Monday, June 30, 2008

No Air

This is the greatest song I have ever heard. By the drum outro, I'm rolling on the floor and orgasming all over myself. Chris Brown: I want to make babies with you. Jordin Sparks: you're OK too I guess. Seriously, listening to this song is like having a good high school dance flashback. You're pretending to enjoy rubbing up against some girl's butt, (but you're checking out the boy next to her), but none of it matters because the song that's playing is the defining song of your high school career. It's the one that plays at prom, and then at the graduation party, twice. You're not sure it's safe to listen to music like this all the time, because if you really listen to it, you might get swept away and never come back.

Is it just me?



Every time I look at this logo, I think of genetically modified foods. The little extra leg of the "m" seems to poke out, like a bulbous growth on an apple, or a peach with two pits. I know, I know...it's a doube "M" for Metropolitan Market, but to me it looks like a growth. And it makes me not want to buy food there.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Notes from the Seattle Gay Pride Parade

The pride parade today was totally disappointing. I was bored, on numerous occasions, for very long periods of time. Things I noticed:

There was a school bus driven by someone who thought it would be funny to pretend to careen the bus into the crowd on either side of the parade street. I would have read the message on the bus, but I was convinced I was about to be run over.

I was not run over.

Unfortunate acronym for a parade float: CWA.

North Face shoes clash with the tighty-whitey underwear go-go boy look.

Who Got Gay? Kube Got Gay.

Supporting Local Hotel Workers sounds a lot like Supporting Local Prostitutes. Hotel worker? I think: prostitute. Which is cool. I think we should recognize the prostitutes in Seattle. But, apparently, hotel workers aren't prostitutes. They're maids, who work in hotels. This was explained to me in a voice tone that implied I was an idiot.

I am not an idiot.

Where's the fag hag float?

What kind of hazing do you think occurs at a "gay fraternity"? I am now fascinated about the inner workings of such a place.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Summer Solstice

Yesterday I volunteered at the Fremont Fair for a teen crisis line. As a volunteer, I was supposed to pass out little booklets called "Where to Turn" guides to teenagers who looked like they needed some help. The "Where to Turn" guides are filled with information for teenagers who are homeless, gay, or trying to move out of their parent's house. They contain numbers for national support lines, homeless shelters, and local planned parenthoods. On the booklet are soft-focus of teenagers looking pensive and turning their heads in different directions.

I grabbed a pack and started walking through the throngs of festival-goers.

"Do you want a teen resource guide?" I asked a teenage girl with a pacifier around her neck. "No," she responded.

I decided I'd try a new tactic. Daemond had given each of us candy to give out along with the resource guides, and I decided to emphasize the candy part of the transaction. "Free candy?" I asked a Latino couple, and then handed them a few jolly ranchers along with the teen resource guide. "What's this?" "Oh, you know, resources." The man shrugged and walked on toward the kettle corn. Then he flung the guide into the trash.

There really weren't a whole lot of suicidal-lookin' teenagers at the Fremont Fair. I was most concerned about a homeless man with a sign that said "losing will to live." If only the teenagers were so transparent.

"Would you like a teen resource guide for your daughter?" I asked a mother when her daughter turned to look at tie die shirts. "Uh, no she's fine," she responded.

"What if she's preggers and she's not telling you? What if she's a gay?" I wanted to ask, but I didn't.

Offering teen resource guides to parents felt like an inditement. "You obviously don't know how to be a parent," the guides said. "Otherwise your daughter wouldn't be calling a hotline to ask questions about chlamydia..she'd be talking to you."

I sat back at the teen link booth, and a chinese boy ran up and stole all of our tootsie rolls. Then another family came by and the son asked his mother if he could have a piece of candy. "No," she responded, and the boy hung from her arm, comatose. Need mah sugah fix.

I volunteered with a very nice woman. Ilana, her name was, or Julia. Halfway through her shift, she excused herself to walk her dog. When she came back, her cheeks were red and she looked mortified.

"My dog sprayed diarrhea all over the ground," she said. "In the middle of the street, next to people. I had to ask like five people to help me clean it up."

