I'm Trying Out for a Gay Soccer Team

hello there...

my name is steven blum and i'm interested in playing soccer with ripple effect.

i was referred to you by my friend, who told me this would be a great team to begin soccer with, since i don't know much about the game.

my previous experience with sports involves pretending i'm a newscaster on the sidelines, talking to an invisible cameraman (this was in elementary school) and since then, i have played junior varsity tennis for half a semester.

i am scared but i think i need to run around more and be generally less stressed out by life.

how can i try out?

sincerely,

steven blum

Two College Sophomores at Bus Stop in Ravenna

"Wait, there's a goodwill outlet?" "Yeah. But that's in industrial Seattle." "I kind of want to live in industrial Seattle." "No, you don't." "You'll be able to catch the lightrail soon there. You can, you know, go to the airport." "That doesn't appeal to me."

Follow My Twitters!

I'm now livetwittering when different things happen to me: like when I watch 30 rock, when I see weird things that were dropped into the toilet at the Seattle Public Library, when I see men who look like older lesbian women, when I'm watching movies that should have never been made...I have no idea what I'm doing, but twittering is fun! Follow me here: twitter.com/stevenblum.

The H Word

I agree, Chas. We should own this word the same way we own "fag."

I'm Back.

First impression at Chicao O'Hare was "fuck all these warning signs."

At O'Hare, a sign warns me not to open a door that obviously leads to a sharp drop, and then pavement (this is the door that will eventually open to those accordian-like people tubes that connect buildings to airplanes). Thanks, O'Hare, for the block letters and the screaming font and exclamation points. You really saved my life with that. It would have been impossible not to notice the fact that that door leads to thin air and death.

At Le Pichet, a laminated sign in the bathroom warns me not to flush paper towels down the toilet.

You get the picture.

These signs simply don't exist in Europe.

I'm in that writerly place where everything feels fresh and new and weird, and it'll only last a few days before people asking "would you like room in that?" becomes a common enough occurance that I stop registering it in the "new and different" lobe of my brain.

The rest of my thoughts revolve around loss and despair. I want to shake people on the streets of Seattle and say things like "you don't have to live like this!"

(to the waitresses) "You can be a bitch to me if you're having a bad day, I don't give a fuck."

(to the gay men) "go have sex with a german for god's sake!"

(to everyone else) "give up, smoke a cigarette and get back to me when you've come up with something pithy and honest to say about life."

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is an old rusty piece of latticework that is improbably beautiful close up. It also looks like an alien robot leg from this angle. At night it's a cluster of strobe / search lights in the shape of a tower, sparkling over Paris with the intensity of a fireworks finale.

It's also an ingenious tourist trap, luring folks from motherfucking everywhere onto its massive two-tiered elevator-pods. (It would also be the world's most dangerous dildo if it appeared in toy form (which it does)).

Today, after buying the world's most delicious cookie* from a shop down the street from my hotel, I ventured down the five blocks it takes to get to the tower.

Fuck all the haters, waiting in line is actually the bomb. It makes you about 5,000 times more excited about whatever you're about to do. Next time I have to do something terrible, I'm going to make myself wait in line first.

One of my favorite things was the restaurant on the second floor that had been overtaken by pigeons. Here you see them, claiming the islands of various tables and basically freaking everyone the fuck out (people are not pictured):



The top was freezing and made me cry unintentionally all over myself (does this happen to anyone else in cold weather?) and a little Italian woman took pity on me. I counted five gay people.

Also, views bore me after .5 seconds of staring. See:



"..................'night.

Okay, there was a rainbow, which actually was mildly exciting.



And if you're a film buff, there's also a film on the first floor of the tower which is anti-lingual, meaning it has no languages, it was just music and pictures of the tower and people pretending to fall off the tower and climb the tower and dropping their glasses off the tower (and on to other people's eyes). You can also buy a Kit Kat bar which may or may not taste like complete crap.

To summarize, the Eiffel Tower is a great place for counting gay people, crying due to cold temperatures, meeting friendly pigeons, watching a movie that has no language, pretending you're on a roller coaster, enjoying things more after waiting long periods of time and counting gay men ( I suppose you can do this anywhere).

(*Seriously-it was like the ingredients for the cookie all met under a communism . No one ingredient overpowered the other. It wasn't too sweet, too buttery, too strawberry-y, it just was, it simply existed. I'm making a gross orgasm face while I explain this to you but you can't see it because you're just reading this online).

Le Tour Official De Cannes

Hello and welcome to Cahhhness. Shhhh. You must say it "under your breath." These sunglasses are pour vous. Please put them on. QUICKLY QUICKLY! Ahh, now you can see. Hello! I wave to you. Ahaha! Everyone is le color de caramel, no? It's no surprise. We actually melted gold lame marbles into the ground. Oui oui! Le color reflects off le faces of le peoples until they glow like, ay, uhm, Academy Award. This is how you make an award face. Okay, I'm sorry but you're time is up. You must be a costume designer. We do not want to hear about your mother.

Come with me, I want to take you to the city center. Tom Cruise's Centre Control pour le Rhinoplasticity is down the block. Can you see it? We must be careful. Careful. Sometimes, he leaps from le corner and he will steal your depression medication if you are not careful. Oh, we just passed it. It's too late now. Je suis desolee. There, okay, if you look quickly, you can see Nicole Kidman's artificial intelligence program for young alien beauty queens! QUICKLY! It's gone now. I can't slow down. But we must be very quiet, still, even dans le vicinity. One time, ehhhmm, someone interrupted Ms. Kidman's rehearsal. It was so bad! She turned one lady's face into. An. Award face. No, FOREVER! Oui, ce'st vrai. She is not allowed to leave le burger king parce que it makes the employees there especially quite happy. Every meal, she thanks each person who helped to create it.

If you look to your left (QUICKLY!), you'll see our version of McDonald's. Here burgers come with foie gras. Oui! And pickled cabbage! On delicious gold lame bread. Oui oui! You have to go wee wee? Oh, it was me who said that. Sorry, je confuse myself.

Down the road we find the druids. Yah. Ce'st une cult of lost Palm Beach Jews. They decidehh to, uhm, settle here apres le GRAND retirement home food riots of the late 1980's. Now they've become quite successful! And you can come to Yom Kipper services led by Dustin Hoffman. Oui, ce'st vrai.

QUICKLY!

You look, eeehhhmmm, not so good. Here, take this packet of Nivea. Yah. Uhm, that is not enough. You must, ehhm, slather it? Oui, all over your body, merci. There, that's, well, it's still not so good actually. Actually, maybe you are not ready pour le lifestyle parijen. C'est triste. Mais, still, you can make your face of the award? No? Oh, je suis desolee. I cue music now.