Keep It Under Your Hat ... or Not

I'll never understand why people wearing headphones sing out loud.

Sure, there are the crazy — or extremely motivated — folks who burst into song in public places without the aid of electronics. They are making their own kind of music, singing their own special song. Even when nobody else sings along...

But these people, the ones who are ostensibly wearing headphones for a portable, personal and, most of all, private musical experience ... what are they up to? Why the pretense of headphones? Just carry a boom box like those other crazy people. Just turn off the music and sing by yourself. (Maybe you'll get some loose change out of it from exasperated commuters.)

There was a woman on the subway (where else?) who exemplified all that is wrong with this behavior.

1.) Her Discman was jacked up so loud, I could hear the beats from the other end of the car.

2.) She shattered the peaceful din of the gently rocking train with her sudden alarming outburst, doing her damnedest to immitate the R&B in her ears. Her voice came out of nowhere. I thought it was an argument at first, but then I noticed it was someone singing, or something very much like it. I was not the only one looking at her.

3.) She clearly did not know all the words. She only got about every few lines and skipped a few words or a whole line at a time. Strange, I thought, because, despite her butchering, I recognized the song and knew it to be a rather old one. And even these brief snatches of song were sung badly, out of tune, American Idol-style.

Some people are content to adamantly bob their heads around, or do a little dance or series of hand gestures, or close their eyes, silently mouth the words and perform some expressive theater of the face. These people are annoying, but one can ignore them. This woman, on the other hand, was apparently so moved by Mary J. Blige's "No More Drama" that she simply couldn't help but spread the Word to us as well. Was this a Pentacostal moment for her? Is she a prism of pop music, splitting concentrated beams of R&B into auditory rainbows before us?

These people... Are they temporarily losing it or is it a deeper problem?

Are they having a bad day? Maybe they're pissed off and they just want some attention or to make some noise — "I'm gonna sing, dammit!" Less destructive than throwing dishes across the kitchen, I suppose, or overturning a table full of framed photographs, but only just — and not much less cacophonous.

Maybe American Idol is part of Miss No More Drama's problem. Everyone thinks she can be a star. Even on the F train. Whether she knows the words or not. Maybe she thinks she is talented and she is treating us to her Gift.

Maybe she thought she was gently humming but couldn't tell she was so loud because her music was turned up so loud.

I saw a headphones-wearing woman at my gym last week who, while I was lifting weights above my head not five feet away from her, treated everyone within earshot to a series of concentration-breaking intervals of "melody." She, too, did not know all the words and sang only the few she knew. Badly. In fact, I think she was actually just speaking the words. It was hard to tell.

When I glared at her, she looked normal to me. You never know when these people will reveal themselves. They look just like you and me. It's like when Wednesday Addams dressed up as herself for Halloween. "Why aren't you wearing a costume?" someone asked.

"I am," she replied. "I'm dressed as a serial killer. They look just like everyone else."

Getting Culture

I'm breaking my rule. This is about me. Or, rather, a very specific part of me.

The human mouth is a teeming cesspool of shit.

Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, viruses: It's a real party in there. A constantly moist 95° F. A rainforest of microorganisms, if you like. And what we eat, they eat.

The more than 100 species of bacteria, and hundreds of species of fungi, protozoa, and viruses that have taken up residence in our mouths is difficult to fathom. Microbiologists estimate that, in addition to these known species, there are up to 500 other living, breathing organisms inhabiting our mouths, although only 50 have been identified and named. The sheer number of these creatures is astronomical, considering the fact that our mouths contain more bacteria than the entire world's population, and the fact that our bodies house approximately one trillion bacteria.

And this is the beginning of my problem. April was not a good month. For two full weeks, I had a heinous bacterial infection in my mouth.

It started with a chancre sore. Not a huge deal. I've had them all my life. I even survived the heart-stopping shock of learning in 8th grade sex ed that chancre sores, like cold sores, are a form of herpes. Now I just deal with them.

