The Jigtastic Journal of J. Na Na

An Open Letter to Allen, My Best Friend and Nigga 4 Life

Dear Allen,
Thank you for letting me take over your apartment when you moved away for grad school.  Now that I’m here, I’d like to sort of re-think things logistically, and take a trip back through time with you to see if we can’t have picked a place that’s just as geographically generous, but gentler on the wallet. 

That’s not to say the rent’s bad—-not in the least.  But I’d prefer an apartment not quite so vis-à-vis adjacent au pair to a full baker’s dozen snack shack shoppes, all so enticingly offering simple frozen pizza ‘n’ Odwalla dinner solutions at thirty bucks a pop.   

Nor one a mere stone’s throw away from the impossibly patronizeable Old Navy super store, practically at my front door.  You go in, you say to yourself, Oh, this cute shirt’s perfect for work and only five dollars, and these khakis are on sale, you say?  Nine minutes and a hundred sixty five dollars later, you find yourself back on Market with a loaded bag of that crap, and its bastard “Shopping Is Fun Again!” slogan grimy grinning its victory to passers-by as you tote your broke ass home.

And do I have to mention the triathlon trek you have to make just to get home?

Hi!  Where do you live?

Oh, just a Nazi death hike up hell’s hill there right at its buttery peak in the Cardiac Arrest Suites.  Myeah I’m the third floor, far end of the hall in apartment number knock knock-who’s there?-h-help! I’m having a heart attack-eleven.  Stop by sometime and we’ll have great big lung bucketfuls of hot, humid air that’s risen from the sewage streets.

Eh, I was never that partial to fresh air anyways, right?

Anyways, remind me how to switch the TV to the VCR and DVD with the Kodiak quill cables. 

I tried, but like all life in my immediate presence, the plants just up and died on me.

And yes, I am still forwarding the less interesting pieces of your mail to you (though you’ll have to forgive the occasional envelope splotches of man make-up and mangina fluidus that mistakenly arc off from their intended mark).

Missing you both literally and figuratively (as the distinction here is not so much illogical as it is emphatic),

Elgina Davina Shun syd Concepcion Josue Fabiola Enterprises, Jr.

I don’t mean fo’ be racist against nobody for nothin’, knowwhatI’msayin’? But why is it everytime I walk through my favorite gayborhood—THE Gayborhood, the one that defined them all, the one that is so stereotypically gay as gay there just ain’t no way around it–by which I mean, the Castro–why is it everytime I walk through there I always see scads of happy-ass fucking heterosexual couples and, like, no gay couples.

None.

Zilch.

Nada fo’ you mama.

I’m one of those people who’s all fucking Hallmark sappy and shit when I see a happy gay couple together as it wafts a butterfly flicker of hope my way in fanning my dream of one day too being in a happy go lucky boy-boy relationship. I don’t get pissy and bitter about it, no. It affirms my hopes for the future. And while I realize straight people are necessary to assure we as human beings have a future, we don’t need it squandered in our faces in the one place that’s suppopsed to be, like, the epicenter of queerocity.

I mean, fine, let the hets roam free, but in the name of all things Ms. Rosa Parks who done sat her tired ass at the back the bus 900 years ago and died yest morn, don’t make my sexuality take a back seat in the one place where we wiggas ride free, okay! Come out, come out, wherever you are, you stupid homo couples, and show yourselves so a little black boy like me can have some hope, hear now? Sheeeut….

The reason the radical right operates like a finely-oiled machine is because its members are fueled by fear.  Fear is a reaction more than a feeling, the impetus for the fight or flight instinct in most all living species. 

It is not, however, the way to run a country. 

Would the liberal left side be more effective if we too wrote hundreds of letters and emails anytime some boorish aristo-republican bullhorn bleated his shithead bigoted views on air?  Perhaps.  But we have a basic sense of what is right, and can’t help but think, How can anyone believe this crap for real? 

On a completely unrelated topic, anyone looking to learn English as a second language needs to do so in England, and England alone.  Why not hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak?  ESL speakers who learn the language in England automatically get a few extra IQ points simply for having command of certain non-colloquial polysyllabic words and phrases that your average American couldn’t fart out to save his life.  Got bless Ameriscia.

When I discovered my Comcast subscription included a whole set of audio-only music channels called Music Choice, it opened up a whole new dimension of fun to my already thrilling cable experience.  My channel of choice has been the ‘90s one: “Relive the diversity of the ‘90s with the top rock, pop and R & B hits of the decade.”  More of a mutt-like era in music than the current hip hop-saturated 2000s, but a wonderful trip down memory lane for my nostalgic-as-hell ass.

