Hawaii: The Big Island

While Mike and I spent the first and last nights of our Hawaiian vacation in the tacky delight of Honolulu, the bulk of our trip was spent relaxing on the Kona coast on the Big Island. Hawaii really has two kinds of vacations: Waikiki and everything else. With one of the big tourist hotels in the heart of Honolulu you get a sliver of an ocean view, beaches crowded with tourists and uniquely Hawaiian activities (luaus and hula dancing) under the watchful and familiar gaze of Diamondhead. This is the Hawaii that looks exactly like Hawaii, retold in countless movies from the 1960s heyday of surf culture. More modern and sophisticated travelers like the unspoiled and less crowded splendor of other islands, where massive resorts have sprung up in former sugar cane fields and pineapple farms, delivering high end slices of paradise.

I had been to Hawaii before in December of 1999, freshly released from my career at AOL, and living on my small farm in Southwest Michigan. Eric Mueller organized a big trip with many of his friends, and we all made the journey across the ocean. Mike was stationed there at the time, so it was an opportunity to visit him and get a little touch of warmth just as winter was settling in hard on the shores of Lake Michigan. That trip was a blurry sea of drunken sailors (the sixth fleet was in town that weekend) and wild gay adventures. A fight between me and one of Eric’s friends on the second day left Mike and I alone for most of the rest of the trip there, which is just how it was this time around too. Having already experienced Waikiki we were both ready for the other Hawaii.

We landed in Kona and the airport, much like the one in Honolulu, was a quaint throwback to a kinder, gentler time before terrorism and security made airports so utilitarian, ugly and walled off. The Kona Airport looks like a cheesy movie set, not unlike the opening sequence in Postcards From The Edge. I am not even convinced it was real lava rock the building was constructed with. It might just as well have been stucco spray-painted black by an eager production assistant. The biggest difference on the Big Island was a decidedly slower pace, set by a much older crowd.

The condo my Dad rented was in an old but well-maintained complex right on the ocean. The accommodations were functional, in the barest sense of the word. For someone who likes to be pampered and taken care of at all times, my Dad weirdly has no lust of luxury, another trait I largely (though don’t completely) share. The condo was disappointing, although given my father’s history with such things, I don’t know why I was surprised. However, when I learned that it was only $1300/month, it was magically transformed in my cheap eyes into a castle worthy of our adventure. After all, that was less than our old apartment in Manhattan.

Our week in Kona was supposed to be about relaxing, and it was. We logged in some nice time at the swimming pool, doing our best to avoid the elderly and small children. Of those of legal drinking age on the island, we were among the youngest people there. But with the six hour time difference from New York, dinner was at 5pm most nights and by 11pm, we could barely keep our eyes open. Combining that with the pace and demographic surrounding us, it was easy to feel like charter members of the AARP.

But we used the early to bed, early to rise scenario to our advantage. True, our one trip to the local gay bar, Mask (of course), was cut short when I nearly fell asleep in a bowl of stale popcorn there just after 10pm. But with our 7am wake-ups, it left us with a whole day of exploring, even after throwing away a few hours in the morning over lattes and bagels at the Café. On Tuesday, we drove for two hours to Volcanoes National Park, where we hiked into the crater of an active volcano and I posed for a series of wacky photos, including “warming” myself over a steam vent. When I recounted my activities to my friend Paui, he said that he treated the steam vents like a magical spa, opening his pores and lungs until a park ranger advised him that he was basically breathing in microscopic shards of glass and maybe putting his face in the vent wasn’t the best idea ever.

The volcano has been quite active recently and it is a good thing we went on Tuesday because Wednesday the sulfur dioxide levels were so dangerously high they closed the entire park. But by then we were miles away at the green sand beach. Hottie Zach recommended a trip there, and it turns out it is one of only two such beaches in the entire world. And not wanting to go to Guam, we made the trip to this hidden gem on the Big Island instead. Having been around the world, I have long since given up the notion of discovering a hidden treasure. The first time I went to Notre Dame in Paris, somehow I thought it would be tucked away in an old neighborhood, not surrounded by gift shops and a Haagen Daas store. The green sand beach was another story.

It is not far from South Point, the furthest south you can go in the United States. This is the place where the original Hawaiians probably landed when they came up from Tahiti. From there, you have to walk several miles along what is barely a path with no sign to guide you, to a beach that is literally cascading out of a rock outcropping. The sand is a deep olive color but green it is. The water was a pastel blue that day and the contrast was incredible. We were there for hours and all told saw perhaps two dozen people. Most of them, like us, making a solitary march through a barren landscape to encounter a fabled nook nestled in the far side of the world. Without question, one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.

