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The Doofus Factor

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Three Male Teenagers Looking at Mobile Phone --- Image by © Ole Graf/Corbis

Three Male Teenagers Looking at Mobile Phone — Image by © Ole Graf/Corbis

For over twenty years, I worked as a specialist in census demographics. One of the most surprising things I learned during that time is that, whereas there are 26 boys born for every 25 girls, by the age of twenty-one, girls outnumber the boys. Why is that? The answer is very simple: There are a number of factors that disproportionately increase the mortality of teenage boys.

An article in the August 31, 2015 issue of The New Yorker entitled “The Terrible Teens” by Elizabeth Kolbert treats young men and women the same, but she does not account for the gender factor. Still, what she says is interesting:

Teen-agers are, as a rule, extremely healthy—healthier than younger children. But their death rate is much higher. The mortality rate for Americans between fifteen and nineteen years old is nearly twice what it is for those between the ages of one and four, and more than three times as high as for those ages five to fourteen. The leading cause of death among adolescents today is accidents; this is known as “the accident hump.”

Fortunately for them, girls are less likely to make stupid mistakes that end of killing them than boys are.

We tend to remember most vividly the experiences we had during those teen years, even if they were dumb. It has something to do with our pleasure centers being more intense at that point than later in life. In today’s news, for example, we hear of one of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s youthful stunts, namely putting his penis into the mouth of a dead pig while a student at Oxford. At least, he survived. But what about those teens who, upon getting extremely drunk, drive around town with a bunch of similarly affected teens and wind up in a gruesome wreck?

Kolbert continues:

Many recent innovations—cars, Ecstasy, iPhones, S.U.V.s, thirty racks [cases of beer], semi-automatic weapons—exacerbate the mismatch between teen-agers’ brains and their environment. Adolescents today face temptations that teens of earlier eras, not to mention primates or rodents, couldn’t have dreamed of. In a sense, they live in a world in which all the water bottles are spiked.

Sometimes I think the reason I survived is that I spent my entire adolescence suffering from a pituitary tumor that isolated me from more normal teens. By the time I was operated on at the age of twenty-one, I was mostly out of danger from the doofus factor.

 

 

 

 

Dreaming of Proust

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Alfred George Stevens’s “Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt” (1885)

Alfred George Stevens’s “Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt” (1885)

When you’re a hopeless intellectual like me, you, too, will have dreams that smack of literary criticism. This one is from last Saturday night. Despite the hot, humid weather we’re having in Los Angeles, I had just begun re-reading the second volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, in the David Grieve translation called In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. (That title alone gives rise to dreams of a sort.)

Marcel has finally won the right to go to the theater to see the great actress La Berma (thought to be Sarah Bernhardt) as Racine’s Phèdre, albeit chaperoned by his grandmother. Feeling he is about to be exposed at long last to the holy grail, Marcel awaits the magical moment. It comes, but, alas, the lad is disappointed. Although he claps and cheers madly with the audience, Marcel feels that the actress did not live up to her hype.

That’s where my dream begins. I am thinking: Well, now, the entire heptology is full of disappointments: In the first volume Swann is cruelly deceived by his love, Odette de Crécy … but marries her anyhow. Marcel idealizes the ancient nobility of the Oriane, Duchesse de Guermantes, but gives us ample opportunities throughout the series to see how trivial her decorous life has become. As for Palamède, Baron de Charlus, he is given to affairs with lower class young men and, in the final volume, ends up being flagellated by one of them in a male bawdy house. Albertine does wind up in a relationship with Marcel, but he agonizes constantly that she is bi-sexual. Besides, she dies young.

Again and again, it almost seems as if Proust’s grand theme is either “You can’t always get what you want” or “Nothing is as good as it seems at first.”

And that’s where my dream left off. In the end, though, I rejected my dream interpretation. Marcel’s inner life is so vivid and intense that all the disappointments still make it all worthwhile. If that negativity were the only thing I got from reading Proust, why would I be reading the seven volumes for a third time? (Er, aside from THAT, I mean).

Incidentally, the original Stevens portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (above) is at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, near my place of work.

 

Me and the Rainbow

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John Dorr (1944-1993)

John Dorr (1944-1993)

I am not quite sure how to word this post, but I’ll give it a try anyhow: It’s about my dealings with gay males from high school days to the present. At this point, I’m not sure of my conclusions, or even if there is one. I guess, ultimately, I am dealing with an alternate form of behavior that, while viewed by many as being on the fringes, is becoming more acceptable as time goes on. While I am not among their number, I have occasionally been influenced by them.

In high school, the drum major of our marching band at Chanel High School was Ernie Horvath. A brilliant dancer, he went on to Broadway, changing his name to Lawrence Horvath. One day, he came in and showed me what he called his “fag shoes.” At the age of sixteen, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I understand he succumbed to AIDS.