They also flash little nuggets of information about the artist onscreen that are sometimes relevant (“Madonna had a No. 1 hit with ‘Vogue’ on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990!”), other times ridiculous (“Shawn Colvin appeared on ‘The Drew Carey Show’!”), and occasionally just plain mean (“After leaving C + C Music Factory in 1992 Freedom Williams pursued an unsuccessful solo career!”).  In all, though, it did rally together a few thoughts I had about today’s music and those who perform it:

1. Put your dance on!

They fought so hard to get a dance music category into the Grammy’s, yet the award always seems to go to a song that is not really categorically dance as much as it is danceable.  I believe “Hella Good” by No Doubt won last year.  And “All For You” by Janet Jackson in 2001.  The first year, it went to deserving recipients and longtime disco legends Donna Summer and Giorgio Morodor for “Carry On ‘97”, and reigning DJ supreme Junior Vasquez for Best Remixer.  Of course, any validity the award might have had leapt off a cliff the year “Who Let The Dogs Out?” won.

2. Good is good, great is great

I love, love, love, love, love Sheryl Crow’s music.  “Good is Good” is such a dandelion of a ditty.  I rarely break out of my house music mold, but she just gets rock right everytime in such a way that you just can’t pass it by.

3. Just say no, no, no, no, no, if you wanna live, live, live, live, live

I think it’s great that Destiny’s Child is all about being pro-woman and everything.  Now if they’d just remember that they’re also black, and kindly stop shooting commercials for McDonald’s.  You see, as a more health-conscious mindset has taken root with the general public, the supersized fast food franchise has found itself with fewer people willing to eat from its menu of McDeath.  What’s a multi-billion dollar company to do?  Replace those little kid-appealing commercials featuring Ronald McDonald, Grimace, and the Hamburgler with a more amped up Micky D’s ad campaign aimed at the urban market: “I’m lovin’ it”, which should more accurately be called “I’m dyin’ from it”.  They serve absolute refuse, ladies.  Don’t complicity support their unconscionable efforts to target your people, and make cash a priority over the health of your community.

4. Been there, Madonna that

Is it just me, or is Madonna coming off a liiitle Kylie in her new “Hung Up” video?  “Confessions From a  Dancefloor” you say?  Honey, when’s the last time your 47-year-old pseudo-Brit butt was in an actual dance club?  For real, though?  I mean what, did you pop a couple painkillers left over from falling off that horse, ask Guy to babysit one night, and party ‘til the wee hours of 1:00 with your middle-aged “Truth or Dare” posse?  And this album is the revelatory end result of that experience?  I’m sure you’ve much light to shed on the subject.

5. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t rap ya silly bloke

No one from the United Kingdom should ever, ever, ever rap, and record it, and release an album of it… I said no!!

6. Sad Eye

I applaud Enrique Iglesias for getting that little “third eye” removed.  You don’t wanna talk about it, fine, but you’ve been able to afford it all this while, so what’s been the hold up, is all I’m sayin’.

7. Remix it or we’re not talking

Someone needs to make a house remix or two of Alicia Key’s “Unbreakable”.  Despite its shameless celebrity references, it’s got a deliciously soulful groove goin’ on that just works for me. 

Oh, and I made up my own version of that song she sings, “Some people want it all…”  It’s dedicated to a co-worker of mine who’s a little on the greedy side when it comes to pay increases and office supplies:

Some people want it all, but ______ she wants everything!

Accessories for her computer!

Raises that she doesn’t deserve!

Having a job is nice.  Having to attend job-related social functions is another thing entirely.

Case in point: Our annual/bi-annual/monthly/per-weekly staff picnic.

The place: An overcast-encased beachfront amphitheater (uh oh…).

The catch: This time, there was a “theme”.

The question most frequently overheard: “Wh-where’s the alcohol?”

Yes, the laid out plan and purpose of the staff picnic this go round was to “build trust”.  Via trust-building exercises.  Taught to us by seasoned professionals in the field, no less.  By which I mean those ASB-bred types unduly possessed of go-getter inclinations and practiced in the art of falling backwards into the hopefully-waiting arms of another, leading around lines of people with their eyes closed Rain Man-style, and forming groups of people into one big, amoeba-like circle on command.  This was all very frequently parodied in sitcoms of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, but I found it was still alive and well in today’s workplace. 

The whole three-ring event came off something like an episode of Demented Adult Romper Room, if you ask me.  A few of us, being of the less “hands-on” school of co-worker bonding (more of the let’s get our “drinks on” variety), opted out of the day’s festivities, and held court in the peanut gallery, laughing with ersatz abandon, petulantly lambasting the weather whenever it dared show itself, and plotting escape.  It wasn’t like we were trying to be self-righteously anti-social; we simply agreed that trust-building could only truly occur on the playing field itself, not through little games on the playground.  And without risk to bodily injury caused while running around on a wet, muddy lawn, to boot.

