trip in review over the course of a return flight (and, of course, more pee-wee)

sitting on the floor at LAX Gate 1, polishing off a cup of Pinkberry*. no celebrity sightings to speak of, but lots of copycats. you know the type. slightly chunky girls with greasy highlights wearing button down oxfords over black leggings and Uggs, the latter of which went out of style at least three years ago and should now be reserved only for function, that of which does not exist in 70 degree Los Angeles. and just because in this moment i am overwhelmed with the sin of pride, i will go ahead and tell you that the only celebrity they could ever POSSIBLY, by a blind man, be mistaken for is Jessica Simpson. i, personally, would rather be the blind man.

wow. i just saw that woman’s butt. her butt, i tell you, peeking tautly from beneath the high-rise hem of her trench dress. she looked like a poor man’s Kardashian. now i really wish i were the blind man. the blind man deserves the chance to see her hot ass.

the only three articles of clothing that differ from what i flew out here wearing are my taxi-cab Target panties, my glasses, and…MY BRAND NEW PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW T-SHIRT!! not signed. we were only allowed one signed item and i chose the childhood photograph because it’s more personal and connects my then Pee-Wee aficionado with my Pee-Wee aficionado of now. i like things that come full circle. they help me to sleep at night.

we missed the R. Crumb exhibit at The Hammer, which is okay because i only just found out about it by chance yesterday when we were on our way to brunch**, and while we could have squeezed it in at the tail end of the day if we really wanted, we chose to check in at the Comfort Inn on Sunset*** and recharge. i made up for the decision by watching a video about the exhibit on the Hammer website while lounging on the bed. it is an exhibit featuring selected original drawings that help make up Crumb’s recently published Book Of Genesis, which i have, so while it would have been exciting to see them in the flesh i think i got more supplemental material from the video than i would have gotten from a visit. i have the same images in a the book next to my bed.

yesterday was perfect. after brunch we drove out to Malibu, to Point Dume State Beach. no swimsuits, so we just walked our snow bleached selves around in street clothes. the water was freezing anyway. i’d never seen the Pacific. i just wanted to touch it. i touched it, it touched me. it’s not like the Gulf beaches i grew up visiting. these beaches have waves and surfers. i didn’t see a single cigarette in the sand. big tangled chunks of ropey kelp collect at the shoreline. i liked picking them up and holding them, like broad green noodles, they were. huge domiciles of paradise above us on the cliffs. a few rock climbers. pelicans. i took pictures of a pelican. he was totally posing and struttin’ for me. headed back up the Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy 1) a spot and stopped at the Malibu Seafood Shack/Fish Market? can’t remember the exact name, but we had a couple fish tacos and the usual fresh daily catch fare combo. best fish i’ve ever had, even if it was battered and deep fried****. delicious, delicious, delicious.

made it back into L.A. around 3:30 and made a trip to the Museum of Jurassic Technology on Venice Boulevard in Culver City. the outside resembled a fortune teller’s shack, the inner receiving area & its employee made me feel like i was entering a mortuary, and the museum itself was a complete enigma. Google couldn’t explain the concept of “Jurassic technology” to me, so i’m inclined to believe there is no such thing. i can’t explain this museum to you, nor could the friend who recommended it as a place of interest, nor can anyone on Yelp. the only descriptive way it was described by said friend was as a sister organization to The Neo-Futurists, which leads me to deduce the whole experience as this:

The Museum of Jurassic Technology is, above all else, a trick. shrouded in a magic curtain of elusion, curators clearly intend for you to misunderstand this mockery of a museum. they have structured it to overwhelm and confuse you with careful strategy that makes everything look lofty and important, sort of like every single museum you’ve ever been in and thusly the employees who work so diligently to uphold this bullshit image. there are panels upon panels of text, dense and cyclically worded such that the average person endures a headache should they try to read it at all. there are many listening stations, artifacts that are questionable at times in terms of their authenticity. there is absolutely no flow to the space. you are forced to navigate it like a rat maze, never ceasing to miss a room here and there that you can’t easily find your way back to. some of the exhibit rooms are so dimly lit and oddly cluttered that you can’t walk around comfortably in them. at times you can’t even visually SEE elements of the exhibits. the exhibit on the history of trailer parks is particularly frustrating. i kept banging my elbows on display cases, yet had to keep going back and forth through it to get to other rooms. many exhibits include telephone handsets that provide explanations or supplemental information. you pick them up and press a button often to find that they bore you with the monotonous tone of a 1950s educational film, flood your auditory senses with monologue, song, and ambient noise simultaneously, or simply don’t seem to work at all. at one exhibit i sat down, lifted a handset, and pushed the button to start it only to find that it didn’t do anything. i waited for several minutes before walking away, only to find that the button activate a light or maybe even a series of lights behind the plate glass of the visual counterpart. over all, there were lots of interesting projection techniques used, some intriguing artifacts, and the overall experience was unlike anything i’ve ever had before. a visitor can never get the hang of this place. it defies any and all logic. there is no admission fee (though they do suggest donations), and a tea room upstairs that provides complimentary tea and cookies. at the top of the creepyballs stairs we saw a dog lying on the floor just outside the hall containing portraits of the Russian Space Dogs. i don’t know if the real dog was part of the exhibit or not. she was extremely docile, to the point that i couldn’t even confirm she was real until i was centimeters away from her. the tea room was bizarre and sparce, with several people who clearly knew each other and one man holding and discussing a hurdy gurdy.

