Howdy kids, I'm Marc-Anthony. I write things and some people like 'em. Sometimes, I post those things on this here blog. Free entertainment from me to you. If you want to keep closer track of my shenanigans and goings-on, you can also add me on FaceBook.


If you are local (Central Illinois area) and interested in meeting for business/creative interactions, or just wanna say hello, I hold office hours most Mondays & Fridays between 12pm and 3pm (or later with appointment) at Caffe Paradiso.

If you drop in, I may be free, but if you want to assure I’ll be there and available, please shoot me an e-mail at FindPenwan(at)gmail(dot)com. Just a tiny warning: I often write about the people I randomly meet in public, so if you’re not comfy with the world getting a taste of my take on you, you may want to steer clear.

M-A

(Caffe Paradiso photo by Reid Burke)

Awoke at 2:22am with a sharp sore throat and a feeling that there was something in my room. Not something unfriendly, not something substantial or meaningful, not even something real. Just something. Imagined, but tangible in a fever state. I zombied to the kitchen, poured a tall glass of orange juice in a Smurf glass, downed it in three gulps and shuffled back to bed. Fell asleep quickly. Dreamed of Popeye captaining an orphan vessel through old and new waters. Woke at 8:30am, feeling refreshed and unsick, but odd.

Worked. Showered. Dressed. Saw that it was snowing big wet flakes. Dressed warmer. Kissed Nick goodbye, walked to Paradiso. Felt spacey. Felt sore throat returning. Did some Japanese. Taught myself a lot of Kanji. Slipped right down the hill of understanding how to use the Kanji dictionary, by complete accident. Would have felt elation at said discovery, but still felt odd and out-of-body. Felt watched by whatever it wasn’t in my room last night. Or this morning, rather.

Finished a few pages of Japenese workbooking, then switched to half reading Jason Bitner’s Cassette From My Ex and half eavesdropping/people watching. The matronly, but still very young and beautiful possible manager woman with the soft Asian features who exudes bright sincerity, the funky-friendly white girl with the stylishly frumpy glasses, curly blond hair and calm eyes, the pairs and trios of patrons rushing in, letting the door slam behind them, taking off their snow-sleet-soaked hats and coats, chatting with cautious tones about grad students they can’t stand. And advisor dished out serving after serving of haughty, unsolicited advice to her advisee, like the Italian grandmother of legend at the dinner table, piling plates full of ricotta-stuffed manicotti and sausage, peppers & “gravy.”

A girl with red, curly hair, constellation-ish freckles and bright yellow plastic splosh boots sat in a corner, looking out the window. She sipped her tea, stared alternately into the depths of its cup and out the window into the oncoming white fray. She cried. Very calmly, like breathing. She didn’t wipe her tears away. She let them fall into her tea, then drank it in heaving gulps. She laughed. She wrote things in an unknown script on her arms with a sharpie.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark, lanky shape walking from the counter, back to the bathrooms. I couldn’t focus on it; whenever I looked at it, my eyes slipped off like it was coated in a visually frictionless material. It repeated its path over and over, with crackles and lines of static snow, like an old VHS tape that had merged itself with a skipping phonograph record. I followed it into the bathroom, where it disappeared through a wall, leaving behind a vintage LP jacket cover depicting variously eccentric people strategically positioned on a chessboard.

It was time to go home.

I packed up my books, set my Archos 5 to shuffle my library, waved to the beautiful matron, and strode out into the graying slush streets and sky fulla fluffy white missiles. Passing the grade school with its empty playground and spinning plastic flower pinwheels, Suzanne Vega whisper-sang, “we strangers know each other now, as part of the whole design; oh, hold me like a baby that will not fall asleep.”

("Snow in Glasgow" photo by Sam Fenn)

This week: Confess anything. A secret, a fear, a passion, a dream, a buried hatred, or a hidden delight that only you know about.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

First job.

First real job, anyway. Or rather, the first job that meant a damn. I’d been a waiter and it wasn’t so bad. I’d worked at a bookstore and it was quietly painful. I’d worked as a fast food mascot and it was ice picks under each tonail, in slow motion. I’d been an editor for a tailor-specific directory. This new job was a real job. An associate producer job at an actual television network.

I got it almost by accident. A college acquaintance recognized me at a bar, and I didn’t even remember his name until his boss mentioned it in the interview he set up for me. I assumed that I wouldn’t get the gig, so I walked into the interview in a casual, devil-may-care glowy state. I oozed charm and wise innocence. I let my mismatched eyes speak for themselves and I walked out, surprised to be With Job. A real job.

The first couple of weeks were awkward; there were several birthday parties for people that I didn’t know and I had to sing to them with all the other people that I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure exactly what an associate producer did and neither, it seemed, did any of my co-workers. I mostly attended meetings, gave input when I felt the impulse, and sat at my desk, responding to e-mails with non-committal assertions. I slowly came to the realization that real jobs were less real than non-real jobs. I wasn’t working. I was imitating work and being paid more than any of my previous jobs combined.

