Weird Sister

I am a female Larry Clark

2006-04-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know when it was that I realized I had strange taste in men.

I started off normal enough. My favorite Beatle was Paul McCartney. I had a crush on the blue-eyed, teenage girl heartthrob Robbie Benson of "Ode to Billy Joe" fame. I loved Simon Le Bon. Normal right? But the undercurrents of perversity were already flowing underneath the banal surface crushes. My first sexual dream at age 12 was of Rod Stewart wearing his leopard-skin skintight spandex tights, getting in on with me in a dressing room, and "Ode to Billy Joe" is about a young man who must abandon his first love because he's raped by circus carnies and then kills himself.

While I was living in Lower Haight in San Francisco, I made a list for a friend of the odd assortment of disfigurements I found hot. "I like pigeon toed guys and men with limps. I like guys with one glass eye, so you don't know which direction they're looking in (think: Jean-Paul Sartre)." While taking a hard-core porn film theory course at UC Berkeley, Professor Linda Williams told me that while my memory of the storyline of Belle De Jour (Luis Bunuel) was faulty, it was um, symptomatically interesting. "She finally falls in love with her husband when he's in a wheelchair", I said to the skeptical looking prof.

My ex-friend Jenny tells me I also have a thing for "scabrous youth." The skankier and smellier, the better.

I just don't like normal men. Wait, correction. I just don't like Normative Men. Big difference.

That's why the ultimate taboo for me is football players--the Uber-normative man. They're my true perversion.

Last but not least, I have a huge crush on Trevor Latham, the founder of The East Bay Rats, a motorcycle club in Oakland. I flirted with him many years ago when he was the bouncer at the Ruby Room. I was intrigued a man who looked and dressed like a Hell's Angel was reading a novel. It turned me on. We talked. It was only years later, at this year's annual Fight Night hosted by the Rats, that my friend told me he's not just an East Bay Rat. He's the president of the club. King Rat. And he has a limp. (My mother would no doubt be pleased).

First Days in Vietnam

2006-04-29T00:22:00.000-07:00

August 2, 2004
First Days in Vietnam

You can take the girl out of Berkeley, but you can't
take Berkeley out of the girl. I'm sitting next to
this guy in an internet place and he's smoking
furiously and I keep giving him these (unnoticed)
stinkeye sidelong glances Berkeleyites are famous for.
Needless to say, I can't say anthing.

It rained like a motherfucker today. I got to upgrade
my room (so now it's 10 a night) and I face the street.
It's on the top floor, and there's actual a.c. it was
really nice to look down at the rainy street.

Yesterday I had a lunch to die for: amazing skewered roasted pork with crispy rolls on
noodles with herbs, hot pepper and nuoc mam. I
couldn't believe it when she told me the price: 7,000 dong
or about 50 cents. It's insanely cheap here.

I'm approached constantly for either money (from
mothers with cute kids) or old folks, and yesterday
this woman almost grabbed my foot and gave me a
pedicure even though I repeatedly and apologetically
said no. It can be difficult. I was able to get out of
some of it by having a kilo of longans that I'd hand
out like candy. I was even approached by a man who
insisted I sing to the blind and teach them English at
this Catholic community center Sunday. I said
maybe, and I just might!

Last nite I was kinda lonely so I went to Q Bar, this
super fancy bar across from a very expensive hotel.
(One drink 80,000 VD. Versus a whole meal for 7,000. I
was shocked). I made friends with the bartender, this
sweet faced 21 year old with a baby who invited me to
meet her folks 45 mins outside of Saigon in Cu Chi.
She said, "Are you sure you're going? I'm going to
call them and tell them to cook something special." I
said of course. She's picking me up at my hotel at 6
a.m. and she returns for her shift at 5. It'll be the
perfect opportunity to meet non-backpackers. Who I
haven't been meeting anyway.

I found a fantastic place to live (available the 28th
of August) in a better part of town by the river (I'm
in the backpacker district right now and though
there's a lot going on it's a real dump). This place
is amazing (recommended by the travel agent in Hanoi
my mom and I used before). It's straight out of the film
Indochine. Off the street, with a balcony,
lots of light, a huge bathroom with shower and tub,
and downstairs a drawing room with a grand piano I'd
be able to play if I wanted (a professor of music
lives there). It's not cheap by Vietnamese standards or otherwise--$370,
but it will get me off my butt to get some teaching.

