Tag: Rock Hudson

Crazy Arms

Sunday morning and all is calm in the house. I feel good, very well-rested and cheerful, which of course is lovely. The Sparkster let me sleep in till almost eight, and now I am finishing my first cup of coffee and have already had this morning’s slice of chocolate marble swirl coffee cake (can’t imagine why I can’t lose weight, can you?), and am about to get another cup of coffee. I did get some things done yesterday, which is cool, and have more things to do today as well. I have one errand to run later this morning, and I’m going to get that out of the way, come home and get cleaned up and get back into working for a bit. Yesterday was a lovely day. I worked some more on the apartment, and delved even more deeply into my renamed main character in the current work. I’m also going to try writing it in the first person present tense, which is going to be really hard for me. (I tend to always use first person past tense.)

The best part of writing a book is this part–even if a lot of this background work never makes it into the finished part.

I’ve been listening a lot to old Fleetwood Mac albums in the car lately, and while they’ve always been my favorite band of all time–every album is a gem, in its own way–when I go for a while without listening I sometimes forget why they are my favorite band of all time. This past week I was listening to their Christine McVie-less recording from the early aughts, Say You Will, which is really good, but kind of Buckingham Nicks 2.0, really. I also like watching Youtube videos of young people listening to their recordings for the first time, and appreciating the artistry, talent, sound, and production values. Rumours will always be my favorite album of all time, and my favorite album of theirs, but the others are also excellent and merit more listening.

We watched this week’s episode of Heated Rivalry, which was probably the best, and most engaging, episode of the show thus far (I loved episode 3, spoiler alert); the first time I cared whether the main characters were just fuck buddies or a couple slowly falling in love. I still have some thoughts about the show, some quibbles as it were, mostly about relationship roles and the feminization of bottoms, but that can wait till I’ve finished watching the show and review it for the newsletter. (I’m still bitter about the cancelation of Boots, but…they also could have seriously fucked up a second season, so I’m choosing to see this cancelation, evil as it was, as a good thing.)

I did have the college football games on yesterday, but the only one we watched was Miami-Texas A&M, which was the only good game of the day. We turned off the later games to watch other things once it was clear they were not going to be competitive. Despite their blowout losses, good for both Tulane and James Madison for having breakout seasons and making it to the playoffs before a lot of name brand schools did. I don’t know if I’ll watch the quarterfinals or not; I don’t care who wins but I am also not a big fan of any school still left in it–although I always pull for underdogs, so I kind of would like to see Indiana do well–so am not sure.

I did finally finish reading The Postman Always Rings Twice yesterday; it’s really a nasty little book, isn’t it? I now can see why it was controversial; for one, it’s told from the villain’s point of view, which may or may not have been shocking to readers in the 1930s. (This particular reread also made me realize I need to delve more deeply into Chlorine and my main character–who he is, what he wants–and very glad I did; this reread was crucial.) Postman also deserves its own newsletter (I need to get some of the others done and out of the way already, don’t I?), where I can talk about this vicious little novella that changed everything in the crime fiction genre (I”m talking out of my ass here, but I would imagine it did challenge the sensibilities of readers conditioned to Christie, Queen, and Sayers, among many others), and its impact on me, both as a writer and a reader. I also generally don’t revisit Postman often; usually I just revisit Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, but am very glad I did. It made me see what was wrong with what I had already done on this book.

I also gave my main character a new stage name–because the old one really didn’t work. It was more modern than the weird names movie stars were given in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Tab Hunter, Rock Hudson, Troy Donahue), and so yesterday one of those dopey names came to me as I was cleaning the house; and realized it would work, plus would help define the amorality and narcissism in the character. I will reuse the working name for him in another book, certainly–it’s a good name–but this new one is even better.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. The sun is shining outside (it’s gorgeous out, just as it was yesterday), and I still have some things to do this morning. I’m going to start reading the new Eli Cranor. methinks, while also revisiting a classic juvenile series mystery from one of my favorite juvenile series. I also have some short stories I want to work on, too. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning before I head in for my last two work days before Christmas.

The gift where they meant well, but didn’t think about the cost-feeding, clothing, cleaning up after him, etc.

Rocky Mountain High

I was really into soaps in the late 1970s and up until the mid 1990s or so. My fandom, how it came to be, and how much of an influence soaps were to me as a writer is a topic for another time, perhaps after Pride Month is over because it’s really not Pride related, except for how they related to me as a gay man. But by the late 70s, I was strictly an ABC guy: All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital and Edge of Night, with me having a special attachment to Edge, which will also be a subject for another time. But soaps were strictly a daytime medium for a very long time–at least until Dallas premiered. Originally, each episode was a stand-alone but the show very quickly moved to the serial format, and the ratings went through the roof–and of course, “Who Shot J.R.?” was a global phenomenon (I figured it out early on–when I saw that Mary Crosby was only contracted for four episodes in the following season and the reveal that the shooter’s identity would be revealed in episode 4…it wasn’t too big of a leap from there to “it must have been Kristin”. I was right.), and Dallas ruled the ratings from there on out..

The success of Dallas, of course, lead to copycats from other networks trying to cash in on the new craze; television is nothing if not a place where imitating success is seen as a no-brainer; the irony was that so many of the other soaps that launched at night in the wake of the huge success of Dallas…failed for the most part. The only post-Dallas night time soaps that enjoyed long runs were Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and Dynasty.

