Mike Albo’s “Hologram Boyfriends” Explores Gay Identity
The writer's new audiobook blends memoir, humor, and sound to chronicle queer longing, love, and self-discovery.
On the edge of the Beltway Springfield, Va., is one of the last metro D.C. outposts that drivers pass heading south on I-95, one of the first indicators that the nation’s capital is just over the horizon heading north. More romantically, this suburban space is a recurring character in Mike Albo‘s creations, whether literary or limelight.
“The feeling I had in Springfield, of longing to get away, I love that longing,” Albo tells me, returning to childhood, in that he’s long called Brooklyn home. “That longing is such a special force. This special force inside you that’s a fire. It’s a creative tool, and it doesn’t go away. Even if you get away, the longing is still there. I always think of Springfield as this place of hope.”
His latest work, an audiobook — or, more specifically, a Macmillan “audio original” — is no different. Hologram Boyfriends: Sex, Love, and Overconnection, in which he shares various stages of his life in pursuit of gay identity, professional identity, romantic and artistic identity, and much more, is a sort of love letter to Springfield, though more so to Brooklyn, and absolutely Provincetown. Though, notably, D.C. also merits mention, if not the same degree of devotion.
In 1991, after graduating from the University of Virginia with a poetry degree and minor in studio arts, Albo returned home to Springfield, working an unpaid internship in downtown D.C. at the National Endowment for the Arts.
“The highlight of my week was on Sundays, when I’d lie to my parents and tell them I was doing something wholesome like getting ice cream in Old Town Alexandria and then drive my dad’s Ford Taurus twenty minutes to D.C., meet friends, and go to Kindergarten, a dance night devoted to the whole ‘clubkid’ trend: candy strewn on the bar, posters of Ernie & Bert tacked limply to the wall, clubkids in baby bibs and barrettes, drag queens in bright Legos of color,” Albo tells his Hologram Boyfriends audience.
“The famous clubkids like Michael Alig were in New York City and not present in D.C. I knew they wouldn’t set foot in Kindergarten (much less D.C.) unless it was some hilarious, ironic joke. This clubby scene was more of a simulation. It was also appropriately childlike. As much as I yearned to be an adult, I only felt comfortable going to Kindergarten. I was too afraid to go to the real gay bars in Dupont Circle.”
More layered than a simple audiobook, Hologram Boyfriends is sometimes Albo reading a chapter in a studio. Sometimes he has a live audience, often roaring with laughter. Always, there are sound effects. The screech of the fax machine adds depth to the start of his career. His voice fading into the ether repeating “pipeline… pipeline… pipeline” is a more current coloring of where he’s often advised his payments for freelance writing are stuck. Diving into this new dimension, despite the resources of a major publisher supporting the work, Albo recorded some of the effects himself.
While Albo has written traditional books, e-books, and often performs, this hybrid product of syntax, sound, studio, and stage, coming together as Hologram Boyfriends, feels to him something more than simply an audiobook.
“Sometimes, if I’m feeling really pretentious, I think it’S more of an album,” he says. “It’s like Joni Mitchell’s Hejira. It’s like a concept album in some ways.”
As Mitchell drew inspiration for the songs on Hejira from cross-country road tripping and the lovers along the way, Albo’s Hologram Boyfriends is a literal and figurative journey. But Albo’s open road has possibly been just a bit bumpier than Mitchell’s.
“I found the USAA policy information and my policy number located on a line of many numbers and dashes strung out on either side of it like petticoats,” Albo frantically tells listeners. It’s not even the only time he’s stuck on the side of the road in Boyfriends.
“Went online and prayed that my cell reception would allow the website to load and enter my information so that I could talk to a real person about getting roadside assistance. That person took my information, and again I prayed that I explained correctly that I was on the highway, not in the Arby’s parking lot, which must have been on the other side of a fence blanketed in a thicket of vines and thorny bushes. Then I waited while she found a local roadside assistance person and waited for him to get in touch. Ted, the roadside assistant person, called, and I had to drop him a pin so he would know where I was. He said he would be there in an hour, and I watched my phone where the little icon of his car inched toward me…. I sat in the passenger seat and waited.”
Hologram Boyfriends ($19.99, Macmillan Publishers) is available on most audiobook platforms. Mike Albo is online at MikeAlbo.net.
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