Band of Thebes

Out on the Edge: America's Rebel Comics

You know you're in the right place at the right time when you get to hear Bob Smith [seated, blue shirt] riff on Gay Bereavement Day, in which lgbt employees get to skip work after the death of a favorite actress. He and his Funny Gay Males partners Danny and Jaffe are hysterical. Last night in New York, nine gay comics gathered to celebrate the publication of Out on the Edge: America's Rebel Comics, an anthology of thirty-six short essays about the highs and lows of doing queer stand-up, edited by Mike Player [seated, black jacket]. From left to right: Eddie Sarfaty [not in this book but watch for his Mental: Funny in the Head coming in July], Bill Cruz, Bob Smith, Danny McWilliams, Jaffe Cohen, Mary Kennedy, Mike Player, Michele Balan, and Jason Dudey. The book also features Lea DeLaria, Kate Clinton, Sabrina Matthews, Karen Ripley, Jason Stuart, Suzanne Westenhoefer, ANJ, Scott Weston, Bruce Daniels, Erin Foley, Dana Goldberg, Vidur Kapur, Andre Kelley, Paul Jacek, Scott Kennedy, Oscar Nunez (from The Office), Scott Silverman, Jen Slusser, Sandra Valls, Starr Ahrens, Alex Garner, Nancy Kissam, Allie Riverbark, Diana Yanez, Charlie Ballard, Faith Choyce, Roy Cruz, Ian Harvie, Ryan Hill, Bob "Bobaloo" Koenig, and a brief introduction by Margaret Cho. She confesses, "Like all great divas, I owe everything to the kindness of gay men."

Born March 31: Barney Frank

If you think the representative from Massachusetts' 4th district is getting a lot of attention as chairman of the financial services committee, just wait until September 30, the pub date of Stuart Weisberg's massive biography, Barney Frank: The Story of America's Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman. In the meantime, revisit Jeff Toobin's January New Yorker profile, "Barney's Great Adventure" for a taste of the legendary wit and ire. When a speaker at a gay rights fundraiser quoted his father as saying LGBT sounded like a sandwich, Barney shouted from the audience, "Sometimes it is!" Beyond the jokes, nine days ago he rightly called Antonin Scalia a homophobe.

A true old school liberal, Frank was a vocal and reliable proponent of gay equality, especially for lesbians and gays in the military, even before he came out to the Boston Globe in 1987. Eleven years later he co-founded the National Stonewall Democrats. Frank continued undeterred even after his self-described Henry Higgins scandal that resulted in the full House reprimanding him, but not censuring or removing him as certain Republicans wanted. Given that the scandal was a former felon and hustler now as his driver running an escort ring from Frank's DC home, the scene may have been more William Higgins than Henry; but the ethics investigation found no evidence that Frank knew what was happening in his absence and he emerged unscathed. The following November, he was re-elected by a two-to-one margin. He is equally beloved by his constituents as by Hill staffers, who named him the "most eloquent," "brainiest," and "funniest" Member of the House in both 2004 and 2006. Frank is sixty-nine today. His partner, Jim Ready, is thirty-nine year-old surfer who runs an awning company in Maine.

PEN Festival Offers Panels on Gay Writers Barthes, Arenas & Bonet

Possibly responding to last year's criticism from Larry Kramer about the lack of lgbt writers at their annual World Voices festival, this year's PEN lineup includes a panel called Diálogos Isleños on gay writers Reinaldo Arenas and Blai Bonet. The discussion on April 30 will

"honor the spirit and writing of the irrepressible Reinaldo Arenas from Cuba, whose Before Night Falls has been called a masterpiece of 20th Century literature, and Mallorcan poet Blai Bonet, whose novel El Mar was adapted into the 2000 film of the same name. These two writers, both gay and hailing from islands in vastly different seas, produced their enduring, influential works while facing the fury of repressive regimes."

The panelists are Jaime Manrique, Biel Mesquida, Margalida Pons, Carles Rebassa, and Manuel Vázquez Portal. The event is free and open to the public at Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 65 Fifth Avenue.

April 28's collection of short films ends with a brief documentary, Ginsberg's Karma, about Allen Ginsberg's trip to India in the 60s. Free and open to the public at Instituto Cervantes New York, 211–215 East 49th St.

