WAY TO GO OHIO, part 5

our inside joke without a punch line hasn't developed any since the first half of the month. they've extended the next contest deadline until the tenth of december. so we'll have to wait to see how brooklyn decides to play the columbus bicentennial's last hurrah. meanwhile, however, something appreciably local. even if the columbus emerging artist series doesn't seriously update its tumblr, it purports to throw monthly events. and even if it happened at the pizza place that purports to be portland in columbus, this month's installment in the series was a welcome opportunity to get some good stuff cheap. the matting around the new-urban-blue-collar-throwback (schiele style) grotesquery that i put in a friend's car when i got on my bike was alone worth the thirty dollars that i had to make change for before handing it to the artist and pulling the portrait down from the wall. as i was leaving, the organizer told me that there aren't auctions every month, that sometimes the group just hosts talks...and i cut him off there. because, as they say, talk is for fags. and i said so, and then he didn't seem to want to talk anymore. but wait! because my friend is a puppeteer. he could make something with that skull if you got us some cold cuts. but he was gone. and way to go?

anyway, i've got my painting, made in emerging columbus; and maybe we'll check out december's event. meanwhile, however, we're going to crash the party in youngstown.

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

"we should say hello," he says, because he hates it when he runs into people whom he's met and they turn away when their eyes meet, as soon as he's about to greet them. i agree, more or less, with the sentiment, although i don't always act on it in practice. to be sure, i'd been the one who'd turned us away when the man we'd met those weeks before near the dart board at that other place had seemed to recognize us. it was less awful if we didn't see his face make the transition to familiarity. but then later i ask if he doesn't remember meeting that other guy that other day, and he says that we should put ourselves back in a position where we can say hello. because he hates that. i, i say, hate that we're going to force ourselves into a conversation. but he says that we'll just say hello and leave. because he wants to have friends here when i inevitably leave, he says. i turn to him slowly, and i quickly give him a smirk that smacks of a recent transition to too much familiarity. and then we go to the bar and say hello. the man from those weeks ago remembers us but doesn't remember our names. he is all smiles. and of course he wants to go to that other place and play pool or something with us, and of course we have to say yes, and not just because that other place was the place where we'd been planning to go after we'd said hello and left. these things are, of course, the things that always start with something like a friendly game of pool. but before we can get to all the other things we have to get to that other place and to the pool table to have that game, which turns into a few or several, during which i find myself proclaiming that of course there were nazis in the government of the federal republic. and when he tells me (after telling us about his three years in cologne) that my appeal to incontrovertible "historical fact" smacks of religious fanaticism, i remind him that (my cousin) his beloved chancellor is a representative of the christian democratic union. and so yes, the sovereign debt crisis (as the north has decided to term the fallout of its colonization of the south) is just german business as usual. i pontificate. we argue about extraterrestrial life. is the concept related philosophically to our perception of our happiness on earth? a tallboy of labatt blue is just two dollars, and so he still thinks the both of us are really cute. plus, he likes contention. and then there were three. that's what you get for saying hello. but at breakfast the next morning i don't have a puzzle so i have time to think, and all i can think, over the worrisome pound of my heartbeat and so far away from my soapbox, is that i can't be sure who it was who picked up whom -- although i was absolutely right about those nazis.

WATCHING THE RAIN IN SEVILLA...NUNCA MÁS (LE VOLVÍ A VER)

"se despertó de la siesta cuando jordi hurtado citó a nina simone.
 

siempre que escuchaba su música le recordaba a él. fue él quien le descubrió a la cantante negra un día gris de lluvia, mientras comían pastel de chocolate y bebían cerveza. comida de dioses, según él.
 

había días especialmente duros. sobre todo al principio. el tiempo lo cura todo. pero a veces ese tiempo tardaba tanto en pasar… y con nina era la segunda vez hoy que él aparecía en sus recuerdos.
 

la primera fue cuando salía de clase. mientras apagaba el ordenador, el retroproyector y las luces, pepe, aquel alumno que tanto se parecía a él, se quedó rezagado, esperando a estar a solas con ella y le preguntó: ¿de qué parte de galicia eres? a ella, no le gustaba hablar de su vida, y menos con sus alumnos. no quería establecer ese tipo de vínculos con ellos. pero claro, es que cuando lo miró lo vio a él. esa sonrisa, su boca, su ropa. así que lo primero que se le ocurrió, pretendiendo no parecer grosera, pero intentando esquivar la pregunta, fue decirle '¿y tú como sabes que yo soy gallega?' la respuesta sí que no se la esperaba, y menos la ternura de su voz: 'es que cuando hablas escucho a mi madre, que es de arzúa.' la dejó sin armas. se vio obligada a explicar sus orígenes. pero lo más curioso es que cuando regresaba de camino a casa, se sentía bien. cómo si la fugaz conversación con pepe, en la que le había mostrado parte de su vida y le había abierto retazos de su alma, la hubiera reconfortado. le había removido una parte de su vida que sabía que ya no se iba a repetir nunca.
 

cuando llegó a su casa rebuscó en el cajón los calcetines que él se había dejado allí la última vez que se vieron. le quedaban un poco grandes, pero se los puso igualmente. se acurrucó en el sofá y se quedó dormida con la tele puesta en la 2."

ay...tantas cosas. para no dejar pasar al ovlido. y para agradecer. 