Which brings us to my first real pay check. It wasn’t made out from anyone at the network for whom I worked. It was from some institution called “Entertainment & Information Solutions, Inc.” They were based in some obscure island nation, that sounded less like a country and more like an Andy Kaufman creation. I didn’t care. It was money. More money than I’d ever seen in front of “and 00/100.”

“This’ll all go straight to the bank,” I thought, “…and then to my landlord.” But I soon thought better of it. I’d gone for years on meager or no pay, and had survived with aplomb. Surely I could go two more weeks in a similar state. This first, real paycheck, I deserved to splurge in the most unnecessary and horrendous way possible. I started with a table-spanning Ethiopian meal at The Queen of Sheba: Zilzil tibs, ybeg alicha wot, asa kitfo, wine-soaked bread and bitter regional beer. It put more than a dent in my appetite, but not much of a dent in my paycheck.

I went downtown, thinking I’d get some new clothes, toys, art, or whatever caught my attention. I didn’t care what it was. In fact, the more ludicrous, the better, I told myself. If I could find a moderately expensive bronze statue of a Catholic saint disco lizard with Hawai’ian accoutrements, that would be perfect.

I wound up at St. Mark’s Place and after buying a Smurf or two and a Masters of the Universe Man-At-Arms collectible drinking glass at Love Saves the Day, I felt entirely unsatisfied. This wasn’t wild, artistic trance first paycheck spending. This was novelty thrift. I don’t remember exactly how or why, but somehow, let’s say because of a poster partially ripped from a brick wall, I got the idea that I should buy me a hustler.

After all, St. Mark’s Place and the surrounding area were filthy with them. And not all of them were filthy.

I walked around the blocks with my bag of collectibles and a belly fulla African nummies. I figured that the guys with the wild clothes and slightly shifty eyes were drug dealers and that the more rattily-dressed guys with the haunting halo eyes, genuinely tattered jeans and resplendently pained expressions, were the male prostitutes. After a few block circles, one of them put two and two together and walked up to me: “Hey man, you lookin’ for somethin’?”

“I might be.”

“I think you’re lookin’ for me.”

“Like I said, I might be.”

The kid looked to be in his early twenties, but his age was a bit blurry. He was wearing a dumpter-fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy T-shirt, shorts concocted from an old pair of denim something, with a “Jesus never fails!” patch sewn on the very spot where one would reach his asshole if they poked him in the seat.

He sported what would be a crew cut, were it not for two bright pink insectoid hair antennae festooned on either side of a buzzed widow’s peak. Through the forest of close-cut hair, one could make out an intricate, Keith Haring-esque labyrinth of black ink covering his skull. It easily complimented his fawnish brown skin and soft, steady olive eyes. He smirked at me. It was a crushing, expert smirk. I didn’t know my heart had all those icebergs until he melted them. He stepped up on his tip-toes with a slight hop and gave me a strategic chess move peck on the cheek.

This was followed by a speech, a speech that he’d evidently given countless times, detailing what he was willing to do, (each act described by a clear, yet playful metaphor) how much each service would cost, and an even more detailed diatribe about what he was not willing to do (an exhaustive archive of some of the most degrading and despicable sex acts I’ve ever encountered. Some of which involved kitchen utensils and/or live quadrupeds). When he was done, and seemingly proud of his memorization skills and forthrightness, I asked his name.
“Jorge.”

“Hey Jorge,” I said, “What would you do for $600?”

“$600? Just about anything.”

“But you just gave a long list of a bunch of things you don’t do.”

He paused for a few breaths, “I’d maybe do some of those things for that. With you. But not with just anyone.”

“If I paid you $600, how long would I have the pleasure of your company?”

“All night. Yeah, all night.”

“Okay, it’s a deal…but there is one catch.”

“Oh? Uh-oh…”

“The catch is that I don’t want to have sex with you. Or do anything sexual at all. Just want to talk, hear your life story, philosophy, experiences, that kinda thing. I’m a writer and your perspective is of great interest to me, artistically.”

Jorge frowned. And looked a little frightened. He looked me up and down with zealous suspicion. “I don’t know…”

“What’s the matter?” I wasn’t expecting this. I figured a street boy would be pleased to earn a wad of dough without having to go down on a stranger. It seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement to me; I got valuable insights into the life and livelihood of someone entirely unlike myself and he got a veritable paid night off. Jorge, however, didn’t see it this way.

“I dunno, man…I just dunno. Something wrong with me? Something wrong with you? What, you don’t like boys?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just that I got my first paycheck and I want to spend it on something weird and wild. But I don’t want to take advantage of you and I’m not really desperate for sex. I think that money would be better spent learning from you.”

