DOWN UNDER...the harbor ----- Australia part 1

    No one comes to mind more than my dear, dear, dear Australian friend, Michael V. He is grossly over-paid and strangely under-wrinkled.  He has a very senior position in Human Resources for a huge company and is responsible for occasionally hiring but mostly firing people, a job perfectly suited for someone as proudly vile and contemptuous as him. I've been anxiously waiting for him to age but he’s had the same baby face for 15 years.  Last time he visited San Fran I still had a gray beard and he made sure to point out my aging.

"Thank you for getting old enough for the both of us, darling. It's very thoughtful of you," he pecked my cheek and patted my back." It's amazing how every time I see you Gary, you get older, and grayer, and balder, and poorer, and I think even shorter."
     " I don't understand. How do you look the same year after year? What are you having done?"
    " Everything you can't afford." 
    " You can't keep it up forever"
    " As long as there's white rhino horns and blue whale blubber left in the world I can."
                                                              
                                     ---from PORTRAIT OF DORIAN BROWN  part 2, 3/27/11



    The airplane I'm on heading towards Australia has just taken off, so there's no turning back. My dear, dear, dear friend Michael V has paid for my entire round trip flight and has also completely  furnished the second bedroom of his new swinging singles pad only a week after he signed the lease just so I would have a comfortable room for myself.  I consider this an amazing gift. I also consider it the prize for  surviving as the victim of his brutal humor longer than any other human being. My only real competition was a friend of his named Trevor, another person Michael loved to make fun of. Unfortunately Trevor died very unexpectedly last year, strangely enough, from causes unrelated to Michael. 
    The same thing can't be said about another coincidentally deceased friend of Michael's named Paul. Paul was a fellow Australian who rented a room in Michael's apartment back when he lived in San Francisco. He was a tall, blond trainer at Gold's Gym who just happened to be a little overweight and was havng a difficult time getting new clientele.
   "Paul, it's simple. No more biscuits and milkshakes everynight. If you want to increase your business, you first have to decrease your waistline." Michael burrowed his way into Paul's mind like Hannibal Lecter until he convinced Paul to have liposuction. Paul had the procedure and, to the total shock of everyone, died of complications from the surgery a few days after. At Paul's funeral all eyes were on Michael as if he was a murderer.
  " It wasn't my fault. He asked me if I thought he was fat. Was I supposed to lie?' Michael tried defending himself to his accusers. " I was just giving him advice. It was part of his business plan."  We got out of the funeral parlor just in time, right before Paul's mother arrived. " I can't believe Paul did this to me! Next time I'm accused of killing someone, I'm  coming in disguise. Something with a black veil," he said as we hurried to his car.  
    With Trevor and Paul both dead, I am the last of his favorite targets still standing. I'm also one of his favorite people in the world, and he is one of mine. I realize as I'm writing about Michael I should try to make you also see his good qualities, which he usually hides for entertainment sake. He is so much more than the vile person he claims to be. First of all, he votes much more liberally than he makes people believe. He is also one of the most loyal and dependable friends I've ever had, and is one of the two most generous people I know ( My ex Alex being the other). He doesn't care about getting gifts in return as much as he values kind gestures that show extra effort. Michael has always been hard-working and full of energy, and is annoyed that he has to waste time sleeping. Michael is also fearlessly outspoken and lies much less than other people.  He is astute and perceptive, and is level-headed when giving advice to others and making decisions for himself. He is a man of his word and tries to be as fair as possible when he makes any kind of deal( Just don't ever try to get the upperhand on him. You'll regret it). Above all, Michael V is hilarious. He makes everyone in a room laugh even if they don't want to. He skewers himself just as much as he makes fun of other people, and is comfortable enough to sometimes be as queenie and outragious as everyone hopes he'll be.    
  To downplay his own kindness, Michael has been trying to convince me that the reason why he is flying me half way around the world is to see how much more I've aged in a year, and to laugh at how much older I'm going to look than all the Aussie boys at the events he's taking me to for Sydney's gay version of Mardi Gras. 