I first learned of Dynasty in a People magazine profile on Linda Evans, who at the time was best known as the woman John Derek left for Bo (who was a huge star at the time), and it mentioned she’d done a two hour pilot for a night time soap called Oil. By the time the fall previews started dropping, the show’s name had been changed to Dynasty, and there was going to be a gay character on the show. Once I read that, I knew I was going to watch. And then the premiere of the show was delayed months because of a strike. The show also had some other cast members I knew of and was interested to see–Wayne Northrop, who’d played Roman on Days of Our Lives; Pamela Sue Martin, of Nancy Drew and The Poseidon Adventure fame; and of course long-time television star John Forsythe as Blake Carrington, the patriarch of the family.

The first season was interesting enough, but the show didn’t really catch fire until the second season, when Joan Collins joined the cast as Blake’s first wife and mother of his children, Alexis. By the end of the season Dynasty had climbed from middling ratings to the Top Five, and it had become must-watch television.

But my primary interest was the character of Steven.

Al Corley as Steven Carrington

Originally played by Al Corley, Steven’s storylines were made clear in the pilot; Steven is coming to terms with his sexuality, coming back to Denver for his father’s wedding despite the fact that Blake is homophobic and he’s been living with a man (Ted Dinard) in New York for the past few years. Steven still isn’t entirely sure of his sexuality (it never occurred to anyone in production that he could be bisexual; he only had a binary choice during the entire run of the show), and decided to go to work on an oil rig to “become a man.” His co-workers pranked and hazed him for being gay at first, and then tried to “straighten” him out by buying him a hooker, which doesn’t go well. He then embarks on an affair with his boss’ wife Claudia (played by Pamela Bellwood, who was probably one of the best actresses in the cast), who was also mentally ill and her sanity wavered throughout the run of the show. Ted comes to Denver to get Steven to come home, but Steven’s decided to stay in Denver and try to get on with his life and ends things with Ted. Unfortunately, Ted comes to the Carrington estate (which was ‘played’ by Filoli, gorgeous place that was also the ‘setting’ for Laurie R. King’s superb Back to the Garden) to say goodbye, Blake comes home already angry, becomes angrier to learn Ted is in the house, rushes upstairs to see them hugging goodbye, and in a homophobic rage pulls Ted off Steven, punches him and knocks him down–only he is killed when he hits his head on a fireplace guardrail–and now Blake has to go on trial for murdering his son’s gay lover; and now the entire world nows.

Alexis returned for the trial, entering the courtroom wearing a veil, and Fallon gasps, “oh my god that’s my mother” setting the stage for season two, and night time television’s greatest villains, Alexis.

Season 2 was disappointing in terms of Steven as he spent season two trying to be straight, getting involved with and marrying Sammie Jo (Heather Locklear in the role that made her famous), but eventually telling his entire family that he’s gay, he’s tired of trying to be someone he’s not, and leaves Denver. He is reported killed in a oil rig explosion in the south China Sea in season three, which was their way of recasting–“plastic surgery so he doesn’t look the same”–and he was replaced by Jack Coleman (at the time best known for playing a serial killer on Days of Our Lives).

Jack Coleman, the second Steven

Coleman was fine, but he was different, and the character changed to match the actor. His entire storyline for the rest of the series involved him getting married, ruining that by getting involved with another man–before deciding what to do with him again for the sake of storyline; showing how hard it was to actually integrate someone with a same sex attraction into the cast of a soap. Every man he was involved with was a new character, and soaps–whose mainstay bottom line is thwarted romances, marriage and divorce–really didn’t know what to do with a non-straight character, other than throwing him into relationships with women (???) to have them end badly and so on.

When the reunion film was done in the 1990s, Al Corley returned as Steven (no explanation of why he looked the way he did before the surgery) and he’d made peace with his sexuality, again living in New York happily with another man and raising his son (oh yes, the gay character also impregnated one of his ‘women’)…while never once raising the possibility of bisexuality; I guess getting the 1980’s home audience vested in a gay character was risky enough without bringing in bisexuality–which tells you where we were as a country in the 1980’s…and we shouldn’t also overlook the fact that it was Dynasty that brought HIV/AIDS to the forefront of conversations in this country. Rock Hudson’s AIDS diagnosis became public shortly after he appeared on the show, and there was a lot of panic because he’d kissed the Linda Evans character–had he infected her? (We didn’t know as much then as we do now; now that fear is laughable but it was palpable back then because there was so much ignorance about it then, thanks to the Reagan Administration and the deeply embedded homophobia in post-war American culture.)

I started rewatching the original show once it was available for streaming, and that first season really is a slog; Blake was the primary villain in the first season (Alexis took his place, turning him into a more traditional soap hero–flawed but a good person at heart) and he just didn’t have the gravitas to relish being evil the way Joan Collins jumped in with both hands and feet), so while I was enjoying seeing the more honest and realistic to life way Steven and his dilemma was displayed in that first season–even the affair with Claudia made sense the way it was written–they really didn’t know what to do with him after the recast, and he descended from the fully developed realistic character Corley played to the two-dimensional soap hero he devolved into after the recast.

But…it was still pretty daring for the 1980s, and I did appreciate the attempt at representation. I know the reboot, which I didn’t watch, made Steven straight up gay; even gender swapping Sammie Jo by turning her into Sammy Joe. Progress is progress, and we cannot ever dismiss out of hand the brave attempts at using homosexuality and familial homophobia as a source for story; they were fighting the network censors, the right wing, and most of the country was homophobic, too.

They did the best they could and it was important at the time…even if it doesn’t hold up well under modern understanding.

Backstabbers

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. 

So F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Rich Boys,” and he was, of course, very right in that observation, and that hasn’t changed in the hundred years since he typed the sentence.

