Chapitre Un. 

Screenwriter Neil Kramer is Citizen of the Month.

Neil chose the word "citizen" deliberately. He sees the blogosphere as a democratising force, where a regular Joe can fight the tyranny of mediated opinion. Blogs turn personal narrative into instant social history.  Original voices need not be silenced by the caprice of an editor, nor deadened by an academic. To Neil, a blog champions the common man, and his everyday life.

Perhaps that's why he bit on the Medicine Cabinet Meme.  It’s perfect material for the social historian; something so commonplace that it’s practically transparent, but which speaks tellingly about the owner’s life and time. 

As memes go, it seems no more invasive than usual. It doesn't demand that you reveal five secrets, six phobias, or three strangers on the bus you wish you'd asked for a blow job.

One simply lets the world peek behind one's bathroom mirror, and Preparation H does the talking.

Neil’s medicine chest is commonplace, indeed.  The only remarkable thing about it, is that it contains quite a bit of actual medicine.

Now, you need to know that Neil lives in the United States.  A primitive, Third-World country without universal health insurance. 

The presence of medicine doesn't mean that he's sick, just that he's well-to-do. An empty amoxycillin jar is as good as flashing a black Amex at Le Cirque.

L'expert

Since he earns enough to be medicated, I gave him shit for being a cheapskate. What, no aftershave? Soon, an email appeared in my inbox.

I have never worn aftershave, ever. Should I start? Neil.

It took a few seconds to sink in. This was a milestone in my gay life. A straight man asked me for a tip on personal grooming.

Honourable Husband, you've been QueerEyed!  It’s your fifteen minutes of fabulousness!

Some gay guys get this all the time. Their apartments are tasteful, their clothes stylish, and their comportment perfect. People flock to them for advice on paint colour, wine lists, or romantic poetry. Me? I drink beer and pick my nose.  I'm a slob.

But when it comes to after-shave, yours truly is an idiot savant. I love the stuff. For proof, you only need to look in my medicine cabinet; it groans with smells.

By chance, the Honourable-Right medicine cabinet also houses laundry supplies, since one corner of the bathroom hosts the Waschtrockner*. As you can see, we are so fragrant, even our laundry wears after-shave.

Front and centre, we see selections from the Lenor Mystery Series Fabric Softener Range. The purple bottle holds Sumatra, where scents of cinnamon and hibiscus take us on a magic journey of Silk Road romance. To the left we find Sahara, which gives us the cool embrace of twilight as the sun settles behind the dunes, and the perfumes of Araby waft from the sultan's tent. Or something.

For daywear, we use Frottee.  It sounds like some sort of sexual practice. If you had to say what Frottee smells like, you'd have to say it smells like good value-for-money. That's a big step up from smelling like nothing at all, which is how our clothes used to smell before we moved to Europe and started to wear fancy-schmantzy couture, washed gingerly in appliances that cost a fortune and take three hours to complete a cycle.

(Off-topic: American readers will notice the plastic container on the left. In Germany, Mr. Clean is Meister Proper. The label tells us that the bottle contains Bad-Spray. Good-Spray costs more, I guess.) 

Fragrance Japonaise

Master Right may love snuggling up in Frotteed sheets, but he eschews fragrance on the body.  It's a Japanese thing.  To the Japanese, prominent scent suggests that you're concealing another odour, and thus not clean.

Successful Japanese fashion designers can't quite crack fragrance. Experts describe Yohji Yamamoto's 2004 pour Femme as "Decent. Neutral. Too polite."  Others stick to easy-to-understand smells like wood or coffee. 


Issey Miyake's first fragrance, L’eau d’lssy, aims to smell "as clear as crystal water".   It's the minimalist Steve Jobs black turtleneck of scent (which, by the way, Miyake also designed). Soon after its launch in 1992, Miyake increasingly reached out to guest designers for his scents.

Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, perhaps in frustration, reacted with an anti-perfume. According to reviews, her Odeur 53 shows hints of burnt rubber, ozone, photocopiers, static electricity, and cathode-ray TV sets.

L'humeur de l'amour

So Master Right turns up his nose at my after-shave habit, if you'll pardon the expression. But pour this homme, after-shave is grand.

Nothing affects your mood so powerfully, for good or ill, as a smell. It's aromatherapy you carry around all day.

Smells go straight to our lizard-brains; they cue masculine or feminine, clean or unclean, fancy or plain, rich or poor.

Believe me, Neil, you want to be on the right end of a smell.

But for that you'll have to wait for Chapitre Deux.  That's when The Honourable Husband gives you a tour of his personal after-shave shelf.

'Til then, adieu.  Or is it au revoir? I can never tell those apart.