“How about you pay me for learning and I give you a ride for free, then?”

Was he joking? I thought he was probably joking. I laughed and patted him on the shoulder. His shoulder was solid, tight, creamed coffee skin pulled taught over bone and muscle. “What’s it going to be?” I asked, “I’d like to take you home, respectfully, but if you’re not up to it, I guess I’ll have to find someone else…”

“Naw, it’s cool. It’s cool, just…You’re not some weirdo, are you?”

“Wouldn’t a weirdo be asking to do something with egg beaters and not asking to pay you for talking?”

“Well…I mean…fuck! It’s just like nobody asks for this, so it’s weird. I mean, sometimes, johns ask for shit like just cuddling or they wanna cry in my crotch about their wives. Ain’t nobody ever asked to interview me. You a cop?”

“I’m not a cop. I’m an associate producer.”

“Okay…Okay. Am I sleeping at your place?”

“If you want to.”

“Okay. You got an extra pillow?”

“…I don’t think I do.”

“I’m gonna go get my pillow from the shelter and be right back, ‘kay?”

“’kay,” I said. And I waited. Twenty minutes. Jorge came bounding down the shelter steps with a pillow and a Powerpuff Girls tote bag with a broken zipper, repaired with safety pins and shoelaces. He smiled at me with big, white teeth and I felt I could detect a glimmer in his eye that was child-like and gracious. “’Kay, man, let’s do this shit. Got my toothbrush and all!”
The train ride uptown was awkward. Jorge kept his hand on my thigh, massaging it while he nuzzled my shoulder with his chin.

The other passengers looked away from us and it dawned on me that my perception of age has always been more than a little askew. Was everyone else clearly able to pin this kid as a kid, indeed, while I thought he was a young adult? Was I getting felt up on public transportation by a barely pubescent slice of something? We got off at the 106th street stop and walked to my apartment. Walking under the MTA bridge, Jorge said, “Damn! Piss-stink! I thought you were rich. Is this your ‘hood?”

“I’m not rich. Not at all. It’s just a first paycheck splurge.”

“Aw, man. Then, seriously, you can totally fuck me if you wanna, or at least get a bj. I don’t mind.”

“That’s okay. I really just want to hang out.” Jorge frowned again and sighed. It was starting to seem as though my reticence to employ his usual services was becoming an increasingly acute blow to his ego. I had to find ways to flatter him and make him feel attractive without actually getting my money’s worth.

At my stoop, Jorge paused to speak Spanish with Maria, who was –as far as I could tell – permanently installed in her green and orange lawn chair to the left of my building’s door. I’d never seen her stand, and I’d never seen the stoop without her. Sometimes, neighborhood kids brought her sodas and fried plantains and she patted them on their heads and rewarded them with a song or a story from her childhood in Puerto Rico.

She and Jorge got into it pretty heavy and cozy; they rattled off a mad succession of words that flew right past me. I picked up smatterings here and there, but my vague understanding of Spanish combined with my better understanding of its cousin, French, didn’t help enough for me comprehend even the most basic aspect of their dialogue. A few times, Maria shifter her gaze from Jorge to me and winked. What the hell was he telling her? Was he asking her if I was a pervoid sicko who would attack him as soon as we were alone? If so, I hoped that Maria would tell him about the time she saw me set free a mouse that I’d trapped with a glue pad in my kitchen, or how I’d given the block kids ice cream when we had a blackout that one summer.
Moreover, I hoped she wasn’t getting a cascade of dirt on me to feed to everyone on the block; Maria was our neighborhood’s living newspaper and she never missed a scoop.

Upstairs, Jorge threw his bag on my futon couch and made a b-line for my DVD shelf. “Fuck! Fucking-A, man! Maybe you ain’t rich, but you got the shit!” He scanned the titles, then spotted my Nintendo and squealed like a little girl. He flung himself and his arms around me and squeezed tight. This evolved into an ongoing caress, so I had to gently push him away. He frowned again. “Yo, listen, if you can’t get it up, that’s okay. I get lotsa guys, can’t get it up. I can jerk off for ya, whatever.”

I chuckled at him and headed to the kitchen, “You want something to drink?” I was done trying to convince him that I wasn’t out for sex. My protests seemed only to egg him on. “Yeah, what you got? You got gin? Tequilla?”

“How old are you? Are you old enough to drink?” I asked, and immediately regretted the question.

“Bitch, I’m old enough to get cornholed by wall street cokeheads.”

“Fair enough. I’ve got vodka and orange juice. That do?”

“Hells yeah.”

I poured, “But how old are you, just so I know?”

“Fifteen. Well, maybe.”

That took me by surprise. Two hundred pupa hatched in my gut and out flew two hundred papilionidae shook their swallowtails in my stomach. I’d just brought a severely underage streetwalker into my home. And I’d promised to let him walk out with $600. And oodles of people, including the ever-prolifically verbally journalistic Maria had seen me with him. Just how far does society allow the “I did it for art!” defense to carry a guy?