But this one, for the first time, was on the tip of my tongue. Creepy. Ugly. Then, a couple days later, I started to get more. Two on my cheek where I bit myself on accident. One in the back of the mouth where my gums meet my cheek. One in the same place on the other side of the mouth. One on the soft palate. One that arrived on the inside of my cheek, as if left by the sadistic evil twin of the Tooth Fairy, overnight. Then — because, as we optimists believe, "it can always be worse" — a second, third, fourth and fifth on my tongue.

I was raging.

Eating, drinking, talking, sleeping — all were miniature excursions into hell. Constant, sharp pain in my mouth all day long put me in a foul mood and gave me a headache. Plus it made me salivate like a dog — some natural, annoying response from the body, I'm sure, like a fever or vomiting — which made me need to move my mouth, which inflicted more pain.

Then the worst of it struck. Some kind of gum infection on the roof of my mouth. Imagine taking a hook, digging it into the flesh around your upper teeth, and stretching it back toward the throat. It would open a pretty angry-looking, sensitive sore. Then fill that sore with dead, gray, decaying tissue. Then add an unpleasant odor. Now multiply it by two, one for each side of the mouth.

I lost almost 10 pounds eating nothing but oatmeal, boxed mashed potatoes, and macaroni with butter. (I couldn't eat, but I looked fabulous!) I found myself eyeing baby food at the drug store while I was waiting for my prescriptions. Eventually the oatmeal had to go, because it was hard to dig it out of the sores with my tongue. Mashed potatoes I could roll into a ball and carefully pass back to my throat on my tongue. The macaroni was the best, because it just kind of slid down. No tongue. No chewing. Bliss.

I saw three doctors in a week and a half. The third one brought a bunch of his colleagues into the exam room so they could each peer into my mouth with their pen lights. I felt like a circus side show freak. "What can it be?" Whatever it was kept me out of work for a full week.

I assumed it was something bacterial. I thought it might be trench mouth, which I had seen before on someone else. The doctor laughed at me. "Trench mouth? What's that?"

He only knew it by the more scientific-sounding stomatitis or acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis. Pretty, huh? Only the older doctors in the office knew what trench mouth is.

Trench mouth — a severe gum infection — earned its name because of its prevalence among soldiers on the front lines during World War I. Although it's less common today, trench mouth still affects thousands of young adults between the ages of 15 and 35. The disease is also known by other names, including Vincent's stomatitis and acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis.

Trench mouth begins as a bacterial infection that causes inflamed, bleeding gums, but eventually, large ulcers may form on your gums and between your teeth. These are often extremely painful and can cause bad breath and a foul taste in your mouth.

Although the exact cause isn't well understood, trench mouth seems to develop when factors such as poor oral hygiene, tobacco use and stress disrupt the balance between "good" and "bad" bacteria in your mouth.

They treated me for something viral with a big fat injection in the butt — one of a possible three, I was promised. Rock and roll. They also gave me antibiotics because, after four doctor's office visits, no one was able to diagnose the problem. Every test came back negative. Every culture came back normal.

I don't smoke. I had good oral hygiene. The cultures the doctor extracted and grew showed that there was nothing in my mouth that didn't belong there. There was just too much of something and not enough of another, I guess. Makes sense, but what the heck could have been so stressful to so upset the balance of good and bad bugs in my mouth?

The antibiotics took effect. No more shots, thank God. The infection cleared in a day or so. Then I just had two craters of raw tissue on the roof of my mouth to heal, hyper-sensitive teeth, and no prospects of using toothpaste in the near future.

My biggest problem, actually, is that I can't play rugby, because I can't wear my mouth guard.

At least I'm back to solid food again.

