Yesterday, I manage to get hold again of a long missed DVD of mine, the pet shop boys video collection. I got it through the help of my brother, who on his coming to munchen last week, provided the necessary luggage to bring it to Germany. I was certainly happy, not least for the DVD, but also for being able spend some days in the beautiful munchen.
There were several tracks in the DVD that were, and are, of particular interest of mine. These were: Being Boring, Before, Liberation, and What Have I Done to Deserve This?. Punch out tracks. The perfect fill to a hole of musical gap I haven’t had the chance to fill since my leaving to Berlin. Of them all, especially Being Boring, incites me to write of a subject that has always stuck in my mind for a long time now. Gays.
First of all, I am aware that some of my gay friends would be reading this blog, therefore, let me take the chance to put forward that I didn’t mean any offense whatsoever, especially to the fact that you’re gay. I personally think it’s an individual choice and does not make one less, or more, of what one is. It’s just a way that you opted. And I perfectly understand it. In fact, as you probably notice right away in the title, the general theme of this writing is nonetheless to praise you guys. My best regards to you all.
Note: due to the sensitivity of the theme, i feel the need to explain my position in this discussion. in looking gays on an equal stature as other components in the society, im putting myself in this discussion as a secular man, even though i do have a religion. it is important to do this because otherwise discussion would be polarized with opinions subjected to localized subjectivity (those involving religion views). i opted to temporarily abandon the views of me as a follower of a religion, in which social matters including with gays are ruled, and choose to be what i always be, a more liberal type of person.
Being Boring
Watching Being Boring, right from the first frame, you know immediately that the artist (or the director with full approval from the artist) has serious gay inclination. Hehehe… I mean really. They started the video with this man, heavily muscular, sculpted Greek-god figure, definitely a serious contender for flirting material for gays I think (especially with its musculuous tush), coming out of a pool NAKED, showing full bum, in a black and white, dramatic, neo-bohemian, Helmut Newton-Gun For Hire-type of styling. Then he, with wet, so often presumed as sexy, hair, jumped up and down on this jumping rubber that you used to see in carnivals or theme park, still naked, showing his full bum and muscles to the world, joyfully, playfully, with a dog on his side.
As for the pretext that a picture worth a thousand words, then these first pictures tells so much about the gay world, more than any volumes of writing ever could. To make an attempt, it suggested the audiences of a high spirit, bohemian, living of the sort of people. Regardless whether this is true or not, as I am not a gay myself, the pictures definitely suggested it.
Neil Tennant, the singer of Pet Shop Boys is gay. He had been long known of it and still is so far I aware of. The beginning of the video of Being Boring, aside from the naked man scene, is superposed with animated hand writing on screen. The writing was presumably Neil’s, it inscribed:
"I came from Newcastle in the North of England. We used to have lots of parties where (underline) everyone got dressed up. And on one party invitation was the quote “She was never bored because she was never boring.” The song is about growing up _ the ideals that you have when you’re young and how they turned out. (Signed) The Pet Shop Boys"
Two keywords surface, readily known as natives of gay communities: parties and dressed up. The circle is now completed. I need not anymore hunt for prove. I know now that this video, as with the inspiring tracks and artist, undoubtedly gay.
There’s Something Underneath
The ideas of gay conferred from this video, unsurprisingly matches perfectly with my personal experiences. Personal experiences couldn’t help to be put away from this discussion, since they shape our understanding and concepts about things surrounding us. This incites the fact that indeed there was something similar underneath all gay people that make them, not only interesting, but also the same, regardless of location, nationality, social status, or whatever individual attributes we know outside of gay or not gay. There is a red line that makes them somehow united however separated. There is a ubiquitous indigenous spirit inside them, which, I envisage, notwithstanding all the negative prejudice on them, what makes them so unique as well as powerful to affect all of our lives like never been before.