I found a mostly blank journal on a shelf, uncapped a new extra fine rolling ball pen and wrote “Jorge” in swooshy calligraphy at the top of the first empty page. “So, Jorge, let’s get started, here. What’s your last name?”

“I don’t give that out, man.”

“Fair enough. Just Jorge. Where were you born?”

“Aw, is this the interview?”

“Yup.”

“So this is really it? You just want to talk.”

“And to learn, yeah. And we can play video games or whatever later.”

“Sweet!” He sat on the couch next to me and looked over my shoulder at the page. “Yo, you spelled my name right. That’s cool…Yeah, just Jorge. I was born…I was born in Jersey. My dad was a bitch. My mom was his bitch. I got outta there as soon as I could.”
“What was wrong with them?”

Jorge looked at me and his eyes got much bigger than they’d been before. The little Dutch boy that had kept his finger in Jorge’s dam let the waters come out. Jorge let a flood come out and I tried my best to keep up, lamenting my lack of a pocket tape recorder. His was a harrowing account of abuse, neglect, heartache and stopping to smell blood-stained roses. His life had been harsh, brutal and unquestionably beautiful. I won’t share it with you because it’s his and not yours. Now it’s a little bit mine, too, but we all know that he only fed me a tiny sliver of its majesty.

When the moon was out and he was done, he let out a sweet and tart gasp from the wound I’d opened, I cried. I had found a box in a back alley, taken it home, and opened it to find that it was Pandora’s and inside was everything horrific and grand, dirty, disdainful and dread-soaked, all illuminated by the tiniest firefly spark named Hope, whose contrast with the sickening totality of the contents was so intensely radiant as to render the world entire ineffable and perfect in its flaws.

Jorge recognized the state he’d put me in and placed one hand on each of my cheeks. He stared into my weeping eyes and steadied them with his own. Then he stood up and amidst my fumbling protests, removed every stitch of his clothing to reveal his lithe, sculpted body covered in Spanish adjectives and scars. He turned out the lights and he danced on my rug. He used the moonlight streaming in from the alley window as a spotlight, which illuminated and defined his body in a blue glow. There was no music playing; Jorge wanted to be the music.
And he was.

He wrapped his naked body around my clothed one and we breathed in deep, sharp breaths until we were both asleep, wantonly copacetic together and apart, still neither one of us fully contented or satiated, neither one of us wiser or safer, both dreaming specters of ships with silvery, pirate sails, lapping their way over dispassionate waves into a thick, white, intransient fog.

This week: Confess what you would like to start doing, or take up again, when you turn 80. Because at that point, what could it really hurt?

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

I didn’t really need food. I was poor and I rarely paid my rent on time, but I was able to survive on ramen and other thrifty options. Still, I got a semi-ironic kick out of slouching on the pee-stained brick with “Will Write For Food” sloppily and hastily written in Sharpie on a piece of cardboard I’d fished from a dumpster in the alley behind The Gap.

I sat on the corner for half the day, without getting much notice. A few hipsters snickered. An elderly couple pointed at me and looked confused and scared. One bum stumbled by, gave me the thumbs up and said, “Right on, man, right the fuck on!” It wasn’t until late evening that a well-dressed, middle-aged woman walked past me, stopped, walked back, read my sign carefully and then asked, “are you serious?”

“Completely serious,” I said, “If you feed me, I’ll write you something.”

“Something short or something long?”

“Something in-between. Maybe a five-page short story or a moderately long poem. Longer if you buy my sushi.”

She looked at the tops of the surrounding buildings, squinted and nibbled on her lip, smearing a dab of fire engine red lipstick on one of her teeth. “I’d like a poem. A poem about me. It doesn’t have to be long, just beautiful.”

“Okay.” I said. I was sitting on my notebook. I slid it out from under my butt, set in on my knees and scribbled the poem on it. I don’t recall the actual lines. They were about her hat, her eyes, the way she walked and then a weak metaphor that tied these things together and sang her praises. It was a moderately terrible poem. I stood and handed it to her.

She read it spastically, with darting brown eyes. She bit her lip a bit more, then licked the lipstick off her teeth. She closed her eyes and breathed in a sharp, quick breath. “This is gorgeous,” she sighed, “It makes me feel gorgeous.”

“You are gorgeous,” I said, only possibly lying. She could be gorgeous, perhaps. She was certainly unusual and I often equate the two. “I’ve never encountered anyone like you. Usually poems are hard to write, but for you, it just flowed out, like the poem was waiting for you to be born.”

“Let’s go to Sachi,” she beamed. You’ve definitely earned some sushi. Oh my, this is just a lovely poem. I’ll always treasure it. Do you like seaweed salad?”

“I love it!”

