I am slowly but surely learning how to market myself. I’ve already sent off my resumes to a few small theatres in Denver as well as the big company (the Denver Center Theatre Company), and I’m currently looking into more ways to handle transitioning into a more real-world environment. Right now though, I have to admit that I’m getting to be a little burnt out on theatre, thoug it may be because of the lack of money in it for me right now. Right now, a 9-5 with two days off a week sounds very alluring to me, and it’s going to be hard to resist the temptation (if I want to resist it) of avoiding finding something like that in the fall. But for now, I’m still trying to consider theatre jobs over any others. It’s probably better, for now, to keep my dreams alive.
On a related note, I got a gig today. It’s not much (I’m managing a week-long rehearsal and performance of a staged reading for the Pacific Playwrights Festival at SCR), but it is a non-intern credit, and it is at a major regional theatre. Which proves, resume-wise, that I’m good enough that the theatre wants to hire me for side jobs. This can’t at all be bad!
What was bad, however, was how I chose to spend my evening. Watching my friend doing karoke. At a gay bar. On a Monday night.
As I have mentioned before on this website, I really don’t like karaoke. Brandon does. It’s his element. He loves to sing and to show off in front of a crowd of half-drunk admirers and subsequently charm the pants off him, leaving me alone in a corner while he flirts with anyone he finds vaguely attractive. I know this, and I go because friendship is a two-way street, and I’m sure I’ve forced him into doing several things he’d rather not in his lifetime, so I can take a hit now and then.
The night was made a little better by the presence of one of my friends from middle school, who now works in LA as an Assistant Art Director. We got to spend some time talking shop, and I learned a little about the Television world. But after a short while, he had to leave, and I was left wallflowering while Brandon played social butterfly with the world. The music was loud, and bad, so I secured an “After my next song” agreement from Brandon. Left to my own devices, I went out for some fresh air. It was a nice evening, and the weather outside was ok. A hell of a lot better than taking in the Karaoke. So I leaned against the wall…taking the air in.
About three minutes after I decide to lean back, a small black sportscar drives past on the street. It stops about a hundred feet past the club, then, ever-so-slowly backs up to the curb. “Huh.” I think to myself.
For a moment, the only sound in the world is this car’s window rolling down.
“Excuse me.”
It takes me a moment, though I was the only person on the street, to realize this guy was talking to me. The car is so low to the ground that I can’t even see his face from where I was standing.
“What?
“Excuse me?”
As I walk slowly toward the car, it triggers a flashback. All of a sudden all I can think of is the series of low quality, early eighties videos from elementary school. A small black boy lying in his bed, the same balloon-salesman nightlight that I had as a child on his nightstand, staring at an unseen villain off camera who says in a eerily caring tone, “Now don’t tell anyone about this, Marcus. This is our little secret.” With perfectly innocent eyes, he says “Yes, uncle Jeff.” The ones that warned kids “Don’t talk to strangers” and “Remember that no one should touch you under your clothes.” While I don’t recall any scenes from this particular video, I remember its message with alarming clarity: strangers in cars will try to kidnap you, look out!
Almost immediately after this first, fear-impulse washes over me, my stubborn, rationalizing mind kicks in. “You’re also not seven anymore.” I say to myself. “He probably just wants directions. Don’t be silly, you can handle yourself.” Brazenly, I squelch my fear impulse, though I do move forward just a tad more cautiously than the last time.
“Yes?”
“I am wondering if the place I am looking for is around?” He has a very apparent but surprisingly unplacable European accent. It makes me less secure that I don’t know what country he’s from.
“I’m sorry?”
“There is, is there some sort of Gay club somewhere in the area?” Gay club pronounced with remarkable clarity. A brief flash through my head “Well in case you missed the corrugated steel with rainbow lighting behind me.” This guy is dense.
“Yes. This is the gay club.”
Something unintelligable. I take a step closer to the car.
“What?”
“I am here? The gay club?”
“Yes.”
His expression looks pained for some reason. I’m nervous again. “Are you Gay?”
It is at this point that I am illuminated. The truth of the situation, in a split second, becomes surreally clear to me. That he didn’t stop his car. That he’s talking softly. That he can’t make out the obvious “Gays on Parade” atmosphere. It’s calculated.
The guy is trying to pick me up.
“No, I’m not gay.” I answer nonchalantly. All my mind can manage to squeak out to itself is “Oh dear. I really don’t want this to go any further.”
Disbelief. “You’re not gay.”
“No.”
I’ll hand it to the guy. I’m sending out signals. I mean. I’m standing out in front of a gay bar after midnight. I’m alone. I’m not smoking or on a cell phone, so I have no excuse to be there. I ‘m even posing to some extent by the way I’m standing there. It’s pretty clear. I’m a gay man trying to get action from a drive-by.
This is also, to my knowledge, the first time anyone has ever tried to pick me up.
What gets to me now is not that I didn’t figure this out sooner. I’m at terms with my stunning ability to be dense about basic social situations. What gets to me is how secretive the man is being. How worried and guilty. As if it was taboo. As if he was the only man in LA to be crusing for other men that night, and if people found out his world would liquify before his eyes. Real fear that he’s going to get caught and punished by the universe.
And I realize that I have never been in that position. Where what I wanted is that wrong. Society is built for me, it works for me. Even though I’m on the fringes of the majority, I’m still a world closer to it than he was in that eternal minute. It is a concept so foreign, I have to intellectualize it for basic comprehension before I can understand it in my gut. And for a flash, I understand what tyrrany might really mean.
He gets a look on his face that says I’m a cock tease. Disgusted. The window rolls up even as the car shifts into gear. In response I back away from the car, then quickly turn around and head back into the club. It’s not a recoil, but it’s faster than I’m proud of.
Back in the bar, barely ten minutes later, a guy holding his boyfriend tight smiles at me and grabs my ass affectionately as he walks by. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I listen to gay boys butchering pop songs that deserve it. They stop playing before my friend’s next song. I can afford to put up with the irony.
