different topic, there’s a gathering storm at my gym, I’ve noticed, in the last week or two. The faithful, my old gym companions, the regulars… I’ve been hearing comments sporadically, whispered among friends, whispered with all the indiscretion of a gym secret, about the guy in the yellow shirt. “Jesus,” they’ll say, and laugh. And I know immediately who they’re talking about, because I’ve been noticing too. I mean, are we just being overly sensitive to what might be a mere cultural difference? He could be European after all, one wonders. Or perhaps he doesn’t notice himself. I heard this mentioned. You don’t always notice yourself, one guy said. I heard one group of guys talking quietly to a manager at the gym about the problem, and the manager mentioned that he might have to speak with him. If things got much worse the guy might be asked to leave. Honestly, though, I can’t imagine how it would get much worse. Even the manager mentioned how he already wants to wretch every time the guy walks by. With underarm odor like that, you can imagine that he doesn’t have a lot of friends. But in truth he’s quite a friendly fellow, albeit apparently friendless. He’s young, Italian looking, with dark hair and a Roman nose. One might even say he’s good-looking. Again tonight I heard the same group of guys talking about him. I enjoy this group of three guys. They’re in their late 20s, one in his thirties. They’re there at least as often as I am. They know what they’re doing, they’re strong, they’re fit (one of them has a near perfect body), they’re always laughing and enjoying their own company. I like them.

Today they were laughing about a couple of the other guys who work out together, friends of theirs. These two guys are true muscle heads. They’re hugely muscled, they’re the grunters, they’re the type who put off the less serious. They also don’t say much, even to their own friends. Today one of them walked by the group of three that I like. One of them said, “Hey Frank, how’s it going?” (Frank had been sick but had finally returned today. They were genuinely concerned and happy to see Frank.) Frank in his baggy gym pantaloons pants and bandana nodded and walked by. They asked more questions but Frank scarcely acknowledged them. One of the three of them (Steve) laughed, noting that Frank doesn’t say much. Hehe Frank works out with Dave, who’s even less chatty. They laughed and laughed about Frank and Dave, how they merely nod, motion with their hands, shake their heads, grunt to one another like cave men, etc. They wondered how a phone conversation between the two might go. Hehe Lots of time spent holding the receiver in silence, head nodding, stretches of not so awkward empty silence. What else would there be? Well, there was Frank and his reticence. And there was the guy in the yellow shirt. (As an aside, the fact that he’s known as the guy in the yellow shirt ought to be a tipoff—maybe it’s just a laundry problem.) Anyway, today the problem was soooo bad. Yellow guy had truly a zone of foulness around him that spaned perhaps 10 feet. With a crowded gym, that creates quite a stir. Yellow shirt guy is oblivious to it. But the storm is gathering. Today Steve wondered aloud if perhaps the only thing left for him to do was to change gyms. He’s out of options. Heheh He may take a whole crew with him.

I had a similar thought on a different topic later tonight. I was talking to Gerry about his plans for our Paris photos. He’s not content to throw a collection on a CD and leave it at that. It’s become an undertaking of epic proportions. There’s a video in the works, thousands of photos to cull… well, not cull so much as collect—they’re no culling. He wants my prints so he can scan them to add to the thousands of digital photos he has already from multiple sources. God bless him. He’s a better man than me. But the effort got me to thinking aloud with Gerry. Has the undertaking almost made the Paris trip not really worth it? I mean, who needs a wonderous trip to the city of lights when it means months of laborious toiling ahead? If it were me, if I were faced with this daunting task… I’d have only to conclude that the Paris trip would have to be cancelled. There’s no other way. So there are my two tales in the same night of the tail wagging the dog.