I think I'll feel more at home here if I do that, not
to mention more solvent. And it would make a
difference to come home to that. It's truly romantic
and beautiful beyond what I can describe.

Magnificent Failure

2006-04-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

Magnificent Failure

I recently watched a rockumentary recommended by a co-worker-- called "Dig". Made by a woman filmmaker (Ondi Timoner), it chronicles the rise and stagnation (respectively) of two bands that started off in a similar genre (psychedelic 60's rock), only one made it relatively big (the Dandy Warhols) and the other simmered in a soup of their own drug and alcohol excesses (The Brian Jonestown Massacre). Guess which one I loved?

I watched it. I loved it. I became obsessed with it and the "magnificent failure" of BJM (Malcolm McLaren's words). They even had a theory for their lack of success: they wanted to keep things "underground."

In true me fashion (you'll quickly discover my m.o. is "obsession" and its dark cousin "compulsion"), I ended up winning a fan fiction contest from an LA blog I stumbled upon one night google-stalking the members of the band. I won tickets to see them a week after I had even heard of them! My wild friend Galadrielle and I had a rock-and-roll weekend at The Roosevelt Hotel (more on that adventure later).

Since it's my very first entry, I'm going to pat myself on the back and continue this saga later. For now, a re-hash of the concert via a cut 'n paste I sent to my new email pal Jeannette from losanjealous.com (a fun LA blog):

Jeannette: Any interesting stories?

me: While Bright Channel was on, a couple young dorks arrived and decided people needed to be dancing and moshing. So they dove into the crowd and accidentally kicked my friend in the chest. We were not amused. "Is this the future of rock and roll? Everyone standing around like wax figures?" the dorks asked rhetorically. "Quit jumping my friend!" I yelled. Later on in the evening, Anton made fun of the guys yelling "rock and roll" over and over again. He mocked them and said something about how they must watch "Jackass" a lot.

I was tired of it and went to get a drink at the bar. That's when my surreal night got more surreal. A David Lynch-esque bouncer/gangster in a suit--David--bought me a drink and told me to call him in 15 minutes, at which time he'd magically produce VIP bracelets for my friend and me. I just had to meet him at the stairs. I came back and told her about it and she asked "How do you disappear for drinks and come back with VIP bracelets?" "I dunno. He said he liked my smile!"

So we're sitting in our (relatively speaking) cush seats on the stairs, with perfect views of Anton facing our way. Yes!

There was a mini-drama going on around me concerning Frankie's German girlfriend and some groupie who he supposedly recently had sex with who was by the stage in a blue hat (and looking very 80's). Both of these women were fighting and bickering the entire time(and I had a bird's eye view and could hear most of the priceless dialogue). Helga, I think her name was, complained to my friend about this woman, while Helga's friend Bettina wanted to trade my cigarettes for a swig of her Jim Beam.

Helga's and the woman-in-the hat's friends had to keep breaking up potential fights (they both disappeared for a while, so maybe they took it outside). Basically, the German girlfriend did not like that the groupie was by the stage near her man. At one point, she called out to Frankie and asked "Who's the bigger poseur? Her or me?!" He looked desperate to have them stop so he could continue playing, chewing his nails like he was nervous. Helga was crawling up the sides of the stage taking pictures of Frankie. It was as if the more pics she had of him, the more he would be hers.

The groupie later yelled "Frankie, your girlfriend's a fucking bitch!" It was then that Anton went "meow, meow, meow, meow" into the mike. THe keyboard player turned around and went "shush!" and then said "Go get me a greyhound" (cocktail). She drunkenly fished ones out of her purse and complied. I didn't see her for a while...

The night ended with some guy hanging from the rafters and then plopping down on the cement. The audience just parted like the Red Sea and watched him drop.

Jeannette: Was the subway ok?

me: Greatest people watching ever, and I've lived in NYC and San Francisco! Tweakers, gang-bangers, crackheads, and teenage punks. We spent our last couple stops to Union Station being stared at by the one white guy on the train. He was standing over us, just staring. Super-creepy.

Jeannette: Did you catch a cab?

Yup. I hailed one like a New Yorker, just in time to avoid some man who seemed to be running toward us for no apparent reason.
All in all, the BJM night of my dreams. :) They did
not disappoint.