bookfraud

In light of the hubub regarding same-sex marriage, not to mention the premier of the "Sex and the City" movie, it’s time to address one of the more pernicious linguistic constructions of the last few years: "gay."

No, I do not refer to its common use to mean "homosexual male." Or in the archaic useage of "happy" or a name. Instead, employing it as a pejorative adjective, as in, "That shirt is so gay" or "A capella singing is really gay" or "Watching the ‘Sex and the City’ movie is completely, totally, utterly gay."

It’s got to stop. I’ve been as guilty of it as the next person of saying it, but that doesn’t make it any less forgiveable.

I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say, "That bank is totally Jew," "Basketball is really Black," or "Immigrants are so Hispanic"? Probably not for 20 years, unless you spend your time at bars where the clientele arrives by swimming out of the toilet.

But when was the last time something or someone was called "gay"? Probably a few minutes ago.

Calling something "gay" is another way of calling it emasculated, stupid, and unworthy of one’s time. And by extension, that means that liking any cultural artifact associated with gays is, well, "gay."

Now, I have about as much real insight into gay culture as I do tribal Indonesian theater, but saying that there are some gay men who like to dress well, are active in musical theater, and like certain singer-divas is about as earth-shattering as saying that Imelda Marcos likes shoes.

But I like musicals

But here’s where my problem lies: I like nice clothes (despite my lousy wardrobe), musical theater, and Judy Garland (and Liza, too), and I’m not gay, or at least the last time I checked.

All these stereotypical "gay" things are good, just as most gays and lesbians are regular folk, so if someone "accuses" any thing, person, or trend as "gay," it actually is like saying that it’s good. To wit, a few years ago, a fellow member of tribe of Hebrews told me the perfect comeback when told that she "looked" Jewish: "Thank you."

This is perfect because it addresses two things at once: to say someone looks Jewish is ridiculous, and even if it were true, there’s nothing wrong with it. Sure, the offender may be referring to the size of one’s proboscis, the texture of one’s hair, or how one dresses (i.e. the size of the wallet), but why should it be an insult to be associated with being a member of the oldest religious club out there?

In fact, though you are certain to be branded an anti-Semite if you were to say I "looked Jewish" to my face, for although I am not insulted to look a certain way, it means you are engaging in stereotype: there are African Jews, Asian Jews, Arab Jews, and Jews of other ethnicities, not all that begin with the letter "A."

Now, I don’t know how other persecuted minorities feel about it, but if there’s something that makes me unconfortable, it’s when something is too "Jew-y," a direct reflection of not only my own self-loathing but the desire to assimilate — I have known people who are truly astounded that Jews love wine, women and song, of which ignorance of the last is akin to saying, "Damn — I didn’t know there were Jews in show business."

But not mine

So, starting soon, I will make periodic posts about "gay" things I like — akin to the uber-popular "Stuff White People Like." Hell, if that can generate a book deal with a $300,000 advance, maybe I could string it out.

Which would be super, duper gay.

Addendum: Superblogger Voix has noted that the citizens of the Isle of Lesbos are trying to stop use of "lesbian" to mean "lesbian." This is just so wrong that I can’t begin to imagine the implications if they prevail.

1. All happy families are alike, Bookfraud’s family is unhappy in its own way.

2. My family prefers sibling rivalries over Oedipal dramas.

3. Someone in my family provoked me for watching election results on CNN.

4. Someone in my family provoked me for feeding Baby organic food and milk.

5. Someone in my family provoked me.

6. Even when you stay with relatives for free, you pay a price.

7. Going on vacation with a baby is like going on a vacation with a hernia — you really never can forget it’s there.

8. My mother is a wonderful grandmother; my sibs are wonderful aunts and uncles.

9. When he gets older, Baby will get whatever material possessions he wants from my mother, including my inheritance, which he will spend on strippers and a Corvette.

10. When traveling, traits about your partner that are trivially annoying or even charming in domestic life become unbearable, especially my traits.

