Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

lindsay

Hitching: Groom Team Style, pt. 1

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Not only do I have to finish telling the story of how Elise and I got engaged last year, but aside from mentioning our invites a few weeks ago I haven’t really spoken at all about our planning process.

A unique element of our wedding that I’ve previously touched upon is the composition of our parties – my side consists of three women and two men, and Elise’s is four women and her brother.

The mixed-gender makeup has style implications for both sides, since early-on we decided my women would not wear tuxes. That meant twice the bridesmaid dress shopping of a normal wedding, with the added challenge of making sure my ladies looked distinctly groomsly in comparison to Elise’s maids.

This morning Gina and I headed out for the final leg of our wardrobe journey – a trip to look at tuxedos for me. It has taken us many months to get to this point. Our first wardrobe excursion was in January on the morning after our engagement party, which meant we were all a touch hung over.

Hangover or no, I don’t think there was any way I could have been adequately prepared to enter into the mouth of hell that is David’s Bridal.

(For the record, this is not a story about me looking down on people who buy dresses at David’s. It’s about my vast incredulousness at the entire wedding industry and the attitudes that come with it, which – if I keep writing these recaps – you will see play out repeatedly. But, I digress.)

We entered David’s as a quintet – Elise, her sister, and Amanda, and Lindsay and I. Elise’s trio was checked in and sent to romp in the many rows of chiffon and taffeta while Lindsay and I negotiated with the gatekeeper. It went something like this:

LindsayGK: Oh, are you in this wedding as well?

Lindsay: Yes, this is the groom, and I’m in his party.

Gatekeeper: So, you’re a friend of his that’s in the bridal party?

L: No.

GK: Ahh, you’re a friend of the bride’s that she placed in the groom’s party?

LW: No.

(Between the hangover and the dumbfoundedness, here Lindsay was starting to look unpredictably dangerous, like a captured squirrel. I decided to intervene.)

Me: Actually, she’s my co-best-lady.

GK: I see. (Clearly not seeing at all). Well, we’ll just put her under Elise.

The gatekeeper took Lindsay’s name so that her romping could begin, and I moved to follow her into the racks.

GK: Uh, you can wait at the chairs here.

PM: Hmm?

GK: We have chairs. For grooms. You don’t have to go in there.

This was very early in the wedding process, and I did not yet understand the reverse groom-discrimination phenomenon. No wedding-associated vendor is prepared to speak to a groom. All of their forms have the bride listed first. They always want contact information from the bride.

They definitely do not expect the groom to show up to poke around and ask questions, and they certainly don’t expect him to care about dress-shopping.

Having made it past the gatekeeper, Lindsay and I joined the other ladies in searching through rows upon rows of dresses. To me most of them looked more like 90s prom dresses than modern wedding gear. Lindsay and Amanda, both wedding veterans, undertook an education campaign to get me quickly up to speed on fabrics, cuts, and styles.

Laden down with silken loads, the three of us advanced on the dressing area … only to encounter a second gatekeeper.This one looked like a troll doll, and was dressed smartly in a neutral-colored sack that served to minimize her lumpiness. She was exactly the opposite of the sort of style maven you’d want to purchase a wedding dress from.

The trollish woman waited for all of the women to pass and then physically obstructed my path.

Wedding Troll: What are you doing? You can’t come back here.

Me: (Innocently) Hmm?

WT: (Sassily) What are you, a friend?

Me: I’m the groom.

WT: We have some chairs out in front…

Me: (A little testy) I have heard about the chairs. I am not sitting in the chairs. I need to pick out a dress for the women in my party. I am your customer.

(She did not seem convinced, so I embellished, slightly.)

Me: I am paying for all of the dresses

WT: Ahh, well… (clearly waging an internal battle between wanting to get rid of me and wanting to sell stuff) …you see, I can’t let you come any further. It’s, err, it’s not really up to me, you see. Some of the other women, they might be… they might… well, you know, they could be uncomfortable.

Me: How so?

WT: You know. Women. Dressing rooms.

Me: But, I can’t see into the dressing rooms from here.

WT: Coming out of the dressing rooms. They, ahh, won’t want you looking. At them. When they come out of the dressing rooms.

Me: In their dresses?

WT: Yes, exactly.

Me: I see. And, I’m too close?

WT: Mmm hmm.

Me: (Taking two steps back) What about now?

WT: Uhh, well, you can still see them, and…

Me: (Slowly walking backwards and increasing in volume). Now? Now? What about NOW? AM I FAR ENOUGH AWAY NOW?

At this point Elise had noticed my confrontation and fixed me with a pained look, to the effect of Please do not get us kicked out of the first wedding store I’ve brought you to.

