gay new york

According to the young male hustler character in the Broadway play I just saw (ahem), gay is a just a word that rhymes with a lot of other words, and that's why it was used in so many old songs. There's a hilarious scene (many hilarious scenes, but in this one...) where his "lover" (barf) is lying next to him in bed wondering what he (the hustler) is thinking about. And what he's thinking about kind of goes like this: "hay, ray, spray..."

The play is called The Little Dog Laughed, and when I read my first review of it, on Nerve(http://www.nerve.com/regulars/lifeswork/douglascarterbeane/), it was titled "No, It's Not the Tom Cruise Story", which is ridiculously accurate.

I tried explaining what the play was about to a bartender at Simone's afterward, but it only became apparent that I shouldn't try to pitch anything, ever.

What I hated most during the play was the couple next to me. More specifically, the woman. At the same time, she was a great source of very quiet and silent laughter for me. This is what she wore (and please note, she was, ehhh, heavyset): a hot pink cropped t-shirt. with rhinstones spelling something I couldn't decipher because it would have required staring directly at her chest. and I tried. rhinestone hoop earrings. white capri pants. pink bobby socks. She must have been, oh, 44. She giggled at all the wrong parts (like, say, every time the gay guys kissed...). I was dying to ask her where in the US she was from.

I went to Simone's later, a bar here in the East Village where I'm staying, because I was so happy after the play, I wanted a drink. I never feel like going to bars by myself, and I don't associate joy with alcohol, but here I am in New York and I've just seen a hilarious play on Broadway, and it's Saturday night, and... I wanted to have a drink. I walked by a few bars on Avenue A, but chickened out of walking into each of them. Simone's, I figured, was familiar, therefore safe. I went there last year with Bubi and we liked it. It's all red and chandeliers, you know?

One of the barmen had his iPod hooked up to the sound system and he played Kate Bush and Massive Attack's CD Protection, the one with Karma Coma. I got a glass of red. Anyway, there was this person there, who I noticed hopping tables. I asked one of the guys behind the bar and he told me she was Simone (no relation to the bar's name), a transexual who's a physic and "really cool". No doubt. I wish she had read my hand. While I finished my drink, I could hear her talking to a table of people hidden from my view: "hellooo!", as in "wake up!" and then a few minutes later, again, "hellooo!", and again.

Tomorrow night is the Christmas dinner with Chilean ex-pats I've been invited to. I'm really looking forward to it. I have to say, though, the times I've felt best in this city are when I'm by myself, ready for anything.

And she's off!

That's it. This is my last post before I get on that overnight bus to my second favourite city to spend Christmas and New Year's. Like Leonard Cohen brilliantly says in the movie I'm Your Man, "New York's almost as good as Montreal". Heh.

In a fortunate turn of events for my wallet, my cousin's roommate has agreed that I stay over while said cousin (Carmen) is visiting Chile. On the other hand, my favourite hotel in NYC, Ye Olde Carlton Arms, has let me off the hook for my 10 day reservation and is still keeping my reservation for the first night, when I can't stay at Carmen's because she'll still be in town. This is also a good thing, because it means I get to see her before she leaves.

My friend Pepi has very graciously invited me to a dinner with friends and other Chilean ex-pats on Sunday, and probably to a New Year's Eve party. It sounds really good and I appreciate getting included in the fun. My original idea for going to New York was a sort of Holden Caulfield remake -minus the depression- because I didn't know if there would be anyone familiar there. So I was prepared to entertain myself, and in a way I still am. But having friends to party and hang out with makes it even sweeter.

The first time I felt that click with New York was on the bus ride in to Manhattan from the airport, one time that I had 5 hours to kill between my plane and the bus to Montreal. I realized I recognized the highway signs from an episode of Seinfeld. In town, everything was familiar, from Woody Allen movies, and jazz songs. Then I started seeing movies and tv shows and *recognizing* parts of the island. Now I know the layout of the streets, the names of the neighbourhoods, and I've even been to the Seinfeld diner. I love New York. It's my dream city. Not that I don't get the parts of it people dislike, like the unrelenting ambition of its citizens, or the overwhelming anonymity. It's just that, for me, as a constant tourist (or my preferred term: pilgrim), it's a fantasy. Part of this year's fantasy includes hanging out in town by myself, maybe skating at Rockefeller Center, visiting the Museum of Natural History, etc. What I really love about New York is that there's so much to do that my fantasy is never completed, and therefore I'm never disappointed. How can even MY expectations exceed the Big Apple's capacity to meet them?

Beginnings

Beginnings aren't always the best. I can remember so many beginnings of relationships that drove me to complain that people were insane to suggest that this anxiety was "the best part". But of course later the memory of the beginning is so juicy, when you already know how it turned out.

