No Millennium

If you want a bear (particularly those on Livejournal) to perk up and take notice, toss him a Laurie Anderson line. I don't know why, but it works.

All bears love Laurie Anderson.

Damn . . . just, damn . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcT_AOQlrvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZaXCs02Hms&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC-gKZFIZIk&feature=related

Recently a complete stranger called me "Bubba". Not 'buddy' or 'bud' or even 'bub', but 'Bubba'. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but it left me feeling -- well -- kind of proud.

Odd, that.

I've been pretty quiet about it -- the bear thing, that is. Partly its my principled aversion to any ready-made subcultural community, to any identity assumed earnestly, unironically, uncritically. (Like Groucho Marx, I wouldn't want to belong to any club which would have me as a member.) Partly, its because I find the whole thing in questionable taste. And, to be honest, partly its a matter of shyness and insecurity. So I've never been to a bear event or dated a bear-identified guy. The word 'woof' has never crossed my lips in any but a canine sense.

Yet the fact remains that I am a large, hairy gay man. And I find others of the same description (but not only them) wildly attractive. Bear blogs, websites, and mailing lists -- and bear porn -- are part of my regular online itinerary. Maybe they're rubbing off on me. Lately I've become larger, hairier, perhaps a little more butch in my self-presentation. So when a stranger addresses (interpellates, for you Althusserians) me as 'Bubba', I figure -- or hope -- that others are starting to notice.

Never mind the hypocrisy or even the unplumbed nasties of class, race, region and gender so casually invoked. 'Bubba' is fine with me.

I work in a bookstore ("the only respectable branch of retail", quoth somebody whose name I forget). I've done so for many years and I like it. But this line of work, for all its joys, does mean putting up with a certain amount of shit from the more demented members of the general public.

Not long ago, an elderly gentleman maneuvered his walker (tennis balls stuck on the ends of its legs) to the register where I was working. As I was tabulating his purchase, he commented loudly, while pointing a bony finger at me, "That young man had better do something about his obesity!" Taken aback, I feigned polite indifference, but no doubt my surprise showed. "I'm a doctor, so I know," he continued, "He's asking for diabetes, as obese as he is. I've seen people die of diabetes. I'm a doctor . . ." Purchase completed, his (long-suffering) wife showed him the door.

Besides the weird third-person form of address, I couldn't believe the effrontery that a complete stranger should find my corpulence a matter of public comment. Now I know what the "fat is a feminist issue" theorists mean when they point out that a fat person's body becomes, somehow, public property.

I could have mentioned Paul Campos and others' skillful meta-analysis of the clinical literature, which shows that weight, per se, is generally not a health risk independent of, say, diet and exercise. I could have pointed out that the BMI tables, treated as holy writ by the medical profession, are actually arbitrary standards virtually devoid of clinical import. I could have mentioned that, according to various standards (blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, etc.) my doctor professes me healthier than most. I could have pointed out that you can't judge a book my its cover.

In the end, the truth is that I prefer my body with a little beef on it. I feel better, more attractive, and more myself, that way. It goes with the whole "bear" thing, I guess. I've tried dieting, but my body always seems to find a happy medium.

In the end, I'll go home and eat a (no doubt taboo) dinner. Maybe later I'll lift some weights. Meanwhile, my erstwhile interlocutor can scarcely propel himself put the door.