Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Crotch Watch

This is the sexiest ad for jock itch cream I've ever seen. And I've been in advertising for a long time. Why don't I ever get clients like this? Never get the chance to choose models like this. Not sure if that's the result of good or bad karma.

Not like I haven't had fun. My very first day of work at Ted Bates sometime in the late '70s (told you it was a long time) my boss told me that Playtex — the company that made the "Cross Your Heart Bra" that "lifts and separates," was coming out with a new panty/girdle that did the same thing for the butt. And they wanted a name for the product that was just slightly risque — playful but not over the line. I wrote about 100 names that afternoon and had a blast — you don't have to be straight to enjoy writing for that sort of thing. The client loved many of the names and used not a one. They went the conservative route they had always chosen. And that has been the story of my career in a nutshell. Though I haven't had a product like that in a long time. Thus no opportunity to audition some sexy talent. Probably for the best.

Guys Checking Each Other Out At Urinals In Advertising

I think I'm actually going to have to start a file of ads with this visual trope: two men at a urinal, and one is looking (or appears to be looking) at the other's equipment. Usually in these ads the joke is that the apparent voyeur is looking at shoes, or a watch. In this ad for sunglasses though, it is clear that not only is the guy pee-pee peeking (couldn't resist that alliterative flourish) but his eyes betray his judgment of the object of his attention as lacking. Thus a clever ad for sunglasses that hide what your eyes can't. Still, soon there will be a wall just of urinal advertising.

What this actually means in terms of either male insecurity, what ad agencies think will get attention or either homophobia or homo-eroticism I leave to you.

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.

Learn to meditate for free...

When I first started looking for a meditation teacher, i found the lots of places charge big bucks to teach a wide variety of techniques. Some guru or other will sell you your own personal mantra. Every teacher I looked at didn't feel right to me — there was much about the commercial side that felt somehow wrong. In Buddhism, the concept of dana, free giving, is often used in relation to the gift we give a teacher who has given us the gift of the teaching. Where I eventually went to do my first meditation course, the spirit of free giving was clearly in place. I went because I was told that the course was free — ten days food and board. And that when it was over, I could choose to give something back or not, give a little or a lot, but it was not to be considered payment for what I learned, but a gift to the next person who came. That worked for me. And it has worked to make the people I learned from a worldwide organization that continues to grow.

It is true that many teachers abuse the concept of dana. Brad Warner in his book Sit Down and Shut Up mentions one teacher who took skydiving lessons and a luxury cruise from his students under the guise of dana. And we all know the gurus in Mercedes. Not that there is anything wrong with a Mercedes or skydiving lessons. It's about attachment. Walking the talk.

All this is a long introduction to the fact that October 22nd thru 29th, MeditateNYC is offereing free instruction in this ancient practice in venues throughout the city, taught by well respected people. Free.

And it all starts on October 21st from 1pm to 6pm at the Synod House of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Amsterdam Ave. and 110th St.). The location alone should tell you that this is for all people, of any faith or background. And because the teachers will be from many different Buddhist traditions, the techniques taught will either be silent meditation, movement meditation, chanting meditation or even using music. For more information, and  to find out where  the many teachings will take place during that week, go to  MeditateNYC.org

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama is in town this weekend teaching from an obscure sutra at Radio City Music Hall. Hearing him will be my Shabbat observance this week, after I have attended to the prime action of spiritual self care — taking care of my body — by doing my Pilates workout with my trainer at the New York Health and Racquet Club.

Masturbation in Advertising

Advertising about advertising. Advertising about advertising that sucks up to creative directors. Talk about masturbation.  Perhaps that is the point here — a visual pun that manages to give some creative egos hard strokes (though in a very creepy way). Come again?

Maybe this is just an international appeal for Congress (or ad execs) to support adding trans protection to ENDA. With well known creatives (Bogusky, Droga, etc) willing to appear as in the middle of MTF transition. Somehow I think not. Then there's that sort-of rainbow logo. What?

And why isn’t there a foot in wide stance under the wall from the other stall in the D. Droga version? They’re missing an opportunity to be even more scatologically topical.

I have no idea what the point of this work from an Italian advertising, uh, blog? agency? is. But I suppose they might believe they succeeded in getting buzz simply because I am writing it. But this is infantile attention getting in the most tasteless way. It's one thing to be a star fucker, but to be a star masturbater takes things to a whole new level.

Oy, You Don't Want To Know From The Future

Monday Morning Curmudgeon: Bus Shelter Hazards

I like the new bus shelters in Manhattan. Each one has the intersection name, such as Lexington Ave. & 86th street, large and easy to read so you can always tell where you are. Except for this bus shelter along the 7 & 11 routes up Amsterdam Avenue. Many of these shelters don't have the location visible. But the corrosively bright light that would enable one to read the location is on anyway, blinding cab drivers and pedestrians alike as they make their way up the avenue.

