The show is "Looking," AKA "'Girls' for Gay Guys," in case you think gay guys need girls.
And it seems to me San Francisco should be made to look grubby. It is grubby, isn't it? But even if it's not, you can't be edgy and HBO-level-arty if everything's idealized.
Wait. Here's a pithier piece on "Looking." Emily Nussbaum in The New Yorker:
“Looking”... feature[s a] diffident hero[, a] young m[an] who regard[s] retro gay culture with a sense of bemused incredulity.... “Looking” establishes this generational theme in its first scene, in which Paddy goes cruising, very briefly. He gets a truncated hand job—“Cold hands!” he complains—but it’s less a sex act than a prank. “The guy who gave it to me was very hairy,” he marvels to his friends. “Not hipster hairy. Like, gym-teacher hairy.” (The scene reminded me of the old Onion headline “Ironic Porn Purchase Leads to Unironic Ejaculation.”)On the nose... They really don't treasure word editing at The New Yorker anymore. Cut all the clichés, especially the ones that are an obvious straight line for a wisecrack.
That mock-cruising moment feels a bit blunt, like a thesis statement: this is not your father’s homosexuality. A few other early elements are similarly on the nose....
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The article's author uses two four-letter words and a seven-letter obscenity.
Classy magazine, The New Yorker.
... in case you think gay guys need girls.
I think that the line from the article meant it was like the show 'Girls'. From your comment it sounds like you missed that, but maybe it's too early on Sunday for me to pick up any nuance other than the most literal.
"Outing" the seedy gay sex cruising scene as the nastiness reality that it is, is what they are mad about.
You should google up some Folsom Street Fair or Gay Easter in SF pics to get an idea of what they celebrate as "Gay Culture" in SF.
Were the commercials geared to 14 year old girls, or men requiring custom condoms?
the show sounds dreadful and I have no interest in watching it.
the ads alone made me barf.
tits.
@Titus Why?
I haven't seen the show or the ads. I've only read about it, and it felt like a throwback to "Boys in the Band," like there's been so much progress that "Boys in the Band" could become new again.
@Graham It's humor. And "AKA '"Girls" for Gay Guys'" is my line.
The first time visited Haight St., the section which dead ends in the park, I too was struck by the dinginess. And the park itself gave me the feeling of an overused national park -- everything trodden to death. It seems to me that San Francisco's civic pride amounts to letting things be and to fester.
San Francisco is disgusting. I've never seen more filthy people in my life and I've been to Olongapo.
donald, that's assault brother
San Francisco is indeed disgusting. Beautiful and charming, but disgusting. It's actually a city of stark contrasts. In some places it's almost antiseptic in its cleanliness. In others it's filthy and unkempt.
The people don't provide much of a contrast though. There are three kinds of people, and there's some overlap among the groups. Asians, gays, and progressives. As expected, a stifling PC culture dominates.
The interiors should be dreadful. The average apartment is tiny and 90 years old, and can't have windows on two or three sides. And the rents are too high for anyone to afford the sort of nice furniture and decoration that can salvage a situation like that.
On the other hand the exteriors should either be nice, or gritty, not grubby. There are grubby parts of The City, but gay people mostly don't hang out there.
"...San Francisco should be made to look grubby. It is grubby, isn't it?"
Any city looks better if one is merely visiting or is in love. In either case, one's perception is colored differently than normal. Visitors and lovers (often the same) are merely skimming over the brighter surface, spending freely, enjoying the pretty lights, and laughing at quirky surprises.
It is quite different when one lives in the city, sinking down to whatever stratus that day-to-day living requires. Unless wealthy, one cannot go each night to fancy places, engage only with the elite, or find an apartment with space to rival even a modest suburban dwelling. Eventually, one notices the spilled garage and lost souls wandering about.
I first visited San Fransisco when newly in love and thought it a delightful place. Same with Paris, several times (it might be the exception that proves the rule). Then again, in those days, my wife and I even enjoyed Naples, a scruffy place if ever there was one. Now that we are much older, I can't say either of us would voluntarily live in any city for very long.
Purposefully rolling over my foot was assault too. There was a whole lot of space for that asshole to go.
Don't be an asshole.
"A few other early elements are similarly on the nose..."
On the nose... They really don't treasure word editing at The New Yorker anymore.
