Bisexual Writing: the celebration and the rant, and an after-party.

On Saturday evening, C and Nick and I went to the Gay and Lesbian Community Center on 13th Street to attend Bi Lines II: A Celebration of Bisexual Writing in Reading, Music and Theater.

Those of you who read me regularly know that I do not hesitate to critique a work of art, but I will shy away from savaging an organization or an event sponsored by a benevolent organization even when I feel it could use some improvement. Volunteers deserve that respect. I’m going to slip out from under that gentility for a moment to voice my displeasure with one particular aspect of Bi Lines II.

Here is Sheela Lambert, founder of Bi Writers Association that sponsored the evening.



Ms. Lambert began the evening by delivering a long, rambling, worthless and monotonous introduction that did nothing more than reiterate the printed program we each held in our hands. I mention this only because of what followed. The first speaker was the admirable, brilliant and renowned author Edmund White who chose to read from his biography of Rimbaud.



He was to be followed by several writers and performers who would be the first to admit that they are not as accomplished as Edmund White and for whom this podium was an opportunity. Edmund White’s presence at the event was a very gracious and generous gesture on his part, and that is why we were stunned when Ms. Lambert decided she had heard enough of Mr. White’s reading and approached the podium, effectively giving him the hook! She then proceeded to deliver additional rambling words including a thrice-repeated complaint about what she felt was the overly expensive price for using the room. I guess she felt that this childish harrumph of hers was more important than Edmund White’s thoughtful delivery. Before we could protest what had happened, the deferential Mr. White left the podium. We were stunned. If keeping to a time schedule was so important for Ms. Lambert, she could have and should have clipped her own prattling rather than the significant words of an honorable guest.

I won’t bother reporting on other aspects of the mismanagement of the event that made it rather lame and I want to emphasize the fine work of the volunteers who devoted considerable time and resources to the event. It is clear to me that, as is often the case, the founder of an organization is sometimes not the best person to manage and grow it. The other readers and performers we listened to, including Honor Moore, Jenny Block, Ron Suresha and Rob Barton were great and are needlessly burdened with the weight of bad leadership. I can’t imagine that there will be a Bi Lines III unless there’s a change at the top. This organization deserves better.

Here is the spirited and well-kilted Robert Barton.



Here is the intriguing Ron Suresha who spoke about Professor Kinsey.



Here's our friend Nick (born two years after C and I met!) who attended this at our recommendation. He was happy to hear Edmund White and Ron Suresha, and agreed with us that despite the above mentioned irritation, the event was worthwhile.

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We ended the night at Nowhere on 14th Street where Paul Vitale was having a birthday. Here he is with his everyone's-stamp-of-approval-garnering boyfriend, Stoopes. Don't they look good together? We left the adorably shy Nick at Nowhere in the presence of many handsome men and have not yet heard whether or not he met any of them.

Lambda Literary Awards

Here's my Bilerico report on the 21st annual Lambda Literary Awards .

I sipped a little wine and chatted away with Andrew Holleran whom I rather idolize and who called me a rascal, and with Edmund White and Felice Picano who were much more complimentary on other fronts.The post contains photos, and if you go to TheBilericoProject on Youtube, you'll find my four video interviews with Michaelangelo Signorile, Kate Clinton, Edmund White and Felice Picano.

Any Wednesday Night

On Wednesday evening, I arrived awfully late to hear those reading at Rapture Café. Late but confident that they’d save Edmund White for last, and that was indeed the case, so my trip south on the W and east on the L was justified.

I also heard the entire delivery of the handsome, intense, and probably slightly-deranged-in-that-good-way SeanBateman9 whose face, body, voice and carriage are etched with the highly charged circuitry of the sexual energy of his past, present and future.

I liked his story, and found him to be more of a gifted performer than others who have held that microphone, but my own relentless inclination to edit led me to telling him (after compliments) that he could have skipped the entire introduction and framery that he had been inclined to supply. Actually, I was not alone in that opinion, having heard someone seated in the dark rows to the left of me shout out “Read!” while SB9 was still working his way through that intro. Goodness, I thought, are we at the Apollo?

One note about this man before I recommend your seeking out his blog and his television program. When he announced that he is into metaphysics, sex and death, I felt apprehension, having done a bit of research into all three and having learned that those three sisters are best approached not in their direct naming but through the following of those mazes that will lead you to them accidentally. But, I am giving him his props: the skewer-de-force story that followed, told almost in gruesome real time, leads the listener to a satisfying destination between its lines. Also, I feel kinship with men who do this kind of "KirkTV" , having had my own local access TV show for a few years in the Wretched Little City.

Oh, and a note to all you Craigslister Misters, if SeanBateman9 shows up at your door, and if you’ve subtracted even one pound from your real weight or one year from your real age, run for cover.

One final thing about this guy urges me to seek him out. He says he has gone through several “deaths”, and that as a consequence of each, has invented a persona that seemed to surface like a mask from the lake of each demise. I, who have gone through four deaths, each made almost painless by the self-administered novocaine of adequate pre-planning, can appreciate this and am always curious about the deaths and resurrections of others.

Back to Edmund White. He has, as is well-known, become quite stout, but what one can learn by seeing him in the flesh and by hearing his voice is that he has made peace with his size in exactly the same leonine way that Rosemary Clooney or Aretha Franklin seem(ed) to have. Dressed in the flattering black sweater that is always a friend to men of some girth, and with polished silver hair, I’d have sworn if I had passed him on an escalator that he was any of a number of benevolent Monsignori from my past. He is unexpectedly and disarmingly attractive.

He was at ease with the room, and he chose to read that passage from My Lives that I was hoping for. The one that he probably wouldn’t read at Barnes and Noble, from the chapter entitled “My Master”. His delivery was matter of fact, but he owned the room during every second of it, reminding me that excellent writing stands up to the variety of ears or eyes receiving it. In theater, it’s called producing a script that is actor-proof. When a story is structured correctly, line-for-line, the funny parts get laughter from every corner of the room, and we are spun in exactly the direction established by their author. That is, of course, the problem with blogging rather than writing: it’s like putting not-enough-quarters into the washing machine of your building. Your clothes look up at you, waiting, unagitated, disappointed.