11. Getting children to sit still for a family photo is like trying to get flies off a shitstick.

12. While watching cousins under the age of five is like trying to referee a dog fight.

13. It’s a miracle Wife hasn’t left me yet.

14. It’s a miracle Baby hasn’t done the same.

15. The perfect Jewish family gathering consists entirely of food and talk.

16. Calories still count when you’re on vacation.

17. When he wrote "No Exit," Sartre had a major metropolitan airport in mind.

Gate agent Queue, reporting to duty

18. Northwest Airlines is run by buffoons.

19. Though Alitalia makes Northwest look like efficiency incarnate.

20. There are three stages of a flight during which Baby will cry inconsolably: takeoff, landing, and everything in between.

21. I’ve become one of "those people" on airplanes who I once cursed for not being able to control their screaming kid.

22. Despite his wailing, Baby is the most charming scoundrel ever to crawl the face of the earth, charming half the people on the flight by pointing at them and smiling.

23. The other half were sleeping or pretended not to notice.

24. Parenting "style" boils down to two things: what you give your kid to eat and what you let him or her watch on television.

25. My nephews are wonderful little boys, and I’m not a bad uncle, especially in teaching them the finer points of beer.

26. One’s best efforts to engage others who don’t share your interests are doom to failure.

27. "Iron Man" is a pretty cool movie.

28. Without a book, I’m miserable.

29. When I don’t have a book to read or computer to write with, I watch too much television.

30. David Archuletta is the guy who gets stuffed in a high school locker.

31. David Cook is bound for stardom as the world’s hairiest lounge singer.

32. Singing "Imagine" is pointless without a piano accompaniment.

33. The setting for "Grey’s Anatomy" should be moved from Seattle Grace Hospital to Lesbian Hospital Staffed by Hot Nympho Doctors.

34. Nobody’s children are as adorable as your own.

35. When your child has cried for more than 5 minutes, no matter what the situation, only ice cream will get him or her to stop.

36. Baby yelling at 112 decibels in a crib 3 feet from one’s bed is rather unpleasant, especially when it’s at 3 a.m.

37. The next time, I will pay my family to allow Baby to sleep in another room.

38. Given what I saw of energy consumption my hometown, the United States is doomed.

The things you learn watching TV

39. Strip malls are the original meme.

40. I missed my blog, I missed reading others’ blogs, and, most of all, I missed writing.

41. I didn’t miss this nutjob, not that I ever read her in the first place.

42. Family arguments erupt over stupid things; silence abounds for important ones.

43. Don’t bring your baby when visiting your father’s gravesite.

44. Especially don’t bring your baby when he’s hungry or tired, and if he’s hungry and tired, not even heroin will calm him.

45. No matter how much you spend on expensive toys and stuffed animals, your child will always prefer playing with an empty plastic bottle.

46. Kid vomit smells just as vile when it lands on a family heirloom.

47. Underminers at work will double their efforts when you’re out of the office.

48. Rye whiskey is like acid reflux in a bottle.

49. Don’t break out the booze if things are going especially well or poorly.

50. But make an exception for family.

When you disappear for from cyberspace, nobody can hear you scream.

I’ve been off the grid, more or less, as I prepare to take Wife and Baby down to see his grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. It’s his first trip to my hometown, since our battle with bed bugs made travel impossible until now. Sadly, it’s the first time my sister has seen her nephew, and only the second since my mom saw Baby when he was a mere six weeks old.

As a result of the upcoming week, a 24/7 episode of When Bubbies Attack, I’ve been tied to the desk, trying to get ahead at work, and been packing mad crazy. It’s amazing once you have a baby how much extra crap you have to take on trips — an exponential increase, not a geometric one.

Baby is still having nutso wake-up times — give me 4 a.m., we’ve got a bid at 4 a.m., do I hear 3:30 a.m., I got a bid at 3:30 a.m., do I hear 3 a.m.? — so my brain remains the consistency of a vat of gazpacho.

I won’t have a computer for a week. 

I’ll return tanned, rested & ready. 