Her dog looked up at me. She looked almost as mortified as Ilana (or Julia).

"Oh, no," I said, "That's terrible, but at least the poop didn't hit a baby or anything, you know," and I laughed. Ilanulia didn't laugh. It wasn't funny yet.

"This fair sucks. No one is taking our Teen Resource Guides, the sky is the color of a dentist's office, and your dog almost shat on a baby's face," I said aloud, to no one in particular.

I thought a blanket condemnation would make both of us feel better. I thought it would allow us to dismiss our circumstances, but it didn't. As I looked out at a naked biker man covered in blue and gray paint, a man gyrating in assless chaps, and a happy little girl eating a hot fudge sunday, I just felt like a bitter old fag.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Food Safety Tips From the State of Washington

"WHAT IS THIS? IT'S A HOT DOG! YES THAT'S RIGHT A HOT DOG!"

Jessica removed a plastic hot dog from the table next to her and squeezed it while she was talking, as if an invisible stage dog was waiting backstage to run up and grab it from her. Then she removed a plastic chicken from the same table.

"AAND THIS IS A CHICKEN!"

She rubbed them next to each other the way children do when they want to symbolize sex between two inanimate objects.

"NOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE RUB RAW CHICKEN WITH OTHER FOODS!? WE GET???? THAT'S RIGHT: SALMONELLA!"

An older man in front of me nodded his head.

"AND WHEN YOU, AS A FOODSERVICE WORKER, HAVE DIARRHEA OR YOU'RE VOMITING, WHAT DO YOU DO?!"

Vomit on the Wendy's chicken nuggets? Shart in your work pants?

"STAY AT HOME!"

Next, Jessica, a food safety instructor, showed us a video that included a re-enactment of what vomiting looks like, in case anyone had forgotten. Some teenager had been enlisted by the Department of Health to bend over a toilet and make groaning noises to show what it looks like if you're a sick food worker. His groaning was passionless, borderline ironic, but whoever edited the video included it anyway. Some teenagers in the front row laughed. It was as if the food safety video was parodying itself.

Then we all took the food safety test. Of course, it wasn’t very hard. It was one of those multiple-choice tests where two answers are incredibly implausible, and one is an actual joke, leaving your ego to rejoice in effortlessly uncovering the sole remaining answer.

I’m sorry, Washington State Department of Health, I seriously understand the need for poop and piss free food, but your food worker training session made me feel stoopid. Jessica; why did you have to yell at us? Are you incapable of hearing your own voice at a lower volume? Are you one of those people that respond with a loud and confused “WHAT?!” when someone whispers to you?

On the way out of the center house, I stopped at the Frankfurter store and ordered a kosher dog. Lo and behold, I found an eyelash hair on my saurkraut. I ate it anyway.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Thursday, June 12, 2008

ReAdEr FeEdBaCk!

From some woman named Beverly Blum. Re: Wild Waves.

Small party at Wild Waves?!!!! I DON'T THINK SO. The event is seared into my brain. Nervous Breakdown City. The kids scattered all over the park; there was no way to track them down and I was responsible for them. Wild Waves doesn't have a p.a. system. It was awful. I carried that cake for miles from the car to the picnic area. Never AGain. Well, of course never again. You're an adult now.

Love,
Mom

New Favorite Blog

passive agressive notes.com

Public Meltdown on Myspace

I logged on to Myspace today and was greeted with the usual assemblage of moods my friends, and my strangers, are experiencing. This one caught my eye:

(deleted): I have nothing to say. I am so stressed out!!!!!!!!!! OMG 9 minutes ago.
Mood: drained


The woman webcasting her emotions is a woman I used to go to high school with. I haven't talked to her in years, but now I feel like I know more than I ever wanted to know.

