This Was the Species that Was

WAS
Journal Title:
Prépuce d'or

Journal Subtitle:
Moral Compost for a Shitty Age

Friends Page Title:
SAME COUNTERFEIT STADIA

NOW
Journal Title:
This Was the Species that Was

Journal Subtitle:
Anterogradation of the Thigmotactic Zone

Friends Page Title:
Another white guy getting butthurt

So I'm hanging out with my mom and she mentions that she's taken some peyote she's gotten from so-and-so, and it's really good. I'm envious. Later, though, the frat boys are hosting a hallucinogen party in a garage full of big restaurant sinks. They're all full, seemingly of water, and the one I'm closest to looks like it's about to overflow, so I drain it, only to be chastened for wasting good acid.

Now we're outside and it's a garden party and one of the frat boys brings over a newfangled coffee brewing device which he says has failed in its mission; another assures him that is because the grind is too fine. This makes me realize the device is actually introduced years in the future and that the wrong-grind problem is near universal at first when people start using it. I tell the frat boys this: "I know it sounds weird, but I was there when these were introduced--rather when these ARE introduced..." The frat boys think I'm crazy. So does Heather. So I begin to wonder: I'm absolutely sure about my time traveling, but could it be delusional? (Cf. Twelve Monkeys; Head's reference to the mind's "inability to distinguish between the real and the vividly imagined experience".)

While I'm wondering this I meander into the house where a bunch of kids are running around like banshees. One of them gives me a hair smoother appliance, which looks like a single electric buffer brush on a 3-foot handle, with nine settings. I don't know how the settings can be more than speed of brush rotation, but I dutifully turn it up to the highest setting, "Smoothing", and start smoothing the hair of one of the little girls, who appears to be ethnic Chinese, with lustrous, jet black hair. She dances while her hair is smoothed. Then I make the mistake of offering a hair-smoothing to an adult male elder, who, it turns out, is some sort of mikado or satrap or mandarin. In slow, ultra-dignified response, he calls for a telephone and makes a very confusing call to a woman from down the D.P. list. In an initially deceptive, parabolic way, he reveals her husband's philandering in order to aggrieve her; but this is all somehow a preface to his eventual operatic rage at my having dared to extend the hair smoother to him. An insult borne of gender dissonance.

Later: Friday night's performance is over; I have found it nerve-wracking and am trepidatious about having to perform the same play twice on Saturday. I fret over my acting talent--the old question about acting v. lying--Mr. Paul and Ms. ? criticizing my take as Nicely-Nicely Johnson: "You're not really doing anything on stage; you're just being yourself." Maybe I really can't act. Or maybe I just haven't found my character yet or learned how to make him funny. Tangentially, a troupe of vaudevillians [not-quite-Three Stooges, not-quite-Marx Brothers, not-quite-Laurel-and-Hardy but somehow representative of all three] climb down from the door of a house, destroyed and on its side, to the ground and walk past single-file. One of them, all smiles like Harpo, kisses another on the cheek, on cue, over and over.

Maybe the same house before it was wrecked, but in any case a haunted house. A fortune-telling holographic gadget shows all the former owners and the horrible ends they met; then shows the current owners, who until now have been presumed living and seen as normal people, walking around, being homeowners. In order to figure out the mystery of the house, I have to get into a large-scale manual pinball machine and work the flippers by hand as the (stereotypical, green, warty) witch at the center tries to defeat me. I ask Roze if she has a quarter to play, then remember I have one in my pocket. If I win (and I will) I will be given the clue, which I need to take to the basement for the next (non-pinball) contest.

In other news, I met my father's other son Gordon, my half-brother, who's seemingly half my age or less. Lots of family are piled up and lounging on day beds or couches in Grandmom's house. Gordon #2 is scruffy and goofy and wearing dirty clothes; beyond that, however, he looks nothing like me, or Dad, that I can tell. He ends an initial spell of stand-offishness with a rhetorical flourish and makes to embrace me; but ends up being really straight-boy perfunctory about it. He wanders off. Bob suggests playing a game if we can get a fourth with Bob, John, and me. What's this game? I ask him, and he pulls out a box that's clearly reminiscent of the Po-Ke-No game Grandmom used to have, but in fact is some hybrid of cribbage and Parcheesi. Don't even ask me how. It is clear from Bob's demeanor that he's expecting me to be thrilled by this proposition, but I tell him I don't know the game. He insists I've played it with him and John many times. John agrees. I search memory but come up blank. "I know memory's a tricky and unreliable thing, but..."