The BlueI stood on the very spot where Elise interrupted my escalating confrontation, and did not move from it. As our party members came out in a variety of dresses I made a great show of leaning over from my spot for a closer look, careful not to step closer to the dressing rooms.

This went on for a while, until finally someone came out in a dress that caught our attention. We flagged down the trollish woman and handed her the dress. Did she have it in blue? Elise’s women would be wearing blue.

She disappeared with the dress for a while as our fashion show continued, and after several minutes came huffing up to Elise and I with the dress clutched in one hand.

Elise, in the Elusive StyleWedding Troll: Discontinued.

Elise: Hmm?

WT: This dress is discontinued. We don’t carry it.

Me: Actually, you’re carrying it right now. In your cloven hoo… um, in your hand.

WT: Just this one. That’s the only one we carry.

Elise: What do you mean, exactly?

WT: I can’t order this in your color. You’d just have to find another David’s that has them in the right colors and sizes for your party.

Me: (Muttering) Oh, because that’s probable.

Elise: So, why was it on the rack?

WT: (Puzzled) So people can try it on.

Elise: But, you just have the one bridesmaid dress.

WT: Yes.

Elise: And you can’t get any more.

WT: Exactly.

Elise: …

Peter: Goddamnit. YOU FIND ONE NICE THING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WALMART…

At this point Elise was snapping her head back and forth looking for swat teams that would emerge to tranquilize me, and I got the message to quickly wrap it up with the wedding troll before I was forcibly ejected from the store.

And that was the end of my association with David’s Bridal.

President Obama

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When I was small I used to watch the news every night. At seven I was probably more educated about congress and presidential politics than I am now.

In the first election I was old enough to chat about – likely Bush Sr. in ’88 – I remember my mother telling me about Ferraro. “In 1984,” she said, “there was a woman on the ticket for the first time ever – Ferraro.” (My mother never uttered her first name that I can recall.) “She would have been Vice President for the Democrats, but they lost to Regan.”

I don’t remember her sounding too upset; I guess everyone liked Regan at least a little bit. But, I do remember the message that followed, whether it was said out loud, maybe in a voting booth, or just implied during our next re-watch of Free To Be You and Me.

It’s important that a woman can be considered for our second highest office. You’re going to grow up to be a white man, and in a way you’re lucky because you can aspire to do anything – even be president. At some point in your life you’re going to have the chance to vote for a woman, or for someone who is black or Asian, or for some other kind of person who usually isn’t given the same opportunities you might have. And, if you vote for them you might have to vote against someone who is more like you, but it’s important for you to support them. Not only because you agree with them, but because of what their election could mean for America.

In a way her message, however she actually conveyed it, changed my whole life. It was the birth of my feminism and the kernel that would become my fierce dedication to civil rights for everyone, no matter how different from me they are. And, it made me become aware that America means something very special and very specific – it means freedom to be and freedom to choose.

For that reason, even in the moments I have been the most critical of America, her message has always inspired me to fight for my country instead of against my country. That distinction has nothing to do with party lines and colored states on a map – it’s about freedom and choice. It’s about the quality of compassion.

Yesterday we elected the first black president of the United States of America. Not just black, but multi-racial. Just like America. Just like the family I have created for myself with Elise.

Tonight I’m already looking forward to America’s future elections. I’m looking forward to presidents who are female, Muslim, gay, Asian, or atheist.

Yesterday we could have elected the first woman vice president. And, though she lost, she may inspire stories told to another generation of little girls and boys who will grow up to love their country not for what it is, but for what it can be.

Tonight I spent some time with my two best friends – a woman who has made her way in a white man’s industry despite discrimination against her and everyone else, and another woman who saw four states tell her she doesn’t share the same rights as her peers because of who she is and who she has chosen to spend the rest of her life with.

Yesterday I cried from when I made that last post until about thirty minutes after the acceptance speech ended. I cried, and it felt good, because I was witnessing the birth of the America my mother promised me I would have a chance to live in. It has arrived blessedly early in my charmed existence.

Tonight I am weary and drained, but still ready to fight for my country, in my way. To fight to make people understand the rights we have and the process we are due. To fight for our freedom to be and to choose.

Today my mother sent me an email that shared its subject with this post’s title. It read:

Peter,

We just made history!!!!!!!

xo
mom

Arcati Crisis Upstairs@Zot

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Last night Arcati Crisis played our first true headlining set inside of the Philadelphia city limits, in a fantastic space upstairs from Zot Restaurant, sharing the bill with our good friends Lindsay Wilhelmi, Andra Taylor, and Nate Dodge.

In my increasingly frequent travels in the Philly music scene I often feel like an amateur, and in open-miking I still am. There are Philly artists who have honed the art of open mike to a fine, fine point, and are able to score kudos from a crowd of strangers on every outing.

