Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sunday Morning Cartoon: The Gay World

What the right wing already believes Sesame Street is all about:

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Our Road of No Return / Anime Yaoi

Yet another reason why I love Japan. When I lived there, there were a couple of TV shows with queer characters. There was Stop Hibari Kun, about the cross dressing son of a yakuza and his crush on another boy in school. And Patariro, about an odd little king and his chief spy, who loves another male spy. Cartoons all. This however isn't the kind of comedy that those were -- this is real romance. Enjoy.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Gay Cowboys in "Tumbleweed Town"

This ain't Brokeback Mountain. And I never played with my toy cowboys like this. Clearly a failure of the imagination on my part. Click on the image and see how Todd the Tonka cowboy finds true love...

My love affair with Japanese monster movies (and Japanese men)

I was 5 years old when Rodan opened in New York City. I saw a commercial for the film on TV and I was riveted. I knew I had to see this movie. Of course 5 year olds can do nothing if a parent doesn't take him or pay for the film so I asked my folks to take me to the movie. Now I went to lots of movies. I saw The Wizard of Oz when I was 3 years old — the first film I ever saw, when it started its revival circuit before CBS got their hands on it. But my folks didn't look kindly on a monster movie (like Margaret Hamilton isn't enough to scar a child for life) since it might keep me up at night in fear. So my dad figured he could give me a little test that I couldn't pass so that he'd have an excuse not to take me. He posed a vocabulary question, assuming that I didn't understand some of what was said in the commercial. He never made that mistake again. And I got to see Rodan. And from that moment on I saw every Japanese monster movie I could. Little did I know it then, but I was also hooked on Japanese culture — and in love with Japanese men.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that all of this comes together tomorrow night at the Japan Society in New York, where there will be an evening lecture on Godzilla and Japanese Culture, with Dr. William Tsutsui, Professor of Modern Japanese History and Department Chair at Kansas University as well as author of Godzilla on My Mind, Fifty Years of the King of Monsters.

Of course, it wasn't until I lived in Japan that I saw the original Godzilla, without Raymond Burr. Sitting with my Japanese boyfriend, watching scenes of Tokyo destroyed by fire in a film made not ten years after we firebombed the city was a harrowing experience. And the intense anti-nuclear and pacifist message of the film, which was missing in the US version, hit hard. I can only imagine how it affected Japanese audiences at the time. First released in 1954, with American troops still in Japan, and war in Korea raging, it seems almost secretly subversive. And an example of how American culture can blindly pick up something without any understanding of its origins or deeper meaning and make another kind of entertainment out of it entirely — an entertainment with an American at the center.

And now we pause for the Peanuts and their rendition of the Mothra theme song:

His Body For Sale

John Derek is an actor best remembered today for the beautiful women he married — Bo Derek, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans. But in 1951 he made a film that, as advertised here in this Spanish advertising flier that I picked up in a Barcelona flea market, capitalized on his beauty. The flier trades in a whiff of homoerotic scandal with the slogan His Body For Sale plastered across his rather buff pecs.

The movie itself, known in the US as Saturday's Hero, was about a high school athlete of no great scholarly ability, who gets a scholarship at the behest of an older man who gambles on the team. Today one could have a film with the "His Body For Sale" slogan about the baseball gay porn scandal of Kazuhito Tadano. But this 1951 film is just as up to date — only the subject of how money has corrupted both the game and education in college athletics. And this old movie shows it's nothing new. For those of you who think you have never seen a John Derek film, if you've seen Heston's Moses, then you've seen Derek's Joshua in The Ten Commandments. As for his acting ability, well,  he got regular work, but Humphrey Bogart is reputed to have said to him "You look great kid, but looks are not enough." Nevertheless, posters and slogans like this always bring in audiences.

