O Tannenbaum!

This is a story of young love. Not my first love, but the first that was reciprocated, at least by an actual person and someone else's hand other than my own. I'd spent two years loving a boy in West Virginia who claimed he was straight, then came out, finally getting that it was only me he wasn't attracted to instead of guys in general. He dated various dinner theatre actors, which stabbed at my heart, as it would anyone's. Later, his mother told him he wasn't allowed to be gay so he married a fat girl. I couldn't deal and ran off to Galliopolis, Ohio, a town about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. There I met a guy in a doughnut shop who I told I loved even though I was absolutely lying. You do that sort of thing if you want a cute person in a teency, rural town to do you. Particularly when the gay community in such a place consists of six people who know one another and your best option is to settle for cute and stupid instead of just stupid. I moved on. I went from Gallipolis, Ohio, right across the river from the Mothman sightings, to Columbus, Ohio, home of James Thurber and Lazarus department stores. It was at this point my parents began to demean me for my high-falutin', big city ways.

As far as love stories go, what I'm about to descibe is the real deal. It's the sweetest story of near-statutatory rape you'll ever hear, outside of Edge of Seventeen or I Love Rock and Roll because everyone knows middle-aged women make it so much cooler and forgivable to confess the hotness of high school boys than homos in their early twenties, right? But yeah, I was 24 and Tom was 18 and he was a senior in high school. I had another teenage friend named Paul. We met in a magic club meeting and there are no demographic boundaries whatsoever when it comes to a shared love of card tricks. We were fast friends despite the age difference, probably because I have always been woefully immature. That, and the mean age of all the other magicians in the club was around 70. We had no hip replacement stories nor medicare anectodes and turned to one another to keep from going out of our minds with the onslaught of unrelenting boredom. Paul didn't care that I liked guys and I didn't care that his idea of music was Nolan Thomas singing 'Yo Little Brother.' He told me there was an out, gay kid at his high school who was working part time as a talking Christmas tree at the local mall. He said I'd like him. I was single and prospects were nil. I figured I ought to go and have a chat with this tree.

The concept behind the talking Christmas tree is this: someone, in this case Tom, is hidden inside a hollow, polyurethene tree like one of the Keebler elves, only wired with a mic. Kids come up and tell the tree what they want for Christmas or whatever else they feel like talking about. The tree responds, its electronic voice booming across the department store. I lurked about, waiting for all the children to leave.

"Hi," I said to the tree.
"Um, hello," it said, probably not used to twenty-somethings addressing it.
I went for whimsy. "Do you guys hate dogs? I mean, given what they do on you and all?"

The tree answered immediately. "We just focus on the fact that in China dogs are considered free-range cattle. We have other things to worry about. Moss. What you guys call crabs."
"No," I said, "aphids are crabs. Moss is psoraiasis."
"And Dutch Elm Disease is rectal cancer. Do you have a point?"

Damn, this tree was funny. "I'm Dan," I said. "Paul's friend."

The tree thought for a minute. "I hear you do a mean Carol Channing," it said.

I belted out a couple of croaky stanzas from Hello Dolly, the gayest thing I have ever done in my life, even more so than taking it up the ass. "Come around and open my back door," the tree said.

My brain fizzled and sparked under the weight of too many replies.
I went around behind the fake tree and sure enough, there was a tiny door. I opened it and there was Tom, crouched inside wearing a headset. He was tall and lanky and much too big to be crammed into a tree, which made me laugh in his face. He probably thought I found him unnatractive, little knowing the mere thought of someone who's managed to secure a regular paycheck from being a talking Christmas tree, to me, is like downing several hundred smoked oysters.

I probably made some inappropriate sap jokes.

"Can you come back at 8:30? That's when I get off." Again, my comedy club mind overflowed with too many zingers.

I wandered around the mall at the height of Christmas frenzy, an act which makes waterboarding seem positively humane, then went back to the tree at the designated time. Tom stretched after emerging from the tree, relieving his cramped muscles and I would like to think unknowingly, causing his shirt to ride up and reveal a flash of skin above his belt buckle. His body was just what revved my motor, the delicious, bone-revealing frame of a borderline anorexic; the sort of person who has to wear snowshoes in the shower to keep from slipping down the drain.

Thing is, cranium contents notwithstanding, from the neck up he just wasn't my type. Since I was in my New Wave phase, this was probably due to the lack of applied cosmetics. And the hair. Curly and a little fluffy whereas I wanted it long and flowing or spiked and reeking of Aqua-Net. But no, he looked like Ann B. Taylor as Alice.