Threepenny Opera

We recently saw the Roundabout Theater's revival of Threepenny Opera, starring Alan Cumming, Cyndi Lauper, Ana Gasteyer and Nellie MacKay, while it was in previews. I didn't love it but I enjoyed it. We ended up with great seats because I had screwed up and bought tickets for a Wednesday show and not the Friday show we were at. So, they gaveus best available, which was halfway back on main level, not up in the balcony, two rows in front of the back wall. Sometimes being an idiot pays off.

I know nothing about Berthold Brecht or previous performances of the show. And all I knew about it beforehand was that "Mac the Knife" came from it and the Bea Arthur was in a 1950s staging of the show. I saw her sing Pirate Jenny in her one-woman show a few years ago. So, I figured it would be pretty dark and baudy; low-brow. But it was far darker and baudier than I expected. And I didn't get all the preachy moralizing about the criminal class at the end, but whatever... I don't need to.

The cast was great; a good mix of voices and styles. It was less like watching a show than like watching a bunch of people getting together to put on a show. A review I read recently was highly critical of the production, but the writer found the individual performances praiseworthy, like the actors were all gathered to create for something great and then let down.

But we were there primarily to see Cyndi Lauper — much as we once went to a Cher concert only because she did a set between the forgettable opening act and Cher's overambitious but entertaining headline performance. (More entertaining were the Cher drag queens in attendance.) She had blue hair. She walked out into the arena audience. It was bliss.

In Threepenny Opera, my girl Cyndi has an A+ voice. I mean, really top form. Total control. Her spine-tingling pipes start out the show from dead, dark silence with the opening song, "Mac the Knife." I was so happy for her.

I'd have to give her stage acting something closer to a B+. Her lines were fine. She seemed mostly natural, but her timing was clearly off. I wasn't disappointed, per se. Even though she's only in three of four scenes. And I think they gave one of the songs she is supposed to sing to Nellie MacKay. Plus, it was in previews, and I'm sure she picked up a few things here and there to improve the part.

Cyndi's moxie is in her singing voice. She expresses herself through a song. Her voice makes the mood of the lyric. This is why she's good in a video. As amateurish as it may seem by more current standards, Time After Time can still make me cry. When she's on that train doing that weird sign language with her hands, saying goodbye to her boyfriend, it's wrenching. Why is she leaving? Who knows. Who cares? She's leaving, and thats always the worst thing, right? Simple. Expressive. Real enough. And that RCA dog statue? Genius. Same with Madonna, incidentally, though Madonna has markedly less vocal talent than Cyndi Lauper. I think her best acting was in Evita, which is a two-hour music video.

The Best Medicine

Since graduating from college, I have always made a point of having a gay doctor. I recommend it to everyone, especially gays like me. It's easier to talk about sex things with a gay doctor. There's so much less judgment than with a straight doctor — or to be fair, what I perceive to be judgment. It's just easier. Moving to a new city? Make it a first order of business. Library card. Roach traps. Gay doctor.

A gay doctor won't have unfunny and slightly unsettling framed copies of comic strips like one in my otolaryngologist's office in which a doctor stares blankly at a patient in some measure of pain, saying, "It's a good think you're here. I just punctured your eardrum." There's also one with the doctor examining a cow wearing a bell on her collar, saying, "I think I know what's causing the ringing in your ears."

Nope. Won't find these things in a gay doctor's office.

A gay doctor always has good modern art in his waiting room and exam rooms. Oftentimes there are beautiful, ponderous photographs from local photographers. The doctor probably knows the artist, as a friend or as a patient. Many non-gay doctors are content with motel-grade squiggles and geometrical designs on the walls — or worse, they'll hang prints of baby animals or beaches or places they've been skiing. Gay doctors will have vintage posters from local theatrical productions — a 1980 The Pirates of Penzance, for example, or "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" from a reputable children's theater.

A gay doctor has beter magazines, too. He'll eschew Highlights for Children, Time and Reader's Digest in favor of The New Yorker, The Advocate, Architectural Digest.

Oh, a gay doctor's office is a veritable homosexual playground!