THE 60th ANNUAL COLUMBUS INTERNATIONAL FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL (THE DAY THAT I WENT); or, COLUMBUS STILL SUCKS BECAUSE YOU SUCK

so maybe i'm a hypocrite. but there's a popular legend about columbus that i'm partial to repeating in hopes that it might improve my hometown's credibility...or desirability...or maybe just my own. and it goes: that as a result of the police raid of the stonewall inn in 1969 there were riots in three american cities, the first two being the obvious new york and san francisco, and the third being the almost unthinkable columbus, ohio. columbus considers itself to be very gay, and mayor mike coleman was the first ally talking in the video made to promote the stonewall community center that screened tonight. the center is a strong and storied fixture of the gay community in columbus, and if my memory of the legend serves me correctly, it even used to hold father-son bridge nights -- the mere possibility of which, as the son of legendary columbus bridge player, has been enough for me to perpetuate the legend. unfortunately, columbus isn't as gay as all that. or maybe it's that the homos here just aren't as supportive of the arts as they'd like to think. or, maybe, stonewall columbus is just falling behind the times. then again, the film festivals that i've regularly attended in portland and vancouver have always skewed older as well (and, truth be told, i never made it to as many screenings at the gay and lesbian film festival in portland as i would have liked -- although i was, to be sure, often deterred by the crowds). in any case, tonight's evening of lgbt shorts, a program of short films sponsored by stonewall columbus as part of the 60th annual columbus international film and video festival (the longest running festival in the country, apparently) was sadly, shamefully under-attended. and no, none of the selections were local; and maybe all the anachronistically hip young gays of columbus were out tonight supporting one of their own. who knows. and so maybe i'm a hypocrite. but i'd bet more money than my father ever won at bridge that there are more people at the theater now for the free weekly screening of "american horror story." what's to do? write out into the ether about some short films. gay short films. because there's apparently no one here who cares.

in short:

"i like my boyfriend drunk," u.s.a., written and directed by josef steiff

it's one guy in a kitchen with a window that looks onto a backdrop of tallish buildings. he talks with a twang. he's drinking a beer and he's opening one for his boyfriend (off screen). "i like my boyfriend drunk," he says. when his boyfriend is sober, he's "a stereotypical guy." but. when he's drunk he says i love you. "when you're drunk," the guy on camera says, "you turn into a real bottom." enough said. i dedicate this film to all of the masculine young professionals of columbus, ohio.

"coffee and pie," u.s.a., directed by douglas horn, written by andrew stoneham

i'm guessing that andrew is a man. so this film was intriguing because it's about a lesbians. more specifically, it's about a breakup conversation between two women, and the fact of their being two women is the only reason that this short could be considered an lgbt film. (do we know if this is a less competitive category for festival submissions? for the record, this year's lgbt shorts program -- which was either the second in the history of the festival or the second to be sponsored by stonewall, i'm not sure -- was competitive and judged.) the thing is, it didn't have to be two women. the dynamic (and the ultimate reversal) would have been believable between a couple of any gender or gender presentation iteration. "we need to talk...because i think i'm unhappy." "do you think or do you know?" not quite ad nauseum. because you realize that this short is about the power dynamic of the conversation, which is a conversation i had the other day (a conversation about the necessity of that conversation, that is). who is that talk for, and what is she expecting as far as a reaction? okay. that and a straight talking lady waitress named billy.

"alone with mr. carter," canada, written and directed by jean pierre bergeron

the jury chose this one. the director was in attendance. the lady who coached him through his q&a was really just stumping for the jury. they chose this one because there aren't examples of young men's (or women's) desire for older men (or women) in film like there are of, say, young men's desire for older women. ...aren't there? actually i couldn't think of any either. but it still just seemed like a coming out story to me. maybe it wasn't for my generation, and i didn't want to sound overly critical in asking why the director so consciously decided to set the film in 1994, the year of ellen. the year that gay ended (and the year in which most of the gay in columbus, ohio continues to thrive). mr. director had already confessed to having had a crush on walt disney as a child (which would have been nowhere around the time of ellen) and had related how the release of the film marked his coming out to an industry in which he had worked as a closeted actor for forty years. this is getting long. you'll probably have a chance to see this one somewhere else, though, so nothing else. wait. nothing other than that woman who looked like amy sedaris playing the protagonist's mother and telling him that she had replaced all of the pineapples in her collages with pictures of snakes eating mice. that and mr. carter's hilarious latina girlfriend.

correction: ellen came out in 1997. but i stand by my assertion that gay ended in 1994. (could bergeron be unfamiliar with bert archer?)