“Then you and I, my dear poet, shall start with seaweed salad!”

I followed her and we walked mostly in silence, until she flagged down a taxi at Astor Place. She got into the cab very carefully and gracefully, holding the roof with her gloved hand as she lowered herself into the seat, then placed one leg at a time inside the car and in one swift motion, scooted over to allow me room to sit down. I plopped down and smiled at her. I was seeing my ruffian role blossom in her presence. She had money and beauty, but probably not much else. She saw in me an adventure, and since my poem was hardly art, I figured the real payment she’d receive for the sushi I was about to devour would be time spent with the kind of character she wasn’t sure actually existed.

Sachi was a very nice little restaurant. As we walked in, Kevin Kline was walking out, whipping a big wool scarf around his neck. We were shown to a corner table by a severe dowager-like woman in a blue and white kimono. She carried on her face and endearingly caustic smirk. She gave us a small basket of hot towels, menus and chopsticks. She said that she would be right back, then minced behind the bar, where she spat insults at the chef in Japanese. He stared down at his plastic cutting board and nodded without looking at her.

My host didn’t ask what I wanted to eat. Aside from the seaweed salad she’d inquired about earlier, she did all of my ordering for me, without so much as a glance in my direction: “I’ll have a spicy tuna roll, two pieces of hokkigai nigiri and one piece of anago. My guest will take the chirashi, a dragon roll and one piece of tako nigiri. Tea for both of us and we’ll start with seaweed salad.” She handed the dowager the menus, gave a slight bow and then stared at me as I smiled a little uneasily.

She closed her eyes as she dug into her purse to find the poem again. She reread it, sighed and smiled back at me. “You read it to me,” she said, “I want to hear it in the author’s voice.”

I took the quartered paper and read the poem aloud, trying to ignore its clunky, purple flourishes and schmaltzy pandering clichés. I used my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth to emphasize the less awkward bits, but all throughout, I kept my vocal tone soft and praising. She kept her eyes closed and swayed from side to side as I read.

Our salads arrived.

She was impressed to see that I could use chopsticks. “You’re full of surprises!” she offered, and I thanked her, though I wasn’t sure what surprises I’d have possibly presented thus far. Throughout the remainder of the meal and lingering into the last drops of tea afterwards, she gave me a seemingly well-practiced and very acutely erudite mini lecture about abstract expressionism. I began to wonder how one so astute could possibly think that my hasty fecal sunshine poem was of any value at all. Was it simply that flattery could get a guy anywhere?

But even that flattery should seem hollow, coming from a street stranger, and one seeking a free meal at that. Were she not so clearly eloquent herself, it would be easy enough to write off her pleasure with the poem as idiocy or inexperience, but at each turn, she deepened the mystery of her persona, then sipped more black tea. I marveled at her presence and poise, her refined, yet happy-go-lucky posture and prosaic indifference. I developed somewhat of a non-sexual crush on her, wanted to take her home and put her in a mason jar to keep me company when I wrote. I couldn’t believe my luck, setting out to create a small social experiment and winding up stuffed with sushi and a pocket full of brilliantly unanswered personal and philosophical questions.

She asked for the bill, then excused herself, slid out of her chair and waltzed to the loo. I took the opportunity to write her another poem, a better poem, one that I felt better paid for the unexpected delights she’d given me:

Uptown brimstone novel of a woman
Keeps her plutonium barely contained
Slides through streets, thoughts, victrola-spun words
Takes me from someplace, and puts me in mine

I sat for ten minutes, making little adjustments to my verses. I tried to make them rhyme, then returned them to their original state. The dowager finally demanded that I pay the bill. I told her that my lady host was going to pay. “She’s not here.” I was told, “She left.”

I skidded into the restroom to see an open window. The mystery woman had climbed out, stiffing me with a $70 bill. That’s a lot of dishes to wash. It took me three nights of work to repay what the kimono-wearing woman felt was due. Each of those nights, I grew closer and closer to the realization of the truth; that my first poem had been the great one, and my second was shit.

This week: Confess anything. A secret, a fear, a passion, a dream, a buried hatred, or a hidden delight that only you know about.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

When I was in high school, I had a recurring dream in which James Earl Jones was a disco ball. He never did much in these dreams. He spun slowly on the ceiling, with a surly but dignified look on his face, emitting hundreds of tiny beams of focused white light onto the dancefloor.

I didn’t do much in these dreams, either. I usually stood under him, looking up at him and thinking, admiringly, that he made a pretty neat disco ball.

Quasi-related:

This week: Confess what you would do differently if you were suddenly back in 1990, in the body, place & situation that you had back then.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

I now have a fan page on Facebook, if you're into that sorta thing.

It feels weird.

M-A

This week: Confess all the debauchery that you got up to on New Year's Eve. If none, please tell us what debauchery you WISH you'd gotten up to.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

This week: Get all the dirt from 2009 off your chest and into the Confessional. How bad has it been this year, kids?