" Mirror, mirror on the wall,
will Gary be the oldest at the Ball? "

" Yes, my queen, that is true, but Gary will still find a date faster than you"

  " We already have tickets for The Harbor Dance for when you arrive. You'll surely to be the oldest and hairiest man there. It's the most superficial, young, beautiful group of bitches I've ever seen. They make me sound like Mary Poppins. Wait to see how they run screaming from you. They'll jump in the harbor just to get away," he cackled over the phone a few days ago.
   " Michael, there's always guys who love my type. And there is no one who does the bald and hairy thing better than me. I stand alone," I told him with my unflappable confidence that always eggs him on.
   " Oh believe me, you will stand alone. ALL alone."
  We both laughed and described how we each envisioned The Harbor Dance. His vision was, of course, more brutal.
   " I better doublecheck to see if  'the handicapped' are even allowed in. I saw a group of gorgeous boys with their shirts off push a man in a wheelchair right into the harbor last year. Thank God you can hide your hideous handicap, at  least until you open your mouth."
   " Isn't it strange that both our handicaps are obvious when we open our mouths. Mine is my stutter and yours is your personalty. How do you plan on hiding that?"
    " The only thing I'm planning on hiding is my wrinkles. A person is allowed to be a bitch at The Harbor Party, but not a wrinkled bitch. The problem is you're not even a bitch. You're just wrinkled. That has to be worse," Michael pointed out. " And just to be sure I look my youngest when I stand next to you, I've scheduled another Botox appointment for Friday before your arival."
    " What happens if standing next to me actually makes you look older instead of younger, and we become 'those two old guys standing over there'? " 
    " Then I'll push you into the harbor faster than the guy in the wheelchair."
   My 23 year old friend Zel, who for the past few months I've been playing 'Big Brother plus' with, has been hearing my wild Michael V stories and listening to Michael and I carry on over the phone as my departure date got closer. A few hours before I left for the airport, Zel insisted that I get extra travel insurance just incase something strange and unexpected happens while I'm with Michael. I let him sign me up for it just because his concern was so sincere and sexy.
    I am now the proud holder of a $98 policy that covers me for emergency dental work up to $3000, emergency surgery up to $25,000, emergency medi-copter transport up to $100,000, including injury caused by a nuclear incident, a terrorist attack, or an act of God. Unfortunately there was no policy that covers me specifically against an act of Michael V, but I think I'll still be fine.

Michael V's ass blocking the view of

The Sydney Opera House AND The Sydney Harbor Bridge 

at the Harbor Dance

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MIDDLE CHILD

My older brother Mitchell, my younger sister Missy,
and me wearing a Thurston Howell III ascot.

      The middle child, which I proudly declare myself to be, began appearing in large numbers throughout The United States after WWII. Americans were fucking like crazy, especially Jews who were having sex more than anyone else, trying to make up for the 'recent dip'  in numbers they had lost in Europe. All this sex paid off, and by 1959 the average (and loud)  American household had 3.7 children.
    But by the early 60's, the number of  new babies slowed down. The birth control pill made its debut and became almost as popular as the Beatles. Also contributing to the slowdown was the fact that Jews finally started to trust that the Nazis might actually not be coming back again, which allowed them to relax a little and not frantically fuck to save their future. By 1965 when my baby sister, Missy, was born, the average number of children in U.S. households dropped to 2.6. That number has continued to drop every year since, and now stands at 1.8 children.  0.2 percent shy of having a second child who has all his body parts.