The Rhythm
In the 1990’s, when I first step foot in America as a kid, I grew accustomed to an idea of people coming to gay discotheques to hear good music. These are what my brother, his wife, and his friends did each time in their weekend quest for ritual breakthroughs in clubbing experience. They go to gay clubs. As I was at the time not allowed to come, I understood the music through the records they bought that they acknowledged from going into these bars. Then came names like Club 69 (which at the time I had know idea of its gayness), Sybil, Robin S., Bizarre Inc., etc., exciting club music that were just too bohemian and too “gay-ish” to be played in normal clubs. (In fact the whole development of these music, as later apparent, cannot be separated from the influence of gay people – don’t forget gay groups such as Village People who were big role models and practically forebears for musical styling in the club/neo-disco genre at the time).
Their music is, to simply describe, daring, exciting, and extremely danceable. Compared to rock clubs or blues clubs that are more oriented toward the content, the music of gay clubs is an insistence to rhythms and the process of letting one go into them. To me henceforth, this is a source of un-tiring burst of energy to overcome life.
Made by gays and celebrated by the world is how I reflect on that music in gay clubs many years ago. A celebration of spirit they together truly believe and thus form their identity to the outside world.
The Gay Boss
Working in a radio station in Bandung some time ago also contributed many of my experiences in gay community. The fact that the general manager, whom we consult and speak to on a daily basis, is gay is one difficult thing to comprehend initially, but finding out that he and one of a radio personality friend is living together under one roof is altogether another, more challenging and “enlightening” thing for me to grasp, especially as a kid coming from a perfectly “straight” environment in ITB to the hectic and happening world of media entertainment. My worries of finding hardship in working together with these gay parties soon vanish however, not due to increasing contact and friendship, but more importantly once I know how their nuts and bolts work. On the contrary of being fretted, I started gathering growing respect toward them. It’s their work ethos that manages to get the kick out of me from time to time. The most obvious case in the writer’s view is the general manager. He is a man, who can get in touch very well in a friendly relationship with his sub-ordinates at one time and controls them at another, without losing any gain of respect, the freedom to express ideas in a comfortable manner, and the powerful insistence of a boss. How did he get away with them all? through his, surprisingly, gay traits. With his sharp, stabbing way with words he controls, but with his sensitivity and easy-going-ness of gay, free spirited personality he befriends. It is almost he could perfectly control social distances as far or as close as he wanted. The result is us, as his subordinates, could never come too close and at the same time could never be too far from him. In terms of professionalism, I think this is the supreme professionalism whom any manager should definitely at least try to get a hold of, that is even if you’re not gay! Confidences attained by gay managers have brought them to certain level hard to reach by normal managers. It’s that sense of having succeeded in crossing the lines of social pressure and the transformation and courage for assertion into a true, publicly admitted, gay personality what makes them so powerful. I had often preoccupied myself to name such personalities, with the terms “glowing” person. These people, to justify the name with hard facts, are normally hard to go unnoticed in parties or groups. Their high esteem, confidence and charming personality just simply avoid them to do so.
The Influence
Those above are barely the periphery of what gays mean to our world. The center was their vital existence in building the history of world, at least the modern world. We could not forget the names like Elton John, George Michael, or Boy George in the development of musical arts in the 20th century. A hefty list of gay writers and artists that have transformed our way of thinking are available to search on the internet or in the books. So do politicians, aristocrats, academics, sportsmen, even children’s book writers (e.g. Hans Christian Andersen). They have been and always a part of our society and help transformed it either we knew it or not. Regardless of whether their intention to involve the theme of gay in their works or not, we should remain grateful for their contribution, whom in fact, when really going down on it, we have probably already enjoyed, quoted, used, and/or be inspired on.
A Different Color
My social life now is not apart from gay societies as well, neither in Jakarta, Bandung, or Berlin. The principle remained the same: to respect their choice and the view of sexual orientation as not a way to judge people (in fact I don’t approve of anything nearing absolute judgment at all). I have to admit that life without these people wouldn’t probably as interesting as it is. In the pretext that variety is what makes world colorful, the existence of gay friends certainly added another color to my life, adding new experiences and learning, watching how they behave (even though I admit sometimes much too horrid for me, especially seeing their behavior toward a camera and how splendidly, or perhaps sexually interesting, they want to physically look in the result), and obtain somewhat different, grayed area offering of type of friendship.