"the commitment," canada, written and directed by albert chan

the only non-comedy of the lot. super gay. i think that we were supposed to have been moved by the tenderness and emotional vulnerability of the two men trying to adopt a baby. they're two men! and they cry and sometimes get hysterical (...and without uteri! or else, you know, they could have a baby more easily). the message, though, is that these guys should just be happy that they have someone with whom they would want to have a baby. (some straight people don't have that!) ultimately, though, just hokey in too much makeup. seriously, when the one guy was crying at the end it was streaking. that and the birth mother (who ultimately decides she wants to raise her own kid). her story about her gay brother running away from home before her dad could kick him out was unexpectedly welcome after the opening. but the thing could have ended with that first conversation at the agency.

"el nido vacío," spain, venezuela, u.s.a., written and directed by francisco lupini-basagoiti

almodóvar does a short about a sex therapist who can't deal with issues of sexuality under her own roof. drunky slapstick in bright colors with a mecano soundtrack all over the walls. that and two shots of a huge, huge dick. enough said.

you decide what you're missing. columbus still sucks because you do. 

WAY TO GO OHIO, part 4; or, REWATCHING THE RAIN IN GALICIA

"columbus never came here, but when the city sleeps, what our dreamers discover is that we have always created our own collective inside joke, one still looking for a punch line, that begins with 'columbus never came here, but..."it goes on (and on, apparently). and i made sure that i walked us down broad street when i was walking back north with the illustration professor from the art and design college. he didn't seem to think it remarkable that the artist wasn't local (nor that the artist who had done the awful cutout sculptures for the plinths of the bridge down the street wasn't either) -- even after i made my reminder that the "finding time" public art project was supposedly mounted in celebration of the city's bicentennial. columbus wants to show that it's involved in larger culture, he said. and i, i told him that columbus might as well make its motto "we're not that behind." and i suppose that i had been setting myself up for it as i was waiting at the pizza place on 18th and oak for my call to karaoke to come last monday evening. i was sitting at the bar in front of where the bartender was circumcising the paper covers on the bendy straws. her former coworker (who it appeared had just been fired) was sitting one stool away from me. both of them encouraged my encouragement that he continue to escalate his raucousness. after he'd gone and one of the others who was waiting for the call to karaoke had come to join me, i told the bartender that the pizza place and its personnel dynamic reminded me of a place where i might have spent a little too much time once upon a time in portland. and of course she told me that i might as well consider columbus the portland of the midwest. you'd like that, wouldn't you. touché?

but now the election was over, there was some nice weather, and a lull, and that meant that i actually got around to immediately reading the paper that i'd lucked into after finishing my cold breakfast at katalina's on sunday. in the styles section there was an article on "finding the courage to reveal a fetish," and although the titular one was rather mild, i still felt warmed by the empathy and hilarity i would have shared with the author had i had the chance to tell her a recent story of my own. and then there was the "tour de farce" article in the book review about the book by tyler hamilton and daniel coyle on doping in professional cycling. of course, people, of course! but it felt nice to be in keeping with the times (or at least with the times). ...or was that nearly behind them? touché.

and in the magazine an article about the new economy as epitomized by the ace hotel and the battle for 29th street. feeling ill. then today, on top of the rain, i had a head cold, and i didn't feel like finishing the magazine article on inditex. "galicia, on the atlantic coast of northern spain, is the homeland of generalissimo francisco franco [as well as of mariano rajoy], but is otherwise famous for being a place people try to leave." my morriña. its paradox. get behind the times or get stampeded, columbus says. we've gotta get out of this place, all of us. (and, well, they're saying anyway that we might just be forced off this fiscal cliff.) but today was the perfect day for staying in bed and just reading something else.

WAY TO GO OHIO, part 3

"columbus never came here, but when the city sleeps, what our dreamers discover is that we have always created our own collective inside joke, one still looking for a punch line, that always begins with...," it continues. hopefully the joke won't be on us tomorrow when the heart of the heart of it all finishes up at the polls. all eyes on ohio. if somehow you hadn't heard: they're letting us pick the president. so, neighbors, expect us to call. expect us to knock. but for tonight it's karaoke. the not so calm before...whatever happens tomorrow...while far away at holocene, the site of the big election night party in 2008, tin house will be celebrating the release of its newest issue. "portland, brooklyn." you think you've been there, you say? and we all struggle to organize our reactions, caught off guard at having not been the first to jump (in writing) to that retrogressively prophetic conclusion. rats. if it weren't for the election, we'd have liked to have gone. what's important? the war of the culture wars. way to go, ohio.