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

This week: Today is the day that the Christians say was the day of their savior's birth. Let's hear your Yuletide confessions, santa-maggots.

M-A

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

This week: Confess anything. A secret, a fear, a passion, a dream, a buried hatred, or a hidden delight that only you know about.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

This week: Confess anything. A secret, a fear, a passion, a dream, a buried hatred, or a hidden delight that only you know about.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Who's still paying attention, here? Just curious as to who is still using LJ...

This week: Confess the good and bad thoughts, images, hopes, fears and plans that came into your head during this year's Thanksgiving.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

I have two new podcasts for ya, but I'm psycho busy these days, and haven't the time to make all the art and playlists and shite. If anyone wants to make some art, that would be keen. Lay it on me.

Right click to save.

This Tall To Ride In Poly-Fi EQ

-and-

Bad, Bad UFO Girls and Other Semi-Fictional Caricatures

Who loves ya, kids?

M-A

This week: Confess something secret that you do or think or see on a regular basis, which totally makes your day/week/month.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

This week: Confess anything. A secret, a fear, a passion, a dream, a buried hatred, or a hidden delight that only you know about.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

If you’re a lover of delightfully oddball music with an vintage creepy carnival feel and lyrics probing the slimy, murky depths of the old world and Middle America, you either already love Piñataland, or you’ve not heard of them and would enjoy the screaming victrola hell out of them.

With a mutating and polymorphous rotating ensemble of musicians strumming and blowing instruments from pedal steel guitars to tubas to violins to banjos, this Brooklyn-born troupe has authored several albums, including Songs For the Forgotten Future, Volumes 1 &2 and the upcoming Boy Scouts of Democracy.

They’ve performed for the notorious WFMU in Jersey, on Coney Island and even Riker’s Island (nothin’s says lovin’ like prison playin’) as well as a multimedia piece, performed at NYC’s HERE Arts Center. They’re weird and made of awesome sauce. Founding member Dave Wechsler is embarking on a tour, starting right here in Champaign.

Tonight. You should come. Bring your friends. Show up sauced, if that’s your thing.
From the press release:

The Tyranny of Dave Tour
October 21, 2009

Join Dave for his all café tour through the midwest playing songs from the new album The Decline of America Part One: The Bush Years. At all shows, you can get a free CD burned to order of your five favorite songs at the show. Just ask Dave after the show. On Wednesday, October 21st the carnage begins at the Aroma Cafe in Champaign, Illinois as part of their music maker series.

8:00pm
118 N Neil Street
FREE

Poll #1468120 Zombieland
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

How do you rate this film?

Have you seen this flick?

Zombieland on IMDB
More about Zombieland



If you've seen this flick, jump in and give a short review/discuss it with your fellow City of Dissers. You're also invited to comment on films which we have reviewed in the past.

If you want to rate, review and discuss a new film every day, you should definitely join thedailymovie. It’s a great community with a group of diverse, amicable and intelligent film buffs.

This week: Confess some of your biggest disappointments.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Can anyone recommend (preferably with some links!) some Japanese books or shows for kids, which I could use to ease into reading and hearing the language?

ありがとうございます。

This week: Confess your worst personality attribute, idiosyncrasy or tendency.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Poll #1459201 The Girl In Lover’s Lane
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2

How do you rate this film?

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The Girl In Lover’s Lane on IMDB
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Poll #1458755 Love and Death
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

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Love and Death on IMDB
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Poll #1458349 Dark City
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

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Dark City on IMDB
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Poll #1457811 The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy
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The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy on IMDB
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Poll #1457315 9
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

How do you rate this film?

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9 on IMDB
More about 9



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The Believer is my favorite magazine. It’s made of raw human intelligence, innovative analysis, authoritative humor and refined sugar snark. Each issue is packed with literary dissections of your favorite books, new and old classics, books that you’ve never heard of and books that you should never, under any circumstances, attempt to read. There are also musings about life, art, liberty, laziness, toys, tots and trollops; you know, everyday stuff made not so everyday through the wondrous wrangling of wayward words. You should all subscribe, if you haven’t already. Your life and the mind that lives it will be better for it.



That said, The Believer, or at least one of its contributors, is the subject of my ire today. The ‘zine has a regular feature entitled “Sedaratives,” a kind of chiding permutation of the Dear Abby-style advice column. Its title comes from the original columnist, Amy Sedaris, who responded to incoming letters for the first few issues, but it has since been mostly in the hands of a revolving door parade of authors, critics, performers and other higher and lower animals. In this month’s issue, Anne Beatts (of National Lampoon fame) takes on the task and in the process pisses me off with yet another example of what I have come to call “Quasi-Ironic Faggototyping.”