I’m not that. But, I am a communications professional, a project manager, a Lyndzapalooza organizer, and a reformed amateur theatre junkie, and I brought all of those experiences to bear on what turned out to be an amazing show. I designed the flyers, I worked with all of the performers come to a consensus on our schedule, I provided a sound system in a pinch, and I refocused lights and worked the crowd throughout the night.

I don’t mean that to sound like I take credit for our night, because if I had done all of that of that for a four-hour solo Peter show I wouldn’t have garnered nearly the same amount of support or success. Just as there’s something magical about the harmony of Arcati Crisis, there was something special about sharing a real bill with Lindsay after how hard we’ve worked on our music together over the years, and about sharing a stage with our new friends Andra and Nate, who energize and inspire us with every performance.

Would the flyers have been as cool if I hadn’t been designing on their behalf? Would the schedule have been so intuitive without their brains? Would the PA have been worth carrying up the stairs without Lindsay to strike a balance on the initial mix? Would the lights be worth refocusing without a bill of compelling performers to watch?

I can’t take credit for combining the four of us – to that we owe our thanks to David Simons of Five Year Plan Entertainment, who gave us all the chance to be heard, and to be heard together. It was a rare bill where I could cross-promote every artist with the confidence that our audiences would seamlessly overlap.

My dad arrived to the show early and held court at the bar for the duration, and every time I stopped by he was ready with a polite litany of ways we could improve for our next show. We need a bigger board with an off-board equalizer, and maybe a compressor. Sandbags for the bottom of mic stands. Better eye-lines. Performers closer to the audience. Stop by ahead of time to check out the lighting situation.

If you’ve followed my history with my father at all, you know that it’s rare for us to find an intersection of interests, and it was fascinating to hear him so effortlessly detail all of the credible, tangible ways we could improve for our next show.

At one point in the conversation I interjected.

“Dad, we will do everything you just said. But, realize that it used to be that we had no mic stands to even sing into, so I bought those. And then we didn’t have mics that were good for Gina and I, so I bought those. Then Lyndzapalooza needed a PA system, so I bought that. And, Gina and I couldn’t get anyone to pay attention to us without quality recordings, so I bought a digital recording interface and spent the last year mixing and burning demos.”

My point was well-taken, just as his was by me: success requires steady progress; milestones require constant motion.

It was a year ago today that Arcati Crisis made our Philadelphia debut at the Tin Angel, playing three newly learned songs in a brief set during a lineup of almost a dozen other performers – mostly strangers. As great as that felt, and as inspiring as the support from friends and family was, I don’t think we could have imagined that a single year later we would be playing for five times that long to twice as many of our dearest supporters on a bill of talented friends.

I am truly blessed to be a part of a community that continues to support the evolution of our music. I will continue to do everything within my power to make sure it gets heard.

Loving

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There were kittens in our yard, but now there are not.

You were going to get a whole post about the joys of kittens and the joys of pet fostering, with a smattering of Bob Barkerisms, but we returned from work to find said kittens and accompanying momma gone from the yard.

So, no wacky kitten pictures with captions in stilted lolzcatian English.

Honestly, I’m only mentioning it now so that in five years I can recall when it was we found the kittens in our yard.

So, for historical reference, the apparent close of the kitten incident happens to coincide with the first day of legal same-sex marriages in California.

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Just as I am a feminist, I am an advocate for civil rights for everyone, and that includes the GBLT community. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can not be an advocate and an activist for both, because each movement is rooted in a simple concept: equality for all.

As we celebrate the landmark California Supreme Court decision and the many beautiful unions that it will yield, I was also reminded today of another beautiful union – this one fifty years old.

The union in question was of Mildred and Richard Loving, two Virginia small-town sweethearts who in 1958 found themselves pregnant and decided to wed in neighboring Washington, D.C.

Back in Virginia, five weeks after their wedding the couple found themselves on the receiving end of an unfriendly visit from the local Sheriff’s department because they were in violation of the state’s Racial Integrity Act.

Richard Loving was white; his bride Mildred was black.

The Racial Integrity Act made their marriage – and, for that matter, any marriage between a white person and someone of another race – a felony.

This post isn’t meant to be a history lesson- you can read other sources detailing the Loving’s arrest, or their subsequent exodus from Virginia under threat of imprisonment, and how – nine years later on June 12, 1967 – the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Racial Integrity Act in their landmark Loving v. Virginia decision.

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I know most people (maybe even you, reading now) see the Lovings’ story in black and white – literally and figuratively. However, laws like the Racial Integrity Act were leveraged against couples of any interracial combination across the country. If it weren’t for the Loving’s and the unanimous SCOTUS decision their case garnered, interracial marriages might never have become as visible and accepted in mainstream American society. (And, similar laws lingered on the books for decades until the last one was repealed in Alabama in 2000.)