Another free PEN session of note is Bernard Comment's lecture titled "Roland Barthes and the Invention of Modernity."  It will be held on April 29 at 6:30pm in La Maison Française, NYU, 16 Washington Mews.

Openly gay, openly awesome Colm Toibin is one of several distinguished panelists discussing Kafka's unfinished novel Amerika, on April 30 at the Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 East 52nd St. They're Austrian, so reservations are required.

Born March 28: Dirk Bogarde

After distinguished service as an intelligence officer in the Queen's Royal Regiment during World War II, Dirk Bogarde tried acting and became a huge star. He was Britain's top box office draw of the 1950s. So it was big news in 1961 when he chose to play a closeted, married gay barrister in Victim,  especially considering he was closeted himself. (He and his manager Anthony Forwood lived together for decades.) Two years later, Bogarde played the creepy, closety valet in The Servant, and in 1971 he played the tragic gay lead of Death in Venice. Today, the courage of these choices can hardly be imagined. Even in 1971, two years after Midnight Cowboy, Warner Brothers was so terrified of Death in Venice being charged with obscenity in the U.S. they wanted to drop the movie altogether. They changed their minds after Queen Elizabeth and Princess Anne attended the London premiere; it won an Oscar. Yet offscreen in his own life, Bogarde lacked the same bravery. After the anguish of watching his partner suffer a prolonged battle with Parkinson's and liver cancer, he became a vocal proponent of euthanasia. That was 1988, coincidentally the same year that John Gielgud came out quietly and Ian McKellan came out blazingly, as a founder of Stonewall. Bogarde never did. He retired in 1990 and lived till 1999, by which time he had written something like eight volumes of autobiography, none of which tells the full truth of his life. In fact, he destroyed much of his personal archives.

Born March 27: Frank O'Hara

(Excuse the almost churlish accuracy of putting his birthday today despite the widespread belief -- including O'Hara's -- that he was born on June 27, 1926. His parents lied by three months to hide the fact that he was conceived before they were married.)

For now, read his poem Ave Maria about the importance of hooking up with strangers at the movies at a young age... well, just read it. And listen to him below.

Interview with Patrick Ryan / P.E. Ryan

Literary readers have loved Patrick Ryan since 2006. That February his first novel, Send Me, was published to wide acclaim and in October Ann Patchett selected its third chapter, "So Much For Artemis," which had appeared in One Story, for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2006. The next year Ryan published a marvelous YA book, Saints of Augustine, and now he has reached new heights with his second YA novel, In Mike We Trust, published last month. It's a terrific book. Fifteen-year-old, 5'2" Garth Rudd spends the summer coping with his father's drowning, his understandably stressed out mother, his all-seeing best friend Lisa, his potential boyfriend Adam, and his charismatic, scheming Uncle Mike who proves to be untrustworthy yet essential to Garth's development. In the spirit of William Trevor or Wendell Berry, Ryan's excellent writing has a purity of detail and imagination without any showing off. The book's quiet dignity may explain why the hoopla-driven media hasn't yet picked up on it. Do your part by buying it and talking it up among your friends who read.

Ryan generously agreed to answer some questions for Band of Thebes.

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You’ve said the idea for In Mike We Trust started, atypically, with the title. But fifteen year-old Garth Rudd is such a tremendous character it’s hard to imagine him not always existing in your head. How did he evolve?

I have to confess that, after I came up with the story, I cast a version of myself as the main character.  To a degree, I probably do that with nearly all my main characters.

If Uncle Mike were arrested after his final scheme and you were on the jury, how would you judge him?

I like Mike—to an extent.  But having suffered through jury duty a number of times, I know it would come down to the specifics of the law.  Did he actually break a law by taking money under false pretenses?  I don’t know, but a prosecutor certainly would.  If the answer is yes, I don’t know if I’d waste too many hours in a conference room arguing with eleven other people.

Vampires, pirates, boy wizards, girls who discover they’re royalty – escapism seems to be thriving in books for young people. Can you discuss your preference for realism? Have you ever considered writing super-commercial YA fiction?

I love the idea of writing escapist fiction for teens; I read it myself as a teen.  The reason I haven’t published any is because I’ve never been able to create a fantastical situation and then maintain/sustain it.  I find it challenging enough to try to render this world convincingly.  Plus I think one of the things I enjoy most about writing is trying to write about the seemingly dull and seemingly mundane in a captivating way. 