Five minutes later I was willing to gobble his pube-trimming remnants from off the bathroom floor. He was so smart and so funny that I was in love before the escalator hit the lower level. This is still my formula for the ideal mate: someone who is wickedly intelligent but enjoys acting like an idiot. Tom was my first exposure to this heady combination and my first insight that what's inside can truly make a person beautiful. He morphed, like CGI special effects, from ew, the hair, into the most beautiful face I'd ever laid eyes on. It was also apparent, during our short walk around the mall, that he liked me, too. He showed me his fake tap-dancing skills and his faux-Israeli call to prayer. Love, love, love.

Time out to deconstruct: Truth is, you can't really love someone unless you really know them. This means at least a year of being around someone or, if you really want to make sure, living with them. If, after that, you still want to kiss the person who's annoying, electric pencil sharpener of a laugh makes you want to put their head through the television, then yes, you probably love them. There's no such thing as love at first sight. It's an endurance trial at best. Confusingly, Infatuation at First Sight is a very real thing. This has dicked with more people than you can imagine because, unfairly, it feels just the same as love. Infatuation makes you swoon, breathe heavy and pop a boner. Love does the same thing, but also keeps you from comitting homicide. There's a subtle difference. So of course Tom and I, two weeks after meeting, professed that we loved one another.

There was just one problem, shared between he, me and Norman Bates: His mother. Tom still lived with her. She was old, so much so that the fact that Tom and his sister were not retarded was pretty much a miracle. This woman, due to the cruelest act of fate a gay kid can consider, also taught math at the very same high school he attended. The fact that he was not shy about telling anyone he was hot for guys, she must have felt, reflected on her abilities as both parent and teacher. His fondness for the main vein and broadway shows was a horrible reflection on her.

Consequently, Tom was barely allowed to leave the house. She probably imagined he would run off to the pet store, buy a supply of white mice, then sneak behind the Taco Bell with a toilet paper tube. Tom's mother monitored his every waking move, demanding at all times to know where he was and who he was with. Ironically, this is how I've since treated all subsequent boyfriends.

My friend Tor, who was there at the time, tells me that he never remembered any gossip about Tom being queer. He had his suspicions, but none of the kids ever mentioned anything about sexuality. Instead, he says, what he heard was that Tom's mother was a cunting bitch who treated him like a dog in a wire cage. What Tom wanted to do with his pecker wasn't news; the fact that everyone understood he was being held captive by a crazy, old woman was what fed the high school rumor mill.

Tom's mother would send him to the store and he'd whiz by my place, giving us a scant five minutes to kiss each other and swear our love. A week later, he would lie and say he was going to some girl's house (hope, no doubt, springing eternal in his mother's mind) and he'd get to spend an hour with me. But finally someone at his high school threw an all-night party and Tom's mother gave him permission to attend, no doubt praying some big-haired cheerleader would finally switch him. He called and I picked him up from there and we headed for my place.

In the car he was smarter and funnier than ever, his version of getting me liquored up. When we got back to my place, we started ripping each other's clothes off before we even made it up the front steps. Inside he finally emerged completely from his clothing, stunning, like an eighteen-year cicada. We shuffled, naked and embracing, to the bedroom and it was great. Even the sex was smart and funny. "Just so you're aware and not alarmed later," he said, adopting his most serious face, "when I climax I scream out the word 'cockroaches.' Hope it's not a turn-off."

I pulled him close. "Call me Mr. Peepers," I begged seductively.

We found it hilarious. Absolutely hysterical. We snickered and laughed all throughout our first coupling. (This would happen time and again with other boyfriends, but for all the wrong reasons.) If you are instantly comfortable enough with someone to actually point out the funny side of sex with one another, first time around, mid-act, then I'd say there's some serious chemistry there. Not that I didn't have serious chemistry with later paramours but it usually took the form of windowpane and blotter acid. He did, in fact, yell out the word 'cockroaches', which he would continue to do in future encounters in such a way it made my heart swell. There is no aphrodisiac like someone fully committed to a joke. I wanted to slide my dick between the hemispheres of his brain. Tom and I held each other afterward, made sarcastic comments and laughed like fools. It was incredible.

But then, of course, we'd catch sight of the time. "Only a half an hour left. Shit." It was always like this. I couldn't call him; he could only call me when Mother was away. Surprise ten minute appearances, like he was a guest on my talk show. Meeting him for fast-food dinner in a very public place. Waiting in line with children, me wanting to scream at them to get the fuck away so I could have private time with the tree. There had to be a knothole in that thing somewhere.

It went on like this for quite a while. At least in the young love time continum, where a day feels like six weeks and a kiss seems to last forever.