If those same laws were prevalent today it might not be legal for me to marry Elise. And, it certainly would have been illegal for her parents – one white, the other Chinese – to marry and have children.

Consider that for a moment.

All of these years I’ve been one blessed white male in the multi-ethnic sea of America. I never experienced any personal discrimination to cause me to believe in feminism or civil rights, but I believe in them because equality should be for everyone, without strings attached.

Little did I know at age five, or age twelve, or age twenty-two that my blessed life would benefit from the battles waged before me in the most meaningful way possible – because they cleared the way for me to have and hold the love of my life.

Could you imagine denying us legal recognition of our happiness just for something as trivial as the colors of our skin?

Your answer, I suspect, is “no.”

Then, consider that as of today one of my co-best-ladies and one of my dearest friends can only legally marry each other in two states in the country, solely because they are both women.

Why is it that we can all imagine denying them legal recognition of their happiness just for something as trivial as their gender?

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In my mind, the two are the same – the two couples, the two imagined denials, and the two inevitable, ineffable sets of basic human rights.

Just as I advocated for those rights before I ever knew they would effect my life so directly, I will continue to advocate for them even after my marriage is legally recognized – because everyone should have the same rights as Elise and I, regardless of race or gender.

That’s feminism. That’s civil rights. That’s equality.

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As I write this post there is a tiny dent in the dish of cat food we put out in the yard, hoping to lure back momma and her four stray kittens.

And, at the same time thousands of Californians have had the imagined denials cleared from their path to a legally recognized life of loving.

A Personal Wedding (Or: The only feminist in the party is the one without breasts.)

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Last week I spent my sole lunch break shopping for dresses.

This is one of the many peculiarities of our impending ulta-modern, decidedly-feminist nuptials.

For those keeping score: Elise is the modern one; I’m the feminist.

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At our engagement party I found myself standing in our kitchen next to my father’s wife, chatting about our (then vague) plans about the wedding. She asked me who my best man would be, and I snagged Gina out of the roiling crowd.

I mean, hello, who else would be my best man but Gina? I’ve known her for half of my life. I’m in a band with her. We’ve only been in one fight, ever, which was neither of our faults. We are adept at psychic communication.

These are all traits one seeks in a best man. She really is the best man for the job.

(In this next bit I am maybe engaging in a slight blog-reality edit, but this is how I remember it. Or at least it’s how the story is best told.)

Dad’s wife laughed. Yes, yes, Gina is my best friend. But, does she have a “counterpart”? Another “good friend” of mine fitting the “best man” moniker?

Additional “scare quotes” trailed after her sentence, hanging expectantly in the air.

I replied that I had a great friend that I talk to every single day, who coddled me through my engagement cold feet, helped me design my ring, and even came early to help us set up for the party.

Her name is Lindsay.

The laugh this time was more pointed.

“Don’t you have any male friends?”

I do have male friends, and I love them dearly, but if anyone took an objective look at my life it would be clear to them that my best friends are all women, and since I’m marrying one of them it stands to reason that the next few on the list ought to be the ones at my side on the big day.

Thus, Gina and Lindsay are my “co-best ladies.” CBLs, for short. With the addition of Erika, the girls outnumber the boys in my party three to two.

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As we get farther into the wedding planning – and as we attend more weddings – I’m starting to appreciate how weddings can be both completely vicarious and intensely personal.

Except, a lot of people don’t leave room for the personal. And, I suppose kowtowing to tradition, or family, or current trends can be deeply personal for a lot of people, but for us none of the three really matches our personality.

Which means I have CBLs. And we’re not having flowers, because we don’t care and they aren’t budgetarily or environmentally responsible. And we’re making our own print collateral – not to save money, but because we both work in communications and we want to have control over the look and feel of our wedding.

Through the process of discovering these personal touches, I am gaining a new appreciation for weddings. In 2006 we attended a barbecue wedding with pies instead of cake. Last month we went to a wedding where the father/daughter dance was the Action News theme song.

Those are personal touches, perfect for their respective couples. Anyone who would turn their noses up at them would be insane.

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Maybe most men don’t want to spend their lunch breaks looking at dresses – for them it would be less of a personal touch, and more of a personal hell. I can appreciate that. But to me everything from our CBLs to our DIY invites are the defining facets of our modern, feminist wedding. As the feminist half of that equation, for me it’s not just about axing antiquated “Adam’s rib” readings and sexist, sexual bachelor parties.

Feminism isn’t just about the female – it’s about equality in words and actions.

That means that I can and should have an opinion on dresses, and décor, and everything else about my wedding. A wedding marks the joining of our anima and animus, neither of us giving away or sacrificing anything of ourselves in the process. How can that joining be equal if the groom does nothing but say yes and write checks?

And, besides, my CBLs are going to look stunning.