Harper’s website says P.E. Ryan’s novels are for ages 12 and up. What age range do you intend them for, and how conscious of that are you as you’re writing? In your first drafts do find yourself over-explaining, or regretfully steering away from certain topics that Patrick Ryan would want to explore?

I think the ideal age I’m aiming for is around 15.  I try to be conscious of what concerned me at that age, and I try to be conscious of the language I choose to use (meaning word choice, not profanity).  Sometimes I use a word in dialogue that’s too “lofty,” that’s completely out of true; sometimes I underestimate my audience (which is worse).  In terms of subject matter, I have, in fact, steered away from things I’d like to one day explore—darker, heavier stuff that I think runs through every teenager’s head, like vague or not-so-vague ideas about sex, about hatred, about death. 

Your adult novel Send Me has some brilliant moments of high school sex, including Joe’s music practice room oral encounters and his trying to become straight by cutting Farah Fawcett-Majors out of her poster, sweet-talking her, and “succeeding only in giving myself paper cuts in the last place you would ever want them.” Your YA characters are close to Joe’s age and they cope with complex issues like pot smoking, drug dealing, violence, alcoholism, and money scams. Why are they allowed to cuss but not even mention masturbating or have any physical intimacy beyond a couple kisses? Perhaps young readers anguished about their sexual activities – solo or otherwise -- would find it reassuring to know Garth does the same.

Wow.  It’s like you just read my mind and you’re calling me on not saying what I really want to say.  I was an affable nerd at fifteen with no sexual experience whatsoever, but I was obsessed with sex (aren’t we all).  I’d like to write a YA novel where the main character carries out his days and masturbates excessively and thinks insane sexual thoughts at the most inappropriate moments—but I don’t want to write teen porn.  Maybe I shy away from it because I think a publisher would.  If that’s the case, I should be smacked.

Speaking of anxiety and reassurance, how was your coming out?

It was hot, hot, hot!  Just kidding.  It involved a lot of lying, of course, before I got around to being honest about who I was.  I told a girl I knew that I was bi (not) when I was sixteen, and she “hooked me up,” as the kids these days say, with a guy my age who’d come out to her recently.  We had a secret thing going on—which all took place in our parents’ cars.  Then I went off to college, dated a drug dealer for a couple of months, and decided, to hell with this.  I thought everything that was wrong with my life had to do with my being gay.  So I climbed back into the closet and kept the door shut for two-and-a-half years.  I had nothing but straight friends and pretended to have a girlfriend when I talked to my parents on the phone.  How exhausting.  Then I met the writer Michael Carroll (we were both twenty-one), and we became a couple.  We were together for over four years—we’re still incredibly close, by the way—and by the time we split up, the door to my closet was wide open.

You make the important point that sometimes gay people, like Garth, are asked to lie and hide who they are even after they’re ready to be open. In a similar vein, the publishers’ dust jacket copy on Send Me and Saints of Augustine conceals any gay content. This is vexing for readers specifically seeking gay stories. What has your experience been working with a largely straight-centric book industry?

I definitely noticed the total lack of gay content on those two jackets.  It’s frustrating because I want people who are looking for that kind of book to be able to find it, and they won’t unless it’s via websites like yours.  So some element of the publishing industry wants to publish books like these two YA’s, but another, stronger element wants to stifle the end product.  For Saints, the publicist hooked me up (there’s that phrase again) with a few gay newspapers and no straight ones.  For Mike… crickets chirped and a tumbleweed rolled past.

Do you know if your books have ever prompted parental complaints or been banned? What kind of fan mail do you get? Are you considering a P.E. Ryan website?

I wish my books would cause an uproar!  That’s why my next book for teens is going to be about five gay kids on steroids who travel to the Vatican, beat the pope to death with the burning carcasses of George Bush and Dick Cheney, and then masturbate lying on their backs until—splat!—they’ve contributed to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  And don’t go stealing that plot.

I should have a website but don’t at the moment.  Is there a reader of your blog who’s getting into web-design and would like to cut his or her teeth on developing mine?  Anyone?  Anyone?  I’d like a site that combines both Patrick Ryan and P.E. Ryan, actually.  As for fan mail, some has come in—all either from teenage girls or grown gay men.  I’ve never heard from a gay male teenager, though I know they’re out there reading.