Tom's mother begrudgingly allowed that he could have a birthday party at his house. She of course would be on hand to monitor the entire affair. With her there, the concept of a party among his classmates surely seemed appealing as Algebra II. But people said they'd show up, because, who didn't like Tom? His sheer force of personality superseded his gayness, even in a high school in midwestern Ohio during the mid-nineteen-eighties. He never had problems with jocks threatening to beat the crap out of him. He was just Tom, funny as a motherfucker, and nearly everyone adored him. Especially me.

Which meant I had to attend the party. This was a stupid, stupid, stupid idea on both our parts. Mother, we should have realized, would not be sitting quietly in her fruit cellar but lurking about, inspecting the party for moral decay. I was pretty much the poster child for this. She knew every student attending on a first-name basis and I, a total stranger, was youthful for my age but not exactly able to pass as valedictorian material. Plus there was the fact that I looked like every member of Duran Duran, along with the entire Maybelline product line, had been thrown into a gene splicer. I kind of stuck out.

Tom and I were forward-thinking enough that we planned for me to arrive when the party was in full swing instead of when only a few classmates were there. We might have also considered that leading a baboon, or me, into a crowd of average teenagers might attract undue attention, but no, we didn't grasp that essential point. I showed up and Tom immediately dragged me to the piano. I sat on the bench beside him and he banged out a hysterical, torch-song rendition of My Funny Valentine. I was in tears, laughing, mascara trailing down my cheeks. We started talking, whispering actually, each telling what we most liked about the other. Then I went off to mingle. Thanks to the dynamic I'd grown accustomed to--impromptu phone calls from out of nowhere with Tom saying "My friend and I are coming over right now! She has to meet you!"--I knew a lot of the people Tom hung out with at school. More than a few were also gay, if not neccessarily out, the sheer number of which gave me hope for the future.

A bony hand clamped down on Tom's shoulder, like something in a movie about witches eating children. It was Mother. "Who...was...that?" she said, carefully spacing and hissing her words.
"That's Dan. He's a friend of Paul's."
"Then why isn't he talking to Paul? Oh, I know. Because Paul's not here."
"Well," Tom said, stalling for time, "he knows a lot of Paul's friends."
"Like you?"
"Yeah, we've met."
" I don't like his hair at all. Not one bit. What kind of man colors his hair?"
"Rock stars? Televangelists?"
"There's another kind of man who colors his hair." Here, Tom's mother flopped her wrist, American Sign Language for queer as a cat fart.
"I don't color my hair and I'm that way," he said, driving another knife into her sternum.
"I don't think it's healthy he's here in my house."

Tom's mother began to follow me the way Korean convienience store owners do African-Americans. No matter where I was or who I was talking to she was there, arms folded and her tightened, mean face staring as though sheer will could cause my dick to drop off and roll down my pant leg. Finally, after some furious hand waving she whispered something to Tom.

He sidled up to me while I was talking with Andrea. "You've been asked to leave," he said.

"Love ya," I replied as I made my exit. "It's been fun."

This was, sadly, the beginning of the end. Maybe I'm romanticising the situation, but I think our shared intimacy over My Funny Valentine clearly and effectively communicated to Tom's mother that her son and I were more than aquaintences or even friends. I'd like to think the way we looked at one another brought to her mind images of both of us gargling body fluids simultaneously. It sure did to me.

No matter what mental specifics prompted it, the surveillance efforts on his mother's part, after the party, quadrupled and he was interrogated with even more deranged fervor. Casual trips to visit long-standing friends were suddenly suspect and his mother would make him call her from there and also demand to speak to the friend, just to make sure. His already boxed-in life had become ever much more so and I was responsible. I can't blame him at all for not wanting to live like this.

Before I go on, would you like to meet Tom? Experience him just as I did in all his high school hotness and see how fucking funny he was back in the day? You can. The big news at the time was that Hollywood was coming to Columbus to film a movie. The stars were arriving! Nick Nolte, Ralph Macchio, Morgan Freeman and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' Royal Dano! Sadly, the results were a really unfunny comedy called Teachers which you can get on DVD and in which, in good old 1984, Tom landed a part as an extra, playing in a not especially demanding role, a high schooler. There's a scene in a hallway where a student pulls out a gun and all the other kids hit the floor. Everyone pretty much crouches to their knees. But if you look carefully, the tallest, lankiest one does a pratfall worthy of Chico Marx. Smart but funny. It came out on video while we were dating, if you can really use that term to describe a relationship forged on surprise, ten-minute visits. I am probably the only person in history who has, more than once, jerked off to a Morgan Freeman movie.

