I do realize that we're not living in a dictatorship, and besides the occasional commandeering by my lady-roommate for "Vampire Diaries" or "Gossip Girl," I can watch pretty much whatever I want. There's an overwhelming number of channels at my fingertips and on any given evening the Red Sox could be playing or there might be a re-run of "Seinfeld," or I might catch old episodes of "The Office."
Hell, I even have HBO.
But I sit there. Like a schmuck. Frozen with indecision.
I know I'll never meet these people living inside my television or even see them in person, but I still squirm, incapable to change the channel or remove myself from the room. It's magnetic though how we can be inexplicably drawn to the awkward, the bizarre, and the socially unsuitable.
The media and entertainment industries, of course, are a large part of the problem. They've made quite a bit of money exploiting these people, paying them heaps to drink far too much and traipse around the bars and beaches of New Jersey or a salon in California, or a clothing boutique in Miami.
Ever since the explosion of "The Real World," we have never looked back in search of voyeuristic satisfaction. As more shows are created, the more eccentric and convoluted and tattooed its characters become. Humans have become the slow-moving drivers on the highway, unable to crane their necks away from the car accident.
I, like my other fellow people of Earth, exist within an individualized comfort zone. This integral part of existence isn't groundbreaking news, but it is peculiar when I wonder why I become physically uncomfortable yet unwilling to change the channel during the drunken soliloquy from a "Jersey Shore" star or some other celebrity social miscue captured on live television or archived for web posterity on YouTube.
This feeling of discomfort is inevitable for the normal, non-schizophrenic, un-celebrity folk. It could last only a few minutes or perhaps a lifetime.
Our limits are tested, the threshold is pushed.
For me, the two-headed monster of Politics and Religion shoves me over the edge. Its representatives, not just the doctrine, bolsters my cause as they make it increasingly difficult to take either camp seriously.
Look at one-time poster child for Christianity Mel Gibson, who, after all his movies portraying LAPD Sergeant Martin Riggs, forgot that telephone conversations could be recorded. Tom Cruise, who dazzled the screen with his performances in "A Few Good Men" and "The Last Samurai" now hops on Oprah's couch with a toothy, devilish grin and worships a space alien.
Staunch Republican Senator Larry Craig, who said he would have voted to ban same-sex marriages, was caught tap dancing for gay sex acts in an airport bathroom. And Sarah Palin, well, that Alaskan sexpot came dangerously close to being a McCain heart attack away from the Oval Office.
Certain religions go to such lengths as commanding their members to the streets. These religious marketing experts stroll the sidewalks in their black pants, short-sleeve button-down shirts and generic black ties. They accost you walking home or interrupt your run, handing out glossy, tri-fold pamphlets with information on 'Salvation' and a nice white man named Jesus.
My neighbor across the hall is hard of hearing. She's in her late 60s and lives by herself. Nearly every afternoon, as soon I step off the elevator, I hear her television set blasting Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or some other Fox News blowhard complaining about the same thing they complained about the day before.
It's in our nature, to operate within these comfort zones because they are safe and warm and free from duress. The limitations can be great or small, but there is a tipping point.
It's that first day at a new school, walking through those enormous front doors after your mother or father has shooed you away from the car, lunch box in hand.
It's the feeling in your cheeks, when you trip up the stairs at college graduation in front of hundreds of people, because you're hungover and everyone knows it as you peel the tassels away from your sweaty face.
It's the first time presenting in front of your peers, tripping over your words and clicking nervously at a PowerPoint that won't seem to work.
We've all had our moments.
It happens.
*
The bartender placed a cold beer in front of me and I smiled and nodded my head in thanks. As he moved away, he revealed a poster-sized black and white picture hanging behind the bar.
Nate and I were killing time in a tiny pub named Last Call, somewhere on the threshold of the Castro. We were killing time because the sandwiches we ordered an hour and 15 minutes earlier wouldn't be ready for another half hour.
Making our way uptown following lunch near AT&T Park, we stopped by Cigar Bar for a glass of top shelf whisky and a good cigar. Our waitress informed us that we were in the final weeks until the outdoor smoking ordinance came into effect. She urged us to go onto some website to petition. We enthusiastically agreed because she was cute, but soon forgot our internet obligations after a few more pulls from our cigars and a few more sips of Lagavulin. The fountain bubbled and spat water onto the surrounding brick as the sunlight crept up the walls, away from the enclosed courtyard where we sat.
The sandwich we impatiently awaited was the Ménage à Trois from Ike's Place, rounding out the Big Eat at number 100. Nate heard some scuttlebutt about Ike's, so it quickly rose to the top of our to-eat list.