What percentage of your reading time is spent on adult fiction vs. YA books? If adults are interested in expanding their YA collection beyond your two novels, whose books are essential?

I read YA books upon recommendation, and of course I try to read the ones my friends publish.  (I have a lot of writer friends.)  Mostly I read adult fiction.  In answer to which young adult novels I’d recommend, I’m going to blatantly plug my friends in alphabetical order (and they’re all great): anything by Dan Elish, Brian Katcher, David Levithan, Bennett Madison, Brian Sloan, and Martin Wilson.  Oh—and keep your eye out for a young adult novel by a guy named Chris Shirley (he’s just started looking for an agent right now, and I know his work is going to be published).

When reading a book that doesn’t work for you, do you find it’s from one of a few common pitfalls, or does each book fail in its own way?

I find that, most often, I don’t believe the characters.  Sometimes it’s just that I don’t have an interest in a particular story, and I should probably stick with a book, if that’s the case, because it might generate my interest as it unfolds, which would be a wonderful thing.  That’s learning and expanding for me.  But as you know more than anyone, there’s just so much to read that it can be a challenge to stick with something you either don’t believe or aren’t enjoying. 

Are there any under-read adult novels you particularly like to champion?

Isherwood’s A Single Man.  It may be my favorite novel from the 20th century that I’ve read.  I want everyone both gay and straight to read it. 

In terms of more recently-published novels, Keith McDermott’s Acqua Calda, about an American theater production going on in Sicily, deserves a very large audience.  It’s funny and smart and compelling and moving.  Also, David McConnell’s The Firebrat is a masterful voice piece and a startlingly sharp use of the first-person.

What can readers look forward to next from Patrick Ryan and P.E. Ryan?

I have another adult novel in the works and another YA novel finished (I just handed it to my agent yesterday, in fact).  Cross your fingers they don’t run me out of town on a rail.

To copy your ending and conclude here with a bit of matchmaking, if it doesn’t work out with Adam, what fictional character would you suggest for a blind date with Garth?

Peter Pan.  He’d balance out Garth’s melancholia, take him on adventures—and teach him to fly!  How cool would that be?

Trailer for Ang Lee's Gay-Inclusive Taking Woodstock

Yet again, the Focus Features marketing department is hiding the gay content (while showing the trans) in Ang Lee's new movie, Taking Woodstock, starring Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano, Liev Schreiber, and Eugene Levy. Focus does great movies but they sure love to underestimate the art house audience. From the trailer you'd never know the main kid is having an affair with a married man. Based on a true story, the film is adapted from Elliot Tiber's memoir. The movie will be released on August 14, one day before the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

Born March 26: Tennessee Williams

Is it a coincidence that the gay playwright the straight world most celebrated in the twentieth century was the one who presented the most tortured view of homosexuality? As academics have pointed out, in Tennessee Williams'  plays, gay life is equated with death: by alcoholism (Skipper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Pulitzer Prize, Tony nomination, six Oscar nominations), suicide (Blanche's first husband in A Streetcar Named Desire; Pulitzer Prize, two Tonys, four Oscar wins of twelve nominations), murder and cannibalism (Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer; three Oscar nominations). Whereas his later work, dealing openly with gay relationships, was not praised, not prized, not adapted, and is not perpetually Brought Back to Broadway in a Major Revival! Does this say more about Williams, who might have needed the safety of the closet and the art of indirection, or about society's comfort levels pre, post, and post-post-Stonewall?

Granted, straight life in his work is no picnic either. The sole exception is The Rose Tattoo, his only happy ending in twenty-five plays. It's a heterosexualized version of his romance with Frank Merlo, whose family memories provided many of the details for the fictional Sicilian-American Delle Roses. (The movie was shot in Key West; Williams can be glimpsed at the bar, Merlo appears in the fight scene. Elsewhere, Merlo and Gore Vidal have cameos in Suddenly, Last Summer as the doctors watching the lobotomy.) The couple stayed together sixteen years, until Merlo's death from cancer. Williams' other significant partners included George Black and Pancho Rodriquez, pictured above, whom you can read about here. Perhaps cruelly fitting for someone so thwarted in life, after his death from choking on a plastic cap, Williams was interred in a cemetery in St. Louis, about as landlocked as it gets, despite his wish to be buried at sea in the same area as his hero Hart Crane.