It’s been very clear, since I started watching Capote v. the Swans, that my ignoring aspects of Truman Capote’s personal life because of my own internal distaste to his effeminacy (due to both internalized homophobia and self-loathing) was probably a mistake, and what I really needed to do was take a long hard look at myself as well as examine his life in more detail–I will read the Gerald Clarke biography at some point over the summer–and as such, while I was slightly aware of what happened between him and his swans, I didn’t know of the Ann Woodward involvement. When I bought the below book, I actually thought it was fiction, not true crime. Once I started watching the show, I decided to find the book and read it.

And I enjoyed it.

If Ann Woodward had resolved to live a quiet life in Europe, where she could mourn her late husband, Billy Woodward, far from the madding crowd of the American press, the town of Saint Moritz, high in the Swiss Alps, was certainly an unusual place to retreat to. Renowned for its winter sports, popular as a spa hamlet, and exclusive as a community where entertainers, celebrities, and assorted socialites gathered, Saint Moritz was a lesser European sun around which various society moons revolved. While summer tourism was popular, it was in winter that this small city shined. Luminaries descended in head-to-toe furs in the daytime and flashy jewels at night, their diamonds and bangles competing with the glittering snow. In the fall of 1956, Ann Woodward was once again the center of attention as she sat down for dinner at one of Europe’s most elite restaurants.

Back in the United States, those familiar with Ann Woodward–and lately there were few who had not heard of her, whether over lunch at the Colony on New York’s Upper East Side, or on the front pages of tabloids–believed that she had been banished to Europe by her formidable mother-in-law, Elsie Woodward, and was now likely leading a lonely life, without family or friends, much less a lover, with plenty of time to reflect on the transgressions that had forced her into exile.

But as Truman Capote watched her from a table across the restaurant, he saw that she was not the solitary widow they expected. Capote was not only surprised to see her in this particular location, but astonished to see her in the company of a man, which was cause for raised eyebrows, considering she had entered her widowhood by her own hand not so very long ago. But Ann Woodward did not seem rattled by the patrons staring with obvious disdain as she exchanged languid looks with her companion.

(The man with her was none other than Claus von Bülow, who would have his own notoriety splashed across newspaper headlines for decades, and about whose alleged attempts to murder his wealthy heiress wife, was the basis for the film Reversal of Fortune.)

I knew about the Woodward case before, but as I have mentioned numerous times, I didn’t know about Truman Capote’s role in her life and eventual suicide. I remember when Dominick Dunne published his first novel, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, which was a huge bestseller and was made into a television film with Ann-Margret and Claudette Colbert. It was mentioned that the book was based on a real case, which I assumed was the murder of Zack Smith Reynolds, and the suspicion that his actress/wife Libby Holman might have done it and the tobacco rich Reynolds family covered it all up. (This was the basis for the Robert Wilder novel Written on the Wind, which was filmed–and altered–with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Oscar-winner Dorothy Malone.) A few years later I heard about the Woodward case, and realized that it was the basis for Dunne’s book (all of his novels were based on actual murders; Dunne himself kind of took Capote’s métier after Capote’s death, writing about gossip and murder in the world of the rich and powerful; I could do another entry on Dunne’s work, and probably will. I downloaded the ebook of The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, as well as anthologies collecting his true crime reporting for Vanity Fair.) but still had no idea of the connection between Capote and Woodward.

I greatly enjoyed Montillo’s book. She covers the story of the Woodwards, and then moves onto the feud between Capote and Woodward; opening the book with the confrontation that made Capote viciously turn on her and nickname her “Mrs. Bang Bang,” and always talking about how she got away with murder. It’s well written and moves fast; it’s a marvelous and very quick read. If you’re interested in either true crime, Mrs. Woodward, or Capote, I do recommend it. I enjoyed it very much, and Montillo is kind to both of her main characters.

(While in one of the many Capote wormholes I’ve gone down, I’ve started getting an inkling of why Capote turned on his wealthy swans, writing about them so cruelly and viciously in that short story but the time is not right for this discussion–but I totally understand why he did, in terms of this explanation; whether it was true or not remains to be seen.)

You Wanna Jitterbug?

I’m not really sure when I became aware of Wham!, if I’m being completely honest. I think I remember seeing the video for either “Wham Rap” or “Bad Boys” on MTV, and I immediately clocked the lead singer, a handsome young boy with brown hair and an amazing smile…but thought the other guy (who turned out to be Andrew Ridgely) was more attractive. When they released their next album, Make It Big, I really liked the debut single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” which was catchy and boppy and a lot of fun. The video was probably one of the gayest things I’d ever seen, but again–it was light and catchy and fun and silly, like the song. I bought the album, which was far better than I could have ever imagined it being, but I never became a big fan. Their next release, Music from the Edge of Heaven, included my favorite song of theirs (“I’m Your Man”), and I actually saw them in concert, in Oakland. I was working at a department store at the time, and some of my co-workers were HUGE fans. They’d bought tickets to a Wham concert, and one of the people dropped out…and they offered me the ticket. I was already burning out on concerts at this point, didn’t really want to drive to Oakland for a concert, and wasn’t a huge fan of the main act….but there were two opening acts: Katrina and the Waves, whom I also liked, and the Pointer Sisters, whom I loved. So, I agreed to go and use the ticket, figuring at least I know the Pointer Sisters will be amazing live (they were), but I wasn’t prepared for how fantastic this little teeny-bopper bubblegum teen idol-style act would be. George Michael was incredible live.