congratulations, Museum of Jurassic Technology. you win.

i am at this point flying over the Rockies and wishing i had not chosen the window seat adjacent to the wing.

never made it to Hollywood. never made it to an In & Out Burger, the latter of which i’d been dreaming about for several weeks. we were still too full when it was convenient, and i gave up when i knew this wasn’t my last time in L.A. i had the same sentiment about the Walk of Fame, etc. this was a quick trip. i just wanted to relax and enjoy it.

met up with a friend of manfriend’s last night, at a dive bar down the block from where we’d had lunch. he’s a performer, too. they worked together in Montreal, and we saw his show at Second City a few months ago*****. talked about the life and the biz and the Pee-wee (which i’ve come to learn is spelled with a lowercase “w”).

there’s been much pontificating about Pee-wee and how we identify with him and how his work continues to be engaging, why Paul Reubens is an example of a truly brilliant performer who knows exactly what he’s doing at every minute and how long he can get away with holding a characteristically annoying moment without losing his audience. Pee-wee is, at times, a complete asshole. i identify with him because, while he is mostly awkward and controlling in this way that is sort of unassuming, he has these moments of DESPERATELY needing all the attention in the room. his heart is always in the right place, really until these moments, and even then his conflicts revolve around wanting to do the right thing and wanting to be the center of attention. his personal choices generally come down to sacrificing his own moment for someone else’s. because this simultaneously provides motivation for a performance style, it never ceases to be flawless. even if the entire rest of the cast walked onstage without knowing their lines or having their props, Pee-wee’s performance could still be successful, and probably keep the other actors in the game with some success themselves. You can see it when someone unexpected or unplanned happens onstage. Reubens reacts with such finesse that you’re almost left to wonder if the mishap was rehearsed.

Reubens is on the cover of L.A. Weekly this week, and of course i devoured the article as soon as we got back to our room last night. in the interviews i’ve read with the actor, he is not pushed to answer questions about his fall from grace some 20 years ago, and he pretty much maintains that it is a moment in his life that happened and passed, that he has moved on from, rarely thinks about, and does not wish to discuss. in all cases the interviewer seems to move on with respect from the topic, delving instead into the processes that lead Reubens to his alter-ego in the first place. one thing i’ve always admired about Paul Reubens is that, despite the public shame imposed upon him when i was still young enough to wake up to Pee-wee’s Playhouse in pastel Pee-wee Brand pajamas, is that he maintains his right to privacy without much of a fight. like Pee-wee himself, Reubens’ lack of comment or exposure in regards to his sexuality is gently guarded. in the new stage show, we see moments with Pee-wee as a sexually frustrated human being, but without preference one way or another in terms of gender. he is simply frustrated, like many of us. that is such a relatable concept (as is his physical embodiment of it) that it doesn’t really beg clarification. Regarding the events of 1991******, this article reveals two particularly telling bits of information, neither of which i’ve ever before seen documented:

1. In 1991, we all know Reubens was reprimanded for pleasuring himself in a Sarasota theater. the film he’d gone to see was called Nurse Nancy. i am assuming that this is a straight-flavored film, given the title.

2. this article also contends that had Reubens been a straight man soliciting sex from a female prostitute (like Hugh Grant around the same time) instead of a gay man masturbating alone, that controversy might have blown over much more rapidly and with little sticking power.

while i appreciate that argument, i have to wonder if the reporter was informed of Reubens’ sexuality first hand—and further more whether such a confession might have been made on the record rather than off—and beyond that, if it was something that the public needed to know as a means to somewhat argue his case after all these years. while i’m absolutely not implying that someone should be guarded or secretive about their personal lifestyle, there was something expecially dignified about Reubens never seeing a need to comment one way or the other. Like Pee-wee he transcended a NEED to explain himself or justify his actions by means of exploiting his privacy. it’s beyond his sexuality. we, the public, have never seen photos of Reubens’ family or intimate companions, his home, his car, photos of him shopping on Robertson Boulevard, it’s only in the last ten or so years become less rare to see photos or interviews with him as Paul Reubens rather than as Pee-wee Herman. Any time a public figure can do without much pressure or desire to the contrary, for me it sort of reaffirms their inate talent, the sort that doesn’t rely on controversy, sympathy, or any strong feelings one way or another from people who don’t matter. i especially don’t like when artists or other public figures are bullied into commenting on something personal for the sake of a beleaguering populus.

