the message with a little L

I woke up today and yet again, I'm sick. It hasn't gotten any better since.

"Have you thought about killing her?" he asked.

"You mean in my stories? Or in real life?"

He burst out into a loud cackle, "Both, both."

When I had just finished the first draft of one of my so called short stories, he and I were discussing it. Since the website and my material was semi-autobiographical, I wasn't sure if he was asking about the character, or the person. He meant the character, of course. He was concerned that there wasn't enough plot for a book idea to have commercial appeal. He suggested I add a murder, or maybe a suicide. "It's not the kind of thing I'm going for," I reasoned. "Thinking about it to a further extent, I think it isn't a roller coaster ride. The arc I'm going for is more like a walk across a bridge."

"Sounds boring but I think I understand what you're trying to do," he nodded. He appreciates a plotless book as much as anybody. "But that stuff is out of fashion. It'll be a hard sell without some kind of twist....Have you thought about making this into T.V."

"Fuck T.V." I replied.

"Do you think of it as revolutionary?"

"Hardly. T.V. is terrible." The shows have been on the air for years and here's what the producers are given: hot young lesbians who like to have sex, a cable network that can show nudity, a public who is ready for a show that revolves around lesbians, and a public who has warmly embraced strong female sexuality in sex in the city as well as gays in will & grace and queer eye for the straight guy."

"The bases seem more loaded, you know, for bringing that shit home," he said. "Why not try adapting scripts and have them sent in for assessment?"

Unfortunately instead of blowing the lid off my T.V. at the time to prove a point, they delivered me a topless after-school special. I set the chair down and relaxed. The biggest problem with the L Word is it's too adult, too melancholy, too safe, too serious, too dull.

As exciting as thirtysomething seems, as dramatic as peeling potatoes, and as sexy as Willard Scott, The L Word sure shows tons of sex and lets us in on sex talk and we see hot chicks and steamy situations, but alas its as cold as an overnight with Martha Stewart.

The L Word is as representative to lesbians as Cosby was to African Americans. all the chicks are hot, all the guys are hot, all the sex is bland, all the conversations are about either lesbianism or sex or cosmo or getting pregnant or lesbianism or sperm or lesbianism.

Meanwhile, Sharon courses me into watching Oprah on the television and there’s hardly any music playing anywhere, there’s very little background noise, or atmosphere. Only showtime, who has a long history of making sex dull and disposable. Oprah could make the first lesbian tv series so unwatchable that I’m not sure I will tune in next week to see the (still) extremely sexy beals go down on her partner again. Besides the lifeless dialogue, the tone is depressingly sombre. No more Dr.Phil, please! Back to the lesbians! Did these lesbians get a hold of that type of drug that just knocks your ass out? They act as if they’re all getting root canals in the morning. They act as if they ran a marathon yesterday and they're still recovering.

The sole "straight" couple have such uninspired sex that you wonder if both of them aren't gay. Their sex is so unsexy that you could balance one of the glasses of merlot they're constantly draining on a pillow on their bed and it wouldn’t tip over.


If I have a daughter and I do not want her not to be a lesbian, I would show her this tv program and tell her that all lesbians are this lethargic, emotionless, too tired, washed. and santa monican. If the queer eye boys bounced into the L Word these women would have a damn heart attack. Are they lesbo librarians in training? Are they auditioning for this hour has 60 minutes shows? Can they just sit back and have a laugh without it leading to sex or having to do with sex? Just one laugh?

My girlfriend, Sharon, of course, loves sex in the city. This show may have been ridiculous and worthless and written by gay men for straight women, but at least it tried to keep things somewhat light and didn't completely take itself seriously at every turn. Women I know who like the show totally Want to be one or more of those women on T.V. But why!?

I can't imagine anyone wanting to be any of these sad fakers who seem only concerned with one thing: boring the hell out of anyone who wanted to learn about this usually interesting world. So Congratulations, we're bored.

Sometimes I think me writing is a big mistake, but I do not write with dreams of being a commercial seller. I write because I can’t help myself. Readers of the early drafts were encouraging, and put the thought in my head that I could get it published, but I didn't really care one way or the other. Not at first, anyway. At first all I was after was a catharsis. It turns out the story wasn't very good at being that, either.

"Is that part true? Did that really happen?"

Dissecting and deconstructing the story, explaining the truth and the fiction, what really happened and what I made up, has done nothing but keep bad memories on life support. While the main characters I create are clearly based on me, it is a me at my most broken. Whatever made me think that crystalizing such a sad sac in print would be a catharsis is beyond me.

Now, it seems, the only way to make it all disappear is to keep on writing. "Do you think you can write another?" I was asked. "If so, what's next?"

"I dunno. Guns? Spies? Robots? Maybe even all three..."

Yesterday, I had a wonderful time with Sharon while she took care of me in bed. While she aided to my failing anti-bodies I forgot about my daily trivialities and thought about love before I slipped into a haze. The word has been slandered by hundreds of thousands of cliches over the years. All one has to do is turn on the radio to any pop/top 40 station and wince at the mixed metaphors and terrible comparisons made to a word that carries much more meaning than that.

At times I'd tell her love isn't pretty. Love isn't kittens and flowers or that euphoric feeling you get after you've sat up all night talking to a beautiful woman you met for the first time. Those feelings are all well and good, and translate well into more sales for hallmark, but they are not the standard by which I measure love.

Love isn't reserved for two people. There is such thing as a greater love for humanity. A love that transcends jealousy and bitterness. A love that several nations have shown after the recent natural disaster.

While some talk politics and others sit around discussing the merits and lack thereof, others are actually acting. If you haven't done something to help the effort down there, you have no right to criticize. If it didn't put you out to help, you didn't really make an effort.

Consider:

The image of Afghanistan pledging a hundred thousand dollars?

Or the Singaporeans flying rescue helicopters over New Orleans?

Or that Sri Lanka, itself a victim of a national disaster during the tsunami, offered $25,000 to the Red Cross, all it could afford?

I have personally watched people open their doors to families they've never met. Offering to shelter and feed people as long as they need it, just because it's the right thing to do. Maybe this is a trend that'll catch on, maybe it won't because some families are not potty trained and like shitting on your wall. But, instead of being greedy and covering our own asses; people could extend the olive branch of love, and help each other out when needed.

All the speculation about how quickly aid would've/could've/should've come if this had happened is useless. At the end of the day there are still people suffering, and there are still people dying. All the pundits in the world can't spin that positively. All the negative commentary in the world won't bring them relief.

No, love isn't some greeting card message; real love is cleaning the shit off someone like Sharon cleaning my Rudolph red nose... because I, like they, can't do it for themselves anymore.