It's just a couple hours until the Grabby Awards commence and I'm sitting in Room 2B at the Old Chicago Inn having a hard time convincing myself it's worth showering and getting all fancy-dressed up (I brought the matching-not-matching purple vest and pants, a tux shirt, purple bow tie, oxblood boots) just to avoid throwing away the $140 I already spent for platinum seats. How lame am I?

Part of the hesitance is that, according to reliable sources, the awards ceremonies' move this year to the [GLBTQx] "Center on Halstead" from its many-year home at the Park West Theater will not amount to hoped-for liberation from the latter's strict no-nudity policy (and, really, why would you convene an awards ceremony in a place where you can't even show clips from the nominees?). Indeed, it may well be every bit as morals-law-police-paranoid, if not more so. The shift in venue seemingly proceeds from impoverishment and portends enforced sobriety: THE CENTER HAS NO BAR—about the scariest thing anybody's said about the center since Yeats. Dude. I've been coming to the Grabbys since 2000, when they were tiny and held in the Circuit nightclub. They briefly moved to The Vic Theatre on Sheffield, thence to the Park West, all of which facilities had full functioning bars. This will be the first year the awards are teetoaling. Not a good sign for future viability, if you ask me.

In a perhaps unrelated development, the Lucky Horseshoe Lounge canceled their private Memorial Day party (basically a sex party with local and guest porn star strippers having sex with patrons for tips) for the first time in memory. My local friend Chris reported first that bartender (and private parter caterer) Matty told him the LHL "just wasn't making money on those parties"—a highly dubious explanation, given the recent ticket prices in excess of $100, including two complimentary cocktails and a decent Memorial Day cookout spread. But multiple dancers I've spoken to over the last couple nights gave me detail-challenged but wholly consistent accounts of a former employee of the enterprise getting busted for embezzlement and threatening to expose the parties, which had hereto operated below law enforcement's radar.

All of which has had the effect of throwing a bucket of frigid water on (at least) the proceedings in Lucky Horseshoe Lounge and her sister bar, the North End: a dramatic turning back of the clock comparable to the effects of the "Rev." Grant Storms's expose of Southern Decadence to the Louisana legislature in 2003. The North End, which has for more than a decade hosted a fabulously naughty "recovery" brunch (for recovery, read "hair of the dog", not 12-stepping) the day after the Grabbys, has already scaled this event back from six to three hours and hired Tim and Roma. The actual Tim and Roma Show online appears to be defunct as of 2011, but from previous events in Chicago and San Francisco, I now that their show is all about sitting porn stars down and interviewing them. So presumably they will not be solicitaing porn star blowjobs on stage... or for that matter even showing penis.

As for the 'Shoe (a.k.a. Whoreshow) itself, last night it hosted "Cocktails with the Stars w/Scotty B
and the men of Colt, Hot House & Jet Set Men". (Redundancy [sic].) Scotty B started out by assuring those patrons who were in attendance last year that we were going to get "a little bit dirtier" this year. Sounds good to me, considering this is what I wrote about the same event last year:

...when the host asked for volunteers with ten $1 bills in they pocketses, I stepped up along with one other guy to compete in some unspecified game. We were instructed to "tip these two porn stars in the dirtiest way possible". So I ended up paying $10 to suck dick, eat ass, and be given a Fleshjack. Alexsander Freitas ... was there and wearing assless underwear all night and videotaping local 'Shoe dancers he found hot, and at one point he jumped in and helped us contestants out by actually sticking a dollar bill up Austin Andrews's ass. ... I found [the porn stars] twinky and unremarkable ... Still: I was hired to be dirty, so my co-contestant and I gave a nice show, at one point sharing the blond guy's dick. Like you do."