I left that concert a George Michael fan, and shortly thereafter Wham dissolved and George went solo…and had the kind of solo career that all artists hope for, which completely eclipsed Wham. Andrew and Wham played a small role in the two George Michael documentaries we watched recently, but when I saw that there was a Netflix documentary that focused solely on Wham, I thought, I need to watch that because no one really remembers how fucking HUGE Wham was before George went solo.

And taking into consideration that they were in their late teens/early twenties when they blew up…that’s pretty remarkable.

As I said, I tagged George Michael as gay the first time I saw one of their videos. (I also tagged Freddie Mercury the first time I saw him; Greg Louganis at the Montreal Olympics; Elton John; and any number of others who eventually came out.) I couldn’t tell you what it was about George; whether it was his voice, his posture, the way he moved, what it was about him, but every alarm in my head went off. He’s gay was my first thought, and my second was one of sympathy. Sure, I was in my early twenties, deeply closeted and deeply conflicted about my life and my future, but I still felt sorry for a rising pop star/teen idol on the cusp of superstardom because all I could think was, if not being myself is making ME so miserable and I’m just a college student, how awful would it be if you were a worldwide star/celebrity? I felt nothing but sympathy for anyone else, regardless of class or status, who had to lead a closeted existence.

How much worse was it for someone in show business, who achieved worldwide superstardom?

And while obviously Andrew Ridgely is the only one of the two still around, it’s pretty clear he and George remained close until George’s death. They were childhood friends; the pictures of them from childhood are astonishing. Andrew was always a pretty boy–he’s kind of always looked the same, really; for me it’s the eyes–while George was kind of plain and drab; who knew he’d grow up and have supermodel looks? I always wondered, you know. Andrew always seemed kind of superfluous to the group, if I’m being honest; I guess he co-wrote some of their songs, and I also guess his presence–his own exuberance and showmanship–helped George with his own shyness and the support was there for him always; he mentioned in one of the documentaries about his life that the mutual agreement to disband also meant that he was going to have to face all of it on his own for the first time.

But the primary takeaway from the documentary–outside of what a good friend Andrew truly was–is how HUGE Wham actually was world-wide before they disbanded. They toured Communist China in the mid-80’s to sold out arenas. That was kind of a big deal back then, as Western entertainers were viewed by the regime as “decadent.”

How did I know George Michael and the others were gay the first time I ever laid eyes on them on my television screen? I honestly don’t know. I’ve never looked at or considered “gaydar” as anything other than a joke, really; something all gay men joke about as we wish for the hottest of male celebrities–singers, musicians, athletes, actors–to turn out to be gay after all. Representation matters so much, and with more and more celebrities feeling comfortable and confident enough to come out over the last decade or so, we’re getting queer characters on television series and in books; we’re even getting television series and movies with gays as primary characters. I don’t like it, obviously, when the representation is bad, but at the same time we gays come in every shape, size, and type of person. There are gay villains and demons just as there are role models and angels. I do wonder, when my mind is wandering and I am tired, if gaydar is actually a thing; something that was programmed into our collective DNA millennia ago, giving same-sex attracted person a subconscious sense that recognizes like, as in oh he is like me as a protective measure? What was it about George Michael, and Elton John, Greg Louganis and Freddie Mercury before him, that triggered something identifiable in my brain? (I did wonder about Rock Hudson when watching McMillan and Wife.)

It’s curious, isn’t it?

If you’re a George Michael fan, I highly recommend Wham, because the fact that George was a huge star already before he went solo sometimes (often) gets left out of the story.

And Make it Big is still a good record.

Know Who You Are At Every Age

Here we are on Tuesday, blearily drinking coffee and wishing I was independently wealthy. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my job, but I really love not waking up to an alarm that much more. Sleep has always been a challenge this last decade or so, and sleeping anywhere other than my own bed makes it all the more harder to get a good night’s sleep. When I am tired, I tend not to be hungry or thirsty, and I get off my schedule. Not eating results in me being hungry–something I am not familiar with, so I never know what that is–and dehydrated, which makes me even more tired and even less hungry, and you see how it all works together to escalate into something horrendous? I was off my game all last week recovering from just that same combination of moronic Greg behaviors and going off all my medications at the same time was probably not the best way to handle things. Had I not forgotten my pill dispensary at the hotel in Jasper the vacation week and the week back might have gone completely differently.

At least I’d like to believe so, at any rate.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day. I wasn’t tired for most of the day, having slept decently on Sunday night, and diving headfirst back into work was, as always, a bit jarring after a weekend of only having to deal with either Paul or the cat. It was also busier than usual, which was nice–it’s always lovely when clients are able to access our services than when they aren’t–if a bit hectic. But I got caught up on all of my work chores, so tomorrow when I go in I’ll already be slightly ahead of the game. I got the dishes done and some laundry, and managed to do some cleaning up around the kitchen (including organizing and filing) before I called it for the night and repaired to the chair to watch television. I even made dinner, if you can believe it; I cannot recall the last time I made dinner!

Speaking of games, how cool was it that Paul Skenes and Dylan Cruise went 1-2 in the pro baseball college draft? First time the top two picks in the draft were from the same team, GEAUX TIGERS! And football season is quite literally just over the horizon. Expectations are high for LSU this year–probably too high, we tend to get very enthusiastic here for very little or no reason–but last year no one thought we’d win ten games, beat Alabama, and win the Western division, either, and here we are. I don’t know if LSU will be able to pull off defeating Alabama two years in a row (only two coaches have done so–Les Miles at LSU and Hugh Freeze at Mississippi) but everyone down here is riding high after a better than expected season last year and a women’s basketball AND a baseball national championship within two months of each other this spring. Pretty fucking cool–and the first time any college has won a basketball and baseball title in the same year. (Ironically, neither team won the SEC–South Carolina won it in basketball, and Florida won in baseball.)

