22

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 3, 1993

1836 Euclid Ave., Suite 308 Cleveland, Ohio 44115 771-6597

JOY B. SAVREN

ATTORNEY AT LAW

Celebrating 10 Years of

legal services to the Greater Cleveland Lesbian and Gay Community

NO CHARGE FOR INITIAL CONSULTATION

lite

BEER

Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, WI

Beverage Distributors, Inc. 3800 King Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114

GPC93

COFFEE FANATICS

HEADQUARTERS

>>>

COFFEE

337

ADAGIOTM

The Authentic Specialty

Coffee Store.

Roasted on premises! Brewed to perfection-

Real coffee for real coffee fanatics. VAN AKEN CENTER 20149 Van Aken Blvd. Shaker Heights 491-1800

Get Acquainted Offer: $1.00 off Cleveland's BEST Caffé Mocha with presentation of this ad. Expires Sept. 30th

Mon-Thurs 7:30a.m 10:00p.m.

Friday 7:30a.m.Midnight Saturday 8:00a.m. Midnight Sunday 9:00a.m. -6:00p.m.

BOOKS

Macrobiotic monastic motoring

Mad Monks on the Road by Michael Lane and Jim Crotty Simon & Schuster, 298 p., $11.

Reviewed by Joseph Morris There is no way to convey this book's spirit and style in an article. After I read it, I checked some of the other reviews; words like "madcap" and "indefinable" freely flowed. People felt drawn to compare it to Charles Kuralt and other Blue Highways types of travelogues. Mad Monks on the Road reflects all of this and more, starting with the subtitle: "A 47,000-Hour Dashboard Adventure-From Paradise, California, to Royal, Arkansas, and Up the New Jersey Turnpike."

First some background. There is this 'zine called Monk, readily available by subscription, that includes adventures, interviews, stories and travel tips with a gay point of view. Each issue focuses on a particular city or region. It's written and composed by "the Monks" on the road; they call it "the world's only mobile magazine."

For readers of the Advocate, there was a regular column by the Monks last year, usually describing the reaction of some toughlooking good ol' boys to these two screaming queens emerging from a pink motorhome. Michael Monk and Jim Monk have become gay cultural icons, sort of a perpetual Lewis and Clark expedition that stays in touch by pay phone and Macintosh computer. Life wasn't always that glamorous and the monastery routine had to start somewhere. That's where this book comes in.

For fans of the Monks, this is a required read. For the curious, it is a funny, observant, poetic and bizarre collection of factoids, exaggeration, and simple truths woven into an eclectic narrative-telling the tale of those who follow the beat of a very different drummer.

If there is any continuity to the story, it is how Michael Lane and Jim Crotty met and grew in their relationship. It started in San Francisco (on land) where they made nothing of their lives, spouted idealistic principles, and faced an early mid-life crisis. What better way to cement a relationship than to reduce the surroundings to a 15-year old van fitted with a small bed and smaller

stove, and set out in 1986 to see the country? Today the Monks reflect a unit, the perfect, slightly eccentric, gay couple reveling in the rarefied ideals and habits of Berkeley

STATE FARM

flower children. I have to credit the authors for not glossing over the problems they had with each other: this book shows the darker underbelly of the relationship. In the early years, they could at least focus on the "goal" of the mobile adventure (not that they had a goal other than to be somewhere else). As the miles rolled by and the expenses mounted, it was no longer enough to be "simple, mobile and true." Crotty is a young, cute, macrobiotic-okay, macroneuroticBuddhist who maintains he is straight (!). The decade-older Lane is perpetually horny and ready to abandon all responsibility and return to a wanderlust existence, The tension between the two is apparent throughout the book.

But that's the underbrush. On the surface there is a continuing flow of insane adventures and bizarre characters. Somehow the Monks are able to commune with everyone-while learning the basics of a campground with a partial hookup or where to park a motorhome in a large city. The whitejumpsuited adventurers hold court and dispense waffles during the Harmonic Convergence, find a 300-pound crystal, escape from a deranged tow truck driver at Graceland, spend time with other reality refugees like Chuck Yma Sumac, Mr. Apple Pi, and sex goddess Annie Sprinkle, and subsist on a strange diet of soy milk and "apricot duck gravy." Together they overcome innumerable mechanical breakdowns as their reputation, and the success of the mobile magazine, spread across the land.

The writing quality is erratic as the book spends a lot of time deciding what it wants to be. The style of writing their experiences mostly in the third person, then suddenly switching to first person is certainly unique, but it accentuated discrepancies in my mind. How could the same person who is writing this brilliantly-honed text be the subject of some Laurel and Hardy style mishap? There are many cases of highly intellectual people being common sense klutzes, but the Monks paint such a broad stoke of their inventiveness, savvy and sense of adventure that some of the described ineptness just wasn't credible. And the ending is much too contrived in comparison with the rest of the book.

It's easy to overlook the rough edges though, as these contemporary gay storytellers, acting like John Waters without film, begin their tradition of spinning tales that carry you into the lighter, sometimes gayer, part of America.

SHE

TICE

1360 depot street

rocky river

VISION

hair studio

ohio 44116

216.333.3239

Auto

INSURANCE

•

Auto Life Health Home Business

BETSY WARNER

Agent

3091 Mayfield Rd. #217

Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118 Office: (216) 932-6900

Marie Bielefeld, Ph.D. Counseling Psychologist

Individual/Couple Lesbian/Gay Jasries Personal/Spiritual Growth Coping with Medical Problems *Self Expression Through Vocation

Health Insurance Accepted

Day Evening & Weekend Hours

Westgate Plaza Building

20325 Center Ridge Road 899-7625 (office) 734-8164 (voice mail).