Rooms in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I was out with Bane the other night. I’d somehow gotten tricked into going out when I really didn’t want to. He had a friend visiting from Bali (I’m still not completely sure how they knew each other because his friend barely spoke English, and Bane didn’t speak whatever language he spoke, but they had a rhythm that I couldn’t find in their communication, so they’d obviously been friends for a bit). After his friend left, he started talking about how he thinks he’s going to move to Berlin next year because he’s finding Bangkok rather dissatisfying.

He was showing me pictures of the kind of work he wants to do, much of it kink-related. At first, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I have seen many similar things here in Bangkok, which is just as kink-friendly as any of the extreme cities I’ve been to (including San Francisco) even if the visibility of it just isn’t the same. He was talking about the lack of inclusivity in the Thai fashion scene, which I once again kept silent about, because I know that I am not of South Asian descent and really have no authority to speak on it, even though I have some of the same observations he had. Everybody’s white skin, wearing the same stream-lined high fashion, nothing exciting, nothing out of the ordinary. At least in the kind of work he does, working as a fashion photographer.

But when he asked, “I know it’s weird because I finally have a stable job. What’s wrong with me?” I finally had something to say.

“When you work as an artist and you’re trying to so hard to establish yourself, you’re hustling. Doing gig work, always looking for the next job because you don’t know when you’re going to get it, when the work is going to dry up and whether or not you’ll have enough money to get to the next job. That fear and adrenaline disappears when you get something steady and long-term. It’s all about choices. And consequences. Good or bad. That fear and adrenaline is part of the creative process and helps create edgy, ground-breaking work. Without it, our artistic perspective can seem to suffer.

When I took a job teaching, I fully intended to keep making my art, whatever that may be. But now that I don’t need to, because it’s not all I have, I’m lazy about it. I’ve never found a rhythm. But the truth is, I happen to love my job. I love going to work every day. So I have to look it at like this, I made a choice. To be stable. To have organization and forgo the adrenaline and fear that made my best art. That is the consequence I have decided I can live with.

You just need to look at your life now and figure out if you can accept the consequences, good and bad, of the stability you’ve found. For the record, I’ve seen those things in Bangkok. They exist, but you have to search for them. There are people of color dressing wildly, flaunting their kink. Queers who are challenging fashion. You’ve only been here six months. Give it time.”

The funny thing is, this was one of those moments where I started talking and stumbled upon something I think was pretty profound for me. I’m good at making choices… when there’s a deadline. Maybe I should say something else instead of deadline… more like a tidal wave. A quake has shifted the tide, I can see it coming, and I have to make a choice of how I’m going to survive the destruction that I see arriving soon.

When there are no stakes, I’m a procrastinator. There’s no urgency.

One of the last songs I wrote was called “Rooms” and it was kind of a foolish song, but it remained one of my favorites. I even named one of my last tours after it. I adapted it from a line I heard in the fourth season of Queer As Folk, but it was about something completely unrelated.

The chorus went like this:
My house has many rooms
And I occupy but a few
No matter what you do
I’m still in this room with you

The song was about how even though Joe was dead and gone, I still felt like he was a living presence in my life, which was comforting in grief, but with twenty plus years of perspective now seems like I am holding myself back.

I am thinking about rewriting it because I left out the ending of the original quote from the show.

My house has many rooms; I occupy but a few. The rest go unvisited.

Maybe it’s time I started exploring the uncharted space in the haunted house that is my mind.