I decided I would have my own party for Tom and all his friends, without the glaring spectre of a praying mantis in a house dress spoiling everyone's fun. He created the alibi and I can't remember what it was; only that it worked. Mother allowed Tom to be away for an evening. This was before the word party became associated in my mind with drugs, alcohol and doing my best to alienate everyone present. It was simply music, good times and fun without the electric eye of crippling, parental supervision. We danced on my glass-topped coffee table until it broke, causing us to drop two feet with glass shards flying everywhere. I did not pick up the mess for weeks, much as I do now, given that disarray can serve as a visual reminder of joyous or nutty times gone before, even if in the present that definition references when I spilled scrambled eggs all over the cat. The coffee table destruction was so much fun I invited my guests into the kitchen to avail themselves of all the dishes in the cabinets and to, please, smash them to bits just because it was so exhilarating. We did. Broken cheap China was everywhere. Damn. I need to have another party like that, and soon.

But Mother's opression continued to bear down on Tom. I was probably a sheer prick to expect him to live that way in the name of love. It was like saying I, myself, was reason enough for him to be chained to a post in the basement and forced to shit in a salad bowl.

He arrived one night, unexpected as per custom, and I moved to kiss him. Something tensed. I didn't like it.

"I've got something I'd like you to read," he said.

Whenever a kiss feels like the other person is being rubbed down with lizard entrails and they've got something for you to read, you can bet your ass it's a Dear John letter. It was. As I had yet to perfect my stone-faced, I-will-not-show-you-my-weakness personna, I cried. As Tom was just not funny, but smart, he did not point out how pathetic I was behaving. Had he done so, a gruesome scene involving hacksaws and my bathtub might have occured. Essentially, according to the letter, our relationship was just too intense too survive. He was still in high school. What do you want? Flaubert?

It wasn't just his mother, of course, that killed the concept of us. It was being that age, with your whole life ahead of you. How the hell was I supposed to compete with that? Nonetheless, decades later, when I heard Tom's mother died I visited her grave. I did a fake tap dance on top of it, humming My Funny Valentine the entire time.



Anyone out there, I beg: Let's go home and rap with one another.

Update: 3/17 Per Tom's request, here's Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark in concert from 1985 doing 'Secret'. It was, after all, "our" song. Well, after the Ray Conniff Singers doing 'Coconut Wireless'.

Bananas

Another very short song from the Spookshow In Your Pants dicography, probably because once again I was trying to be real and can't do that for very long periods of time. When the dark clouds roll in, I feel helpless, horrified, and disgusted at who I am as as a person and want to wish it all away. This clip is supposed to mirror the mindset, combining the usual wacky outlook with disturbing intruding thoughts. I've used this sequence in other pieces, but I think the stark brevity of the original sums it up best.

Click on the title if you want to share my less-peppy moments.

But of course this post wouldn't be complete without this:

McDonald's In Detroit

"Gimme all the money in the drawer, motherfucker!"
The counter help behind the six inch plexiglas shrugs.
"I said give me all the money in the drawer or I'll blow your fuckin' head off."
"Really?" asks the teen in the paper hat.
"Whatchoo mean really? I said give me the money."
"I know what you said. I'm just not particularly motivated to do it. Besides, there are people behind you, sir. They look hungry."
"Fuck hongry. Empty out that cash drawer or I will blow your damn head off."
"Sir, if you could just please step to one side if you're not ordering anything. I need to get these people taken care of or the manager might become very upset."
"I ain't stepping aside for nobody."
At this, the patrons in line voice their displeasure.
"You asswipe, my daughter wants a strawberry shake."
"I only have a half hour for lunch and I need my Asian Chicken Salad."
"Hey, idiot, you're wasting our time."
"If you don't move it I will fold my Filet O Fish in half and shove it up your ass."
The man with the gun turned to the people behind him. "I done told the man to give me all the money. It's not my fault he's being so slow about it."
"Sir, please, if you're not placing an order could you just please step to one side so that others might enjoy our line of reasonably priced products? "
"Yeah," a man growls, "I want a number one value meal sometime today."
"Sir, I will place your order when you arrive at the counter but there are still two people, not counting this guy with the gun, ahead of you."
"Sorry," the man says.
"Gimme my cash!"
"No sir. It is not your cash. It belongs to the McDonald's corporation; a very, very, very small, teency-tiny portion of which is going to the Ronald McDonald House, an organization for parents who have children with cancer."
"Awww. That's sad. No, wait, I mean, gimme that money, mofo."
"Excuse me," a woman says, "Do you think I could have three of those yogurt parfaits? I know you think that no one noticed you cut them down to a third of the size they used to be, but some of us have eyes, you know."
"Yeah," says a man. "Chicken McNuggets used to be huge but now they're practically the size of a dime."
Celebrity talk show host David Letterman is also in line and says, sarcastically, "Really. If there was a part of of a chicken you could conceivably call a nugget, would you want to put it in your mouth?"
Everyone laughs.
"Shut up!" the man with the gun yells. "All of you."
"Top ten reasons I can't get my fucking lunch," Letterman says, and everyone laughs again.
"So how are you liking Detroit?" the kid behind the counter asks the TV star.
"Shut up! I have a goddamn gun!"
"It's ok," answers Letterman, rolling his eyes. "Mostly."
"Are you going to give me the money or not?"
"I'm going to have to check with my manager on this." The kid disappears, which causes the line of people to audibly sigh and pointedly check thier wristwatches. "Hey," the man with the gun says, "I just figured he would hand it over and I'd be gone. I'm in the same boat as you."
The boy in the paper hat returns, accompanied by a man sans similar chapeau and wearing a necktie, which in the McDonald's world means an ass that needs to be licked, pretty much constantly. "What seems to be the problem here?" the manager asks.
"Gimme all the money in your goddamned cash register. Do it or I will shoot you in the face!"
"Is that David Letterman?" the manager asks.
"Yeah," says the kid in the paper hat. "He's just as funny in real life as he is on the TV."
"Hey!" yells the man with the gun.
"I hear he and that Paul Schaeffer don't really get along."
"Hey!" the man cries again.
"You know Letterman got one of those baboon hearts, like Baby Whatsername. Those rich shits get anything they want. My mom, she died, but if she had her own talk show she'd still be kicking."
The man who was causing all the trouble rapped on the plexiglas with the butt of his gun.
"You have three seconds to give me the cash before I open fire."
"Hi David! I'm the manager here!"
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Three of the four shots fired bounced off the plexiglass, the one remaining stuck barely a sixteenth of an inch into it so that a slight breeze might jar it loose and cause it to fall onto the floor next to the others.
"Excuse me," the manager said, "can you scoop those up and throw them away?"
"Or recycle," said the kid in the paper hat.
"We have a lot of elderly customers. Never mind the fact that the loud noises might have sparked a stroke or something, but could you pick up your spent shells so they don't trip on them. Someone could break a hip."
"I gots a pistol. Bullets, not shells."
"Just the same. Would you mind?"
"Ok. I'll pick 'em up."
" Thanks. Now do you want anything?"
"All the money in the drawer."
"No."
"Fine. A diet Pepsi."
"Sir, we only have Coke products."
"Ok, a diet Coke then."
"What size?"
"Large."
"For here?"
"To go."
"That'll be a dollar ten."
"Thanks."

Something's Not Quite Right About The Baby / Feel

Legendary among Spookshow In Your Pants fans (all four of them) was the epic concept piece Monkey Barbara And The Other, which told the story of a girl with four-meter forearms locked away in an attic by her cruel parents in a town that valued conformity above everything and also worshiped waffles. This cut from that song cycle still makes me smile after all these years. Click on the title to have a listen.

To bring you up to speed in the story: The Earl of Waffleton and his wife just had a baby that turned out non-standard and so by decree of the Chancellor of Waffleton it, and they, have to be destroyed. Monkey Barbra hears ths announcement on her radio.

The Chancellor of Waffleton:

Citizens of Waffleton I come to you with weighted heart.
The shower for the Earl’s wife is cancelled as of now.
Sorry ‘bout the inconvenience; hope your gifts can be returned.
Go buy something nice to help you ease the sting of grief.
Take heart in the knowledge when bad things happen to the faithful

We grow stronger with each passing trial.
Try and hold to some small hope that someday you will understand
The Waffle King don’t cause these things—he allows them.

Something’s not quite right about the baby!
Something’s gone amiss in utero.
Someone’s nonconformity resulted in deformity.
Someone’s little bundle has to go!

Citizens of Waffleton, you can’t imagine how it looks—
Just so sick and ugly we can’t take a photograph.
Baby’s arms and legs are fleshy flaps devoid of bone.
Nothing there from the neck up; no eyes, no ears, no button
Just a mouth atop a stump that spits and gurgles constantly
And as for baby’s sex…uh…we’ll get back to you…

Something’s not quite right about the baby!
Something in it’s strange genetic code.
Someone was a Ho and that fucked up the embryo—
Someone’s payment for the crime is owed.

In accordance with the laws and wishes of The Waffle King
Triple execution makes good sense.
Nothing gets exterminated while it’s being incubated—
Once it’s born, the judgments will commence.

