Cary Wong and Jesse Kornbluth
Review by Joseph Crowley
Opposites often have made the best comedy teams. Think of the suave Dean Martin paired with the childish, clowning Jerry Lewis; the neurotic, Jewish Jerry and the sarcastic, Irish Anne of Stiller & Meara; and more recently, their nerdy, tightly wound son, Ben Stiller, and the laid-back, seemingly slightly stoned Owen Wilson.
Tuesday night at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Center in Manhattan’s West Village, playwright Cary Wong and journalist Jesse Kornbluth teamed up for a reading of their essays from The Good Men Project and performed as perhaps the best comedy team in town. Upright Citizens Brigade has nothing on this pair.
Like Monday night’s TGMP reading at the Tank, where two other opposite types of guys–former gangbanger Julio Medina and venture capitalist James Houghton–read from their essays, last night’s pairing was another memorable evening.
Though the mood was lighter than Monday night’s, the event still brought home one of the major themes of TGMP: Men who seem to have nothing in common deal with the same core life issues. In this case, the issues were relationships and emotional intimacy.
The sweet-faced, polite, looking-for-the-right-guy Wong (“I’m the guy standing in the corner at the bar.”) and Kornbluth, who doesn’t have a shy bone in his body and is married to “my final [third] wife,” were a memorable and hilarious opposite-guy team, whether they were reading from their works or answering questions from TGMP co-editor Tom Matlack and the diverse audience members.
Kornbluth’s totally outrageous and often politically incorrect statements were a big hit with the crowd. Whether lesbian, gay, or straight, people were howling as Kornbluth expounded on such issues as the size of Jesse Helms’ penis (“We’ve seen the pictures: Unless he’s stuffing, he’s huge!”). Recounting a youthful, drug-fueled sexual encounter in his essay, he said the mescaline was rated great because, earlier, a friend had dropped some from the same batch and “an hour later he was facedown on the ground, humping Mother Earth. Back then, that constituted an endorsement.”
Kornbluth used his quick, razor-sharp, slightly blue wit to expound on his understanding of men (“The guys in D.C. use their power to be mean. They don’t have good sex lives. You can tell just by looking at them. If they did [have fulfilling sex lives], they wouldn’t be so interested in controlling everything.”) and men’s misunderstanding of women (“Any guy who tells you women don’t enjoy sex doesn’t know anything about women.”).
Wong’s essay, “In Bed with the Sunday Times,” recounts his attempts to connect with guys in NYC for an intimate relationship. He arrived in the city in 1988, at the height of the AIDS crisis, and he writes, “Even with Rudy Guiliani’s crusade to clean up the city’s image, New York still offered ample places for a young man to hook up.” Wong refers to his youthful self as a “good, if lapsed Catholic,” and he describes how he spent his first years in NYC focused on building a career as a playwright.
Wong reveals himself as a sweet guy hoping for a romantic connection but continually enduring unfulfilling dating experiences.
One audience member, referring to the nightmarish guy Wong writes about in his essay, said to the writer, “Hey, that guy wasn’t even from New York; he lived in Seacaucus. There are plenty of nice guys here. We should hang out!” This prompted the never-reticent Kornbluth to tell Wong, “That guy’s your future. Get his number.”
The Good Men Project has an endless future. Not only is it great theater, a book, a documentary film, and a website with a daily blog, it also markets T-shirts–in an effort to raise money. (A non-profit venture, the Project donates all sales from the products to organizations that help at-risk boys.)
One attendee at last night’s reading had purchased a T-shirt, each of which has a quote from one of the book’s essays. This shirt displayed the title of Kornbluth’s essay: “Sex and Drugs Made Me a Man”. He told Kornbluth, “I bought your T-shirt last night and in the last twenty-four hours, I’ve gotten three phone numbers.”
And if Wong followed Kornbluth’s advice, he got a phone number himself. So maybe we should add one more item to the list of what The Good Man Project is: a hook-up club.
Joseph Crowley is a Boston-based freelance journalist. He has contributed to, among other publications, edge/boston. He regularly reviews films and theater for coloroffilm.com.
