Fried & True (17 page)

February 2005

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

PRIME TIME VIEWS

Hallelujah! After years of offering up my unsolicited opinions, this week I actually got a formal request for my preferences. I'm a Neilsen Family!!!!

Yes, after my more than half a century of watching the boob tube the ratings folks finally found me and want to know what I watch.

For fifty years the Neilsens have gotten their information from couch spuds watching
Car 54 Where Are You, The Gong Show, Mr. Ed
, and, my choice for situation comedy sludge
The Beverly Hillbillies
. Meanwhile, my favorites,
Route 66, Cagney & Lacey
, and
Designing Women
suffered premature rejectulation.

It's about time they queried (queeried?) somebody who dotes on PBS, devours the news and lies in wait for high-toned TV dramas. Actually, there hasn't been a really high-toned TV drama since
Playhouse 90
went off the air in 1961. But I'll take
West Wing
.

So can this be my opportunity to bring a more cultured, erudite and discriminating queer eye to the ratings pie? No, the truth is that I'm going to have to admit to shilling for
The L Word
, and never missing that new Monday night disaster
The Medium
. The acting is painful and the dialogue embarrassing, but like a traffic crack-up on Route One, I have to stare. Just as those
Brady Bunch
fanatics and
Dynasty
suckers ponied up the truth about their viewing habits, I too, am determined to reward the Neilsen people for their faith in me by simply returning their diary with my actual television choices for sweeps week 2005.

Oh, but if it had been that easy.

They give you a damn diary for every working TV in your house. Hell, the one in front of the treadmill has been off since my 2003 flirtation with the Adkins Diet.

But there's the Sony in Bonnie's home office droning on all day long as white noise while she works. At any given time she has no idea whether she's watching an old Victor Mature movie or an Abmaster infomercial. Is this even watching? Do we dare give people the impression that each morning, somewhere in Delaware, somebody's actually paying attention to an old
Who's the Boss
?

Here's a question: does proper diary entry require intent or actual consciousness? What about those 10 p.m. episodes of
Law & Order
where, despite our best efforts we watch the gruesome murder but doze off, mouth agape, on the sofa before the jury comes back?

If they'd asked us to be a Neilsen Family 20 years ago this wouldn't even be a question. Our diary would show
St. Elsewhere
and
Hill Street Blues
followed by Johnny Carson, followed by Dave Letterman. Back then, I never even understood why they broadcast 10 o'clock news. “I can't believe people don't stay up for Carson,” I'd sneer.

Somewhere in the early 90s, following that wicked lesbian kiss on
L.A. Law
, the question morphed into, “Do you believe people don't stay up for the news?”

Now, without Delmarva 10 p.m. news I'd have to wait until morning for word of the number of chickens with influenza.

But here's the real question. If we-are-fa-mi-ly Neilsen, who's included? The dogs watch Animal Planet when we go out. Should this be in the diary? I really need to know.

On our bedroom TV, our late-night choice is the Travel Channel. We routinely fall asleep somewhere between the Grand Canyon, Monster RVs and an Albuquerque Chile Cook-off. Is everything after toothpaste and before REM sleep legit?

So this week I've been busier running back and forth, pen and diary in hand, between TV sets than I ever was on that treadmill. Frankly, it's a wonder I've had time to watch anything. But I did make certain I reported taping
The L Word
in its 10 p.m. time slot, while watching
The Academy Awards
, a.k.a. The Gay Superbowl on another channel.

I also let the Neilsens know that while I was watching Hilary Swank's va-va-voom backless gown, I was taping that cutie on
Cold Case
. Then, I propped my eyeballs open and watched, and duly recorded that I watched, the repeat of
The L Word
at midnight. The things you do for love.

One day, as I loped between the living room (CNN
People in the News
) and Bonnie's office (the fifth
Murder She Wrote
of the day) it occurred to me that perhaps these opinions were not as crucial as some I could offer about the actual content on television. Especially on news shows.

Like what's with the U.S. Armed Forces spending 200 million dollars to train new translators and logistics experts because they kicked out a whole lotta smart gay people because of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell?” Hey, Neilsens, I got those stats this week on CNN. Somebody do the math and give me the ratings for that stupid Pentagon policy.