_____

* a Waschtrockener is a high tech device which both washes and dries your clothes. We bought it because the name of the manufacturer, Siemens, reminds us of man-sex.  So does one of its cycles: Schnell. 

Photo credit: links to source.

Father Geoff Farrow is a Catholic priest in Fresno, California.   On Sunday, he came out in the pulpit.  He wishes to remain a priest, should his bishop allow it. 

 Sehr geehrte Ian in Hamburg!

 I am so white that I have paid a three figure sum to drag my (mostly Australian) wine (#24) from continent to continent. This grog has more frequent flyer points than I do.

 I am so white, I actually lived in Japan (#58) for five years. To prove it, here are the New Year sake cups from the Shinto shrine next door. The writing commemorates the name of the church (Atagojinja), the Chinese horoscope symbol for that year, the symbol of the Japanese horoscope element, and the year of the emperor's reign. I loved Japan so much, that I picked up a souvenir in the form of a spouse. Yes, I know. A snow globe would have been cheaper.

#1 Boyfriend on Couch

The mere sight of a man on a couch makes a woman's blood boil. Men should get off their asses and...oh, I dunno, slay a wildebeeste or take out the trash. But to me, a man on a couch looks regular-guy sexy.

 
#2. Being the one in the family who inherits your mother's dinner set.

Boy, does this piss off gay guy's sister!

Since we're gay males, you could never call these trinkets arousing, sexist, or exploitative. They're just--let me saviour that glorious word again!--ironic. So suck it up, bitches! (That's irony, too.)

Here's a secret for all you people who have never met a homosexual. (Or, rather, who think you've never met a homosexual.)

Gay relationships are not like straight ones. You can't pick who's the Mommy and who's the Daddy. It doesn't work that way.

(Of course, it shouldn't work that way in a non-sexist straight relationship, either. But that's another issue)

If it makes more sense for Master Right to take charge of something, then he takes charge. He can really put his back into a shovel, so he does the yard. I taught myself a bit of carpentry, so I do most of the handyman jobs around the place.

This works 99% of the time.

There are exceptions. Putting together Ikea bookshelves presses both of our alpha-dog primal buttons. ("No, YOU just hold it there, and I'll screw this bit...no, that doen't go there...let ME hold that while you...gimme the screwdriver...can you go faster with that allen key...no, THIS way...I told you that was upside down...") We end up in fisticuffs.

And every so often we have The Housewife Argument. When we first started getting serious, I asked him his plans for the future.

"I want to be a housewife," he said, scratching his balls.

"That ain't gonna happen," I replied, "If anyone is going to be a goddamn housewife around here, it's gonna be me."

The argument escalated until I had him in a head lock, shouting "Say it, MOTHERFUCKER, what are you?" He gave in, agreeing to be the master of the house while I damn well packed his lunch and had a tray of fucking cookies made for when he got home.

I sure as hell showed him who wore the apron in this house. Yes sir-ee.

What brought on these reflections? Well, Master Right just arrived in Munich for good. So our domestic life has picked up from where it left off.

For a while, he might get his wish. Ah, love.

There I was. Walking down the street, minding my own business. And what should slap me in the face but a giant cooch!

Of course, there was a woman attached. Like most men, I’m programmed to view her as nice, but merely a gift-with-purchase.

Coming from a gay guy, you might find that last sentence odd. Isn’t our programming different? In some ways, perhaps. And in some ways, we’re a little less different than we seem.

As a confused youth, The Honourable Husband consorted with the fairer sex quite a bit—he certainly gave it the good ol’ college try.

And why not? What’s not to like?

Take tits. I get tits. Could play with tits for days. Bouncy, silly, innocent, tasty, curious, ticklish, fun. Generously-nippled and endlessly unpredictable.

Tits have real personality. Think about how they get all dolled up into a nicely cleavaged bust, looking a million dollars, ready to go out and meet the world eye to eye. Think about them when your lover is lying on her back, her breasts at ease—nipples akimbo, pointing to four and eight o’clock, opening her heart to you.

The vagina, though, remained a stumbling block.

My father had no stash of Playboys for me to discover, nor god forbid, share on the sly. The Honurable Husband’s first glimpse of snatch was when he and the young lady were already en flagrante.

I'll admit it.  I found it confronting. 

A woman can be groomed, coiffed and manicured. She can keep herself perfect as a work of art. But a vagina betrays all that. It reminds you that woman is animal.  Being reminded that man is animal somehow seems like less of a surprise.

That poster on the corner, not five doors from my house, was the first time I’d confronted female anatomy in quite a while. My first reaction was one of sheer delight to live in Europe, since you could never plaster your privates over a billboard in, say, Alabama. My second reaction was, yep, I’m still gay.

