Sex and the Cow Palace

Seng Chen
October 25, 2005

Aside from the blowjob in the backstage area, the beefy guy standing on a table stroking himself (part of some company's merch booth, apparently), a lot of naked guys walking around (the total guy costume- no effort, just take off your clothes) and a mix of hot and not so hot topless women, what interested me were the ways in which men of different ethnicities ogled women. I say women not because there weren't gay guys there, but because, let's face it, gay guys are going to participate a little more and aren't just going to go for the show. But what can you do, a clear-thinking man is going to realize that $95 for a general admission ticket is going to get him access to a lot more skin at this event than he'd get at a strip club on a normal night so it's a bargain.

Here's a quick summary of what I saw:
White: most likely to make loud comments or be talking on the phone trying to get their buddy down to the event, greatest age range- from twenties to fifties or sixties;
Black: most likely to just walk up and pretend they are familiar with a group of women (women were in groups of two or more- I don't think I saw any single women) yet often dumbstruck by breasts while there, one member is usually most hyphnotized while others comment occasionally to affirm they are cooler than the one, mostly under 40;
Latino: generally quiet throughout, often alone, seemingly reverent in their onlooking, seemed under early-30s;
Asian: travel in small groups of 2 or 3, quiet during observation but more vocal in transit, mostly under early-30s;

It's likely there were exceptions, but I was too busy checking out the hummus in the VIP lounge to get a larger samples size.

In Hyphen news, keep your eye out in an upcoming dead tree edition of Hyphen for an interview with Annabella Lewin, the English/Burmese lead singer of BowWowWow, the band behind a string of '80s hits including, "I Want Candy". They headlined the Ball and are riding the revival of that rather embarassing decade of excess.

Oh, yeah, I also ran into Hyphen staffer Mike Lee and his film crew shooting their new tv show, Night Shift. Mike's on-air personality was getting all the make out action so all Mike could get were pictures. Poor guy.

ee05-mikelee-pixie.jpg
(That's Mike and a pixie)

ee05-lost.jpg
(I took a wrong turn somewhere between the clowns and the slaves)