It was, as always, mucho fun chilling with my co-workers outside of the office, but it did put me a day behind on work during one of my busiest times of the year.  It also provided me with enough sun exposure to take me on through the tail end of 2006.  I looked like the Invisible Man trying to make his way in public, all armored up in my windbreaker, sunglasses, and lowered baseball cap with nary a speck of skin showing.  And STILL managed to get a low-level sunburn on my face.  I don’t know why I thought just the one coating of Coppertone in the morning would suffice for the whole day.  As SPF!

God, can you imagine if my bitch ass had been born in Siberia or the Sahara?  I believe the state of venomous misery fortified throughout the years into my soul and state of mind would have made me the perfect vessel for the coming of the anti-Christ.  Someone in the universe sure knew what the hell they were doing in making sure mama bore me in sunny, southern California.  With its Family Fun Center, department-store weather, it really is the most perfect place all year round…Well, weather-wise, at least.  

“50% of all new HIV infections occur between people aged 18 – 25.”

Source: Centers for Disease Control

That certainly lifted a weight off my shoulders when I hit 26. 

But in all seriousness, that ghastly, sad statistic has remained with me, hovering like a freak patch of heavy fog in my everyday, conscious mind.

The last time I went to Kaiser to have my ears checked out, I just remember seeing so many gay guys all in one contained edifice.  It was like the photo negative of a big, gay club scene, where deafening music had been replaced by deafening silence, and cruising eyes with pallid glances.  They were there in the lobby, walking up the stairs, getting in the elevator with me, exiting it, mostly guys around my age or a bit older, it seemed.  I was thankful my doctor’s floor served primarily non-native Asian families so I could escape from it all.  I didn’t want to think about it anymore, I knew what I’d seen.

Why does it happen to that particular age group? you have to ask.  And what do we do about it?

A few years ago, there were some pretty effective HIV-prevention ad campaigns that unabashedly used scare tactics to convey the message of a scary disease.  “HIV is no picnic” read the tagline of one campaign’s billboard, featuring a man with facial wasting in part of a series focusing on the debilitating symptoms of HIV.

Another campaign used the above statistic from the CDC as its bannerhead, and twisted requisite images of young adulthood to incorporate the letters “HIV”.  A torso-only shot of a guy wearing a letterman’s jacket reveals the letters “HIV” stenciled in gold where his name and sport should be.  Another headless shot of a girl wearing a sleeveless lavender top with a gold necklace meant to draw attention to her breasts suddenly breaks at the necklace’s cursive three-letter emblem.  I’ve certainly never gotten these images out of my head, not helped by the fact that I passed them twofold each work day when taking the Muni, then some more on the weekends.  Really drove the message home.

But I have to wonder if it was ever introduced beyond the boundaries of San Francisco, to the rest of America’s youth.  I doubt it.  But I also wonder just how effective it was within those boundaries, right at ground zero, where the fabric of time was first ripped, and sent hundreds of thousands of men to an early grave.

Some blame it on crystal meth, but that’s just a catalyst, isn’t it?  You still have all your senses about you on meth; in fact, they’re heightened.  But you can get completely stinking-ass drunk and have no idea what you did the night before after blacking out.  God knows it’s not helping anything, but meth and other controlled substances do not instantly whiplash you into a brand new person with a completely different personality courtesy of a brand new brain.  You may not be thinking clearly, but your mind’s still working.  Just with a different spin on its usual routine.   

–Okay, and here’s the part where the future father in me lays on the loud, neon disclaimer: This does not mean you should rush out and partake of illegal drugs.  For one, they are illegal, which, respective of moral or ethical grounds, bespeaks a measure of Trouble with a capital T that you needn’t engender unless you hate being a free, fun-loving citizen.  In tandem with that, such illegality comes borne of a concern for the common good, or as I like to refer to them, the common dumb.  Ill-possessed of physiological awareness, mental acuity, and emotional wherewithal, the common dumb are simply not equipped to go taking these demi-poisons and continue sub-functioning at permissible levels.  If you’re none too fit as a person normally, why on earth would we want to legally allow you to enhance such lameness to rabid degrees?

But for many people, drugs and alcohol can lift inhibitions and poke up into different spheres of thinking and feeling that translate into their sober reality later.  So it’s not all bad, but it’s not all good.  I just wonder where you get to the point where you say to yourself, I’d rather feel good for these couple of minutes having unprotected sex rather than live the rest of my life.   How do you decide your life’s not worth it in that instant, all at once?  All the years rolling out ahead of you snapped up short like a rug pulled out from underneath your feet at your own doing. 