I slept well again last night, which was lovely. I feel rested and alert this morning. I went to bed an hour earlier last night–I had dozed off during the second episode of Hijack, and if I can asleep watching Idris Elba, I was sleepy. Paul had as well, and we both agreed that it was being tired and not the show that put us to sleep; we both are enjoying the show and I do recommend it. We had also watched Wham!, the documentary about the band that introduced George Michael to the world, the night before and also really enjoyed it; I might write more about it later as I remembered, ,while watching, that I saw Wham! in concert the summer of 1985 in Oakland. That was also one of the last concerts I ever attended (I think I saw Fleetwood Mac and Bon Jovi and Everything but the Girl after, but those were indeed the last concerts I attended–too many people, too much traffic, too much aggravation, too expensive), and it put me to thinking about George Michael, the 1980’s, and so forth; I somehow knew that George was gay almost from the very start (the same way I knew with Rock Hudson, Greg Louganis, and a number of others)–almost as though there’s some kind of genetic coding which gives gay men the ability to spot others like themselves–something primeval that goes back to the earliest times, something protective–which would make a kind of evolutionary sense, really. And that really should be talked about; it’s certainly worthy of its own entry: Gaydar, is it a thing?

I started writing something new yesterday, and it’s not really coming along that well or easily. I don’t know if that means my creativity still needs another day or so to rest and recharge or the almost constant fear that it’ll all go away has finally come true. But here’s hoping it will go better and more easily today.

ANd on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. You have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow, if not later.

How to Bring a Blush to the Snow

Monday, and the 3rd of July. It is back to the office with me today, but of course tomorrow is a day off with pay so this week is going to be weird and off-kilter too. Yay? But this week I have page proofs to go over, errands to run, and a life to get back on track. I feel rather disoriented from being gone for an entire week for a change, which was weird. I did wind up feeling much better yesterday as the day progressed; we made a Costco run in the midst of that dreadful heat advisory (felt like 114) and I also did a lot of laundry. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded; it isn’t full yet. I am going to try to stay efficient this week, and hope that efficiency–doing the dishes when I get home from work every night, keeping up with the laundry, putting things away rather than let them pile up–is maintained as we move sluggishly through the rest of this blazing hot summer.

We started watching a true crime documentary series last night called The Suspect, and got two episodes in (out of four total). The show is from CBC, and is about a murder and trial in St. John, Nova Scotia. It’s always interesting to watch these shows and see how the police and prosecution actually operate as opposed to the way they do in fiction. It’s actually kind of terrifying, really, and of course, it gave me an idea for a book to go with this great title I came up with in the car the other day.

I’ve also been thinking about my writing and what I want to do with it and where I want to go. I really am not in a place where I should be coming up with new concepts and structures and characters for a new novel when there are already so many in progress around here that I need to finish at some point, not to mention the short stories, too. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I slept so deeply and well last night. I woke up a few times, always afraid that’s the end of the sleep for the night, but I was literally out like the power after a hurricane. And I had no resistance to getting up to the alarm, either. I feel rested, which is wonderful. I wish I could figure out a way to get sleep like that while I am traveling, but I also think I over-caffeinate when I travel, too. I don’t nearly follow my necessary daily routines when I am traveling; I don’t drink nearly as much water and, like I previously said, over-caffeinate. This inevitably results in me becoming dehydrated, and when I am dehydrated I generally don’t get hungry, either, and I often wind up skipping meals and so forth, which means my blood sugar drops precipitously as well. In other words, I need to retrain what I do when I am traveling and/or on the road and take care of myself better than I usually do while away.

I feel terrific this morning and my mood has also significantly improved. I don’t think I’ve completely rehydrated yet, either; but I feel so much better today than I did yesterday that it’s almost like I’m an entirely new person. This is always lovely, frankly. There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep; I just wish I could unlock the secret to getting good rest every night, but no such luck.

We also watched Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, which was okay. If you’ve never read a biography of Hudson, or seen any previous documentaries about his life, there’s nothing much new here. I’ve learned a lot about Rock Hudson doing research for Chlorine–if you’re writing a novel about a closeted gay actor in the 1950’s, who better to read about than Rock?–so this documentary was nothing new for me. It was well done, and I liked that they interviewed his surviving gay exes or gay friends (for the record, I’ve also researched Tab Hunter–whom I met a few times–and Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, and several others. I find that I really like doing research, to be honest. The whole time I was gone at Dad’s I was reading and learning more about Alabama history, which I think will make my future Alabama novels much better than they would have been, and also inspired more ideas for Alabama books.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the rest of the day. It’s been so long since I’ve been at work…anyway, have a great pre-holiday Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Stop!

It’s Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and slept relatively well again, if a bit late; my body clock is now all messed up and tomorrow morning’s waking up at the crack of dawn is going to be harder than usual.

Not that it’s ever easy, frankly.

LSU played terribly yesterday and lost, as expected, to Mississippi 31-17 (first loss to them after five straight wins) but I managed to finish reading Not All Diamonds and Rosé while it was on, and also read some more in Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, which is, as all books by Paul Tremblay, very well done–but I am not deep enough into it to have an idea of what’s going on. It focuses on the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old from a state park outside of Boston; it opens with his family–along with everyone else in the community–finding out he is missing and dealing with the emotions and fears that come along with a kid gone missing; but something out of the ordinary has already happened (no spoilers, sorry) which means there’s more to this than just your average child gone missing story.

Which, given it’s written by Paul Tremblay, was always going to be the case in the first place.