I went on my first date with adorable French boy on Wednesday (he asked me if I knew "feast", ie Feist). He brought his dog Daphné all the way from that mysterious land called The South Shore and we walked her around Park Lafontaine. Best idea for a first date ever. Just light, easygoing, sincere, a beautiful smile and a resonating feeling that all is OK. Isn't that the best?

I thought of beginnings last night at Spectrum, watching The Dears pull off a show that Mary quite rightly called the best of the year. The next best? The Dears, June 29, at Metropolis. I remembered how I got into this band in the first place. The beginning of it all, for me.

It was a tv commercial for wine, aimed at young drinkers. It was an animated ad that looked a lot like the Spanish artist Jordi Labanda's work, or those Lavalife posters in the metro. And the background music, as a cartoon couple floated in hot pink and orange air, was ...da-da da-da da... It was This is a Broadcast, from The Dears' 2000 CD End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story. Before I found that out, though, I spent a lot of time da-da'ing that bit of the song in my head and wondering what the hell it was and if I would ever find out. I often wish there was a sort of Google for hummed song clips, where you could say "I'm looking for a song that goes kind of like this... hmm, la la..." and the MusicGoogle would tell you, "Oh, that's the Postal Service, Such Great Heights."

So last night I took the napkin from my Coke and wrote down all the other memorable first times I heard bands that are now my favourites. "Not by email or msn", I added, because there's too many of those, sent over the Internet by other music-addicted friends who like to share. Those have been great, but too numerous to recount.

I was thinking more of times like when I walked into an indie record store in Santiago and, I don't know why, picked up Pulp's CD Freaks. I asked the clerk to let me hear it. He put it in a CD player and passed me the headphones, and I listened to Anorexic Beauty and I Want You and can still remember how great it felt when I said "I want to have this voice in my house. I'll take it." Years of total Pulp fanaticism followed.

When I had just moved back to Montreal, I read the Mirror to find out what was going on around here. There was a recommendation to go see a triple-bill headlined by Spoonbender at Sala Rossa. I think it was on a Monday and I went with Anna's friend of a friend, Casey. There weren't many other people there. One of the bands was We Are Wolves and I hated them. But the other band... was The Unicorns, and a love affair began. I was mesmerized by their pink outfits, Nick/Neil's shaggy hair, their silly/smart jokes about the main act's name, and the music. I called the Rant Line the next day and said I had just seen the cutest, sweetest, most adorable band EVER. They published it and I happen to know the Unicorns read it, because a long time after that, I asked and they remembered. Ah... give me a second to run through my many Unicorns memories (chaos at the Dark Room; the Nicks talking loops at SAT; discovering the crowds at La Tulipe; Jenn's message from Tazmania that it was all over) that I'll treasure forever now that they're defunct. How come all the other unicorns are dead?

Christmas Calendar

There may not be any snow on the ground, and this may clearly be one of the cloudiest Fall seasons ever, but Winter is looking up.

Saturday night I joined a gang at Charles’s place to eat spaghetti and watch NFB shorts like “The Sweater” (the story of a young boy in Quebec whose mother accidentally buys him a Maple Leaf hockey sweater from “Monsieur Eaton”). Then we piled into various cars and drove out to a West Island rink. We watched the Habs vs the Buffalo Sabers (who beat us in the shoot outs) on a giant screen tv and then I watched everyone else play a friendly game. I was the official photographer, which means I didn’t have to buy skates or a helmet or actually do any real work. Perfect.

Last night a group of nine of us went to the Notre Dame Basilica and listened to the very amazing Messiah concert by Haendel, as sung by Le Grand Choeur de Montreal. Our seats were the cheapest in the house, “nulle visibilité”. But as it turned out, we could actually see some of the choir and the soloists from where we were. Hallelujah!

The lineup of what’s coming is as follows: The Dears are playing this Thursday at the Spectrum. I’m all set to go after my Christmas reunion with the ladies from Events International, the company I used to work for. January 4 is the Emily Haines solo show. MSTRKRFT are playing something called I Love Neon on February 10, and, I don’t know if I should say this, but I’ve recently been notified that Arcade Fire will be playing 5 nights sometime this winter in a cozy location. I’m so there.

Oh yeah, and winter is my birthday too, yeeee!

Can I just say, that was the best office Christmas party ever?

It started with a game of Asshole in the office lunch room, making time before heading to the cocktail & dinner because I didn't feel like walking home first. It ended at what used to be Angel's, now called Rouge, with the CEO, his underage daughter, the other money dude from TO, assorted colleagues and tray after tray of equally assorted shots. Mr. CEO tried to get us past the line with Iraki cash. TO dude now has compromising photos of me belting out songs (I love to dance, I really get into it, what can I say) on the dancefloor. I took advantage of a Dad-free moment to teach the boss's daughter how to slap random people's asses on said dancefloor. She loved it, how could she not? And I met the cutest, sweetest, albeit South Shore-ian French quebecer. How's that? How was *your* xmas party?