The poster sits outside a museum called the Villa Stuck, which is no stranger to the odd flash of gash. Expressionist painter Franz Stuck built it as his studio and atelier, after he married a rich American widow, of course. Some say that the Villa Schtup is the single building that most typifies the Munich Jugendstil style of art noveau, for which the city (and my neighbourhood in particular) is justly famous.

When the building and furniture won a Grand Prix at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, the Kaiser waved his magic wand and turned plain-old Herr Stuck into the glamourous Count von Stuck. This gave him license to be decadent, horny and perverse—the privilege of aristocrats everywhere.

Count von Stuck mainly painted figures from Greek and Roman mythology, which provided an excuse for them all being rather compromised in the clothing department. His most famous piece, The Sin (1893), caused a sensation. Hell, it caused all kinds of sensations.

One of the things that attracted me to the neighbourhood was the Villa’s roof full of tasteful dickage, ready to make a long wait for the nearby tram pass that little bit faster.

It’s grand to see that the current masters of the museum are staying true to Stuck’s spirit in their choice of temporary exhibitions. The current show lasts ‘til July. Plenty of time for the minge and me to reminisce.

• Professor Michael Piazolo, who represents the hard-line libertarians of the Free Choice Party. His most memorable statement was that he loved the gay quarter, because there are such nice restaurants.
• Dr. Michael Mattar, of the liberal Free Democratic Party.
• Josef "Seppi" Schmid, of the conservative Christian Democrats, looking uncomfortable.
• Christian Ude, of the Social Democrats. The wildly popular incumbent.
• Hep Monatzeder, of the Greens, a current deputy mayor. His passion is cycling, click through on the Radler heading.
• Mark Hollemann of the Ultra-Greens. He didn't say much, because the Grens had already said it.

The only parties not represented were the far-left Linke, a remnant of the former East German communists, and the far-right Bayernpartei, or Bavaria Party. The Bavaria Party has only two policies; to praise God and to allow smoking again in pubs.

Putsch and femme.

Now, if you need to listen to political speeches, everything sounds better with a beer. It's a Bavarian tradition to hold political meetings in pubs; Hitler attempted a coup at such a meeting--his famous Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923.

Not much putsching that night in the Pfistfochviertel, though. Oberburgermeister Ude, a former journalist, former lawyer, and former cabaret comedian*, won't be adding former mayor to the list anytime soon.

He governs the city in coalition with the gay political party Rosa Liste, and being a thesp, knows how to banter in queer company. So much so, he has issued an public statement apologising for not being queer, acknowledging his wife of some 25 years.

If he batted for our team, as it were, Germany would be among the most municipally gay countries on earth, with its three largest cities run by gay men. Ude's coming-out-as-straight speech even playfully mimicked the coming-out speech of Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin: "I am hetero, and it is a good thing."

When asked how he would support the gay community, Ude pointed to his record. The current administration trained police in gay issues, supported the employment of gay teachers, and opened Olympic Park to the 2006 Gay Games. "This is not my world, but I come here gerne." said Ude in his closing remarks. Gerne is a useful German word, that mixes shades of happily, graciously, eagerly, gratefully, and you're welcome.

Yoo-hoo! Homo over here!

In fact, it was rather hard for the actual gay candidate to be gayer than his straight opponent. Dr. Michael Mattar, the guy in jeans who looks a little like the Great Kazoo from The Flintstones, is a gay businessman who is running for the liberal Free Democrats. Not only is he as queer as a three-Euro groschen, but his boss, the leader of the federal opposition in the Bundestag, is gay, too.

Both of them downplay their queer cred, citing that such affairs remain private matters. Mattar has criticised the gay community, which is a little rich, since the lesbian sitting next to me told me that one of his businesses is a gay dating website. Onstage, he backpedalled, saying that the gay community played a constructive role as a surrogate family for many who had been rejected by their own.

So, listen up, irony fans. The gay liberal has to deny that he's homophobic. The married socialist is just a little too fabulous to pass as straight. Have we managed to smash every stereotype tonight?

A flap from the right wing.

Er, no. Our dear friend Seppi Schmid, in typical conservative style, reached for the wedge. How to protect gays from homophobic violence? Deport young foreign males, he said. Munich has seen its first ever (alleged) murder on the subway, and the Christian Dems are running a tough law and order line.

Given the fate of Pym Fortuyn, Schmid actually found some support in the audience for this quatsch. But he really put his foot in his mouth when asked how his Catholic faith affected his attitude. His faith told him, clearly, that children thrive only with two parents of different genders.

His foot and his mouth are very good friends, it seems.