Citizens of Waffleton, please gather in the parking lot
Of Flapjack Mall ‘round two o’ clock tomorrow afternoon.
Three unwholesome reprobates will be destroyed per holy law—
Three small fires burning with the stench of family shame.
The Earl and his wife agree to take their places willingly.
Offering themselves to Waffle King in sacrifice.
Only their foul offspring will be shackled with restraints.
Come on down—I guarantee a blessing!

Something’s not quite right about the baby!
Something in the way the bastard looks.
Fire up the tallows; bring the hot dogs and marshmallows.
See the way it dances while it cooks!

Monkey Barbara:

Funny how I’m jealous of The Earl and his wife
Yeah, they’re going down in flames—at least they had a life
Safe here in my attic no one knows that I exist
It’s always someone else who’s getting caught and crisped
Can’t take much more of this
Can’t take much more of this
Can’t take much more of this
I just might freak I just might learn to feel

Feel

I know the consequences
I know the consequences
I know the consequences then
If I should crack and just give in
I just might get out of this rut
And off my pimply, monkey butt
I might behave like one sick pup
Do a little acting up
Do something dangerous and real
Something more than simply feel

Feel

You Give Me Fever

Cold sores. Fever blisters. Whatever you call ‘em, I get ‘em. It’s my understanding that, secondary to gender, there are two types of people: Those whose lips suddenly erupt into the fluid-filled equivalent of bubble-wrap and those who don’t. Color me among the unfortunate.
It’s supposed to be a wintertime thing and usually is, but mine can show up any time of the year. Other people complain about the cold and flu season because they’ve woken up with a stuffy nose; my big grief is greeting the day looking like Oscar Wilde on his syphilitic deathbed.
As if the indignity of seeming a lesion-ravaged leper were not enough, the appearance of these unwelcome intruders upon my person is always accompanied by the acute paranoia that this one inch flawed area on my body is all anyone else can see, as though I were wearing a two foot, novelty foam rubber top hat that, through means of a concealed battery pack, also flashes a neon announcement to the world that blinks “Herpes! Herpes! Herpes!” on and off accompanied by the sound of an air raid siren. This is not an unfounded fear. When you get a cold sore there is always an amateur microbiologist amongst your peer group who feels compelled to mention, usually in the largest crowd in which you circulate, “You know that’s a form of herpes. Not Herpes Simplex, the kind you get from sex, but it’s still herpes.” Thank you dear good doctor. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that canker sore is only one consonant away from cancer sore. It’s like hearing that you’ve got the good kind of leukemia.
What makes this situation fully mortifying is that you know only part of the population will accurately comprehend this information. People who don’t get cold sores are in no particular rush to study up on them. They just assume you’ve had your mouth on the nastiest part of a nasty person. It shows on their faces, like spotting Catholics on Ash Wednesday. You find yourself mentally constructing a profile of the average fever-blister-getter in hopes of determining who around you might be sympathetic, much like trying to figure out if the cashier at the beer store is gay. You also assume people are profiling you as well. You can feel total strangers thinking “Yes, I have severed cat heads in my freezer at home but at least I’m not unclean.”
Getting a fever blister is a horrorshow of premonition, based on the fact you feel it coming, like radiation victims knowing handfuls of hair in the shower will soon mean skin detachment and explosive diarrhea. You feel something akin to razor rash, only coming from inside your lips. This reminds you of how utterly awful shaving is going to be for a while--dragging a razor across a blister-ensconced upper lip merely slices them open, resulting in robust and bleeding scabs (always seen as cute, cute, cute) whereas not shaving causes spiky hairs to form inside the pustules which prick the living crap out of you from within until you want to tear your lips off your face with locking pliers and throw them in the river.