This photo doesn't capture the punishing glare of these incomplete shelters. Mind you, this wouldn't be an issue if the missing location sign went up after a week of absence. Or two weeks. Or three. No, these shelters have not had any location signs since they went up more than a month ago. It is one thing to pollute the environment with advertising lit up bright. But light pollution that burns the eyes is — well, I suppose since the MTA can't hurt our ears with screeching train brakes above ground, this will just have to serve their sadistic ends. Just another example of the MTA not caring about its passengers. An outrage.

Does Professor Henry Higgins Have Asperger’s Syndrome?

Roundabout has a love affair with Shaw. Hardly a season goes by without a revival of one of his plays. This season it is the Ur text for My Fair Lady, Pygmalion. Leading a great cast is Jefferson Mays, who seems to play Higgins as though he had Asperger’s Syndrome. This is not a criticism — the clues are all there in the text, but of course when the play was written this syndrome and its diagnosis was yet to be recognized.

So what are the symptoms? An extremely limited area of interests that is followed with a monomaniacal pursuit. Difficulties in basic social interaction and an almost complete lack of social or emotional reciprocity that makes them seem insensitive and rude and that they are oblivious to. Language is also an area the sufferers of AS find themselves in difficulties — they may have a sophisticated vocabulary and they use it to speak at length about their abnormally focused interests to the point of boring their listeners.

Knowing this, I challenge you to see this performance and not come away thinking that this was not only written into the character (despite there being no understanding of this syndrome there have always been people like this we could recognize) but with today’s understanding, directed into the characterization by Mays. And as the curtain falls we can see his suffering.

I don’t want to reduce this great play or excellent production to this one issue — it’s just that it was so striking to me. But there was much about this production that was striking. The feminism of the play is brought to the forefront in a way that isn’t one dimensional, but captures all the contradictory impulses of men and women in their relationships.

Boyd Gaines, who is quite a stage presence, was very clearly one of a perfectly pitched ensemble of players. Clare Danes, who is called on to transform linguistically, also showed the changes with a subtle body language that communicated the emotional subtexts to those moments when she had to silently endure the chauvinism and classist assumptions of those around her.

This was such a meaty production my companion and I found ourselves talking about it late into the night — at least until we got to Vlada and the gin began to flow. And on that drama I will draw the curtain.

Protesting Meditatively: Support for Burmese People at the U.N.

How many times have you been to a protest rally and had to endure the angry rants of angry people amplified to painful pitch through bullhorns? Today's protest outside the UN did not fit that description. Led by local Buddhist monks, it was an exercise in watching the mind — how there is violence in all of us. And a reading of the Metta Sutra, praying for the peace and happiness of all beings.

As I sat in meditation I thought of other religious figures who were victims of a violent regime. I was thinking of Rabbi Akiva, who was flayed to death by the Romans for teaching Torah. The story of the moment of his death is that it was time to say the Sh'ma — the prayer of unification and awareness of the oneness of reality. It is said that he spoke this prayer with calm devotion while in the most excruciating of tortures. And he explained that he was able to do this because the first time he was his full devotion was tested,  a devotion that is of the heart, body, mind and soul which is called for by the prayer.

Today throughout Burma there are people who have taken the Buddhist vows who are being tested in this way by a government as cruel and hateful as the Romans. And the protesters at today's rally were tested to live, as Thich Nat Hanh has called it, peace in every step. This is the way of Ghandi. And it was the way of Christ as well, forgiving the torturers because the act in ignorance. And to practice this way one does well to remember a precept from the Pirkei Avot:

"it is not your job to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."

One of the things one prays for as a Buddhist is addiction to results. Today's demonstration would have been very unsatisfying for many people. (Not that the loud demonstrations of my youth were effective) And I don't mean to suggest that specific action should not be taken. Only that, as Krishnamurti said it, the only real revolution is within.

We must be free of the hate we seek to end, we take important action to end over and above meditating. But if we aren't eradicating the hate in our own hearts we are only perpetuating the cycle of violence. I am certainly not free of this hatred. I feel the anger rise when I think of any of the juntas of the last 50 years in Burma, Chile, you name it.

This evening at 5pm there will be more demonstrations, meditations and action organizing in Union Square Park.

Sex Negative AIDS Awareness Advertising

Creating ads that conflate sex with death is positively medieval. But this TV spot, created by Leo Burnett in France is being talked up around the ad boards on the web as award material. Not in my book thank you very much. The copy simply says that every 10 seconds someone dies of AIDS. Okay, we all know that. We all know that how it is spread (I don't notice anyone shooting up in this commercial) and what to do to prevent it. This spot doesn't add to the discussion, but it does make pretty video. In fact it is rather, uh, salacious, and may in fact trigger more people to go have sex than to convince them that it's dangerous. And for that reason alone, you'll never see it on U.S. tv. No, sex doesn't equal death, as the old ACT UP activists knew, silence does. And this "public service" spot counts as silence to me, since it doesn't actually say anything. Or anything positive that would get anyone to change their behavior. It might get the director a job filming soft porn though.