Just An Idea
A friend once told me about an idea (whom he perhaps got from another friend, and end up taken from a book) that says: essentially inside every man, there is always a certain degree of gay-ness. This degree varies among men, but what need to be comprehended from this suggestion is that no matter how small, it exists. Specifically, it exists and it has function. He continued, without the existence of these gay genes within us, it is impossible for men to make friends with other men. Men would otherwise be harsh, unsympathetic, opposite to gentle creatures who know nothing sort of traits such as sensitivity, warmth, compassion, etc. in short, men would be utterly masculine! Now, imagine what kind of world would we born into when this is true. For my standpoint, as a great lover of friendship, I might rather have a bit of gayness inside me, instead of being the malicious, absolute masculine creature I’m not even eager to imagine.
The Ideal World according to..
The idyllic world from the perspective of the gays, however probably intrigued with many conflicts especially from religion point of view, is perhaps the kind of world which many would terms, ironically, highly civilized (despite there are arguments that the idea of men-to-men or women-to-women sexual relationship is what in fact make them uncivilized). A world with high level of equality and humanity, whom perhaps what our entire civilizations, dreaded with war and thirst for power, dreamed of.
Since the basic ingredients of gays relationship, as I try to comprehend it, is love, it is comprehensible that their standards of humanity become abnormally high. In a pressured society, especially the eastern, the gay love, which looks at love even beyond the boundary of general men and women type, is a quest of love that is far more controversial than the general love. They quest for the more fundamental love compared to the general, commonly understood love whom general people take for granted. They search and let themselves be bounded for a love which consorts to no traditional boundary, or pre-assumptions, or cultural standpoints. The true love, that might lie not by the next woman, but perhaps the next man. In this search for love, they liberate themselves from the normal bounding. In finding the love, they realize that the true love knows no culture, national, or geographical boundary. Hence, all this roads to their unprecedented level of respect to humanity. The respect for a life full of love and togetherness. For concrete fact, see how many nationalities exist in gay parades, see how many colors are there in the national gay flag, and see how many the themes of love and friendship appear in gay artists ’ work.
The "perfectly in place" People
Some of my gay friends who work in entertainment fields are ones who I called the “perfectly in place” people. The terms stand for their exact synchronization of what the industry which they work for demands and what they have to offer it. Gays, often are the best candidates for entertainment industry positions. Not because they’re gays but because what this sort of industry demands. The entertainment industry not only needs the so called creative people but, increasingly, people who can go over the line, break new grounds, introduce new concepts and cultures. They need the reserves of these people for developing new programs, tracking new cultures, introducing new cultures, and provide simply good entertainment in presenting them. Now, what sort of people who could perfectly fit those requirements beside gays? The answer is easy: NONE. Gays are, simply said, born to do it. They are born to go over the line, break new grounds, introduce new concepts to their surroundings, and form new cultures. That is because it is exactly what they have been doing for the past hundreds even thousands of years, all the way to the prophet’s age, gays are recognized. They are meant to break new grounds, heck, even their existence is a break of new grounds.
In entertainment who is gaining more and more foothold in Indonesian industry, gay’s presence are getting inevitable. The required qualities are all there in them: the indigenous tendency and affinity for anything fashionable and potential fashionable; the self-imposed necessity to look different and posit fashion statements; the strong attention to lifestyles. However the fact, regarding the recent situation in Indonesia, I am not suggesting that the human resource acquisition in the entertainment industry is now based on a gay/no gay criteria, but it is certainly publicly known that gay personalities, often acknowledged through their behaviors and fashion statements, certainly have their own positions compared to other normal chaps.