As much as we loved our quiet days in Kona, we knew living there permanently would probably make us crazy. A week was more than plenty of time. By Friday we were sad when we sipped our last latte at the café and made the winding drive down the hill to the airport. But at the same time, we were ready to return to civilization. Waiting for us on Waikiki beach were rooms at the famed Royal Hawaiian hotel, with soaring ceilings and comfortable beds. Gay life was just a short walk down the road at Hulas where I ran into Michael, the former Mr. Gay.com who was a guest on my radio show way back in 2004. Suddenly, my week of anonymity was at an end. Our vacation was drawing to a close and this last bar crawl was the perfect way to ease us back into real life.

Out With The New

I think watching old movies might be dangerous for me.

The Hollywood writer's strike has been going on for weeks now and it has finally caught up with us on the small screen. We are fresh out of fresh episodes of our favorite shows. And while some shows will be starting or returning in January (Lost, New Adventures Of Old Christine, American Idol and a thousand other reality/game shows), the momentum built up so far this fall is at an end. As an avid TV viewer, this has put me in a terrible quandary. What am I supposed to do with all this free time and my incredibly honed staring skills?

It is with this in mind that I have recently returned to watching old movies. What can I say? I am a homo, and I love an old movie. Last month was Guest Programmer month on TCM and even though I owned "The Letter" on DVD, I have never actually watched it. But I did TIVO guest programmer Gore Vidal and that film last month and finally this weekend, at a loss for new TV, settled in to watch it. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.

I have seen the enormously famous opening and closing scenes a million times, but the whole movie in between was a swift and engaging good time. Somerset Maugham (who I have decided might be my new favorite dead playwright, knowing now that he also wrote the source material for the hilarious Being Julia with Annette Bening) wrote the original play and it starts off rather delightfully with a quiet night on a rubber plantation interrupted by Bette Davis plugging six bullets into a man trying desperately to get away from her. It is all shot very dramatically and powerfully and I thought William Wyler might have used his best tricks in the first two minutes, but the overall film remained sensational right up to Bette's famous final declaration, "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed." Gore said the film still gives him chills, which at his age could honestly be caused by almost anything. But as much as I liked the film, I fear it might stay with me the way other recent old movies have.

I am well known as a soft touch when it comes to the movies. I might have gone to see the most-awful Deep End of the Ocean with Michelle Pfeiffer because I cried TWICE during the trailer ("Children don't get lost. People lose them!"). As much as I love a good comedy, I think I love to cry at a movie even more. I like it best when I cry at a movie you would least expect tears from, like the unexpectedly poignant ending of the Albert Brooks comedy "Defending Your Life." After all, there is no challenge in crying at something like "Dumbo," easily the most gut-wrenching 64 minutes ever committed to celluloid, although it is satisfying just the same.

This week on my train ride, I settled back in to watch "National Velvet" with a young and powerfully earnest Elizabeth Taylor. You can see instantly in the movie why she became a star and her clarity of character is staggering, especially in her scenes with Anne Revere who plays her mother. Taylor breaks your heart in every scene, her pure faith in that wild horse never wavers, and I can usually wring at least five or six cries out of every showing. Even jammed in the drunk train home on Friday night, I freely let the tears flow for all to see. And this is part of the problem.

I let myself become overly involved in this movies, even to points where I don't realize they are influencing me. I am just too susceptible Years ago in Los Angeles, my roommate Eric and I were shopping for wine at Trader Joe's and I picked out a bottle. "I've heard good things about this one," I said, not being a wine drinker myself. "No you haven't." Erik replied flatly, "There is a billboard for it outside our apartment." The moving images on the screen are even more of a draw to me than a flat advertisement under the warm California sun. Eight weeks after a chance purchase of "Christmas In Connecticut" with Barbara Stanwick and dozens of viewings in a row, I abandoned my perfectly comfortable Manhattan apartment for a house in the country with a bay window, a fireplace and a piano. I guess after buying a whole house, running around all the time saying "I know men. Some of my best friends are men" in a throaty rendition of Tallulah Bankhead in "Lifeboat" isn't so bad, but the end result is the same.

