Ben's Notebook: Teen Spirit, Hip-Hop Republicans, Metro Opens Doors, and Mickey Rourke

"Notebook" is published every Tuesday. It is the weekly column by TNG Co-Founder Ben.

I read recently that it's the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. I'm sure there will be the inevitable discussion of his contribution to grunge music, his drug addiction, and his self-inflicted death. What probably won't be mentioned is what's never mentioned: the sad irony of his life. In a nutshell:

A talented young man with exceptional artistic sensitivity picks up a guitar and proceeds to tell the story of his generation. Others call it "X" but the young man calls it pathetic. He mocks its denial and passive relation to life. It's self-chosen helplessness. He rejects compromise to the prevailing age. He warns against a squandered youth. The young man gives his heart to the world in metaphor and allusion, and the world repays him with stupidity, misinterpreting everything he says and turning him into a symbol of everything he seeks to destroy. The young man, a sensitive soul who wants to connect the world and be understood by it, instead sees that world devalued by its own apathy. Unable to cope with alienation and the functional insanity of those around him, he puts a shotgun in his mouth and blows his head off.

It's all very sad, but considering who he was, I can't say I blame him.

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I was in the checkout line at Whole Foods last week when I saw the recent issue of Men's Journal with Mickey Rourke on the cover. The headline read "The Resurrection of a Washed-Out Man." While placing wine, bread, and cheese on the conveyor belt, I focused on those words. Washed Out. They struck a chord, so I bought the magazine. A week later, I'm still thinking about them. What does it mean to be washed-out? I think of being thrown into a machine to get scrubbed, soaped, and beaten repeatedly until you lose color and texture. Until you're thrown out for something better, more vibrant, or newly fashionable. The words bothered me. What does this man think when he sees these words, and others like them? Since his comeback performance in The Wrestler I've hear numerous people reference his withered looks and many mistakes, as if these details equal the sum of the man. Considering my loose connection to whatever the f*** is going on at any given time, I assume there's been a lot of this sort of talk going around.

I've been a fan of Mickey Rourke since I was a teenager. I've even re-watched his crap movies, and there are a number of them. While it's true that he made a mess of his life and most people are quick to cast a judgment or crack a joke, the words "washed out" are inappropriate. He was scrubbed, soaped, and beaten on perpetual spin cycle for an age, and it took an age to dry out, but his color, the many shades that texture the man, is not compromised.

There are few actors that command space by their presence in the manner of Mickey Rourke. Even in his crap films, he demands the attention of his audience. The article in Men's Journal references Rourke's eyes and his propensity for wearing sunglasses, and rightly so. To look through them is nearly a violation of privacy, a glance in to a man's soul and a reflection of all the ugliness and beauty in ourselves that fascinates and repels in equal measure. You can walk through that man's eyes, but most prefer to look around them and laugh. I think this says more about his critics than it does about Mickey Rourke.

I don't mean to minimize his failures. There are many. I only point out that as one of those many queer men who have thrashed through shifting darkness from the limited perspective of the narrow circle of light that surrounds us, I get this guy. I'm glad he made it through, and I'm hopeful to once more see the world through his eyes.

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"Flamenco Sketches (alternative take)" by Miles Davis. It's on the Sketches of Spain album. Listen during your morning metro commute, before people are fully reborn through the membrane of sleep and before coffee fuses with identity. Look around and consider the faces of those seated near you. All will be revealed.

If you can find words, I would be pleased to know what you saw. Contact me at ben@thenewgay.net.

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The GOP is going OPP. I read recently that the new Republican party chairman plans an "off the hook" public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings." That's dope. To wrap Jesus in a flag and then sodomize the American people with him always seemed an inherent contradiction. Trading in their duplicitous marriage of patriotism and faith for a more honest representation of their ideals is a good first step in bringing transparency to the political process. Both Hip-Hop and the GOP explicitly value wealth, power, and image over all else and brazenly go to any lengths to achieve it; both marginalize women and hate homosexuals, and neither have lived up to the potential they claimed in the 80s. Way to keep it realz, GOP. If Mitch McConnell's next campaign ad features him in gold chains with a couple of bitches in the back of his Impala, Obama's lead among the 18-34 demographic is in jeopardy.

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Bill Maher mentioned last night that cougars are taking over some neighborhoods crippled by the foreclosure crisis. I'll repeat that. Giant cats are moving in to abandoned properties. In the city of Detroit, over half the population has left, and the average home sells for 18,000 dollars. Considering the state of the automobile industry, at this rate one of our greatest cities could become a zoo within the decade. It's not inconceivable to imagine kudzu cover skyscrapers and urban gardening on main street. I mean, in main street. Maybe I'm sick, but the thought makes me smile. How would I fare if faced with a world where man must survive at his most basic? Does the future assign me some part in a post-Fight Club generation that buries post-modern man's mediated identity? Would I rise to the challenge? Most hope they never need to find out this much about themselves. I fear dying without having the chance.

Economic big shots George Soros and Paul Volcker both said last week that we're looking at an outcome worse than the great depression. I don't know where this financial crisis will take us, but It seems worse than I want to accept, and I know I'm not prepared. The nice people down the street are pumping as much of our tax dollars as they can into the economy in order to protect the American dream, as if we haven't already spent several generations of future wealth. As if our former glory of industrial expansion, easy credit, and cheap energy were before us instead of behind us. I'm not hearing many voices speak out in defense of waking life, but maybe I'm still in my own dream and can't hear them. I guess we all keep dreaming. For now.

I'm suspicious of this "Standard of Living" concept that no one wants to let die, but I guess growing up poor and mobile is to blame. To me, "standard of living" refers to your ability to survive day to day when all you have is yourself and a bad situation. Not much room for error, but it's one of the few marketable skills gained from nothing. I have a suspicion that people around me don't interpret this standard as I do, and I'm concerned for them, more so than for myself. I hear inspiring stories about that "greatest generation" of Americans whose character defined a people and saved a nation, but I'm not sure that race of people still exists. I don't know if men who have never known true struggle can cope if things get too real, especially after a certain passage of age and accumulated comfort. I fear the demon that might rise from the collective unconscious of a dreaming nation. I ask myself that if things go bad, I mean really bad, do I have it in me to survive? Am I now too soft to skip across a razor? My life has only become better these last few years--good job, stability, trusted friends--and everyone tells me that the version of DC that I live in is protected from what I read about in the papers. Why worry about fantastical contingency plans?

Maybe it's just muscle memory. Maybe I'm a fool. I just can't shake the instinct to stay on point. As they say in Louisiana, you can take the trailer out of the country, but not the grass out from under the trailer.