And then on
Larry King, 60 Minutes
and the rest I heard about “reporter” Jeff Gannon, in reality a schmo named James Guckert, who's had a daily press pass to the White House for over a year so he could lob softball questions to the President. His questions also included overt criticism of liberals and inaccurate information about pretty much everything I hold dear.

Never mind that Guckert (Delaware's own, by the way), purporting to be a family-values Conservative, is linked to various X-rated gay escort service web sites and other risky business. What a family values hypocrite.

And legendary reporter Helen Thomas lost her front seat in the pressroom. I give this shameful situation terrible ratings.

But no, during this Sweeps Week (“Woman has 160 lb. tumor!” “Stars Without Make-Up!”) people will probably just fill out their diaries with nights spent watching contestants wade through worms on
Fear Factor
, shove miniaturized cameras into open wounds on
CSI
, and argue with each other as they bungee-jump canyons in
The Amazing Race
.

I'm off to watch all the political shows I taped on Sunday morning so the Neilsen's know I support network news divisions.
These are the real reality shows.

But then like the dyke drama whore I am, I'll be watching—and notating—my third re-run of
The L Word
. Dear Diary, long live lesbian visibility on TV!

And thanks for asking.

April 2005

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

IN HONOR OF ROBERT GOLD JULY 4, 1946 - MARCH 7, 2005

In our gay community, in addition to our biological families, we often build families of affinity. I'd never had a biological brother but in my nuclear family of affinity I had four. And now there are three. Bonnie and I loved Robert from the minute we met him in 1991. We laughed together at Halloween parties where we were Robert Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We got serious in D.C. for the 1993 March for Equality, and we luxuriated on three awesome European vacations. Robert and Larry gave us the inspiration and push we needed to move to Rehoboth full-time; and finally, we had the most wonderful adventure of all, our 2003 double wedding in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Robert was loving, funny, and incredibly brave. But certainly, Robert could be a quirky brother.

He had a fanatical obsession with vehicular cleanliness. He had to sell his own black BMW because he couldn't keep it clean enough for his own standards. He told me he'd never speak to me again if I bought that black Subaru. I did and he forgave me, but continually rolled his eyes when studying, really studying, the dirt splatter on its hood.

Robert was the only man I've every known to insist on routinely taking vacation rental cars through the car wash. In France, we had to purchase a special sponge so he could properly wipe down the rented car in Provence. We toured castles and car washes. And we learned the translation for Hot Wax in many different languages.

In 1997, the four of us went on a 10-day trip in our 27 ft. boat from Rehoboth to New York Harbor to Fire Island. With every squeal of glee from Bonnie crashing the boat through the waves, we got an expletive from Robert as he grabbed for towels to wipe salt from the bow.

Robert was known for his refreshing, if occasionally astounding honesty. I'm sure he was always a candid person, but somehow in the late 1990s one of those fantastic brain surgeons who kept him with us for so long must have removed that little filter from his head—the one that keeps most of us from saying, out loud, every single thing we think.

Not so our Robert. If he thought the house you were thinking of buying was ugly, he'd tell you. If he hated a paint color you chose, he'd tell you. And he was usually absolutely right.

The day I showed up in my first pair of cropped pants—the things we old people used to call pedal pushers, I asked Robert if I looked okay in them. He studied me for an uncomfortably long moment and said, “Yes. Much better than you looked in the shorts yesterday.”

I'll think of Robert every time I buy a car, pick paint colors, and especially when shopping.

I'm also going to celebrate Robert's life by remembering his love for Larry and the strength of their 30-year—THIRTY YEAR—relationship and a great marriage by any standard, and one to tell our foolish government about. I'm going to celebrate his great eye for design, his heavy foot on the car's accelerator, his love for his Schnauzer Mitzi and his incredible courage. Where, following a troubling diagnosis, and surgery after surgery, many of us might have given in to depression and given up, Robert kept up his gym regimen, stayed with the Atkins diet, went rambling in England, rafted in Alaska and glowed when Larry bought him a wedding ring. And, with Larry's steadfast and loving help, Robert kept his sarcastic sense of humor until the very, very end.

But there really isn't an end. If you have been riding around Rehoboth in a dirty car, get thee to the carwash as soon as you can. Robert's watching. And I've promised him that Bonnie and I will try to do better. We really will. I missed him so much this morning I bought a 10 wash coupon book at the Rehoboth Car Wash. Robert will be impossible to forget.

Especially during the hot wax cycle.