Circularity

Last night we watched Milk; great film, great story. It makes me want to re-re-read The Life and Times of Harvey Milk: The Mayor of Castro Street.

But this post is about the circularity of random thought; how I tend to start at one sort of innocuous point and then begin talking only to arrive back at my starting place. Like last night, as we're lying in bed, just about to go to sleep, I say:

Sean Penn was Harvey Milk and Emile Hirsch was Cleve Jones in the movie.

Yeah.

Well, Sean Penn also directed Emile Hirsch in Into The Wild, that movie about the kid that gives away all his money and travels the country and ends up in Alaska, where he dies?

What?

And remember when Cleve was talking to that girl in Milk, and saying he was taking her dancing at The Stud?

Uh....okay.

Well, I've been to The Stud. I didn't realize it was open way back in the 70s.

Oh, so what did you do at The Stud?

Funny story....one time we'd gone wine tasting in Napa, and a group of us decided to go into the city for the evening. Well, we wound up south of market and ate dinner at a little Italian place. Then Maria said we should go to The Stud. We all thought it a good idea except Robbie.

Who's Robbie?

The only straight guy in the crowd. Well, I was the only gay guy, and there was Robbie and Vicki and Diane and Maria--who I told you looks like Ramona from Real Housewives.

Okay?

So, Robbie says, "The Stud" sounds like a gay bar. And Maria and I say, "Oh no, it's not." So we walk down Folsom and we head into The Stud, with Robbie looking a bit more petrified with each step. "Are you sure it isn't gay?" he asked. "No." So we walked into The Stud and the first thing Robbie sees is some hot guy on the bar dancing in his tighty whities! He looked like he was gonna run, so I told him we'd have one drink and if he didn't want to stay then we'd go. He asked me what he should do if a guy asked him to dance or something.

And what did you say?

I said dance if you wanna dance.....and if you wanna do something, well, go ahead.

Uh....huh.....

And then, just down the street from The Stud was a place called The Paradise Lounge. It was a punk club for a while and then turned into a kind of throw-back-to-the-fifties nightclub. When it was punk, it was right after it was a YMCA, and they put a Plexiglas floor over the pool so you could dance over it.

That sounds cool.

It was until the yuppies came in. It went from punk to after work cocktails in about a week. But then as Paradise Lounge, they would have local bands play. One of them was The Fabulous Bud. E. Love Show.

Who's that?

Bud. E. Love was Jerry Lewis's alternate personality in the original The Nutty Professor. And this Bud E. Love at the Paradise had a whole sort of 1950s Vegas lounge act thing that he did. And right it front of the band was a tiny, tiny dance floor. Well, Bud E. was singing and this couple got up to dance and so Bud E. started doing that Sammy Davis Jr thing, that bow-chicky-bow-ka-chow, and he said to the band, "Bring it down fellas." And then he tapped the couiple and said "When Bud E. sings....Nobody dances!" Cracked me up.

Why are you telling me this. I'm tired.

Because like I said, Jerry Lewis played the original Bud E. Love.

So?

Jerry Lewis won an Honorary Oscar the night Sean Penn won for Milk.

So.

Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch. The Stud. Paradise Lounge Jerry Lewis. Sean Penn. Circularity.

Go. To. Sleep!