2.6 CHILDREN

1.8 CHILDREN

     As shocking as it might sound, this steady decline is bringing about the end of the middle child. Yes, the middle child is becoming extinct faster than the Humpback Whale. There are less of my kind now than there has been in 60 years. Now, the second child who in the past would have very likely grown up as the middle after the next sibling was born, is ending up being the last child, better known as the youngest. The middle child slot is getting cut out of the equation. The majority of kids under ten don't even know a middle child in their age group. We are becoming something that mothers only in the past gave birth to, kind of like the Thalidomide 'flipper' babies who aren't seen anymore. 
    When I write about the middle child, I'm referring to the true middle, who only exists in a threesome. Technically, if there are four siblings, the second and third ones are in the middle. But a middle shared by two is overpopulated. They divide the position and diminish the impact their family has on them and that they have on their family. Also, a true middle can only be at most  3-4 years, preferably 1-2 years, apart from both the oldest and youngest.  This way, the three can closely interact with each other and any adult who is helping to raise them. Only then can a middle child's personality take its full functioning form. And don't think for a minute that you can become a true middle by default. If the second child of that family of four teenage siblings has the bad luck of being crushed to death in her car by a gigantic display soccer ball, the third born does not automatically become a true middle. The order changing later in life doesn't change how a child learned to deal with life. So it's impossible to all of the sudden turn yourself into a middle child.   
    I realize that not too many siblings have fantasies about being the middle child, and there are probably not too many children who are hoping a sibling dies just so they can claim the middle thrown.  Even at the height of our popularity when we were in almost every household, the middle child has always been considered by people who study the chronology of siblings to be ' the second-class citizen of the birth order'. The assumption made by some birth order experts is that the middle child suffers from a terrible identity crisis. This is based on the premise that being the first child  and being the last child are the only viable two positions to hold. 'Middle' isn't even considered an actual position, it's more the lack of a  position.
     To make a comparison, all you have to do is think of  New York as the first born and San Francisco as the last born, and what's left in between is the entirely-less-important 'middle of the country'. Pointing this out does not mean for a moment that I'm defending the middle states. With all the guns and bibles being stockpiled, they can surely, and unfortunately, defend themselves. I am, however, here to defend the word 'middle' and to help define its glory.
     I will admit that the 'middle' can sometimes be a bad thing, like  the middle of a brawl, the middle row of teeth on a shark, the middle of a quicksand pit, middle-school gym class, the Middle East, the middle seat during a car crash, the middle finger, middle-age onset dementia, middle-of-the -road, and the proverbial 'middle of nowhere'.
   The word 'middle' is at its best when it is the connection between two hard- to-reach places, or people. Every bridge built and every road laid is the middle between two points, as are all the oceans and seas. It's what we have to travel through, over, on, or in to get where we want. And wherever the middle might be is always where two opposing sides demand to meet. It's the ethereal place where deals and compromises are made, a murky marshland that only the middle child has the tools to navigate. We can read signs and signals better than our siblings. We can also survive rough, lonely voyages if we have to. Though we really don't want to.
   The identity crisis the middle child supposedly suffers is actually nothing more than the 'crisis' of having to create our own role in the family.  Something that has already been long-defined for both the first-born and the last-born child. They have a specific place; we instead have a specific job.  Parents don't quite know what to expect from a middle child, and have a more difficult time defining us in simple terms, especially if they are not middle children themselves. Figuring out the other two children takes much less thought and skill. We usually end up figuring out our role by ourselves without our families really ever understanding the complexity of the job we do. The other family members have only one role that they play over and over, like Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! The middle child, on the other hand,  is like an understudy who can jump from role to role. It keeps us fluid and in a constant state of adjusting ourselves when a situation calls for us to.   
   It sounds exhausting, but it's not if you are a middle child. Our need to connect  is one of the driving forces of our lives, and the energy we have in reserve to do so is one of our greatest resources. Personally, I have put an amazing amount of energy into maintaining my connections. If the amount of energy I have spent just making sure my ex-boyfriends and I remain close could be converted into electricity, there would be enough to light up The Castro Theater for a year.  I have spent my entire life making deals and striking bargains to give people what they've wanted and to get what I've needed, raising the act of compromise into an art form. 
    To me, and most other middles, coming to a compromise is a natural and simple act.  One of the easiest things in life to do. For some people though, it's one of the hardest, and they see it as failing instead of succeeding. Hearing about the ongoing Israeli -Palestinian conflict and about the stonewalling stunts of the Republicans drives me particularly crazy as a  middle child. It goes against the essence of who we are. Being unwilling to compromise on even a single detail or make trades for things you want or need is one of the most arrogant postures a person can take, especially for a politician who's personal life in all probably isn't even effected by the outcome. I seriously doubt that there have been a lot of middle children involved in the Peace Process over the past decade, and I wonder just how much more peace we could actually bring. 
     Being in the middle has always made me feel more special, not less. It has also made me feel safe and loved. And when I'm in the middle my gravitational pull is at its strongest. So be careful not to let me squeeze in between you and someone else, or you might end up being sucked into a world you can't get out of...    

I was only 8  here but already my brother and sister didn't stand
a chance. I stuck myself right in the middle with my striped pants
and big crooked smile. My mother Priscilla was obviously trying to
get better picture placement as well in that fabulous Ann-Margret outfit

This was taken back in our twenties
when Scott and I were breaking up
and Pepe and I were starting to date.

  Our friend Mark, who was an amazing artist, made us pose like this. He was painting a mural and needed three male bodies  so we volunteered. This is not how we normally sat hanging out on a relaxing afternoon. Somehow I wound up in the middle.

Even in group shots I managed to get close to middle.

This shot from last year
is my most recent 'middling' I could find.
I promise I will stop thrusting myself
into the center, at least in front of a camera.

                       

                         

MUSHROOM MUG

     Last year, my dermatologist made the big mistake of telling me that there is only a 2% chance of my precancerous Actinic Keratosis, or AKs, actually turning cancerous, and that he could freeze off the ones on my head. He should have lied and told me they were all melanomas, and that if I went to the tanning salon again I would end up with a hole in my skull the size of a moon crater. I'm sure he regrets showing me just how quickly and easily the freezing works. It is the perfect remedy for someone like me who has always believed more in damage-control than in prevention when dealing with skin issues. Simply put, " If those AKs start a showin', get that liquid nitrogen a flowin'."