And hasn’t anybody heard of fucking masturbation for God’s sake?  If you’re that horny and don’t have a trusted other homo handy, take matters into your own hands.  Save your life while you’re at it.

I guess the big question is for that 18 – 25 year-old target group: Do you love yourself? 

You can use haunting images to scare people into a permanent state of trepidation over HIV, like old wive’s tales used to keep children from going out into the forest at night.  I don’t see anything wrong with slapping reality across the face of my fellow haughty young hotties.  But that’s just drawing the lines in the battlefield.  How do you win? 

Maybe if we had more of a sense of community?  Maybe if you, say, volunteered a little time to your local Gay & Les Center, or some queer-oriented charity.  Is that too Mr. Rogers-sounding?  It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.  If we stopped seeing each other as the competition and the prize, and leveled out to a broader mindset, all the different facets of ourselves would trickle out and blend like so many streams rushing out into a river at different angles.  Propelled forward with the flow all at once, realize how strong you are, and not get caught up in the game of hunter and prey, trailblaze your way towards greater things.

Out of the kindness of my cold, black heart, buoyed by the influence of an illicit substance, and nudged on by the reigning question of his sexuality, I invited Ming Na out clubbing with me Friday night. My last couple of trips to my favorite club haunt, The End Up, had proven less than satisfying. But my love of house music and gay sex remained strong, so I figured, why not beef up my next visit with something different to recapture that old magic?

And lest your mind lead you down dark paths to dirty places, I hasten to add that my intentions were 80% bonding-focused and only 20% sexual. I’d had far too chubby of a week to think I’d be scoring with anyone that night. (Though it always seems to be on those un-Nair-ed, workout-lapsed weekend nights that you get some play, have you noticed?)

Admittedly, my initial plan for our first bonding experience was along the more PG lines of seeing "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory". But ever the lazy ass and despiser of outdoors and others, I never got around to purchasing the tickets from work.

If it’s not online, I haven’t the time.

Besides, since his bedroom door was wide open with his televison audibly tuned in to the banal TGIF line-up, I felt Ming Na was sort of calling to me in his own silent, ESL way.

Had he been out clubbing? I asked

Only to some bars with co-workers, he confessed. What kind of club was it? he inquired.

A house club; it’s lots of fun, I responded, omitting the fact that, well, the name of the night was Fag Fridays.

In addition to the Christmas tree of characteristics alight on my person that highbeam my gayness (gay face, gay body type: emaciated female supermodel variety, gay voice, gay attitude, et. al.), I’d mentioned in my ad for the apartment that I was gay, so Ming Na knew. The closest clue I had to his orientation was the missing field pertaining to such in his Friendster profile–generally a tell-tale sign that someone’s inching towards battin’ for the Pink Team, if not up for a trial run.

A full-fledged night at the End Up was a bit like throwing him into the thick of it straight off, subjecting him to the ravages of the SF rice queens and all. But I had no time for Clubbing 101: The Cafe, nor would I dare fall prey to participation in the "coming out talk". With age comes wisdom, but not an improved attitude. I just expect that someone around my age would possess the wherewithal to know on which side of the sexual orientation fence they stand, and have a surface-level understanding of what that entails. I felt Ming Na was plenty old enough to be exposed to the gay club scene in its rawest form. I mean, it wasn’t like I was taking him to a bath house or anything. (Ick.)

And besides, I would be there by his side aptly guiding him along with uncharacteristic patience, as fueled by acute inebriation, profferring judgment on each order, genus, class, and species of homo that came along.

Likewise, while I’m no clothes horse, I could help out pre-show by flagging stark fashion faux pas for him. I have a notion of what looks good on a person, and could write a book on what so definitely does not. As someone who once freefalled into the club scene with half-attached glasses, dressed something like the clown from Stephen King’s "IT", I know whereof I speak, and have come a long way, baby.

I mean, I’m not so conservative as to completely avoid a little color, but I subscribe to the mantra of dressing in what looks best for you, not dressing for effect. Gay men often attempt that boy next door, A&F look when they go out, but at best only achieve a Bizarro world facsimile thereof. The boy next door doesn’t pluck his eyebrows into oblivion, nor boast surrealy-perfect facial-blessed skin, nor does he swing his shopping bags to and fro when out in public, personifying fey in a way that rigidly contrasts with such rugged, great outdoors-intended attire.

That’s not to say I do not fully and wholeheartedly endorse–nay, champion the getting of facials. Not in the least. But let’s cut the crap, Jan. Really.

Anyways, I ended up having to keep the aforementioned gems of wisdom to myself that night, as 12:30 proved to be too late for Ming Na to head out as he had to work the next day.

Go figure.

Still, there will always be next weekend. And with it, the renewed opportunity to apply a fresh, new coat of Nair. Mm mm good.