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Comments

Comments

couldn't help ... wrote on Wed, 10/26/2005 - 9:53am
...that Seng appears to be 'borrowing' some characteristically urban, African American slang ("hook a brother up") in his post. Is this analogous to a 'Banana Republic\East meets West' appropriation or is imitation still the most sincere form of flattery? No 'flames' intended Seng, just couldn't help but notice...
seng wrote on Wed, 10/26/2005 - 11:53am
It's not borrowing because I have no intention of giving it back. Really, though, I don't feel using the word "brother" is so uncommon these days for non-blacks in urban circles, not because of commercial or ironic appropriation but because of natural mixing of cultures. A nod to the development of the lexicon by equality struggles of the '60s, sure, but also recognition of strength in the unity of subcultural communities in the present. On a simpler level, yes, I did take it from an African American source- the entire line is from Snoop Dogg's short lived MTV comedy show.
couldn't help wrote on Wed, 10/26/2005 - 9:42pm
So when Banana Republic boasts East meets West, are they making a nod to the development of a natural clothing lexicon of fashion cross-cultural communication due to the inevitable mixing of styles in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural American stew?Or are they just bitin' for the bucks?What about Yellow Rage when they 'borrow' (like a cup of sugar or Manhatten island - a similar intent to return) the delivery and cadence of Black spoken word\poets from Baraka to the Last Poets to Jayne Cortez (well, they ain't at Cortez just yet)?Maybe 'Brother' is just behind the fact that you are a closet Franciscan Monk?Ah...so you admit it!You bit it off and swallowed it whole and now spit it back to us.As for the whole tag, I heard that line on the block long before Snoop cracked wise on some MTV show. It is strictly public domain - just a certain public.Really though - no problem. Just a 'frame of reference' check. Last week I heard my local NPR affiliate talking about "signifyin' and representin'" by making a pledge 'n sippin' your java in the office in an NPR mug.Now ain't that nothin'!Anything that is the 'other' to someone can be 'exoticized' as long as the source point of the 'spice' is kept at arms length. If the distance drops, some get a little indigestion - too much, too close. Maybe we need a Guild Navigator to see where we are going.And tell me Snoop and MTV ain't 'commercial appropriation'!
seng wrote on Wed, 10/26/2005 - 10:47pm
Snoop and MTV are definitely commercial appropriation- I'm not proposing he said the whole line first, I'm just admitting that's where I heard it. The end of it I hear all over. It's true, I bit that word and phrasing just like I bit the rest of the English language I use everyday. Someday, I'll be able to make a decent wage off my reinterpretation of the words- then maybe somewhere in there I can build myself a home. You caught me on another level, too- I'm a reverend of the Universal Life Church. Not sure how much you're signifyin', but I'm not sure what you're saying in your second to last paragraph. I guess that means you're succeeding? Indeed, it's much harder to master than precision with firearms.
wtf wrote on Thu, 10/27/2005 - 10:33am
I find it kinda sad but mostly gross that a website committed to confronting the stereotyped portrayals of Asian Americans would include a post that charts how men hit on women based on race. I have to ask the editors: if that chart had appeared on a website written by someone who wasn't a personal friend or an Asian-American, would you have linked to it with questions about the motivations of the author and the preconceived notions based on race that informed these "observations?"
couldn't help wrote on Thu, 10/27/2005 - 8:22pm
hey seng, i guess my 'observation' is that i regularly read words of 'pissed-offed-ness' at appropriations and attempts at same of 'asian' cultural markers by the 'other man' (never the brother man) as though someone's personal pocket of thought was picked. so it is always ironic to me when there is 'reverse biting' going on and no one seems to 'notice' the dichotomy.personally, i kind of agree with you that one of the blessings\curses of 'merica is that we live in a culture that is assembled using techniques somewhere between romare beardon and cuisineart. it is reasonable for 'cultures' to slide across borders and be appropriated as appropriate or useable by the pincher. the thing is - all things\cultures that are 'alien' to you or your culture can be seen as 'exotic' (and often are) until such point that the exotic moves in too close. so, as i once mentioned to a hardheaded frenchman as he complained about the influx of those damn africans and arabs to his country, 'if you go walking in the woods, you can't complain if you smell like trees when you get home'. when you borrow from one culture, there are likely to be strings in the exchange and the street is (only fairly) 2 way.as to WTF's question - it is a good one. So, using this blog as our context, what would be said if there was a blog from white guys talking about 'oggling styles' employed in a room filled with asian women? that said, your post only talked of the guys' ethnicity and not much on the women, so they could have (and I'll bet did) run the gamut.and you, giving props to joe friday, are sticking with facts, just the facts.Me? I'm not signifyin' or representin' - i did get a laugh out of your typical NPR announcer (birkenstocks and volvo wagon included) trying to 'act like he knows'. what up with that? whrrr, whrrr, whrrr goes the cuisineart!
seng wrote on Thu, 10/27/2005 - 9:14pm
I keep kicking myself for not getting a photo of a local guide when I was in China who had on a shirt that read (in English), "Genuine Manufactured Culture". So good on so many levels. How someone picked random fashion words from another foreign languages and put them together with such beautiful irony just amazes me. I think the great thing about living in such a cultural robocoup is that the exotic becomes the familiar. Like the lady says, "Honey, you're born naked. Everything else is drag." A couple years ago I popped in a tape of "The Last Dragon" that I hadn't watched since, oh, about when it came out and all I remembered was a martial arts movie about a skinny kid who finds his inner strength, kicks ass and gets the girl. It was only recently that I noticed it was "Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon". I was kinda stunned, but my Swedish buddy said knowingly, "yeah, Black males have looked to martial arts films for ideas of brotherhood and loyalty for years." Sho' Nuff! Regarding my observations at the Ball, please note that I didn't say anything about putting the mack down, just about how people looked on- for the most part, there was little interaction when pure spectators were involved. Also, I wasn't passing judgement on any of those styles or even the ogling itself- that's the nature of such an event: there are performers, there are spectators and most attendees were a mix of the two. I was noting the gaze, not the other (though I encourage everyone to hash out where they fit).
couldn't help wrote on Sun, 10/30/2005 - 8:36pm
Seng, that would have been a good shirt to buy. Heck, you can make one here! The exotic can become familiar, but there are usually some growing pains with that and often the 'real deal' gets re-packaged to meet customer approval, then is sold back to the originator who has forgotten what he or seh knew.I am kind of surprised that you hadn't noticed in a more activist manner that co-opting of 'martial arts' philosophies by African American males for many years (sse Wu Tang).Please don't take my comments as an attack on your reporting from 'da Ball. To what do yiou attribute those styllistic variances between the oglers? And yes, anyone who attended and then complains about the 'shocking displays' or 'being eyeballed' should be pimp slapped. Sooooo bogus that would be.By the way, its OK if you sneaked a peak. Otherwise you'd be dead. ;-)Anyway, its all good and your report was good.