What I mean by that is the flinging about of queer stereotypes, either by straight folks or queer folks themselves, as if it’s just fine and dandy to simultaneously perpetuate and laugh at aforementioned wild generalizations. To wit:

Dear Sedaratives:
I’m getting married in a few months, and apparently I’m supposed to register for things. Any suggestions?
P. Kuhren
Long Beach, Calif.

Dear P.:
Since it’s impossible to tell by your initial whether you are a man or a woman, I find it difficult to advise you. If, dear P., you are a man, then you can relax, because your fiancée will have this covered and you need not do anything, unless, of course, you’re a man marrying a man, in which case you need to rethink your sexual orientation pronto, because a genuine gay man would know this stuff already. If you are a woman and were somehow absent the day they gave out the genes for choosing a china pattern, you should ask your gay friends to help.
Anne

I see. Ha-ha. Oh, the droll; it burns. Guess I’m not a “genuine gay man,” eh? Or is the defense that this is ironic and therefore, Beatts is really mocking that stereotype and calling out those who use it in seriousness? Is the same true of her assertion that “your [female] fiancée will have this covered”? Gender assumptions are just back in fashion, kids! They’re funny, even!

But don’t worry, your friendly neighborhood atypical homo curmudgeon is here to shake his fist at this nonsense in your stead. You hear me, Beatts? I shake my relatively unknown fist at your moderately well-known, sexuality-stereotyping self! When this sort of mentality is spread like so much marmalade, in a serious way, it’s annoying and more than a little bit wrong. When we fags and the cloyingly prejudicial attributes that are pre-assigned to us get used as the butt of your jokes, it’s annoying, more than a little bit wrong, and a lot sad and tired. Perhaps in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, those friendly little “best friend with great taste in wine, who loves to go shopping and dancing with you” caricatures served a humble purpose of warming the hetero populace up to their gay neighbors. Maybe placing homo men into that innocuous role made a lot of people feel less icky about them. Maybe it was the right thing to do.
Then.

But then is not now. That Mp3's been played for decades and it’s tired and experiencing digital atrophy. Now there may be many queer guys who fall into one or even many of the stereotypes foisted upon us by assumptive straights, but more and more, gays are resembling those assumptions less and less. Your attempts to rehash and redistribute these contrived attributes are not astute, they’re not endearing, and they’re not funny. They’re just old and increasingly offensive. And when I say “your,” I’m not addressing Beatts alone. I’m not just addressing comedians. I’m not just addressing straight people, either. Oh yes, homos; you’re in this muck, too, and you damn well know it.

Perhaps as a sort of defense mechanism, a method by which we can put our straight co-workers, friends and relatives at ease with our sexuality, gays have had a rather sordid history of joking about and gleefully embracing those stereotypes without irony and without much consideration for how this may affect our queer brothers and sisters, especially those of the teenaged, just-coming-out variety. They grow up, they realize and actualize their sexuality, overcoming strident and super-scary social pressure to the contrary, shucking off thousands of years of tradition and enforced behavior…to be presented with a whole new list of enforced behavior, disingenuously disguised as playful ribbing.

Well, my ribs hurt, people. Stop it.

To the new generation of GLBT youth; don’t listen to that kind of clap-trap. It’s bunk and you don’t have to go along with it. You don’t have to put up with anyone saying, “Hey, you’re a lesbian! Wanna join our softball team?” and you don’t have to be friends with people who say, “I forgot to watch Project Runway, what kind of faggot am I?” There are other options. With a little more looking, you can find friends who, straight or otherwise, will treat you like a human being with your own idiosyncrasies that have very little to do with what kind of pheromones get you in a tizzy.

You don’t have to like the Pride parade. You don’t have to like Madonna. You don’t have to like to go shopping. You’re allowed to be a slobby, poorly-dressed gay man or a bleach-blonde, make-up caked housewife lesbian. If that’s what your hokey-pokey is all about, don’t let anybody tell you you’re wrong. You’re not. You’re you. They’re wrong. And if they think that who you or who they are is somehow dependent on some antediluvian prescription of behavior, attitude, interest or attire, then it’s possible that they’re not really who they are. They’re trying to be something they think they’re supposed to be. Pity them.

To everyone else, let’s get a few things clear, okay? Being gay means that you’re attracted to people of the same sex. That’s it. Anything else is up in the air and while you’ll find lots of known stereotypes espoused and embraced by plenty of the louder, brighter, flashier members of the gay community, those people are really in the minority. You may not see the others so much because they’re not so noticeable. But they exist in droves and they are as diverse as humanity itself.

Do not assume that your new gay friend likes or knows about fine cheeses from around the world. Do not assume that he wants to be your shopping buddy and do not assume that he’ll be keen with you saying things like, “Wow, a gay man who does his own plumbing!” That’s not cute. That’s rude.