Arthur Laurents' Mainly on Directing

If you want to fall a little in love, get yourself in a room with Arthur Laurents. He has everything: creativity, talent, vitality, courage, wit, impeccable timing, and experience. Lots of experience: writing Rope (dating Farley!), The Way We Were, The Turning Point, writing (and later directing) West Side Story, Gypsy, directing La Cage aux Folles. His second memoir has just been published. He's ninety-one.

As if all that wasn't enough to electrify last night's interview led by the perfect guide, director David Saint, Laurents also has strong opinions and sharp tongue. Yet he still seems disappointed when people are surprised by his frankness because to him it's so simple: say what you think and don't say what you don't think. (He mimicked two-faced theater queens saying, "Darling! You were brilliant! / My god! Did you SEE it??")

Amid the true and funny barbs, Laurents spoke often about love. He offered unsentimental generalizations ("Love is more important than theater, than anything else." "You give love, and you get it back,") and specific tributes to his partner for fifty-two years, Tom Hatcher. Laurents conveyed it was the sustaining power of their relationship that made so many of his successes possible. The recent Gypsy revival starring Patti Lupone was Tom's idea, in part because they hated the Sam Mendes version and because Tom knew he was dying of cancer and wanted Arthur to be busy after he was gone.

Buy his new book to understand what he calls the "inextricable" twin forces in his life, theater and Tom. I have no doubt that he is even more intelligent and funnier on the page than he was in person.

On Barbra Streisand: "I told her, 'When you cut your fingernails, you'll be an actress. She has never cut them."

"Musical comedy was in the past and should be left in the past. What we need is musical theater."

Since the 1950s, "theater has changed more than the world, believe it or not."

On Ethel Merman: "I said she couldn't act. She can't!" [Led to funny story about Tom being shouted down in the Village by angry gay men shouting across the street: "Tell your 'friend' he's wrong about Merman!"]

On Gypsy advancing from City Center: "Then we moved to Broadway, which was like going to Chernobyl."

Always the writer, Laurents analyzed famous scenes that "make no sense" like "Too Darn Hot!" (it's so hot and they're jumping around singing 32 choruses?), criticized directors of musicals who never think why a character is singing as opposed to speaking, lambasted the new London production of La Cage as homophobic, and reiterated that he, Bernstein, Robbins, and Sondheim all disliked the movie version of West Side Story.

If you have time, watch this great interview with him. During it, Mo Rocca says Laurents' first memoir,  Original Story By, reads like the longest little black book in Hollywood.

2009 James Beard Award Nominees

Not to serve up stale cliches, but there must be a lot of lgbt foodies in the gargantuan list of nominees for this year's James Beard Awards. (And not to truck in rumors but I heard years ago the judges didn't want too many gay winners. Beard himself was gay and out in his memoir. He died in 1985.)

The five big groupings are broadcast media, journalism, books, restaurant design, and best restaurant and chef -- the last category alone boasts nineteen prizes. Although the judges strive for diversity by giving regional awards for best chef, their "Northwest" consists of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska (a combined land mass of more than half the continental US) yet the nominees are four from Seattle and one from Portland. Such dainty quibbles must be a joy compared to 2005, when the Beard foundation president, Mr. Pickell, was imprisoned for grand larceny and two months later all eleven board members resigned.

GENERAL COOKING BOOKS

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook by Martha Stewart with Sarah Carey

The Bon Appetit Cookbook: Fast Easy Fresh by Barbara Fairchild

WRITING AND LITERATURE

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop

Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef by Betty Fussell

OUTSTANDING CHEF AWARD

José Andrés
Minibar
Washington, D.C.

Dan Barber
Blue Hill
NYC

Tom Colicchio
Craft
NYC

Suzanne Goin
Lucques
Los Angeles

Paul Kahan
Blackbird
Chicago

OUTSTANDING RESTAURANT AWARD

Babbo
NYC
Chef/Owner: Mario Batali
Owner: Joe Bastianich

Boulevard
San Francisco
Chef/Owner: Nancy Oakes
Owner: Pat Kuleto

Fore Street
Portland, ME
Chef/Owner: Sam Hayward
Owner: Victor Leon and Dana Street

Highlands Bar & Grill
Birmingham, AL
Chef/Owner: Frank Stitt

Jean Georges
NYC
Chef/Owner: Jean-Georges Vongerichten
Owner: Phil Suarez