This initial tingling (which will move from that, to pain, to feeling you have pubic crabs swarming on your mouth) signals that your little translucent friend is on its way and there is nothing, nothing you can do about it. You have a day to gather supplies before you transform like a werewolf; supplies to keep you nourished and entertained while you avoid letting anyone see you for the next two weeks.
The next stage is a pronounced redness, which indicates that your earlier paranoia was well founded. At this stage of the game it can pass for a wine-stain birthmark, which although unattractive still allows you to move through society without suspicion of being a slut. It does, at least, allow you to gauge the surface area of the soon-to-be blistered skin and know just how much of a whore you’ll soon be judged.
Then come the blisters, tiny at first but by the end of the day they look and feel like water balloons. The pressure build-up from the inside fluid is so intense that, should you prick one with a needle, you can spritz down the back of someone's shirt merely by pursing your lips. This, in fact, is generally what happens to people who feel moved to mention the word herpes in my presence.
There’s a popular radio ad for a product called Releev that claims to be able to cure this condition “in just one day.” Don’t you believe it. What you get for your twenty bucks is a little tube full of mysterious goo that is as effective for treating cold sores as a glue stick is at fixing amputated limbs. If you want to go cheaper there is the proven favorite Campho-Phenique which treats your problem through aversion therapy by assuming you’ll forget all about the fact that you have a fever blister if you run around smelling like moth balls.
The timing involved is invariably the worst--so much so I believe the virus is wired to the subconcious in such a way that when I know I'm going to be most socially prominent the pustules are simply willed into life. I would bet money I could be locked away, alone, in a remote cabin for years and never get a fever blister. The Unabomber probably never bought Blistex in his life.
One first date, though, and my lips will sprout what appear to be pepperoni slices before cocktails have arrived. I am at my most charming and suddenly my date's getting-to-know-you smile is replaced by someone watching a toddler get autopsied. The conversation awkwardly turns to getting tested. For everything. My new friend slowly slides their chair back as if six more inches distance will prevent them from being quarantined. Another date destined to end with a handshake.
I always do the worst thing possible and drain the blisters. I know it simply prolongs their presence, but I reach a point where I can't bear to be in public a second longer looking like I've got inflated condom tips growing from my skin. So I stand before the mirror with a needle I've sterilized by wiping on my pants and go to town. The fluid leaks all over and it appears my lips are actually crying over the way they look. Unfortunately, the now-stretched skin, not having all that pretty fluid to fill it up, hangs in tatters like a window treatment in the projects. So I tear it off, revealing raw, open flesh, and what do you know? My mouth has it's own little vagina and it's that time of the month. Now I really look like a freak. I could, I suppose, carry a supply of tiny band-aids with me I could curl around my lip to hide the soon-to-be scab, but that would only result in a hundred "What happened?" conversations which would be much worse than the usual, embarassed, looking away. I've tinkered with the idea of inventing stories involving highly theatrical bar fights or near-death spider bite episodes. But then most likely the pooling lymph fluid would ooze away the adhesive, revealing me to be both disgusting and a liar when the band-aid finally slides off and drops off into my soup.
I find myself trying to point the offending side of my face away from all possible viewers, so that I end up twitching around the room like David Byrne dancing. I can't imagine this works in the slightest. "That poor man," people must think, "He's hurt himself very badly or maybe had a stroke, in addition to his diseased, fucked-up lip."
The trouble with having a scab that feels like a manhole cover stuck to my mouth is that patience is not my strong suit. I always attempt to peel it off long before it's time has come, resulting in more fresh blood and having to start the healing process over from scratch. But at least I'm left with something, a part of me, I can turn sticky-side-up and put in the chairs of people I've seen giving me the herpes look. Especially if it's summer and they're wearing shorts.