The Irresolute Creature
Gays, despite all the implication that might arise in their society, is a classic figuration of the concept freedom. It upholds faithfully the concept of individuality established as far back as the Renaissance. It is the ultimate enemy of authoritative establishments, such as traditional cultures and implicit social laws (as with the concept of individuality in the face of kings and church in the Renaissance era). Its very existence reminds man that man, even though often thought bounded by the establishment that God and/or society had given them, is such an irresolute creature. Their ultimate discrepancy lies not at their physical property, but most essentially in expressions and feelings that lies in the soul. The soul is unstoppable. It knows not one single restriction nor boundary, even if it is established by the most primal, divinely considered ones such as the concept of man and woman in the Qur’an or Bible and, even more, our own, God-given, physical attributes (e.g. penis and vagina).
Lastly, there can never be enough pages to consume to discuss about the gays. Without meaning to disparate them from us, the gays have influence our world more than we imagine. Their concept of freedom, humanity, and creativity lastly are their foremost and hardly contestable contributions to the world.
Being Boring by The Pet Shop Boys
I came across a cache of old photos
And invitations to teenage parties
"Dress in white" one said, with quotations
From someone’s wife, a famous writer
In the nineteen-twenties
When you’re young you find inspiration
In anyone who’s ever gone
And opened up a closing door
She said: "We were never feeling bored
‘Cause we were never being boring
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought: "Make amends"
And we were never holding back or worried that
Time would come to an end
When I went I left from the station
With a haversack and some trepidation
Someone said: "If you’re not careful
You’ll have nothing left and nothing to care for
In the nineteen-seventies"
But I sat back and looking forward
My shoes were high and I had scored
I’d bolted through a closing door
I would never find myself feeling bored
‘Cause we were never being boring
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought: "Make amends"
And we were never holding back or worried that
Time would come to an end
We were always hoping that, looking back
You could always rely on a friend
Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms and foreign places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here and some are missing
In the nineteen-nineties
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You’d be sitting somewhere here with me
‘Cause we were never being boring
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought: "Make amends"
And we were never holding back or worried that
Time would come to an end
We were always hoping that, looking back
You could always rely on a friend
And we were never being boring
We had too much time to find for ourselves
And we were never being boring
We dressed up and fought, then thought: "Make amends"
And we were never being boring
We were never being bored
‘Cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored
Much considered as the summit of Audrey’s most remembered films, however initially to be given to Marilyn Monroe. Contributes the world the song Moon River by Henry Mancini, and that incredible 60’s, diamond-glittering style, and wild and amoral spirit of the newyorker Holly Golightly personified by Audrey. This film is made out of a book by the writer Truman Capote, whose film of the same name just won the Oscar this year.
An untoppable musical who just continually burst me into laughter and smile everytime I watched it. Starring legendary Fred Astaire, and paired by the legendary musical force of George and Ira Gershwin, this film contributes to the world the song S’Wonderful and many other classics. Second encounter of Audrey associated with Paris.
My first favourite. Hugely humorous but also instill a smart and touching love story of the sons of a New York rich family and the daughter of their chauffer. Starring Humphrey "Casablanca" Bogard. First encounter of Audrey associated with Paris. Adapted in the 90’s and played by Julia Ormond (as Sabrina), Harrison Ford (as Linus Larabee). The 90’s version holds a deeply underrated song of Sting called In The Moonlight.
A classic literary masterpiece by Leo Tolstoi, depicting Russian war in the face of Napoleon’s invasion. Audrey played a young middle-upper class girl amidst the war, entangled into the love of three men, one of them played by Henry Fonda. The movie featured Audrey’s real husband at the time, Mel Ferrer.
The metamorphosis of Audrey into a peasant English flower girl named Eliza Doolittle. Extreme acting and singing by Audrey (although the most notable song “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” turned out overdubbed). Full and exhausting efforts of Audrey in singing, dancing, and acting, more than any other films in my opinion, deserving a total respect to her incredible performances in this film. Total transformation from a lower class English annoying chatter and, then later in the film, turned into a ladylike woman of aristocracy. With the giant Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins, this is truly delighted film to see Audrey play out. 
First Audrey film, but immediately won an Oscar. The ever charming Audrey at its peak of youth. Truly gorgeus to see. There were stains of shyness and insecurity everywhere which make the whole young Audrey thing even more delightful. Play with the cool and calm Gregory Peck.
