BuggBlog

An obligatory posting from P'town

I had intended to check in with a few posts from Provincetown over the past few days, but once I got here I became pre-occupied with actually having a vacation during my vacation. So sue me, etc. But I'm relaxed and refreshed, and while I'm not blissfully unaware of important world events and gay happenings over the past two weeks (I can't resist an occasional internet connection even if I can resist a television) I am the most unplugged I've been in months, if not years, and I feel fine.

That won't last, of course, as vacation's end is inching closer by the minute, so I'll be working hard to relax as much as possible for the next three days. Shouldn't be an effort, as most of the time has been spent on moments like this:

 

I've put together a quick album of photos Cavin and I have taken so far; maybe more to come later. Right now there's some tennis that needs playing.

Being Uncle Bugg

 Cavin and I had our nephew Andrew spend a few days with us over the weekend, which was the usual bundle of rambunctious 9-year-old fun and games, with a lot of Wii Sports Resort (verdict: fun) along with some reading and math homework. Starting Sunday off with a trip to the Air & Space Museum and ending the day with a trip to a friend's swimming pool reminded me of how awesome it is to be a kid on a summer's day, even a slightly rainy one.

A few things I learned:

-- When you get in a full-motion flight simulator and let the 9-year-old boy take the "flight" controls, he will invariably cause the machine to flip and roll as fast and as often as possible. Make sure your stomach is prepared. (I finally had to pull rank and seize control before I passed out from all the blood rushing to my head.)

-- I remember having movie and television tie-ins at bookstores when I was growing up, but I just don't remember it being as oppressive as it is now. I finally had to lay down the law that I absolutely will not buy anything related to a Nickelodeon show, a Disney movie or a Nintendo video game. I'm trying to get the kid to learn how to enjoy reading a book because it's a book, not because it's going to make him ask me to follow-up on it by buying another video game.

-- I had a free-burrito coupon for Chipotle, so I took Andrew there for lunch on Tuesday and he had his first-ever burrito with rice. He liked it okay, particularly the hot sauce, but after he finished he looked at me and said, with a knowing nod, "Next time I want to go to Taco Bell. They make tacos there the real way." Sigh. I have my work cut out for me moving this kid up the culinary ladder.

-- Finally, when you're heading out to a museum and the forecast calls for rain, you really should bring an umbrella. I suppose a real grown-up would know these things.

I want to hear a song that makes me believe there's something to believe in

There was a point in my life when I thought nothing could have more meaning than music. This point, of course, was during my teenage years in high school and college.

At 16, even a Motley Crue song can carry some impressive emotional weight -- I, for one, thought Nikki Sixx to be an exceptionally talented songwriter, even if Mick Mars was a fairly pedestrian guitarist. Those emotions carry forward. To this day, every time I hear The Cars I'm transported back to my best friend Roger's basement bedroom where I watched the still-new MTV, listened to Rush albums, silently tried to figure out why I couldn't like girls the same as he did, and plotted more than a few drunken weekend excursions.

My young life had a soundtrack, one that reflected and amplified all the feelings I had, whether suppressed or not. In high school it was Motley Crue, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and Kiss. In college I started out with Rush and Metallica, and ended up with with Depeche Mode and The Cure.

But nothing really compares to the reaction I had when I first heard Love and Rockets. During my sophomore year of college, my work study consisted primarily of manning the radio station on Sundays for a re-broadcast of operas from the Met. Not being the opera sort, I would turn down the feed volume and blast albums from the newly arrived stacks over the studio monitors. That's where I first heard Express, my first true love of college alt-rock. I played the tape into static in my powder-blue 1978 Oldsmobile 98 and on the cheap stereo I was able to afford for my frat house bedroom. 

The follow-up album, Earth Sun Moon, came out during my junior year, three weeks before I came out -- or, more accurately, was forced out by an indiscreet confession and a pack of fraternity brothers. During what remains the darkest period of my life, I latched on to the album as my only life jacket, the only support that remained when everyone I had ever trusted had turned against me -- and most of that support came from the song "No New Tale to Tell":

You cannot go against nature,

Because when you do,

Go against nature,

It's part of nature, too.

That's a lot of pressure to put on a piece of magnetic tape and three men  I never had -- and never have -- met. But as cheesy as it sounds and feels from the perspective of middle-aged adulthood, the album helped save my life. Love and Rockets didn't write a song for me, but they ended up writing a song to me. While they don't and can't really know it, they're part of a frighteningly small and fragile group of people who held me together long enough for me to realize I was strong enough to be the person I was meant to be.

Shortly after college when I had moved to Northeast D.C. -- in a group house of straight women and gay guys we dubbed the Playhouse -- we for some forgotten reason had a jean jacket painting party. I chose to paint mine with a Love and Rockets motif, complete with the Bubblemen, the L&R logo and the lyrics above. I still have the jacket, one of the few pieces of flotsam from my younger years that I hold onto fiercely, far more so than my high school letter jacket or small academic awards. 

I brought the jacket out this week because a Love and Rockets tribute album, New Tales to Tell, was just released. Naturally, I immediately bought it and have been listening to it incessantly on my iPod and computer -- one thing about the future is that I don't wear out my music with repeated listening. The other thing about the future is that there's very little music that grabs me by the heart and shakes me. Books and movies have never lost their power for me, but music has faded. On some level, re-hearing the songs that made me believe I was someone is a re-energizing moment, a reprieve from surface-only enjoyment I get from music as an adult.

On another, probably more important level, it  makes me want to hear a song that makes me believe. And, at least for the moment, I do.

A blast from the past

Because I'm the go-to guy in the family for cultural detritus, my sister e-mailed me today:

Do you remember the movie when we were kids with Richard Pryor as a baseball player and someone cut him up with a straight razor?

Um, yes. Yes I do. That would be The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. I had to google the title because I couldn't remember that. But I do vividly remember sitting in a dark Paducah theater watching what seemed to be a comedy about black baseball players and suddenly there being a straight razor and a bloody outfielder stumbling onto a baseball diamond and me sitting there on a sticky fabric seat with my eyes bugging and my heart pounding and a lifelong phobia about razors taking root in my heart.

Thanks for taking me to the slashing razor baseball film Mom and Dad.

PG my fucking ass.