The Red Bus Stops Here

I did not start The Red Bus Stops Here (2000) with any idea of what the piece would be like. I had been recording my friend HD Motyl reading some Marilyn Monroe texts for another piece, and after we were done, I left the tape running and asked him to tell me about some of his sexual escapades at the library. Howard is a great storyteller and loves describing his conquests. Later, when I listened to the recordings, several things jumped out at me: the joy and love that comes out of Howard's words, the underlining tension of AIDS and, most important, his discussion of a space where gay and straight cultures meet. Later I discovered that in Chicago AIDS educators are working with groups of men who identify themselves as men who have sex with men but do not see themselves as "gay" or "homosexual." The public bathroom is a traditional place (predating the Internet) where gay men and straight men who seek man-to-man sex meet. One of my favorite lines of Howard's is, "Honey—he never, but never took his wedding ring off."

In a section of the recording, Howard speaks:

The first thing that really struck me about the first . . . my fetish . . . my pubic hair fetish (this is going to come out now) . . . the first thing that really struck me about . . . ummm . . . the . . . and I know exactly where that pubic hair fetish comes from. Exactly. I know exactly why and that whole mystique. It's because of my neighbors. This guy who lived behind us, oh my God, he used to play football. Oh God, he had the body. Oh my God, we would go . . . and he never in the summer had a shirt on, never. Hairy, gorgeous, tight body. Oh, and his sons who I have not seen for twenty years are supposedly just as good-looking. Oh my God, and one who is not married and is like in his late thirties. "Please," I said. My sister is like totally in love with him and I keep saying, "It seems like I have more of a chance at him then you do." Oh . . . but, oh my God. Like perfect, I'm telling you perfect nipples, perfect chest, not big, just tight and perfect and hairy. Oh, and I could never imagine, and it was like all I wanted to do was like see him . . . cuz he would always have his shirt off.

Anyway, the pubic hair fetish. The first time it happened in the library, the guy had a pretty big dick, it turned out that he was a theater major. I gave him my phone number, who knew the protocol. He called and I was like, "Look I'm not really into this" or something. I might have made up that I had a girlfriend or something and just get him off my back. Please, like he couldn't tell. But I remember he had like red, like bright red pubic hair. He was a carrot top. But after that, once I discovered this outlet. Cuz at that time I wasn't having sex. Like I wasn't going out, and I used the excuse that I was too busy because I was in grad school. Please. And I was terrified of AIDS, because AIDS was just happening, and I didn't really know anybody, and I wasn't really out to anybody. It was like this weird time, and then when I finally came out, it was like, "Please, she's doing gay films left and right. She didn't care about anything." Anyway, what would happen then, I discovered, was that you would meet somebody downstairs. Now this was like ten years ago so. You meet somebody. . . . Does this ever happen to you?

Several months after recording Howard, I used Max/MSP and Sound Hack to process and manipulate the recordings of his narrative, creating multilayered sounds and juxtaposing them with other concrete sounds (recordings from airports). I then edited the piece on an old Dyaxis system, overlaying parts of the original recordings to create...