Dirtier than that? Cool! Except it wasn't. There were flashes of cock throughout the evening, and at one point Leo Forte ate J.R. Bronson's ass for a few seconds, but mostly the guys kept a baseball cap athwart their bits. Unless you were in exactly the right place to get a glimpse of the proceedings, the whole thing could have been rated PG.

Not to say I haven't enjoyed myself these last two nights: I had a half-decent time at Hydrate for Chi Chi La Rue's Skin Trade party. Got a bunch of splendid pics of Christopher Daniels and Draven Torres and a few other adorable young thangs. And last night, before the porn stars took over and made everything boring, the hot-as-fuck young man with the stubbly washboard abs who let me eat his ass at least year's Mem. Day party recognized me shortly after I recognized him, and gave me a big hug.

Well, it's just one hour till the awards start. I guess I better make up my mind here...

‘There’s nothing in your head of any use!’
Thus spake my doc, with otoscope deployed:
A strange pronouncement, yes, but less abstruse
than most of his. I made a note—avoid
wind tunnels—and went on with my affairs;
but then my barber—sound, prodigious lad—
shaved my back teeth and 'scaped my pubic hairs
into a French-colonial map of Chad.
My baker piped crème fraiche athwart my brow
and dusted me with cocoa. Then the guy
from UPS delivered me a cow
whose provenance he questioned. (‘Bull,’ said I.)
They’re clearly putting something in the water;
and I for twelve could skoshly be distraughter.

Alert! Alarum! Dental contretemps!
Maestro, ex-pat to Nawlins—sovereign state
of mind, gaslit oasis in the swamp—
has massacreed pre-molar twenty-eight.
Que lástima! Whence came this coup fourré?
What karmic ills must Maestro’s teeth atone?
He feverishly suspects the Vieux Carré
intends to brand him as one of its own!
Yet surely he must fathom that—despite
his having suffered what can only be
celestially beshitted luck to bite
too fast and vigorous upon a wee,
ceramic baby Jesus in a cake—
One broken tooth does not a Cajun make.

[For Paul McCoy. Last line by Emily Borcherding, 20121227]

What strategy might gamekeepers pursue
when fifteen thousand crocodiles escape?
Steve Irwin might have handled one or two
hundred—snuck up and grabbed them by the nape—
but fifteen grand's a lot of crocodiles.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
might be prevailed upon to use their wiles,
perhaps deploying crocodile tears
to shunt the great grey-green Limpopo back
toward home? Nay, let a simpler cure prevail:
night wrangler teams with torch and tackle track
the red-eyed beasts and haul them back to jail.
Now, what might fifteen thousand crocs consume
for lunch? Not “what”, O Best Beloved: “whom”.

(Yeah, it's a little late... based on this news story from January. See also here.)

Eschewing fame and capped felinity,
Things One and Two have bad a fond farewell
to mayhem as a cottage industry
and bought a bungalow in Avondell.
The aging Things, heretofore having striven
to parlay the eclat of their debut
into a film career, at last were driven
by pleurisy (Thing One) and gout (Thing Two)
into retirement. Still, one may rejoice
these dear Things have occasion every night
to cherish their entanglement with Seuss:
come rain or snow, they huddle, snuggled tight
in rhapsody and blankets, to rehash
the golden age of Horton-Cubbins slash.

This is sidetracked from my FB friend Keith Patrick Dunn's page. This is my first "real" post about the recent mircus (murder-circus) (as opposed to yesterday's meta-post about blue kettles in the blogosphere) and of course it's in response to the people who have the [there just aren't words] audacity to speak for god in such cases. In point of fact, Keith's old high school pal had this to say about God and the murder of 26 humans:

"May the Lord provide peace and healing to the families of those taken today......even for the family of the young man who pulled the trigger.....the hurt that has been inflicted is so small compared to the hurt the Father has when He sees us doing these things to one another.........Through the loss of these lives may We the People wake up and allow the moral compass to be repaired in this land....."