At Dartmouth College, I remember one gay couple that was being demonstrative about their affections. They were chased across the campus by a bunch of fraternity types. I didn’t join the chase and don’t know how it ended.

UCLA film school brought me into an environment which was much more varied. One of my fellow grad students in the film department was John Dorr, a brilliant film scholar with whom I enjoyed conversing. At the time, I was somewhat dismissive of silent films, except for the great comedians, but John convinced me that they were great in a different way and were worth a second look. In the end, I agreed with him.

During the school strike after the Kent State shootings in 1968, we were putting together a schedule of “relevant” film screenings. John’s contribution was that we should show The Revolt of Mamie Stover. I still crack up when recalling that one with some of my old film friends.

Around this time, I went into group therapy. Among the participants were male and female gays. What I was there for was the feeling that my medical history made me feel isolated, like a Martian. I still looked like a teenager at the age of twenty-five and wondered whether any woman, ever, could take me seriously. What I found out was that, far from being a Martian, I was very much an Earthling. This was an important lesson for me: Irrespective of sexual leanings, isolation and fear of rejection were more universal than I suspected.

I dropped out of the film program in 1972 and went into computer programing. In the meantime, John Dorr went on to have a brilliant career, founding EZ Films and exploring the potential of video as an art medium. At this point we were not in touch, but I was greatly saddened to hear of his death from AIDS in 1993.

My one negative gay encounter was with my landlord Tony F. For many years, I was against gay marriage because I did not want to see Tony married to one of his typical rough-trade ex-con boyfriends and be subjected to their bullying and panhandling. He was actually considering turning our apartment building into a halfway house. But then he died—of AIDS and multiple other causes, mostly relating to negligence—about three years ago.

As I thought, there really is no conclusion. There’s good, there’s bad, and there’s indifferent. Just like the rest of life.

 

 

In Remembrance of Amusements Past

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The Abandoned Amusement Park of My Youth

Geauga Lake: The Abandoned Amusement Park of My Youth

There are few things so pathetic as an abandoned amusement park. When I was a kid in Cleveland, I remember going at least once every summer to Geauga (pronounced JAW-gah) Lake in Aurora, Ohio. My father’s union, MESA Local 17, frequently held its summer picnics there. My brother and I always had a ball.

The park had a great fun house, complete with naughty mechanical peep shows that had nekkid ladies for a penny, and you could crank the cards to turn over at whatever speed. By the entrance, one had to maneuver a tricky labyrinth. There was a carney employee stationed by a button that released a jet of air to blow women’s dresses up above their heads. (I guess that wouldn’t go over too well now.) Also there was a giant rolling wooden barrel that one tried to traverse without falling on one’s heinie.

The Fun House at Geauga Lake

The Fun House at Geauga Lake

What my parents liked was the big open launch that circled the lake, creating a breeze that refreshed the passengers in the humid Ohio air. There was a roller coaster and a lot of fast rides that I was too chicken to try. (It was enough just to battle the car sickness en route.)  No, I mostly hung out at the fun house, or I would pick a nice shady spot to read—ever the bookworm. I even remember one summer in high school reading J. E. Neale’s Queen Elizabeth I to pass the time after I became sated with my crude fun house pleasures. I still have the volume on my shelf.

As I grow older, I see parts of my past being annihilated by the passage of time. Geauga Lake was founded in 1887 and finally closed down in 2007. I guess 120 years was not a bad run. Hell, I wish I could last as long!

 

At the Hotel in the Desert

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It Was Another of My Strange Dreams

It Was Another of My Strange Dreams

Don’t expect this to make any sense: It was another of my strange dreams. I was trudging with a friend across the sands of a desert when we came up on a hotel surrounded on all sides by sand dunes.

Naturally, the first thing we looked for was the check-in counter, but we couldn’t seem to find it. There were rooms, restaurants, pools, and lounges scattered almost randomly. We wandered down endless corridors, passing restaurants with sumptuous-looking fare. But we felt we had to check in first.

Like almost all of my dreams, it was well short of being a nightmare because of the dreamlike acquiescence with which we accepted the illogical design of the hotel. At any time, we could have asked someone where the front desk was located, but that possibility didn’t enter our heads.

As I write this, it strikes me that our wanderings through this hotel are a lot like life. We have to check out before we ever figure out where to check in.

Such a Nice Boy

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I Had Developed a Reputation

I Had Developed a Reputation

It’s odd the way the past keeps getting dredged up. I had forgotten about Minichiello’s Pizzeria which stood opposite the Nugget Theater (above) on Main Street in Hanover, New Hampshire. I had managed to get a doctor’s letter absolving me from eating at Dartmouth College’s student dining hall, on the grounds that the food there nauseated me. So I usually ate at the restaurants in Hanover, of which there were about ten at the time—at least including those in my price range.