Ha.

Now that my Internet-holiday weekend — really a function of Baby than me not wanting to go online — I thought I would take up Fringes‘ permission to whine as loudly and pointlessly as my son. Who was doing said whining at 3 a.m. last night. And the night before.

In the penultimate shot of Martin Scorcese’s "Goodfellas," Ray Liotta, as mobster-turned-informant Henry Hill, is picking up a newspaper from the porch of his ranch-style house, barefoot and wearing a bathrobe. Hill is in witness protection. He’s living in an anonymous suburb with brick bungaloes and station wagons with wood paneling in the driveway.

His worst fears have come to pass. Not that he ratted out his Mafia cohorts, or that he had to serve time, or even that he got caught. It’s that he’s just another nobody in the ‘burbs.

"I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook," he says.

Though I am not going to testify in a Gotti trial and have no plans to enter witness protection, Wife and I are considering a move to the suburbs, as we have decided that our carbon footprint was not large enough. It’s a situation both Wife and I once swore would never happen. I’ve got a good but unglamorous job, a mortgage, and a one-year-old boy. Though I lack a car, once we trek to suburbia, that will inevitably follow. So will a slow death.

When I read other blogs, it occurs to me how little of the literary life I am living. I’m not writing fiction, attending readings, going to conferences and workshops, or following the latest-and-greatest in literature. Everything seems subservient to Baby, or my job, or cleaning the apartment after months of bed bug hell.

But it’s not like before Baby blessed us with his nocturnal yelps that I was tearing up the literary landscape. My novel was stuck in agent-editory purgatory; my attempts to write a non-fiction book were stalled on the first page; and my 10,000-line epic poem in Dutch about the migrating habits of Canadian geese…oh, never mind.

Oh, I know, there are plenty of people (some who are reading this) living in a suburb and who are writers, probably more productive than I am, and probably a lot more talented as well. It’s not that I want to castigate suburban living, but in my stilted, myopic worldview, it’s a surrender to a way of life I though I’d never live.

I live in the red one

I might as well face the truth: I’m 43, have high cholesterol, two bad knees and one bad shoulder, and the doctor is telling me to lose 15 pounds. I don’t have the time nor the energy to do these "literary" things (though I do, curiously, have time to write this blog and comment on others’ blogs). When I was much younger, like 23 or so, I imagined that by this age, I’d be established as a novelist (stop laughing). Not only would I have time to live the literary life, it would be my life.

But then, as I was sitting here, complaining in my head, I came to a stark and sudden realization. Do I write because I enjoy writing, or am I writing so that I can live a certain way, or to be a certain person?

It’s not an academic question. Great art has been forged by the desire to seduce, to flatter, to become famous, to gain riches. That the motives may seem skewered does not make it any less artistic. In fact, there are those who argue that is the main reason we create, to attain this intangible thing called "status."

Or, put another way, does one want to be a Writer, or do the things that writers do?

Right now, I’d settle for some sleep. Writers are allowed to sleep, I believe. It’s in the contract.

I’ve tried writing. I’ve tried to visit other blogs and comment. I’ve tried, I swear.

I’ve been trying to post something that would address writing and the writing life. Something that would be interesting. Something that wouldn’t repeat the same sentence structure three times in a row.

But I failed. Each time, the words would disintegrate into dust. Worse, they would disintegrate into whiny self-pity, which is pretty typical of this space, I realize.

I can blame many things, but I will point to the fact that Baby has been teething, which means he has awoken the past four nights at 4:15 a.m., 5:05 a.m., 5:18 a.m., and, last night, at 3:54 a.m., a new record. Did I mention he was screaming? Loudly? For an hour each night, despite his parents’ entreaties? And that I really did’t get any additional sleep?

This has reduced me to a drooling, incoherent fool. I need energy. I need Brawndo. It’s got electrolytes. Which are EXTREMELY AWESOME. It’s got super extra caffeine, and five types of sugar, making it EXTRA DELICIOUS and I can WIN at things I’m not supposed to WIN at like YELLING.