Sex and the City, Sutras in the City

Form and emptiness. Last night I came across the form of Sarah Jessica Parker (accompanied by Cynthia Nixon) filming a scene from the Sex and the City film on the south side of Bryant Park. She was in quite a wedding gown. Carrying a heavy bouquet of roses. As Chris Noth got out of the black limo, she raced towards him and slapped him across the face with the blooms, sending petals scattering across the pavement. What's a marriage without a little drama? The scattered petals only remind me of the meaning ascribed to cherry blossoms, that all beauty fades and dies. In fact everything changes. Anicca as the Buddha was wont to say. Which brings us to the sutras and emptiness (though often sex in this city can leave one with a feeling of emptiness quite different from the Buddhist concept).

Today at Radio City Music Hall the Dalai Lama took the day to teach an obscure and highly technical sutra, the Diamond Cutter's Sutra by Nagarjuna. Because I wasn't there for the start last night, I didn't have a text to follow along with the teaching. However, the man next to me was in the same boat, and he had a solution. He took out his iPhone and surfed the web until he could call up the text, and there it was on screen.

In the lobby, where I always feel a ping of attachment since my maternal grandfather was a glazier and helped hang the glass and mirrors in that great hall, I was amused to see a mural I'd seen many time with a new context. The art deco mural on the grand stairway up to the balcony shows a monk looking up towards a mountain height (just as those seekers with balcony seats had to climb the stairs) to reach a temple.

This is life in New York City. High and low. In every moment. Whether you're a queer jewish buddhist or experiencing existence in some other way.

How a gay boy lost his heart to India: From Sajid Khan to the Ramayana and Bhangra in Bryant

When I was fifteen years old there was a TV show that starred Jay North, the kid who played Dennis the Menace in the early 60s. The premise of the show was that North was searching for his lost father in India, traveling on the back of an elephant with his Indian friend, who was played by a young Indian actor named Sajid Khan. Jay North could be in one of Richard Lamparski’s "Whatever Became Of" books, but Khan went on to become one of India’s top actors and heart throbs. And when I was 15, he was my heart-throb, one more piece of evidence helping me to realize that I was a gay boy.

It was not the first time I was captivated by a young Indian. To this day
one of my favorite movies is the 1940 version of The Thief of Baghdad,
starring Sabu, who was indeed the son of an elephant driver. This film puts the Disney cartoon to shame and its special effects still hold up after all these years. But what makes this film truly great is its Huck and Jim friendship between the deposed king of Baghdad and Abu (played by Sabu) the thief. It is a deeply spiritual movie, that is also a grand adventure, a love story and fantasy. It compares more to The Lord of the Rings than to the Disneyfied remake. And like Huck at the end of his story, Sabu as Abu lights out for the territories. It was the first time in my life I’d heard of the city of Basra. And every time I hear news of this city today I am
filled with sadness. (Let’s ignore for the moment that Iraq and India are completely different cultures and the people only look alike to those who have no experience of the world and it’s many peoples.)

Sabu went on to make a number of films in the US, including the high camp
Cobra Woman, and the classic Black Narcissus which demonstrated that he was really a fine actor. But his career stalled because Hollywood couldn’t see him as anything other than the exotic elephant boy. He suffered the fate of so many actors who don’t fit the homogenized white bread image sold by the studios of the day.

Unlike so many actors with an ethnic background, a name
change wasn’t going to change Sabu’s heritage. He died young and frustrated, restricted by the racial blinders of the time. He might have done better to light out for the territories.

At this point you may be wondering if I’ve been to any SALGA dances. Or HABIBI for that matter. What I can tell you is that the other night on my way home from work I passed through Bryant Park to discover the Incredible India ad campaign was sponsoring performances of traditional Indian music and dance on a fanciful stage, and as I passed by I could see in the distance what was very clearly a performance of an episode from the Ramayana, one of the world's greatest stories. I was hooked, and was in the park in a flash. The next group of performers were Bhangra dancers. That’s right. You may know Bhangra as music, but this is how the term has changed in this generation and in the West. Its origin is as a dance style from Punjab, and there was a group of young men who demonstrated this athletic rhythmic movement with such obvious pleasure it was completely infectious. It’s amazing the whole crowd wasn’t on their feet along with them. One of the dancers moved with such sensual grace that my old memories of Sajid Khan and Sabu were reawakened.