One of the places I ate was Minichiello’s: They had good pizza and were friendly. The only problem was they thought I was such a nice boy. You must remember that when I was a college senior, I looked as if I were still twelve; and I was subject to bullying by the local high schoolers until they saw I was carrying a college ID. So there I was, munching away at my pizza, when they introduce their daughter to me. She was very cute in a bad girl sort of way, and here her parents were holding me up as an example she should follow—instead of those bad boys who worked at the local garage.

God knows, if it weren’t for the fact that I was seriously ill with a pituitary tumor and, as a result, had not yet physically reached the age of puberty, I would much rather be doing with her those things her parents feared she was doing with the bad boys.

I was a good boy because I had no choice. I would much rather have had fun exploring her anatomy in a dark place rather than holding myself up as some sort of role model, which I was not. (Of course, nothing would have happened in any case because the girl thought I was a dweeb, and she was just being nice to her parents.)

In the end, the Minichiello girl went on to have her life, and I, mine. It was just one of those moments in which I was being nudged by fate into acting a part I did not feel was really mine.

As you all know, I am really bad to the bone.

 

The Talking Llamas

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Not Only Talking, But Shopping As Well

It’s Not Exactly Bloomingdales, Is It?

I was restless last night, probably because my left arm was hurting more than usual. At one point in my dreams, I found myself at UCLA just outside the Ackerman Union, where there is a statue of the Bruin mascot. To my surprise, two llamas accompanied by two girls walked by. Oddly, the llamas were talking like Valley Girls about their shopping experiences at Bloomingdales as if it were an everyday occurrence. Cut to me doing a double take.

Considering that so many of my waking thoughts are occupied with planning my upcoming trip to South America, it is not surprising that llamas, in many ways emblematic of the entire continent, walk through my dreams. They are most welcome, even if they shop at Bloomingdales.

In the Swamp

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I Thought This Was a Desert Here!

I Thought This Was a Desert Here!

For most of the year, Southern California is a desert. In June and July, however, it turns into a swamp. Mexican hurricanes send moisture across the border and make the air sticky and wet.This condition leaves local weather forecasters nonplussed, if only because they do not acknowledge weather that sneaks over the border. Thanks to my friend, Bill Korn, there is a website that shows the Canadian and Mexican effects on our climate.

IThis morning, I felt as if I had slept in a swamp. I just could not get up until around one in the afternoon. Although I am at work now, I still do not feel very good and will probably leave early. Humid weather just never agrees with me.

 

A Club for Kids

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Every Boy’s Sweetheart: Annette Funicello

Every Boy’s Sweetheart: Annette Funicello

On October 3, 1955, I walked over a mile to Warrensville at the corner of Northfield Road and Van Aken to see a movie; but I was more interested in what was going to be on T.V. when I got home. Although I ran at what for me at the age of ten was top speed, I only missed a few minutes of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” I did not make that mistake in days to come: there were kids like me, cartoons, special guests, and various other little daily features.

And there was that ultimate sexpot of the 1950s.No, not Marilyn. The shorter one: Annette Funicello. In darkened living rooms all around the country, little boys were sighing as their hearts went pit-a-pat.

Disney really made it happen for me. That same year, he was going to open a theme park in Anaheim called Disneyland. It was to be an unattainable place of dreams.

Unattainable, at least, until the tail end of 1966, when I came out to Southern California to go to graduate school in film at UCLA. Our old neighbors from Cleveland, the Gurals, took me to a ball game in Anaheim to see the Cleveland Indians lose to the (then) California Angels, after which we went to … DISNEYLAND!

I am not one of those people who are too old and too sophisticated for Disneyland. Granted, the greasy kid stuff at Fantasyland is de trop for me, but I still love New Orleans Square and, nowadays, Toontown. I have yet to visit the Calfornia Adventure theme park next door, but I will eventually.

 

An Improving Broken Shoulder

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How I Looked Before Physical Therapy

How I Looked Before Physical Therapy

Well, it looks as if I no longer qualify for that bellringer’s job. Before showing up at UCLA Rehab last week, I looked like the character above. But thanks to the skill of my physical therapists. aided and abetted by blasting caps and a jackhammer, I am able to move my arms almost as well a monkey in the trees.

This is hardly new to me. In 2002, when I had a left hip replacement, I had my first experience with physical therapy—with such success that my surgeon had to check his records to see which hip he had operated on, so natural was my walk. Then, in 2006, I slipped and fell on the ice during a blizzard in Tierra Del Fuego and cracked my humerus against a high concrete curb. Again, the PTs brought the affected limb back to life. Now, I broke the other shoulder on Saturday, March 14.

I am almost convinced that there is little that physical therapists cannot do. Well, not quite. They weren’t able to do much for the right arm of the guy in the picture below.

A Really Challenging Case for Recovering Full Range of Motion

A Really Challenging Case for Recovering Full Range of Motion

So my hearty thanks to Lynn and Prachi and their colleagues at UCLA Outpatient Rehabilitation and the miracles they accomplish.