I feel better already.

"I now have 70 friends on Facebook," Wife chirped on what had previously been a nice Sunday morning.

I mumbled something back about how I had perhaps 30, and left the room. For if April is the cruelest month, Wife was making May a close second, rubbing her Facebook in my face.

Facebook, the greatest threat to writers since the invention of distilled whiskey, is, fortunately, summarily ignorable. However, it seems that a lot of people are worried about the number of "friends" they have on Facebook, like your typical blogger obsess on the number of comments on his or her blog.

I tried to like Facebook, I really did. On my Facebook page, you can see a photo of a smiling, ugly fellow (me) holding a smiling, beautiful boy (Baby). It was taken several months ago, and Baby’s toothless grin is so adorable that I’ve been tempted to enter it into a contest, so he can perhaps make a little scratch, considering how much the little brat has already cost me.

Unfortunately, it’s a cute enough picture that I’ve been assaulted by friends, family, and even strangers who want to add me as a "friend." A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a stranger who wanted to become "friends," being that she was new to Facebook, and, being a parent herself, thought a dude with a cute kid would be a safe place to start.

I thought it was safe, for me, too. Until the "quizzes" started. And the tidal wave of e-mail, and "sexy applications" that I was asked to "join."

I know some of these people well, some not-so-well, and some, not at all; this latter condition, however, has not stopped these Facebook folk from sending me the following "requests:"

Erik Pervert invites you to the Butt-Sniffing Test!

Suzie Narcissist is giving you FuckedUP Karma!

Terry Strangertoyou wants you to see If You’ll Enjoy Toejam!

Most of these "applications" are far less noxious than the ones above, but I am bombarded with every single change someone makes on their Facebook page (I know, you can change these settings, but still).

I realize that Facebook and MySpace and its ilk were really not designed for 43-year-old curmudgeons, which would be me. But the largest demographic group joining Facebook is — sit down, please — people over 30, making it the MySpace for the generation Mick Jagger said he couldn’t trust (long before the Rolling Stones’ tours were sponsored by Depends).

This makes Facebook an excuse for us older folk to pretend that we’re 16 again. Or to gratify those older folk who enjoy sharing news of every urinary tract infection or enlarged prostate with relative strangers and strange relatives.

Zuckerberg points the way to destruction

I’m sure some of you love Facebook, and that it serves as a convenient way to keep current with friends and family. And I have actually reconnected with a couple of people through Facebook who I had not talked to in years. It’s not that Facebook is inherently evil, like the Yankees, Barnes & Noble, or light beer enthusiasts.

No, Facebook is most like television. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with it. But it can become a monster that destroys one’s free time like fate crushes Oedipus (once and crushingly) or like Godzilla destroys Tokyo (repeatedly and often). For a writer, this makes Facebook a dangerous thing indeed.

From the rafters, I can hear the calls: You’re slamming Facebook as a time-wasting activity — and you’re a blogger? How can you condemn it? You’re a hypocrite!

Fair enough. So let’s compare:

This obsession with "friends" is as real as the huge number of horndogs who tried getting this curvy lass back her camera. In fact, as far as I can tell, this might be the main purpose of Facebook. Once you pass 10 or 20 friends, there’s no way to keep up with all the crapola on everybody else’s Facebook page, so getting "friends" becomes a thing onto itself.

Of course, that Wife has 70 such contacts I have less than half that that isn’t surprising, since she’s beautiful, outgoing, and social, whereas I am hatchet-faced, shy, and anti-social. And most of my "friends" are members of her extended family.

But honey, the Barcalounger isn’t just the world’s most comfortable chair, it’s a way of life

But Wife’s sly dig at me soon boomeranged on her — an hour later, she got an e-mail from a long-lost contact who found her on Facebook. Too bad it’s a shrill neurotic Wife’s been avoiding for years.

Popularity, it seems, comes with a price tag.

"You get what you deserve," I said, and for once, she had to agree. Now only if I could get her to agree to that Barcalounger.