After the LSU game, we spent the rest of the evening watching Skate America; we used to be (still are) big figure skating fans, but the Internet and so forth has kind of ruined figure skating, really–when you know what the results are before the competition airs, it’s not nearly as exciting or suspenseful; so the only way to recapture the way it used to feel to watch something pre-recorded is now to watch live, which Peacock (NBC’s streaming service) does now provide. (I also think the new scoring system has a lot to do with it as well. Sure, the old 6.0 system had serious flaws and corruption in its judging, but I am not convinced that corruption still isn’t there and now the scoring system is so mysterious and complicated that it’s almost impossible to tell anymore if anything untoward is going on. The great irony is the scoring change, claiming to be more fair and to rule out bias, simply made it harder for viewers to see it for themselves.) There’s also tension brewing in the ISU this year as well, as a Russian judge and coach has made horrifically homophobic comments about French ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron (who came out last year) and his partner Gabrielle Papadakis. They have a silver Olympic medal (it would have been gold had Papadakis not suffered a costume malfunction in the original dance) and are three time world champions. It was an obvious attempt to smear them in an Olympic year and potentially influence future judging pools at upcoming events, only making it all the more disgusting….particularly since Russia couldn’t even officially compete at the last summer Olympics because of widespread doping and cheating. This piece of shit Russian essentially said that since Cizeron is gay they cannot “convincingly portray romance” the way the top Russian team can; to that I say, “hey, you homophobic needle-dicked piece of shit, if you want to see a gay man convincingly play a romantic lead, watch Pillow Talk some time and tell me Rock Hudson didn’t deserve an Oscar. And by the way, go fuck yourself and drink bleach.”

I am so fucking sick of this shit. Seriously.

I did manage to get some things done yesterday, but I am still looking for my old journals. I cannot for the life of me remember where I stored them; I know sometime over the past few years I found them in a box, but now I don’t remember what I did with them. It seems unlikely I would have simply shoved them into another box and stored them somewhere; but I can’t seem to locate them anywhere inside the apartment, which makes it appear that must be what I did with them. Generally I don’t go back and read my old journals very often–I don’t really like to see how much of a mess I used to be, written down plainly in ink on paper–but I kind of need to because I am writing a novella set in the summer of 1994 and I kind of need to go back and see what I recorded back then about music and pop culture and so forth. One of the hardest things about doing research on gay life in the past is so much of it is hidden, or wasn’t recorded anywhere, really–like there’s no listings anywhere on the Internet of “what dance songs were popular in gay dance clubs in 1994?” and my memory banks simply are not substantial enough anymore for me to summon those answers up out of the muck and mush my brain is slowly turning into as I age. That summer I went out dancing a lot, but I honestly don’t remember anything much about the music other than there were a couple of Pet Shop Boys songs that were really popular that summer–“Go West” and “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing”, and Erasure had a great remix of their song “Always”, but beyond that I have no memory of much.

Today I am debating as to whether I actually want to go run errands; making groceries is kind of necessary but I really have no desire to leave the house and go out in public. There’s not a Saints game today–they’re on Monday Night Football this week–and next weekend is LSU’s bye week, so I don’t really need to spend Saturday watching football (despite it being the weekend of Georgia-Florida and Auburn-Mississippi), so here’s hoping I can get some serious writing done today and this coming weekend. Stranger things have happened..and I am definitely running out of time to get this book written, which is incredibly stressful for me, as always. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

If You Ever Go

Thursday, Thursday. A work at home day, hurray!

It rained again yesterday, which was more than a little bit irritating (in theory, it’s going to rain every day for a while now; including scattered thunderstorms in Baton Rouge Saturday night DURING THE GAME), but it’s okay. Rain makes me sleepy and I was tired yesterday from Tuesday night’s weird sleep, so the combination of the two helped me run out of steam by the afternoon. It kind of sucked, because I wanted to go to the gym and do some things last night, but by the time my shift ended and it was time to go home…all I wanted to do was go home, get under the blanket in my easy chair with a purring kitty in my lap, and mindlessly zone out while falling into some insane Youtube wormhole. However, I had advance warning that Paul would be late getting home (the grant he’s been working on was due at midnight), so after a few times around with history videos, I decided to watch a movie. I opened the TCM app on my AppleTV, and started looking through the vast riches there. I was delighted to see Pillow Talk was available to stream–a few weeks ago I’d looked for it, settling for the follow up, Lover Come Back, instead; which isn’t settling because it’s also a fun, if dated movie–and so queued it up. I’ve always loved Pillow Talk, and it always has made me laugh; but I’ve also not seen it in years, and I am a lot more aware about things that can be seen today as problematic. A sex comedy from the days of the Hays Code, made in 1959? Yes, all kinds of things were played for comedy back then that are not only no longer funny, but absolutely cringey today. And yes–there were parts that really made me cringe a bit; the entire “Rex Stetson” deception, which is actually quite cruel, being at the top of the list. But the only reason it even works in the first place is because Rock Hudson is so utterly likable, charismatic, and charming; even though he’s a complete cad, you can’t help but like him. Doris Day is stunningly beautiful, and that singing voice! The chemistry between the two is also powerful; you know from the beginning they’re going to wind up together (it’s a romantic comedy, after all), and Hudson–dismissed as just being handsome rather than actually having any talent–deserved an Oscar. Knowing Hudson is a gay man, playing a straight man with a steady parade of women through his life and is so completely convincing that he not only is falling for Doris Day but you actually believe he wants to fuck her.