i think the fact that Pee-wee still works as a concept and character is remarkable given Reubens’ history with the public. Regardless of how either of his criminal charges were resolved, they both come with a stigma that is not easily shaken by anyone, particularly the creative mastermind of what became a wildly successful children’s show. his ability to resist any temptation to respond, to simply disappear from as a product that he was clearly ready to put to bed at the time anyway, was as smart a career move as creating the brand in the first place. with all this under the rug, the idea that Pee-wee can resurface, good as new and without a shadow of smoldered innocence that might surely render this character impossible—at least in his original incarnation—is phenomenal.

i do wonder if this blind willingness to forgive this is a sign of our generation. several years ago i went to see Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure in a midnight showing at The Music Box in Chicago. the theater was packed with most viewers between the ages of i’d say 25– 40—the same demographic that mostly filled Club Nokia on Wednesday night. we all shared a highly personal relationship with Pee-wee Herman, evident from the rollicking cheers that started from the opening credits and continued on through the end, when Pee-wee rides away from his own movie on his bicycle. we grew up with Pee-wee, and we’ve missed him terribly. thank goodness that we’ve grown up around media circus controversies like this our entire lives. we’ve seen the mighty fall from higher heights than we might were we accused of the same things. we’ve seen our friends come out of the closet and successfully gain support from their peers while still in their adolescence, parents and presidents alike lie and philander, we’ve watched teachers and coaches embark on inappropriate relationships with their ment-ees, scout leaders and principles busted for drugs and child pornography, not to mention the countless celebrities and athletes who have been ostracized for illegal activities of one form or another. we sense the different when a person is evil, versus when they have made a mistake. for us, Pee-wee Herman is the patron saint of loveable weirdos who simply strayed from us during a time when his weirdo got the best of his lovability.

by this point i am on my second mid-flight snack. i have enjoyed a simulated nap sandwiched between a stranger and the worst window seat on Southwest flight 1419 with non-stop service to Chicago. we are now hovering over a placid, duvet-looking layer of clouds under which lies the largely uneventful topography of the greater Midwest. we should be landing at Midway right on time. in less than an hour, i will be on the ground, making my way towards the Orange Line on my way to the Brown Line. a couple hours later, i will be at the theater, and tomorrow morning i will be in a 4-hour workshop about individual fundraising.

my trip is over.
my manfriend is still in L.A., with Malibu sand in the rental Mazda 6 and my sunglasses.

L.A., you surprised me. my interest is piqued. i am not finished with you yet.


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ET CETERALS:


*designer frozen yogurt that made a big splash to the credit of big mouth Perez Hilton. Pinkberry gained notoriety around the same time that Britney Spears shaved her over-processed coif and Lindsay Lohan was frequently spotted with the young and slutty proprietor of another pink culinary establishment, the questionably named Pink Taco. i just paid $5 for a medium cup of coconut flavored stuff with fresh raspberries and sliced almonds. it was good, but i am still not infamous. i think i misunderstood the hype. and anyway, i’ve had the exact same expensive thing in Chicago, from a place next to the 24-hour Starbucks on Clark + Belmont.

**the salmon breakfast stack with fresh fruit & coffee at The Alcove in Los Feliz. smoked salmon over two potato cakes, topped with two poached eggs and dill. we sat outside. it was delicious.

***stay here. it is cheap and clean and conveniently located. recommended by a friend, discounted by AAA.

****this is, apparently, how most people like their roadside seafood? really? but don’t you want to actually TASTE it?

*****FrankenMatt. look it up online. they are hilarious. truly good comedy.

******not to mention the even more speculative yet events of the early aughts, which slammed Reubens with a rather unjust charge of purchasing and possessing child pornography, a claim that was investigated under the pretense of a tip-off that proved pretty insubstantial. Reubens is a collector of antique erotica which, from what i’ve seen, is benign. maybe at some point in history it was considered graphic, but by this point is rendered more an example of campy genre art. at any rate, the quality is more tasteful than anything out there today, and i believe that the argument may have laid in the allegation that some of the models who posed for the publications may have been under the age of 18 at the time—but still not children. the L.A. Weekly article even states that Reubens bought this batch of his collection without ever having seen it, that he specifically asked for NOTHING with children. he offered access to several pieces for a related Dateline interview following the arrest, and it’s clear that what he has is nothing like what an accusation of something as hot-button as “child pornography” implies.