  While I was waiting for him in the exam room, I  stretched out on the motorized examination table in my underwear and made myself comfortable, pressing the buttons on the hand control until the table looked like a lounge chair at a pool. For a joke, I got my sun glasses out of my jacket and turned on the bright circular examination light that looked like the sun, then positioned myself on the table to look like I was suntanning just as my dermatologist came into the room.

     "Michael, this is better than a tanning booth," I said, looking up at him through the sunglasses without moving my arms or legs.
     "This light won't tan you but it can probably blind you if you look at it too long," he laughed.
      I sat up and took off my sunglasses. " You know me, I'll try to get a tan from any light bulb I can."
      " I should just put your name on this bottle," he said, holding up his trusty, little blue canister of liquid nitrogen and shifting his focus to the top of my head. "Let's see the damage you keep on insisting to do to yourself." At 6' 4", Michael could have looked down at the top of my head even if I was standing.
     "Before we start the cancer hunt, could you take a look at this redness in between my eyebrows and over here," I looked up and asked, pointing to the edges of both my nostrils and around my beard. 
    He put down the canister and sat on his stool so we could be eye-to-eye while he examined me.
    As he assessed my face, I couldn't help assessing his. Besides being taller than me, he is also younger than me. There had been a time when I was younger than all the doctors I went to, but the scales started tipping around ten years ago, until I now I find myself being older than most of them. Michael's baby face makes it especially hard to figure out just how much younger than me he actually is. There's no denying the fact that, whatever his age, he protects his skin better than I do. I'd rather this be the case than having a dermatologist who didn't have healthier skin than me. It would be like going to a Speech Therapist who stutters worse than I do.

    A dermatologist is a walking advertisement for himself, a book that always gets judged by it's cover. Most other kinds of doctors don't get judged by their appearance as severely. Dermatologists are the only doctors who aren't allowed to have a suntan. It's certainly frowned upon, and could cost them a few potential patients. People want their dermatologists to have good skin, and are generally put-off by ones who don't. And as Botox treatments become more and more the norm, patients will expect their dermatologists to be wrinkle-free. Soon, aging dermatologists aren't going to be allowed to wrinkle even if they want to.
     Exactly how direct is the correlation between how much dermatologists are able to take care of their own skin and how much they will be able to help yours? To be fair, shouldn't we make the same correlation about other kinds of doctors, and demand to see their body parts? And maybe MRIs of their brain and organs too? Would it make a difference if you knew your cardiologist has a faulty heart, or your psychiatrist had a traumatic brain injury, or if your proctologist has an abnormally shaped asshole? Usually, we only learn these kind of things after they die, or, after we sleep with them. 
     Michael held my jaw and tilted my head side-to-side and up and down, then brushed my eyebrow hairs forward with his thumbs and parted the short hairs of my beard with his index fingers.
   "You've got three conditions going on, but none of them look too bad. The flakiness is a little bit of psoriasis and the redness under it is probably a combination of seborrheic dermatitis and tinea faciei, which is just a fancy word for fungus," he explained as he went to the sink and washed his hands.

   " I have fungus on my face?"
   " It's just like athlete's foot."
   " Then why isn't it called athlete's face? And isn't 'psoriasis' dandruff?"
    " Basically."
    " How do I have dandruff it I don't have hair? Isn't not having dandruff one of the benefits of being bald?"
     " It's pretty common in the eyebrows if the skin is dry."
     "  I see. God makes me  bald but still insists on me having dandruff. That's really fair," I smirked. "So, I 've got dandruff AND fungi on my face. Is there anything else? Are mushrooms going to grow out of my nostrils, or any other crops? "

This skin condition, known as Fungus Face,
has been in my family for centuries. It can be
traced back to my ancestor Romeo Glassman,
depicted here by the 16th century
Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. 
This same artist's series of yeast-inspired
portraits of baked goods growing out of
vaginas were not as well-received.

