Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Oh Canada, Oh, Ooohh, Yes!

Learn more about this new spot for Montreal tourism. Hey, I love Montreal, and would happily go back anytime it isn't cold. Unless of course, one of these groomsmen (or stable boys) will help keep me warm.

Provincetown: Vacationing with the communists, homosexuals and artists.

At the end of a week’s vacation in Provincetown and about to come back to New York City for Tisha B’Av and then back to the life of a working copywriter. My first time here and I love it. Staying down in the East End, which is more straight than gay we discover that the house next door, 592 Commercial Street (at right in the photo next to our rental condo) was, in 1916, where John Reed (author of Ten Days That Shook The World) and Louise Bryant (of whom Emma Goldman said: She was never a Communist, she just slept with one) were staying with Eugene O’Neill. In a very unhappy threesome. And then Reed’s old flame Mabel Dodge appeared, complicating the relationships even more. Can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting something in the artistic and political history of the country — starting with the first landing spot of the Pilgrims. They probably moved on to Plymouth sensing that their fundamentalist ways would not be welcome here. The women, both Dodge and Bryant, had lesbian affairs in their history as well. As for Reed, no one’s telling. Even Warren Beatty.

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? 

Lesbians Fly the Friendly Skies...

Silverjet: Mile High Club

Posted May 30, 2007

How can you get your new airline noticed? Ah yes, lesbians in your advertising.

Okay, "the friendly skies" was of course the tagline for another airline than the one that is advertising here. But these skies are clearly very friendly. Unlike the bear commercial for Miller Lite that featured two women wrestling in a fountain, for wet T shirt titillation of men, this spot seemed not to be pandering to men at all. Why? Because it left everything to the imagination. However, the copy point made in this spot which shows two women who have clearly just gained entry into the Mile High Club, that this airline offers toilet facilities that are for women only, hardly seems a differentiating reason to fly Silverjet. But then, I'm not a woman. And as Laura Huxley's book aptly puts it: You are not the target. Nevertheless, over 25 years in the adbiz tells me that this isn't going to do much for their ticket sales. Awareness maybe. Sales? I doubt it.

Beauty Few Will Ever Get To See

I remember the first time I saw the photographs of microscopic creatures captured by the lens of Roman Vishniac. The world opened in rich and strange new ways. The photography of Fern Wood Mitchell opens another unseen world with all its mysterious beauty. For the last 20 years he has been making underwater photographs taken in the South Pacific, off the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

WIth the eye of an artist, he blows up the images larger than life, often cropping them to create organic abstracts. So it is no surprise the exhibit is called Ocean Abstracts. Mitch, as he is known by those who love him, sees the hidden treasure in life itself, with an awareness of the fragility of the eco-systems that may disappear in our lifetime. You could say that his work has political overtones in that it brings awareness to an important issue, the preservation of our oceans. But that would be a narrow reading of his achievement.

You can see his work, and meet him, on Thursday April 19th, from 6pm to 8pm on the 3rd Floor of Lord & Taylor at 434 Fifth Avenue here in NYC. The work will be on display until the end of the month, when he goes off to the South Pacific once more to dive deep. Not in NYC? See his work at oceanabstracts.com