That–given his reality–was definitely Oscar worthy. The film absolutely couldn’t be made today–the idea that a woman in her late twenties/early thirties would be an almost prudish virgin would never fly today–but it holds up better than Lover Come Back, in that Day’s character has some great scenes with other characters about how she wants to be in love, wants to fall in love, and dreams of finding the right man who will sweep her off her feet and romance her and love her; the relationship between her character and the neurotic millionaire who loves her (Tony Randall) is so incredibly sweet–she doesn’t love him but she likes him a lot, and how she gently lets him down after his umpteenth wedding proposal–and how he accepts the defeat gracefully, saying he just wants her to be happy above-all, was lovely; there was some great chemistry between Day and Randall as well. And that apartment she has! And New York just looks marvelous and wonderful and exciting and fun and everything you could ever imagine it could be. It’s a fantasy, of course, but that’s what movies were back then; and of course, the movie never shames Day for being a single career-woman in the big city–Lover Come Back’s message was a lot cruder–“she just needs a good fuck”–but it doesn’t play that way in Pillow Talk, which remains somewhat charming, if unrealistic.

And it’s actually a rather clever window into that time period.

As always, I have lots to do today. I am working at home, as per the usual, on a Thursday; which is nice. I slept well last night, which was also lovely; I don’t even think I got up once during the night. Paul had a meeting this evening but will be home shortly thereafter, so we can get caught up on our shows and actually spend some time together. I am getting excited and nervous about the game this weekend; I am delighted that we are returning to Tiger Stadium for the first time since the 2019 season, but at the same time I am a bit nervous about being in a stadium with over a hundred thousand people crammed into it; with thousands more partying on the university grounds around the stadium. This will be a sort of trial run for a return to normal after the pandemic is completely over, but at the same time I can’t get that voice in my head whispering super spreader event to stop. The game is at eight, which means not getting home until after midnight–not optimal–but I can sleep in on Sunday and get rested. (But I also need to check to see what time the Saints play on Sunday as well.)

And on that note, I am putting on my helmet and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader.

Only a Moment Ago

And just like that, it’s Friday again.

Of course, the emergence of a potentially major storm heading for the Gulf and our coastline–and how quickly it has happened–has certainly sucked a lot of the energy out of the room. The fact it will come ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina (Sunday) hasn’t triggered a lot of PTSD for me, strangely; although I was remembering it all last night as I sat in my easy chair watching Margaret Orr on local television (and checking her Twitter feed). The weather outside my condensation-covered windows this morning doesn’t look that great, to be honest–we’ve had rain all day yesterday off and on–but I don’t know if we are going to need to leave yet or not. It’s not looking good for us right now; at the very least we’re going to probably be without power for a few days (yay). But at least if we do end up leaving (probably tomorrow morning, if we go) at least I have a relatively new car, and I believe I already have a tank of gas. I have some errands to run today–I am getting my teeth cleaned later this morning, and I need to get the mail. I had planned on doing some grocery shopping today but am not sure if it’s wise to get anything perishable, so am probably just going to let that sit until afterwards.

I’m also having dinner with a friend tonight–scheduled to come in for Bouchercon, she decided to keep her trip since her daughter goes to school here anyway–which should be a good time; social contact outside of my office has remained low, so it will be sort of nice to get out of the house and spend the evening with someone whose company I enjoy…especially with a hurricane looming. If it stays on center track, it’ll pass us to the west–putting New Orleans on the bad side of the storm. I’m kind of surprised I am not having flashbacks triggered by any or all of this, to be honest. I only remember the anniversary now when I am reminded–I’d not even given it a thought until the other day when this system developed below Cuba–although I am also now remembering there have been issues with I storms in the past–Ike and Isaac, for example; one of them sat on the city for like three days and we were without power for nearly a week. The other was our last evacuation and it, too, was around this same time. Late August, after my birthday and before Labor Day–never a good combination for an I-named storm in the Gulf, apparently.

I rewatched an old Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie last night while I was waiting for Paul to come home (working late because of grant deadlines and potential hurricane; potential loss of power means everyone has to get things done earlier than they’d thought). I had wanted to rewatch Pillow Talk, which was the best of the their three films together, but couldn’t find it streaming anywhere, so settled for the follow-up, Lover Come Back, which, while not as good as the first, was still quite entertaining–if problematic. The message of the Day/Hudson movies–at least the first three; they played a married couple in their third pairing–was always that Day was an uptight and repressed career woman with no interest in men or marriage–who really just needed a good fuck. The irony that the good fuck she needed was being delivered on-screen by a gay man escaped audiences of the time, who made the films huge hits and made Doris Day the biggest money-making star in the country. It’s great, though, that she was shown as a highly successful, talented, and driven career woman; unfortunate that the screenwriters seemed to think that went along with an empty life without love or a man. Given how beautiful and sexy Day was, it’s kind of hard to believe that she wouldn’t have men hanging off her–but she’s kind of portrayed as an ice princess, who needs a man to thaw her out. The games Hudson plays with Day–mimicked in both films–where he pretends to be a shy, inexperienced (read: almost gay) man whose sweetness she falls for doesn’t really play today for a sex comedy; such a movie would never be made today.

I did manage to get some things done yesterday. I worked on the manuscript, and have maybe a third of it left to go. I’ve already edited out almost ten thousand words, making it leaner and cleaner, but it’s still such a horrible mess I cannot believe I turned it in to my long-suffering editor. But it’s getting better, and the primary issue is that there were so many different versions over the years of working on it that I missed things when merging all the versions together to get a final one–the great irony being the problem with the manuscript not ever being what I thought it was, so all those different drafts were relatively pointless; it’s terrible when you are writing a book and you aren’t really completely sure what it’s about consciously. I’ve always said this book was about rape culture, but it’s actually not–although that’s a part of it; what it’s actually about is toxic masculinity from the point of view of someone trapped inside of it who desperately wants out and doesn’t know how to get out. I didn’t completely understand that–and something else–until this final editing run; glad I figured this out before it went to press, right?