In November, sounding like a German Ann Coulter, he described the Socialists as maggots in the mane of the Bavarian Lion, whom he would eradicate. Alas, instead of the word "eradcicate", he used the word "de-louse". This shocked the Jewish community, since "de-lousing" was the pretext on which naked victims were ushered into gas chambers. When confronted, he had to plead ignorance of his nations's history.

Seppi may, indeed, be the George W. Bush of Munich politics. I would say his chances of sitting in the Rathaus, were Schmidhouse.

And by the way, my German is pretty schmidhouse, too. So some misquotes are distinctly possible.

German voice-actors Christian Ude, Verona Feldbusch, and Boris Becker
at the premiere of the German-language version of Disney's Chicken Little.
In German, it's called Heaven and Hen. Photo from ganz-muenchen.de

*By the way, unlike Reagan or Schwartzenegger, Ude hasn't retired from showbiz just because he holds a full-time job in politics. He moonlights as a guest star on TV drama; he even voiced the mayor in the German-language version of Disney's Chicken Little. I don't think his people looked ito it too closely before signing the contract. The mayor is a turkey. So is the film, I understand.

Pink stays pink stays pink, the headline reads. I assume it's a German interpretation of Gertrude Stein's A rose, is a rose, is a rose. The poster touts two candidates for Munich city council, and reminds us that they act as strong, incumbent voices in the assembly. The pair belong to a political party known as the Rosa Liste, or Pink Ticket. Their message ends with the tag line, Munich. A city for all.

It's a gay party. Could you tell?

The Rosa Liste boasts of its success in local politics. They get two percent of the vote city-wide, and eleven percent of the vote in the Ludwigvorstadt/Isarvorstadt ward, which contains Munich's major gay neighbourhood, the Bell Brook Quarter. (Or, as we say in German, the Pfistfochviertel. ) The Greens, the Social Democrats, and Rosa Liste form the political coalition which governs Munich.

That sounds impressive, especially when you compare it to the paltry gay presence in, say. American government. Uncloseted gay presence, that is.

Alas, it's easier to vote Green than Pink.

But by any other standard, the Rosa Liste performance looks pretty grim to me.

C'mon. Only eleven percent of the vote in the gayest neighbourhood of a major European city? Only two percent of the vote overall? With estimates of between five and ten percent of the population who openly prefer their own sex, it seems that most queers ain't voting the queer ticket.

Besides, the most successful gay politicians in Germany work within mainstream party structures.

Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin and a prominent Social Democrat, came out spectacularly in a speech to his party congress; he used the now-famous words, "I am gay, and it's a good thing." (In German, it sounds much more poetic). He was re-elected.

The conservative Christian Democrat mayor of Hamburg, Ole von Beust, refers all questions of sexuality to his blabbermouthed dad, who once indiscreetly outed him to the press. (May I just repeat that for American readers? He is a gay politician, who is a member of a conservative Christian party. And pop still loves him. Suck on that.)

Queer Apartheid?

Master Right and I looked for some big fat loud gay Christmas ornaments as a joke for my nephew, but found only tasteful home decor. Which is perhaps gayer than flaming out, nowadays.
The candy stand sold pink gummy bears and Barbie lucky dips. Can you say stereotype? Under the circumstances, English speakers may easily misread the gingerbread hearts that say I Love You as I Love Dick. In his gay politics, Yours Truly adopts the assimilationist position. You won't find me storming the barricades with the prideistas. Munich gay life runs counter to my natural inclinations.

On the other hand, Munich is a lefty island, adrift in a sea of conservative rural Bavarians. Perhaps the community felt it necessary to gather its wagons in a circle. Can't blame them for that. But do they really have to be pink wagons?

Rosa Liste will hold a public meeting tomorrow night, where all six mayoral candidates can address gay issues, at a pub in the Pfistfochviertel. You'd never see that happening in America, or even Australia. Though my German is truly sheisser, I might just tag along.

But I draw the line at last Friday's gay community event. The Eiszauber Rink in Karlsplatz hosted the annual HoliGay on Ice. I believe the surface was dyed pink. Isn't ice skating gay enough already?

Pictures of the Oktoberfest condom, the Rosa Wie'n logo, and the lederhunk are borrowed with gratitude form the Rosa Wies'n website. As always, should the copyright owners of the photographs wish me to remove them, I will do so gerne, with an apology.

Look, I get fuck-all traffic to this site. A few faithful readers, friends and a lot of people googling the word foreskin. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that I'd been violated! Er, copyright-wise. Look, AcidJasmine...there's one of those fucking Creative Commons links to your right. It says that you can quote with attribution, like Nick has. So be a gentleman, and tell the world where you palmed your dickmilch. And until then, keep your paws off my pixels, poof!