Do not assume that your new lesbian friend will be amused by your jokes about moving in together before the first date. Don’t assume that she loves The L Word. Don’t assume that she’s a bad tipper. Don’t assume anything, really. She’s a human being, an original one, with her own personality that isn’t going to conform to all your assumption, and could very well conform to none of them.

Queer people, be they gay, bi, lesbian, trans, or any other permutation along the gender/sexuality spectrum, are not a monolithic sexual institution with meetings and agendas and codes of conduct. They are not born with feather boas or Doc Martins. Lesbians don’t come scrambling out of the womb in flannel and a fully-packed tool belt. Their gay brothers aren’t pre-programmed to make the bestest quiche ever. These are things that may be innate-ish in some, adopted by others for peer group unity, and somewhat cruelly foisted on others who are pressured into them by those who, for some reason, want queer uniformity.

Enough of that pap is enough, don’t you think? Aren’t we, meaning the human race, beyond our puerile adolescence by now? If not, shouldn’t we be? Isn’t it time we stopped being infantile and lazy about our perception of groups categorized by one similarity? Can’t we stop placing people, even ourselves or our own particular group, into little shiny boxes of expectation and homogeneity? Of course we can. We’re pretty much the smartest, most impressively-thoughtful animals on the planet. We built the pyramids. We dug out the Panama Canal. We played bleeding golf on the bleeding Moon. Surely we can grow up and stop tossing about junior high-style clique-cabal clowning and chides.

Moreover, it’s really time that we all take a step back from whatever group or groups we find ourselves in and ask if we really need those stereotypes and enforced tastes and interests for cohesion. We need to seriously question why it is that some straight women feel like they’re not allowed to play football. Why some straight men feel that they can’t take up knitting as a hobby, and why those same hobbies are snickeringly encouraged for their queer counterparts. We need to question the very notion of gender and sexuality-defined categorization, because if we don’t do so, and do so in a big way, we will continue to allow those very things, those very cavalier and arbitrary things, define us. And who wants to be defined by what someone else, someone unknown, someone who only exists in the abstract, wants them to be?
Not me, kid. And hopefully, not you.

This week: Confess your reasons for allowing friends and/or relatives that you despise, dislike or about whom you are apathetic, to stay in your life.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Poll #1455679 Tokyo Zombie
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

How do you rate this film?

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Tokyo Zombie on IMDB
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If you've seen this flick, jump in and give a short review/discuss it with your fellow City of Dissers. You're also invited to comment on films which we have reviewed in the past.

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Poll #1455328 Zombie Nightmare
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

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Zombie Nightmare on IMDB
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Poll #1454775 Industrial Symphony No. 1: Dream of the Brokenhearted
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

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Industrial Symphony No. 1 on IMDB
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Poll #1454400 Tropic Thunder
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

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Tropic Thunder on IMDB
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This week: Confess what makes you squeal like a little girl.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Poll #1452620 Sweeney Todd, 1982
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

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Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street on IMDB
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Poll #1452307 Primer
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

How do you rate this film?

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Primer on IMDB
More about Primer



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When I see a hot air balloon, I stop and stare at it. I breathe deeply and squint at it and then the air feels crisper and lighter, saturated with breezy light. Once, when I was no older than seven or eight, one landed in the back yard of my neighbor. The friendly passengers pressed the heated air out of the balloon, folded it, and chatted with us as they waited for their retrieval truck. They were the most free and alive people I’d ever seen. They didn’t have the burden on their shoulders carried by my neighbors, family, teachers and other associates. They had bright, wide, engaging eyes, filled with some kind of adventure and caring that wasn’t prevalent in Ohio. I wanted to become a vapor and crawl inside of them.

Photo by Joe_B

Poll #1451707 District 9
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

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District 9 on IMDB
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Poll #1451368 The Hurt Locker
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

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The Hurt Locker on IMDB
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To everyone whose family has rules against discussing politics:

How bad would the country's situation have to get/what would have to occur before you would feel you had to start breaking that rule every day?

This week: Confess any people, books, films, music, etc., which make you feel stupid.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

This week: Confess your strange taste in people, by posting an image of a person who is generally not considered to be very attractive, but whom you find to be sizzlin' for whatever reason. Expand upon your reasons, if you feel like it.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Hey kids,
Can some kind so-and-so give me the skinny on making one of those handy always-at-the-top LJ entries? Please & thanks!

This week: Confess the things, places or people that you hate, but wish you could like or love.

When I feel that the confession’s contents constitute an ostensible "sin," I’ll hand out a penance. Kneel and be remorseful.

IP logging is off. You may post anonymously, if you like.

While you're at it, head over to the journal of jesus_h_biscuit and spit your venom at the assholes in your life via Rat Bastard Fridays

M-A

Poll #1439527 Modern Times
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

How do you rate this film?

Have you seen this flick?

Modern Times on IMDB
More about Modern Times



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Poll #1437178 Moon
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

How do you rate this film?

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Moon on IMDB
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