Maybe the problem is that I feel out of control in the whole process. The movies are long since finished and in the can, but my life is still malleable and open to broad interpretation. Not that I think that watching a movie will lead me to stand trial for murder, join the circus, or sit out on the open sea for as long as 43 days with a Nazi; it's just that after buying a house and nearly purchasing bad wine, I am filled with some caution. Then again, these movies can also provide important life lessons, like my favorite from "National Velvet":

"Win or lose. It's all the same. And how you take it that counts. And knowing when to let go. Knowing when it's over and time to go on to the next thing. Things come suitable to the time. Enjoy each thing and then forget it and go on to the next. There is a time for everything."

So I guess now is the time for me to watch old movies, and sit in the window box of my room and blog while the deer and squirrels roam through the yard like extras in a Douglas Sirk movie. And then at some point, it will be time for me to do something else. In the meantime, I suppose I can learn some lessons on my own. Like, just because there isn't anything on TV, that doesn't mean I don't have plenty of other things to watch and do. Another Gore Vidal pick "That Hamilton Woman" is sitting in the TIVO now and since it is unlikely that the Queen of Naples will rise from the dead to oversee my affair with Lord Nelson, I think I am safe for the time being.

West Hollywood Is Burning

Perez Hilton was on the show tonight, dishing about celebrities for Tabloid Tuesday. Perez used to be on the show all the time when he was thin and living in New York and running Page Six Six Six. But then, the NY Post, egged on by eternal wet blanket James Edstrom, went after him and he became PerezHilton.com, moved west, gained weight, and became as enormously famous as he was enormous. He hasn't been on our show so much since then (busy with subpoenas and exploring the wonders of the House Of Pies, I suppose), but tonight he returned, and in time for a heartbreaking breaking story: West Hollywood was burning.

Micky's burned (ironic, apparently), and with it a million memories of my life in West Hollywood in the 1990s (also known as the last time anyone dared show their face inside that clap trap bar). When I was first coming out, Micky's was the first gay bar I ever went to. Michael and I were roommates at the time in Pasadena. I worked days in the drug clinic while he worked evenings for the Sheriff department, both unlikely careers for two young guys out drinking and dancing every single night of the week. We'd go to Micky's until close, then head to the Denny's across the street from our tiny apartment on Vinedo. Michael would head to bed while I would catch two hours sleep before getting up, showering and heading to the drug clinic at 7:30am. I am certain the drunks and staff could smell the booze on me and you didn't need to be a trained clinician to know that the wall I would hit each day around 3:00pm couldn't easily be satisfied with a Snickers bar. But I would leave at 4:30pm on the dot and race home to sleep until Michael returned from his shift and we'd start the process again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It was at the fire sale one night outside Micky's that we met the twink who invited us to the "after party" in someone's apartment in Hollywood and Michael met (and slept with) Eric Mueller. Michael and my friend Geoff basically stalked Ben Patrick Johnson through A Different Light next door until, tired of their shenanigans, I walked over to Ben and started a 15 year friendship. I met director Bryan Singer at 18 and over night at Micky's in 1996 with a teenager on his lap and a song in his heart.

The DJ at Micky's was the first (and certainly not the last) DJ I befriended. He had a "I won't play Vogue, don't ask me" sign firmly affixed to the glass on the booth. I danced many, many times there to Whitney's remake of "I'm Every Woman" in billowing print shorts, slouch socks and a backwards baseball cap, and I can't hear "Justified and Ancient" without thinking of that awful bar and those terrible clothes. Paul and I ended our longest day of drunkenness on the patio once, after starting with a seemingly innocuous brunch at Marix that turned into drinks at Micky's until dark. A day happily wasted.

My last trip home to Los Angeles in July was drenched in nostalgia. I haven't been inside Micky's in years but I stood outside it waiting for Ben to start his book signing at A Different Light, so many years after our first meeting there. Paul and Michael and I then had a drink at East West (formerly Revolver) and laughed about the good old days so filled with alcohol it's a wonder we have any memory of them at all. But with Micky's gone now, all we have are our memories. You feel old enough talking about a bar that used to be, but at least in the case of Revolver and East West, the bar is still there, just with nicer furniture and pricier drinks (hate it). With Micky's, it will make us sound especially old, like reminiscing about the Hippodrome or the Pan Pacific auditorium, although decidedly less historic and interesting.

When I called Paul tonight, he said, "Now all we can do is point to the sidewalk and say we threw up there." I didn't but Paul's friend Manfred did, on New Year's Eve, and then I made out with him. In retrospect, not a good idea. But I was young and foolish and figuring out my life. Like most everyone, I have ridiculed and derided Micky's for a solid decade, but now it's gone. In a way, it's like the death of an ex-boyfriend. I may have been over him for years, but now that he is gone, all I remember are the good times.