Yea, unless it's a 69, shouldn't that be "on the chin"?
As a person newly arrived in the Bay Area, it is very, very grubby. Other words that spring to mind are "run-down", "tired," and "like they tried to stop time in 1975 and haven't bothered to make any improvements or changes since then."
Moving here after four years in East Germany was interesting. In Eastern Europe, you have lots of crumbling, dingy communist-era high rises which have been lovingly restored and refurbished. Here you have lots and lots of low density housing that has gotten smooshed together and has slowly deteriorated. Yet somehow it's really, really expensive.
@Titus Why?
I don't like what I have read and seen of the characters and I wished it was set in another city.
Chick, on the other hand, will be repelled by it, yet dissect it and know every line and sex act contained in the show.
donald: so you sucked punched him in the back of the head? His offense seems rather minor. The worst thing he did was give you the finger. The best thing he did was not escalate the altercation when you acted like an asshole.
Funny that you wanted to show how terrible SF is, and all you did was make yourself look bad.
The crazy homeless people in the streets pretty much ruined the city for me. What's the point of being in the city if you don't feel comfortable ever getting out of your car?
Why in the world would you describe San Francisco as grubby?
OK, so there's the Tenderloin and a couple of other neighborhoods. But really, I'm just guessing, either you've never been there or who ever took you there took you to parts of the city that sucked.
Were these folks masquerading as friends?
Worst thing he did was run over my foot on purpose.
And being clear, he did, he did it on purpose and he was being a complete fucking asshole. He also knew I was coming but he was a smug fucker.
A simples excuse me would have been appreciated, but not necessary in anyway. Compounding his purposeful assault with being an asshole got him what he deserved. All he had to do was call a cop but he didn't cause he was an asshole.
San Francisco has become a city of the rich. Just like Boston and NYC.
It is a beautiful city....that I would never live in. I like the east coast and FAST and bitchy.
The po come in to service the rich. They clean our clothes, deliver our takeout, work at our fab restaurants, clean our houses and parking lots and take care of our dogs and kids.
In other parts of the country middle class white peeps do this, and are able to have a decent home in a safe neighorhood, but in our cities immigrant and minorites do this. And those brown minorities can be incredibly hot and blue collar.....so Halston of me....I know.
tits.
Shorter donald: Mom, he hit me first!
I find SF a very pretty city, not any dingier than others (let's talk about downtown Atlanta around GWCC is you want to talk dingy). The homeless problem in SF is extreme however -- but can you blame the homeless for going someplace that isn't freezing?
Trashhauler,
Any city looks better if one is merely visiting or is in love.
No, Market St. in SF gets (a little) better once you resign yourself to it; it's a naked shock to anyone visiting for the first time. My parents could not believe that there was such a place in the downtown of a major First World city.
The homeless problem in SF is extreme however -- but can you blame the homeless for going someplace that isn't freezing?
You mean, like, say, Atlanta?
San Francisco, weather-wise, is a miserable place to be on the street, most of the year. Cold, often rainy (OK, for five months or so out of the twelve, but even so), and nearly always damp.
You don't even need to go far to get to more congenial weather for kipping outdoors. Contra Costa County is drier and sunnier. But it doesn't have the political attitude or the social-service infrastructure of SF. Nor has it any tourists.
Titus,
The po come in to service the rich. They clean our clothes, deliver our takeout, work at our fab restaurants, clean our houses and parking lots and take care of our dogs and kids.
In other parts of the country middle class white peeps do this, and are able to have a decent home in a safe neighorhood, but in our cities immigrant and minorites do this.
Actually, in many parts of the country the "middle class white peeps" mostly do all that stuff themselves.
They might have been wise to look at the original and still valid definition of "truncated", which comes from mathematics.
"1. Having the apex cut off and replaced by a plane, especially one parallel to the base."
Hate crime for sure.
@Michelle, the forecast low in Atlanta for Tuesday is 18.
The all-time record low in SF is 27.
> OK, so there's the Tenderloin and a couple of other neighborhoods.
You're either confusing "better" with good or have very low standards.
Some parts are worse than others, but most is pretty bad. For example, there are only a couple of decent four square block area downtown within 10 blocks of Market.
Some waterfront stretches which are okay, the immediate area around the ballpark is okay, but on almost every other block, there are a couple of outdoor urinals.
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