       He laughed and told me not to worry about it.  "I'll write a script for 2 ointments, and for a shampoo that you rub into your eyebrows and around the red areas at your beard. It should be gone in two or three weeks. Let's give the rest of you a look-over." He picked up the nitrogen canister and adjusted the angle of the examination light over me, then rolled over the huge magnifying glass attached to a metal pole with a wide wheeled base that I've nicknamed 'Cyclops'.
    The examination always begins at the top of my head. I call this 'the bald man's bull's eye'. It seems to be a landing pad for cancer. As a matter of fact, being bald increases the risk of skin cancer almost as much as smoking an entire pack of cigarettes every day increases the risk of lung cancer (bald smokers are really screwed.) 
   Michael moves his finger in slow motion to make sure he doesn't miss any small mark or bump. He only found one AK to zap with the nitrogen, which impressed both of us. After he went over the tops of my shoulders, I laid down on the table so he could have a complete frontal view of my entire body. This includes Michael lowering my underwear, which, though done only for a few seconds without any sexual overtones or even undertones from him, is usually my  favorite part of the cancer hunt. If I'm not naked at some point during a visit to a doctor, I feel I've not gotten my money's worth. But after finding out my face was filled with dandruff and fungus, I wasn't feeling particularly attractive. All I could think about was getting that face shampoo as quickly as possible.
   When I flipped over for Michael to get a back view, within a few seconds I felt his finger going back and forth over two small areas in the middle of my back.
    " AKs?" I  asked with my head to the side, still laying on my stomach. 
   "No, not these," he said with some concern in his voice. " Stay right there. I just want to take a scraping of them." He put down the liquid nitrogen canister and got an instrument that looked like a thin box cutter which he used to take a sample of each.
  " What are they?" 
  " Well, they could be nothing or they could be melanoma."
   "Isn't there anything in between?" I asked, only half jokingly.
    " Let's see what comes back from the biopsies, and then we'll know. Let's not worry too much right now," he said as he sealed the samples in two small vials  and then continued the cancer hunt until my whole body was checked. 
    As I was getting dressed I asked Michael how much of a factor does hereditary play.
   "It definitely is a strong factor. But it's not the only one. Suntanning plays a much greater roll. Like I said before, this is one of the only cancers that you can easily prevent."
   " I know, I know," I said.
   "I'll get the biopsies back in around a week. At least stay out of a tanning both until then."
    " It's only once a month in the winter, don't worry."
    We gave each other a friendly hug, and I waved goodbye as he left the room.
     I wasn't worried for one reason. I was banking on the fact that my mother Priscilla is almost 72 years old and still regularly tans with baby oil, and has not gotten skin cancer yet. And there's no way in the world I'm getting melanoma before she gets it. It has to be genetically,and cosmically,  impossible. 
    Michael called me a few days ago to give me the results. He started off by telling me the cells looked strange.
    " Strange in a good way?" I asked optimistically.
    " I guess so," he chuckled. " Both biopsies came back negative."
    

 I guess that sometimes it pays off swimming deep in Priscilla's gene pool, especially on very sunny days.

   
   
 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Hey- I want to write a few words directly to everyone who has been reading my blog. This week marks my one year anniversary of writing it.  As of this moment, I have gotten 5,152 hits, which means either my best friend Scott has gone to this site 5,152 times, or there are actually people out there reading Stutterpuss. The tracking map shows readers in the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, and Russia, but I have no idea who anyone is. I realize this is part of the deal I agree to as a blogger, that I don't get to know who you are, so I will never ask. It's a wonderful mystery to me, one that is better left unsolved.  
  I can just imagine all the stutterers who searched for the word 'stutter' and ended up at this blog. If you're one of them, I'm sure this has been more than you ever bargained for, but I hope the blogs have kept you entertained and interested enough to keep on reading. Same goes for everyone who doesn't stutter. Same goes for everyone who is gay and everyone who isn't, and for everyone who is Jewish and everyone who isn't, and for everyone who is dealing with aging and for everyone who isn't(yet), and for everyone who is not a Republican and for no one who is one, and for everyone who is a parent and for everyone who doesn't have children, and for everyone with the same one partner for years and for everyone with a growing list of ex's ( 6 and counting..), and for everyone with divorced parents and for everyone with parents still married(unbelievable), and for everyone who thinks their mother is crazy and for everyone who is crazy for thinking their mother is crazier than mine, and for everyone else who is reading...
   I'm dedicated to writing this blog and keeping within the time frame I have committed myself to. I take the two week deadline as  seriously as someone would who is going to be to be fired for not having it done on time. I promise to keep writing, and I hope you'll keep reading. I'm at the point of enjoying it so much that I think I would keep on writing even if no one else was reading it.( I'd rather not test this theory).  


                                                       Truly,
                                                       Gary Glassman
                                                       aka Stutterpuss    


    My very first blog at the end of January last year was about my visit to the dermatologist, so it is only appropriate that I begin year # 2 with another visit to see him...