22 - O|Tl‘1 july 2001 «are Testosterone on Tape REVIEWED BY JOEL NICHOLS Novelist and screenwriter James Robert Baker died in November of 1997. In October of 2000, Alyson Publications published his final work, Testosterone. It is a novel in the experimental form of a “book on tape,” recorded straight from the mouth of Dean Seagrave, as he makes his way around LA. and loses control; The form of the novel is a direct “spoken” letter from Seagrave to Baker, “a living novel, spoken directly onto tape. Without all the tedious typing and editing, and agents, publishers, printers, before the book~on-tape version.” Seagrave tells the story of his relationship with Pablo Ortega, a man whose existence forces Seagrave’s life into dis- aster. Pablo’s characterization is one of the complicated and intricate structures that Baker builds in this book. All the reader knows about Pablo is from Seagrave. Even what the other characters say is mitigat- ed through him, so it is not pos- sible to separate delusion from reality. Because Pablo is of Chilean descent, Baker explores racial pretenses and conflicts of late 20th century Los Angeles. The first description of Pablo is from Seagrave driving down a dark road, recalling wrapping his “lips around his fat brown uncut cock.” The reader sees the impact that Pablo has on the narrator: in the next line Seagrave’s “lips became my car and his cock ’ became the sycamore tree” that ‘:30 he crashes into. Further description tells how Seagrave _ explained-Pablo to his Anglo friends: no accent, born in “Eurocentric Chile,” and a doc- tor. Interestingly, he is first sit- uated in the text by his “brown cock.” The racial tension continues throughout the book as Seagrave becomes convinced that Pablo is in a South American cult and has an alter- cation with his mother, provid- ing Baker with the opportunity to" talk about the stereotypical relationship between Latinos and their mothers. Curiously enough, there is a level of self- reflection by Seagrave that denies that his stereotypes are racist. He notes that not all Latinos, the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez for example, would not respond that way. This racial investigation is carefully implemented, although complicated. Testosterone is bold and fast. At 200 pages, it is an intense read that almost gives the feel- ing of having sat down and lis- tened to the five cassette tapes themselves. The design of the jacket perfectly encloses the ,. Q s‘ (U time bomb of text — its center is the barrel of a gun with the words coming out. The top of the cover is an enhanced photo of a cassette; the actual tape inside looks as much like the wheels of the car that Seagrave is in throughout the whole book as it does like tape. The third image on the cover, to the left of the tape, is a yellow and red graphic of a man sticking his tongue out. The color is sick and the man is disgusted. It is an appropriate representation of both Seagrave, a graphic artist, and the -reader: durirg .the;.m‘ ve‘-.tries to ibring.-Itoo . gruesome parts. The whole story is set in L.A., framed by its beaches, streets, and freeways. It might have been useful to have a Thompsons Street. Atlas to refer to while reading. Baker creates a picture of a post- ACT-UP gay community, where the attitude towards AIDS is terrifying: Seagrave resists getting tested out of fear, Pablo says he is negative, but may be lying, and men in sex clubs seem not to care at all. _As a cultural history, the text serves as evidence of what happens when AIDS is no longer seen as imminent death, but instead, as Seagrave dispar- ages, “a gift.” The gay culture displayed in Testosterone straddles two diverging lives —- the charac- ters, for the most part, are sex addicts who frequent tea rooms, but they also want boyfriends. Through Seagrave’s entire narration, he is repulsed by what Pablo does, but wants to be able to make it all better again, kiss him and be a couple -again. Turned on by the idea of anonymous sex in the various cruising locales he went to before Pablo, Seagrave tries to initiate a casual encounter with a UCLA graduate student. What really. makes the student attractive to the narrator is that he is boyfriend lmaterialz intelligent (he is reading Rimbaud’s col- lected works), a goodibody (tight, butnot too-perfect like the muscle queens), and not obviously dying from AIDS or strung out on heroin. “ The encounter" fails because much emotion into it, attempt- ing to explain his obsession S with Pablo Twhile the other guy just wants ‘to trade‘ blowjobs. In the end, Seagrave cannot lose his fantasy of the perfect . tomorrow; living with a Nobel prize-winning boyfriend in a futuristic scalar-plated house in New Mexico, where cultural differences‘ do not matter and there is no9AIDS. A As a queer voice without apology,‘_'\ Seagrave insults “breeders,” the religious and political "right, assimilation from both"-I’the Latino and gay communities into straight, white America, and even shoots up a Taco Bell with a bunch of anti-abortion Christians. James Robert Baker’s final novel is excellent as a sort of fictional ethnogra- phy of late l990’s gay life in L.A., as a work of careful, pop- culture intertextuality, and as a queer first person narrative. For more information, see www.jamesrobertbaker.com or wvvw.alyson.com, the website of the publisher. 100% GAY OWNED & OPERATED flatcf /ltatt7/7ave/ “SUMMERTIME rum" White Water Rafting * Hiking * Camping * Climbing * Biking * Scuba Diving * Dude Ranch Etc, ropical Esca-St. Croix, VI - 65-22 from $950 pp/d. Grand Canyon Whitewater Rafting — 7/1-8 from $2475 pp/do. ellowstonel Teton Adventure — 7/7-13 or 8/4-10 from $1550 pp/do. - laska Adventure - 7/23-30 from $2450 pp/do. ‘ Cattle Ranch Vacation - 7/22-28 from $1875 pp/do First All Gay Hawaiian Cruise 3/17-24 2002 from $899 pp/do Gay Pride Montreal, Canada Aug. 2-6 pkgs from $399 pp/do (lnc: RT air, 4 nights acc., car rental, map, taxes & more!) 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