So I am going to try to get some things done around here this morning before leaving for the dentist, then I am coming home to work on the manuscript. I’d like to get this pass finished today–not an easy task, since its taking me hours to get through small sections, longer than I’d thought it would, honestly–so it can sit for a day or two; if we lose power and I have to stop working on it, I am hoping I’ll be able to at least get it sent off somehow–if I need t make my phone a hotspot and send it from my laptop or something, I should be able to get it done and in on time. I was going to try to make it to the gym today, but think I’ll just push that off until tomorrow and focus on getting the manuscript finished today. Once I finish and post this, I am going to clean out my inbox (or try to) before having to get ready for the teeth cleaning expedition (not looking forward to this either, I might add). I had wanted to spend some time getting organized–but the need to get this manuscript out of the way in case of power loss, at least getting this pass finished, at any rate, has overcome any desire to work on the other things that need to be worked on around here; I can go to the gym tomorrow and clean/organize then (if we aren’t in the car, that is).

And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

Blow

Good morning, Sunday, how are YOU doing?

I overslept (for me) again this morning; which felt nice; I’ll take oversleeping over insomnia any day of the week, frankly, and this morning I am going to swill coffee, read some more of S. A. Cosby marvelous Razorblade Tears, and then will write for a while before going to the gym later on in the early afternoon. I still haven’t gotten phô yet–maybe next weekend I can make to the Lilly Cafe and finally get some.

Yesterday saw me relaxing and organizing and cleaning for most of the day, at an incredibly casual pace–so casual, of course, that I didn’t get everything finished that I wanted to get finished (natch); but progress was made and I will always take some progress over not making any. I finished writing Chapter 2 of Chlorine yesterday, also setting up Chapter 3 to be written for today (after some reviewing of Chapters 1 and 2 before getting started on that today). I like that I am starting to feel connected to this manuscript; it’s finally taken root in my head and all the other considerations about it no longer matter to me other than the two most important: that I finish writing it, and that i write the best book I possibly can.

The whole Chlorine thing is remarkably improbable about how it came to be in the first place. I’ve always wanted to write about 1950’s Hollywood and the gay closet/underground that existed there; it was an incredibly turbulent time, with television stealing film audiences, HUAC investigating Communists, and J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI going after gay men and lesbians. It was also during this time that the biggest closeted movie star perhaps in Hollywood history, Rock Hudson, came to success–and there were plenty of other closet cases on the headlining pictures with their names above the title: Montgomery Clift and Tab Hunter–and plenty who may have been bisexual but definitely had experiences with men, like Marlon Brando, Anthony Perkins, James Dean, and so on. I idly wrote about this notion I had for a noir set during that time, with the main character a hustler with no talent but a lot of good looks and charm, that opens with another closeted actor’s nude, dead body being found in the morning on Santa Monica beach–only the drowning victim also had chlorine in his lungs, so he clearly drowned in a swimming pool and his body was moved. I riffed on this concept here on the blog for a little bit, and then thought nothing of it.

Yet Chlorine landed with my peers in the crime writing community for some reason–I got a lot of tweets and DM’s about what a great idea it was, and that I needed to write it. Some people continued pestering me about it, enough time and enough people, for me to go ahead and slot it into my writing schedule….but even then I kept putting it off and not taking it or myself seriously; was I the right person to write such a book? Is this interest in such a book even something that could turn into sales or whatever? You know, the usual self-doubt that plagues me on a daily basis. I sat down and wrote a very rough first chapter several years ago, just to see if I could get the tone right, and the voice properly done; I was rather pleasantly surprised with how it turned out, and so I put aside any thought of imposter syndrome and figured, okay, I CAN do this.

But the syndrome came again when the calendar time to write the book rolled around; I spent the last month or so writing anything but this manuscript…and finally sat down to revise and reshape that first chapter so that it set up the second even better, and I also had an idea of how to do the second as I worked on the first. It took me a few days, but I now have a very nice 3700 word second chapter written; and today I am going to work on writing the third. I wanted to wait until August and spend that entire month writing it, but finally decided that I was being decidedly un-confident, so while I still want to have the first draft finished by the end of August, I decided to go ahead and get started on it in the meantime. I still want to work on Scotty for the rest of the year, from September on, but there’s also a lot of other things I need to get done, so I need to stop being lazy and get my ass into my chair and writing.

We watched the Olympics some yesterday–I am amazed at the sports I couldn’t care less about most of the time but will watch avidly during an Olympics–but it again seems weird that there’s no audience or crowd…and this whole weird vibe these Olympics are giving off–no you smoked weed so you’re banned; you’re a serial sexual assaulter so we’ll make accommodations for you–has kind of tarnished the whole thing for me in some ways. There has always been cheating and stupidity at the Olympics (another example of how media has brainwashed us all into the mythology of the Olympics), but for some reason this year it seems more intolerable than usual. But I love watching the US swimmers–it’s weird without Michael Phelps in the pool–and I will undoubtedly watch more, especially the gymnastics.

But…..still.

I also figured out last night how to change a story I started writing at some point during the last decade and make it actually work–“The Brady Kid”–and while the new idea I have for it may not work after all, it’s an interesting idea for a story and something I definitely want to try writing.

And on that note, Razorblade Tears is calling me, and so it’s off to the spice mines for a bit to read, swill coffee, and prepare to start writing.