Today's mood update is but one in a series of anguishing updates, like

(deleted): I just don't understand the world we live in 10 hours ago.
Mood: drained

(deleted): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! 2 days ago
Mood: scared


(deleted): Fuck this. 4 days ago.
Mood: sad



If I run into her, I'll be approaching the conversation with baggage. The internet has already drilled a hole in her head, and allowed me to see the contents. What's left for her to say? She's already explained it all, and we haven't even talked.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Dept. of Weird UW Facebook Groups

Lesbians are people from LESBOS (Λέσβος) NOT homosexual women.
This is a group to support the Greek lawsuit to change the terminology for homosexual women. The term 'lesbian' in reference to homosexual women was created in the 19th century. Indeed the term was not added to the Oxford-English Dictionary until the mid-20th century. This group is NOT opposed to homosexuals. I want to make that very very clear. This group merely recognizes that people from the Island of Lesbos have the right to the term, as it has been Lesbos for more than 5000 years. By joining this group you are supporting the island's hereditary and traditional right to use their own name without any connotation but their place of origin. Thank you all for your support, it is my hope that any popular support for this group will express to the world that the term 'lesbian' for homosexual women should be re-thought.


The group currently has twenty seven members.

Friday, June 6, 2008

The Death of "Weeds"



The 3rd season of Weeds is, quite possibly, the most disappointing thing ever in the history of television. "WEEDS?!" You ask. "Isn't that the witty, acerbic comedy starring the indomitable Mary Louise Parker, gay icon to Steven Blum?"

Yes, that "Weeds."

This used to be a good show! Really. I liked Mary Loise Parker's character. I sympathized with her. I liked her kids, I liked her dead husband, I thought the race jokes felt fresh. The show made fun of NPR once!

In the third season, Nancy's waif brother-in-law joins a foot-fucking porno company, Celia's nebbish Jewish husband gets in a disfiguring biking accident, Nancy almost dies a lot, and everyone seems stressed out and really really unhappy. Even worse, Linkin Park starts doing the opening "little boxes" theme music, and Mary Kate Olsen walks around sleepily on set like she's channeling an Ambien commercial. When Celia starts sobbing at the dinner table, you can't help but want to start sobbing as well, if you didn't already feel so numbed out by all the senseless choices every character has made thus far.

Memo to chick who created Gilmore Girls and Weeds: you can't just play music that goes "boo wop!" every time a character is killed and claim to be producing a dark comedy. There is no comedy here anymore! Just sadness!!!!

I guess this means I'm going to have to take Weeds off my "interests" on facebook. Damnit all to hell!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Remember That One Time Fox News Defended Homosexuality?



That's the 'god hates fags' lady, Shirley Phelps-Roper...you know, the one who crashes funerals of dead soldiers and screams biblical verses into mourning relatives' ears. She looks like a skeleton with googly eyes and dandruff hair. We hate her. Everyone hates her. Even Fox News hates her.

But, as I was watching this video again, I realized the Fox News lady does not hate her for the right reasons. Oh sure, she gets angry at Shirley Phelps for being a bad Christian who misquotes bible verses, but what she seems most upset by is the fact that Shirley Phelps labeled someone gay who wasn't actually gay. She's not upset about the homophobia inherent in Phelp's church, or our culture, or anything like that. But how dare Phelps accuse a soldier of liking penis!

By focusing on the liberal individual, the extremist, Fox distances themselves from liberal attackers. It's all political posturing. Meanwhile, the collective forces of homophobia remain invisible, and cultural stasis is maintained.

Can I Interest You in a Dose of Sunshine With That Recepit, Ma'am?!

Bank of America tries to be a really good bank to me. They know my name, they offer me lollipops at the door, they gave me a card, for free, with a picture on it (that looks, due to lighting and blurriness, like a picture of anyone ever born in the world ever), and the tellers there are always ridiculously friendly.

You know when you're talking to someone, and you're not getting as much as you're giving, and you really think the other person doesn't give a fuck about what you're saying, and you sorta wish you weren't perceptive enough to notice? Well, the tellers at the Bank of America are the opposite of this sort of person. They are, usually, some of the most ebullient people I meet all day. Here's a sample exchange from today:

Teller: Ok, is that 34?! I can't read your handwriting!

Me: Yeah, it starts with 34.

Teller: So, how's your day going?!?!?

Me: Good.

Teller: How about this weather?!?!

