Thursday, June 19, 2008

the same, but different

I'm in Los Angeles as I write this; actually, I'm West Hollywood-adjacent...paying by the minute at the Kinko's on Sunset Blvd. I've been in SoCal since Sunday and I return to Chicago on June 22nd..the anniversary of Judy Garland's death in '69 (faggotini factoid, as a dearly departed friend would call it), and then I jaunt to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, the site of the annual Judy Garland Festival. I was an invited participant two years ago there and I've been asked again this year to present another video seminar/Q&A this year.

It's a wonderful, off-the-beaten-track three days in the small town, full of Munchkins (yep, the surviving ones from the 1939 movie!), fans, a few peculiar, fervent fans, Judy's son, Joe Luft, and, in years past, Lorna Luft; Lorna is abroad performing at the moment so she won't be there this year. It's a wonderful time and I've never seen water and sky so blue. Last year, we spent the Monday after the festival ended to go speed boating on the water and visit the town's mogul. It was glorious and a glimpse in an era gone by but still alive in a pocket of a very small town in Minnesota.

Under any criteria, wee Grand Rapids isn't bustling, ain't crowded and the pace is lanquid. I remember when I was there last time, the Festival director and I were waiting for the light to change to cross the town's 'busiest intersection' (I think there are only four roads in the entire town...) and he said, with a straight face, 'my gosh, look at all those cars on the road.' There were only EIGHT. "It's rush hour now. It's going to take me fifteen minutes to get home."

In 2006, the Festival arranged for a huge Hummer stretch limo to pick us up: Joe, The Munchkins, and me. The Hummer was so TALL, a box had to be placed under the car door when they jumped out so they had something to land on. It was like a Japanese clown car -- with little people. Dozens of 'em jumping out of the yellow pimp Hummer and bouncing on the crate box before hitting the red carpet which was unfurled to lead them from the limo into the hotel. I had a grand time that weekend, as they used to say, and I bet this year's festival will be just as fabu, if not more so.

The four-day Festival attracts hundreds of people from the States and abroad, young, old, gay, straight and those occasional in-betweens. I remember after giving my video seminar in '06, one lumberjack type (picture the original "Brawny" man from the vintage paper towel commercials) shuffled up to the desk where Iwas signing books and DVD's and he he said, haltingly, "My wife dragged me here. I don't know much about Judy Garland but there's nobody like her. She's the greatest."

A real-life lumberjack at a Judy Garland Festival? Talk about Dream Date...!

It's funny. After living in L.A. for over 25 years, it's odd to return as a visitor. I'm staying with a great, dear friend who generously is putting me up, and putting up with me, for the week that I'm in town. He's the friend I gave my furniture, bedding, kitchen stuff et al to when I moved; so it's comforting and yet odd at the same time, to see my old furniture and the rest in HIS place, and I'm surrounded by it all. One more visual to show me where my life was and where it is now. Everything in L.A. is the same as it was in January when I left but yet, everything is different. Of course, what's different is me. I spent too much time drifing in L.A. -- there's none of that in Chicago. A friend here astutely remarked, "People live in Chicago because they want to be in Chicago. People live in L.A. because they have an agenda for something else." He painted with a broad brush in that remark, pointedly, but I got what he said.

I don't feel that I belong in L.A. any longer; a few nights ago, I was in my rental car and I thought, I really am missing being home -- home, being Chicago. Maybe it's the fact that I own a home and I'm anchored in Chicago but it's more than that...I feel that L.A. wasn't good for me the last year or so and I probably wasn't much good for it, either. After my breakup with my ex, I was adrift and sad and unsettled and memories were everywhere. I do have sentiments about him as I drive all over town, remembering things we did and places we enjoyed. I actually thought about calling him, but I won't. I admitted to CB (when she asked, intuitive soul that she is) that I had been thinking about him and she wasn't surprised. It was after the 2006 Judy confab that my ex told me he was in love with me, so being in L.A. and the upcoming Judy event both contribute to this, I am sure. The good thing is that I can admit those feelings but I don't have to act upon them.

I have changed a great deal in the last eight months, since my mom got sick. I feel that I lived in sort of a suspended, protracted gay male adolescence that only went away when I had to face the mortality of my only surviving parent (and, thus, my own). You will either rise to the occassion or crumble under the emotion, pressure and newfoundr responsibilities. Even at the most difficult moments in Chicago, I have never once thought that I made a mistake by moving there or keeping the house, fixing it up and not selling it. I have a place where I belong and it has changed me at my core.

I have spent this week seeing old friends, seeing my cardiologist, etc....and it's been great. I miss them all very much but online communication really makes it far less than it would be otherwise. CB is somehow taking time out of her enormously busy schedule (during a high-profile, high-budget production) to shop with me and save me from myself when it comes to me not picking the right thing or the right color; when I got the gay DNA, the design-clothes-color strains were absent. In that sense, I am a gay man trapped in a straight man's psyche..I know what I like when I see it but I could pick it out or coordinate if my life depended upon it.

While I'm here, the painters are at the house and the carpenter is there too (more or less) doing work and supervising. I have a lot to do here but not soooo much that I'm overloaded. My friend, DA -- whom I met in 1980 when I put an ad in The Advocate for a roommate -- is being very generous in putting together a video presentation for the Judy Festival, which involves multiple nights and a lot of clips and editing.

Of course, I am doing some gay things while I'm in L.A. I'm seeing Liza at The Hollywood Bowl on Friday night with the boys and I'm seeing Dr. Harvey tomorrow for a splash of Botox and laser skin peeling on my face; how else can I be on the doorstep of 40 and not go over that cliff?

The other day, I visited an old friend who had way too much work done and not good work. His attractive gray hair was now a montone Just For Men shoepolish black and his rugged face was now so full of facial filler that he looked like a peeled, overripe apple. He had some lip injection too which makes him look like he is perpetually about to sneeze. His handsome late 40's mug is now looking like a pie crust with eyes. I wanna go back to Chicago...!