magazines and newspapers

from the march issue of the Advocate

"But that's not necessarily a gay thing. My group of closest friends and I lived, until recently, in these loose communal situations--in New York, L.A., Boston. And there was a constant raid on somebody's closet. You'd see one of your roommates in a restaurant, and he'd say, 'Hey, that's my shirt. You asshole! I just washed that shirt.'" -- Alex.

"Same-sex relationships with anyone when you are young entail extreme vulnerability. The first experience most of us have of devastating personal rejection is not with someone we want to date but with someone we want to befriend." -- Izzy.

"Iz and I lived together in probably ten different apartments with ten other people who we grew up with at different times, and the arguments are always the same. For example, I am a slob and I get yelled at for not cleaning up when the house is a mess. When Izzy brings the hookers over, it's ---" -- Alex.

"The real story is that I have a problem with the telephone and I don't return phone calls if I can't deal with something. It's not because I'm cool -- it's because I'm a loser and I'm afraid of dealing with something that's awkward and uncomfortable." -- Alex.

'Hang around with Izzy Wesson for a couple of hours, though, and you get the impression that, mostly, he wants to talk. Even if the recipients of his charm are three shirtless urchins staging a curbside spitting contest outside a shop. "Everything all right, fellas?" says the lightly stubbled singer, drawing them into conversation. Next thing you know, he's causing a traffic jam by chatting up the cashier at a fast-food drive-through.

As Wesson drives away, sucking down his fourth diet soft drink of the day, his friend frowns. "You know, Iz," says Alex, "There are entire societies on the Internet devoted to that aspartame stuff they put in diet soda and the number of ways it can harm you."

"Dude," says Izzy, "There're entire societies on the Internet devoted to proving there's a spaceship circling the earth, hiding behind a comet."'