Me: Yeah

Okay, I'm going to stop here because I'm already half asleep just typing this exchange into my blog. But, you get it, they're like really interested...all the time...in everything about you.

Except they're not.

I like the effort, Bank of America. I like that you try to be nice to me, but you don't have to bend yourself backwards doing it. I don't want an employee to have to, like, fake a smile with me, or ask me how my day's been going if they're not really interested and they can see I'm not either. It's cool, really. You can just deposit those forty five dollars and not talk to me if you'd like. It must get frustrating having to fake that rapport with everyone. Ishn't it?

Congratulations, Wild Waves, On Your 30th birthday!



Seattle's favorite place to swim and try to avoid floating band-aids is now more than three decades old!

I almost forgot you existed, Wild Waves, what with all your lack of roller coaster construction, marketing, and expansion. But, since we're on the topic, I'd like to share a few memories of the times I've spent with you.

There was the time I had a small birthday party with you, and I couldn't tell if one of your lifeguards was drunk, and then wondered if drunk lifeguards could still potentially swim and save my life if need be. There was the other time I went on the ring of fire ride, you know the big loop-de-loop that goes upside down over and over again, and I almost fell into the cage surrounding the train (because, at wild waves, if you have weak ankles or feet, you can't expect to remain in a secure seating position on a ride that goes upside down). Then there was the time I was on your water rapids ride and some little runt careened into me with her inner tube and the rest of the day smelled like chlorine and tasted like salt.

I could get lost in your park, and almost forget I was three feet from a major freeway! Well, when I was ten I could do that.

What are you, anyway, these days? You're not a six flags, you're not a locally-owned park, you've changed your logo like 10 times in the past five minutes. What's your deal? I'm on your website right now and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what the fuck is a "disco flashback boogie woogie ride"? Can someone fill me in here?

Oh, and in celebration of band-aid filled swimming pools, check out this video of a japanese wave pool:

Sunday, June 1, 2008

"Tony Kushner Turned My Son Geigh"

My friends and I were online looking around online and we stumbled upon an article with this headline:

High School Offers Homosexual Porn, Parents Complain


Intrigued.. we continued reading.

Parents in Deerfield, Ill., are upset that a local high school is using books in advanced English classes this spring that they say are laced with graphic sexual content, pervasive expletives and mockery of religion.

Worse, the books - "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Parts 1 & 2)" - are required reading for advanced placement English students at Deerfield High School, but a parents' group wants them removed.

"Who would have ever thought that we would be handing out pornography in public schools?" asked Lora Sue Hauser, executive director of North Shore Student Advocacy, and a Deerfield parent.

"The fact that this was required is even more astonishing," she told Cybercast News Service.


The pornography in question?

Man: I think it broke. The rubber. You want me to keep going? (Little pause) Pull out? Should I --
Louis: Keep going. Infect me. I don't care. I don't care.

"There's no other way to describe this," Hauser said. "It is so egregious and so vulgar. I've been doing advocacy in schools a long time - and this is the worst thing I've seen."

She added: "It's an example of what I call 'the competition of edginess.' High schools across the country have this 'thing' going, where they choose literature or they choose programming or curricula that pushes the envelope, and keeps pushing the envelope - and now after years and years of it, this is what we've ended up with - clearly pornographic materials."


Hi, Sue. I wish we'd talked sooner. I'm sorry this little passage about a self-loathing gay man in the 1980's wanting to get infected with AIDS was too "edgy" for you. I know it can be a real shocker to read about gay people having sex, seeing as how we do it differently and everything. And I know you're probably real afraid that this writing is going to turn your son geigh... but I'm pretty sure it won't. How do I know? Well, Angels in America is a play about AIDS and politics in the 1980's. It's no Bel Ami, it's no steamy locker room snuff. If anything, the gay melodrama and endless talk about the intersection of sex and death and strained gay relationships in Angels in America is going to make your son never want to come out of the closet, for fear that he'll end up like the hopeless main characters. So don't worry. Really.

And please stop calling "Angels in America" pornography. That just makes you look desperate.