A to-go joint, it was apparent that this was no run of the corporate mill sandwich shop. The gaggle of people anxiously awaiting orders and the lengthy line at 6:45 told me this was popular. Then I noticed the 200 or so options on the menu. Some of the more colorful monikers include: Name of Girl I'm Dating, Hella Fat Bastard, the MILF---"Andrew? We have a warm MILF here for Andrew..."---and of course the Ménage à Trois.
On a busy day this place churns out upwards of 1,500 sandwiches.
We safely called our order in.
"It'll be ready by 6:45," said Nate as he hung up his iPhone.
It's five o'clock, I replied with a bewildered look.
It's a goddam sandwich, not a dry cleaning order.
What makes Ike's so unique is their attention to detail. Each and every sandwich is made to order. The drawn-out wait is necessary seeing as they fresh bake every loaf of bread.
I have eaten at many a delicatessen in my day, but Ike's was uncharted waters for me. I had become too accustomed to the ready-made, assembly line sandwich at Quiznos or Subway. Places where oblong sticks of beige dough are trucked in from warehouses in the midwest and plunked into the 20-second nuclear powered oven by some pimply, underpaid high schooler.
The Ménage à Trois is stuffed with chicken breast and dressed in honey spread, barbeque sauce, an assortment of cheeses, doused with the patented Dirty Sauce, garnished with freshly chopped vegetables, and shoved into my very own fresh-baked Dutch Crunch roll.
With time to waste, we took the bus down to 16th Street and went in search of a bar. The Castro is adjacent to Ike's, so we figured it was best for two well-groomed twenty-somethings to steer clear of establishments with posters in the window of burly, shirtless men in jeans.
Eventually Nate asked someone on the street. He pointed us a street or two up and we stumbled into the miniscule, dimly lit bar.
I propped myself onto the barstool and checked the surroundings. Rainbow flags adorned the ceiling and a neon rainbow Coors Light sign lit one corner. The flamboyant middle-age men at the end of the bar were engaged in lively conversation and a couple of women gazed longingly at each other to our right.
And just like that, without fireworks or Ta-Dahs or a burst of confetti, I was in my first gay bar.
The sign that caught my attention after the bartender brought us our drinks was an unbecoming side-shot of Victoria from the late 1800s with the caption: 'Even a Queen can get the Clap--Get Yourself Tested'.
I thought back to the weeks leading up to my California trip where I had class-long lessons and many visual descriptions trying to get concrete-thinking sixth graders to understand the literary device of irony.
"Do you get it?" I'd say, "Because they're queens..."
Eyes would blink in the listless silence.
I continued sipping my beer as Nate and I had about 20 minutes worth of conversation. We ordered our second and the bartender strolled over, smiled, and asked: "Are you boys from the neighborhood?"
"Oh I live in the Upper Haight," Nate calmly replied.
"Boston," I blurted out, "I live outside Boston."
A cavalcade of questions streamed through my head: Did we look like we're from the neighborhood? Were we getting hit on? Was it my shirt?
The discomfort welled up inside. I was the cutesy sitcom family of four driving through Harlem; I wanted to lock the doors and roll up the windows.
That claustrophobic bar became a confrontation with my comfort level and a rendezvous with my upbringing in predominately white, predominately heterosexual New Hampshire. The community I came from is where bowling alleys close and auto part stores open in their stead, a town where I'd hear teachers talking to classmates, thinking fondly on "the years I taught your parents," and a place where the gas station attendant had been my best friend 15 years ago.
In that moment of anxiety, I transformed his simple question into an extended metaphor. Being from the "neighborhood," I thought, meant we were just wetting our whistle on our way to Twin Peaks.
I let my own insecurities get in the way of his genuine small-talk. He didn't give a shit whether I was gay, straight, or a Polish bisexual quadriplegic.
The city doesn't care either. It doesn't matter what you look like, what your gender preference is, or if you grew up in the diversity archipelago of New Hampshire. Once I understood that, I didn't care anymore either, and all was right again my comfort universe.
The bartender smiled again, took our empty glasses, and moved down the bar to refill the others. We paid the tab and walked to Ike's, no worse for the wear.
After getting our culinary creations, it was straight into a cab back to Nate's house, eventually settling in the confines of the living room. There, far removed from the Castro and posters of de-shirted, muscular gentlemen in denim, we unwrapped our dinner like Jack Bauer would defuse a bomb.
We sat in silence chomping away on our tasty sandwiches. The fresh baked bread was crunchy and warm as I took my second bite.
We nodded our heads and closed our eyes in satisfaction.
I didn't realize it initially, but this 11 dollar collection of meat and vegetables made me quickly reevaluate my formative years and take a step outside my comfort zone. It also meant I would spend a good amount of time staring at the black and white cheek-fat of Queen Victoria.
But it was worth every penny.
And besides, it has to be the cleanest and tastiest ménage à trois money can buy.
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