I for one have had a lifetime to closely observe a very similar worldview to Keith's friend's—first on the inside as a wee Bapto-Pentecostal, then from the outside as an atheist. Perhaps it's not strange, then, that my gut reaction to the "prayer" (or the "pray-er") started out leaning toward appreciative, sympathetic. I mean, how many of us would argue with a sentiment that begins "May the LORD provide peace" even if we don't believe in any such LORD? And I appreciate a philosophy that allows for consolation of the murderer's family; indeed, recognizing and honoring everyone's humanity is the core underlying principle of the golden rule, the very foundation of Christianity.

But the message goes downhill fast: God's just so sad when he sees his cherished creations killing each other.

Horseshit.

Even if I extend you the courtesy and respect of your own religious beliefs, you do NOT get the benefit of incredibly lazy beliefs, uninformed by your own holy texts. Either you worship the oh, so delicate heavenly father who ordered its chosen tribe to march into new lands and commit genocide, killing every man, woman, child, and livestock animal they found, or you don't. Either you worship the same loving deity that killed every single firstborn gentile in Egypt because one hardheaded monarch pissed him off, or you don't. Either "God" is eternal and unchanging or the New Testament God is a completely different entity from this old, psychotic, murdering, warlike one. Either the Ten Commandments are horseshit that doesn't belong in our minds, let alone our schools, or Yahweh doesn't cry when babies die—he fucking wanks. You do not get to have it both ways—GOD IS LOVE and GOD IS DEATH—picking and choosing who your god is on which day.

So, yeah, I have been known to get grumpy re such things. However, I know some (several? many?) Christians who are exceedingly good people and who have created God in their own image, and so any deity in their worldview would certainly, copiously weep at what happened in Newtown, Conn. So even then, I'm prepared to give Keith's pal the benefit of the doubt...

Until the death rattle of her "prayer"—THE MORAL COMPASS.

And then I got nowhere to go but FUCK YOU. Then we're *snap* *wake up!* right back to Pat Robertson and all the other holy sequined dancing girls on the TV, all telling us god is pissed because OMG GAY! and such like. Yes, that's it! of course that's the explanation! God lets little kids get their brains blown out because he's sad about teh gey.

I have nothing but a monolithic PLEASE GO FUCK YOURSELF TO DEATH for these people. If I weren't already constitutionally disinclined to stick my dick in vaginas, I'd force myself to refrain: because these people make me want the fucking species to fail.

A fleck of dust—or skin? I cannot tell—
dive-bombs my cornea and sticks like glue
right in my field of vision, a Fresnel
to set the stage. The boogeyman is due.
I've tried, you know how stubbornly I've tried
to keep the windows latched, the closets shut,
the cellar door padlocked. I stay inside
and make no noise—not even breathing—but
the thing cannot be stopped. With eyes a-blur,
I hear him shamble in. My blood is ice.
Connubially close, his wheezing purr
caresses me: "So nice," he says. "So nice."
All reason slides translucent out of place
as Casey Affleck starts to eats my face.

(with considerable thanks to Stephen King)

Are Post-Election Secessionists Stupid or Evil?

I have to go with stupid. It is just
statistically impossible that we
are building supervillains in the rust
belt, cultivating spores of creeping e-
vil in the heartland. Fifty million feel
no fealty for the union, not a whit
of warmth or worry for the commonweal?
Rubbish. Phsaw. These people give a shit
about their neighbors, their communities.
But they’ve been fed a steady diet of Koch
(Big Oil, Wall Street, Pharma, other sleaze),
till they truly believe the killing joke:
that rich folk battle wicked government
to keep our nation healthy and content.

Which is to say, of course, that poor folk are a blight,
an epic fail, a curse of prodigality
dragging the country down. The rhetorical sleight
of hand required to swallow such chicanery—
in light not only of statistics, but also
of common-sense observance, the view from the ground—
is staggering. How is it everyone I know
knows someone with a health-care nightmare to expound,
yet scores of millions of Americans forget
such stories to defend the brigands, the insur-
ers, and the charlatans by point of bayonet?
We as a nation are diseased with no known cure:
we shun our demonstrated facts as maledictions,
mumbling instead a litany of deadly fictions.