Accuse me of sentimental orientalism if you like. Or fetishism. But a youthful attraction to these men is what opened my eyes to a wider world. Sabu was my sexual fantasy psychopomp who led my soul -- and my body all the way to Asia, where I worked for 7 years and traveled widely. (And where I discovered that I too could be objectified and made the object of a fetish for my then still red hair.)  This curious passion is what led me to discover, study and respect the beauty and value of other cultures, languages and spiritual paths. Which is no surprise really, since in both Maya and The Thief of Baghdad these handsome young men took on the role of guide to other characters through (under)worlds they did not know. It may be a cultural and artistic stereotype, but it led me to a place where those stereotypes dissolve, and then reform newly informed.

So have you had some teen crush that led you out of the closet, and out of your own culture? 

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

This Japanese New Year's post card of Hasidic Jews celebrating Rosh HaShana is one I have always loved. The phrase in English below, "Please continue your favors toward me this year too," is an English translation of the traditional Japanese request "Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu" after saying the new year's greeting which is the headline of this post.

The Jewish custom at this time of year is to seek forgiveness from others we have interacted with in the previous year, since in this time of meditative atonement, there can be no at-one-ment with God until we are at one with each other.

In that spirit, if there are any readers who have been offended by what you're read here, I ask your forgiveness. And for those who hold no anger, but only interest or affection, kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.

And while we are on the subject of Hasidic Jews and celebrations, I'd like to note that this month is also the 5th anniversary of the release of the film Trembling Before G-d. And that this film has had an enormous effect not only in orthodox Jewish communities around the world, but in other faith communities where orthodox response has broken the community and cut off those members who are queer. To celebrate the amazing changes this film has wrought, and to help continue the work it has begun, there are parties being held to support the film and its work. Follow the link if you wish to help organize a party, or attend one. Or just to buy the film — along  with a documentary about the effects of the film after its release. 

From Scissorhands to Razorhands: Depp in Sweeney Todd

Once, many years ago I heard someone spoken of as scary sexy.

It's never how I thought of the part of Sweeney Todd, despite the number of productions I've seen in varous cities around the world.

Of course, like all of us, I'd heard that Mr. D. was going to play the part in the movie. Now it's not for lack of imagination, but given that I'd never seen ST as an object of desire it didn't occur to me that when J.D. took on the role that his own smoldering sensuality would be imparted to the part.

And then I saw this poster.

OMG. And duh.

That said, the film version of A Little Night Music, despite an all star cast, was a complete disaster. So I am nervous.

And lets be clear — ST is not exactly mainstream entertainment. Or for that matter music that's pleasant. The monotonous melody drills into your skull like Steve Martin's sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors.

But somehow, seeing this poster, and the photo below, I am excited. And I don't mean aroused. I mean eager and thrilled at how this translation to film may really work in ways that a Broadway musical hasn't seen in years.

Don't talk to me about Hairspray, It's fun and wonderful and I love it, but it is made for the screen since it is completely self aware and filled with winks — ST should have none of this if it is to work. In fact, it can show the cesspool that was VIctorian London in ways we've never seen on film:

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it..." 

Just the perfect film for the holidays, eh? Works for me. Thanks to Tom and Steven for sending this on.

What's the point of a revolution without general copulation?

Two days to Bastille Day. The day when French means losing head instead of giving it. And when are we going to see a serious revival of Marat/Sade?

In the meantime, celebrate the political movement that gave the world the metric system with dinner at Restaurant Florent. Oh yes, and that fine film of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities starring heart throb Ronald Colman. "Tis a far, far better thing I do..." The frames by the way, are from the comic book that first taught me all about the French Revolution, a gem from Classics Illustrated. American manga lost to history.