Progressive

A nation divided. It is the violent, bloody zenith of the Civil War. While all around, in neighboring states and counties, slave owners take out their frustrations on the backs of their work force with a horsehair lash, there is one secret, safe place where property of color can feel, at last, valued humans. It’s the vast Jennings tobacco plantation in Beluga, South Carolina, passed down through my family for generations. But now that I am in charge, things are different.
I’ve gathered all the help and their babies into my huge, expansive, parlor. Mind you, I’ve placed burlap sacks over all the furniture because these people can be a little grimy after toiling in the fields all day. But still, I invite them into my home instead of having our meeting in the barn.
“Thanks for coming this afternoon,” I say, attempting to reinforce the concept they actually had a choice in the matter, something I imagine they’re not used to. “I want to let you in on a little secret. Thing is, if this secret gets out, all of us will die.”
A collective look of recognition passes among those gathered. This one, they understand perfectly.
“I do not believe it is right for one human being to own another. This may shock most of you, having worked, pretty much for free, for my father all these years. But now that he is dead and I am lord of the plantation, things are going to change. Starting today, all of you will be given a salary for whatever it is you do. So, okay, I guess it’s okay for one human being to rent one another, ha, ha. Seriously. But if you take the paycheck I’m going to give you and start blowing it all over town on new clothes and fancy food, people are going to notice. So take your money, save your money, hide your money, but don’t run down to the dry goods store and buy a fine new dress. Or if you do, be sure and tell them it’s for me. No, wait. Okay, no dresses, agreed?”
No one says a word. I am sure that the notion of earning a decent wage for hours worked has them all dumbfounded. I continue.
“Slavery no longer exists in this household. We just have to sort of, you know, pretend that it does in order to fool the neighbors. So yeah, those of you who pick tobacco from sun up to sunset will still be doing it…but you’ll be getting money for it. And I promise you, not a soul will ever physically harm you again. Unless we have visitors and you’re acting, you know, uppity. ‘Cause like I say, we gotta keep up the image of being anti-abolitionist and so forth. But you’ll get extra, hazard pay for that if, under those very rare circumstances, the foreman has to beat you.. Not that I want to see anyone acting out just so they’ll get a whipping and the extra moolah.”
A man timidly raises his hand. “Uh, suh?”
“Yes. You there. In the straw hat and bruises.”
“Do you means to say we’s gonna be getting’ paid by de hour?”
“Um, what’s your name, sir?”
“Sambo.”
I wince. “Not anymore. That’s a racist, slave name forced onto you by some landowning swine. What was your name back in Africa?”
“I was born here. On this here plantation. Your daddy owned my moms.”
“I’m so sorry. From now on let’s just all agree to call you Larry.”
“But I been Sambo since—“
“C’mon Larry. Step up to a new age of enlightenment. Your wife there, um, from now on I want you to call her Tammy. And those two naked babies she’s got on her lap? I’m thinking Zoe and Linda.”
“Whaaa?”
“It’s ok, Larry. I understand how hard it must be for you—and for all of you—to come out from under the shadow of the low-self-esteem life you’ve lived so far. But to answer your original question, yes! Yes, absolutely, you’ll all be paid by the hour for the work you do. Now, granted, although I’ve inherited my entire family’s money, I’m not exactly made of it. So instead of paying you what backbreaking work in the hot sun truly deserves I’ll just be paying you what I can afford; a new idea I like to call minimum wage. But still you’ll be earning actual money—not that you can flash it around town or anything—and will be able to take pride in the fact that you are actually earning your living instead of having it, you know, handed to you.”
A hand waves. “Another question, yes?”
“Will we still be living in the slave quarters?”
“Yes. You will. I mean, we have to keep up the appearance of slavery or the neighbors will burn us to the ground. Plus you’ll find the rent I’ll be charging you, now that you’re making your own way, is very reasonable. But the good news is that there will be no more of this Master crap. You’ll all get to call me Brent. Isn’t that nice?”
“Uh, Suh?”
“Please. Brent.”
“Brent. You mean we gots to pay you to live here while we work for you?”
“Your name?”
“Rastus.”
“Mmn, not feeling it. How about Ed? Look, Ed, you have a right to a decent wage. Okay, a wage. But with rights come responsibilities. If I let you stay for free I am no better than the slave owners. I’m trying to create a society of equality here, you know? Can you work with me on this?”

Light and Vision

The act of seeing is not a straightforward, direct function of anatomy. Our species tends to think that an image enters the eye and therefore it is seen, unlike hearing a Nickelback song, which is instantly struck from the memory.
The common belief is that things retain their identity and are recognizable because we see them and have always seen them that way. This is a precept that held true until one of the Olsen twins began publicly vomiting after dinner. The biological construct of the eye, a direct receiver and recorder of information, is coupled with the brain, an organizing apparatus which analyzes the incoming data, although the two often make disparaging remarks at one another’s expense after a couple of cocktails.
The eye focuses, sharply, on what it sees at any given time-slice. The brain, of course, tends to think it directed this choice like it was D.W. Griffith.
Eye: Hey, look, some pretty roses!
Brain: That red is the same shade as the blood that dripped out your ass when your mother fucked you too hard with an enema syringe.
Eye: Aww, isn’t it pretty?
Brain: I made you look at that.
Eye: Roses are truly one of God’s most beautiful creations.
Brain: Yes, incestuous rape has the best color scheme ever.
But the eye can do only what it is engineered to do: look at shit. It has no selective interest. It sees your best friend’s wife shoving her hands down a stranger’s pants and only processes how flattering the lighting is when it bounces off an engorged crotch. But unlike the brain, the eye is mobile. It is constantly moving and brings other parts of the field in view, such as other bar patrons eyeballing the very same crotch or your best friend about to bash his wife upside the head with a Manhattan glass.
The visual world cannot be perceived all at once; ask anybody with a DUI. Man perceives a succession of images—often at twenty-four frames per second at twenty-five cents a minute in small, grimy booths littered with used tissues. But the eye blends these images so seamlessly that the fragmented nature of such encounters is lost. Particularly when a stranger’s member shoots through a glory hole and plunges against the side of one’s cheek, so that the tactile nerve endings responsible for feeling reassure both brain and eye Never mind, I’ll make sure this gets remembered.
In spite of the changing pattern of selective focus and the moving eye, in spite of the fact that man sees things from every angle and in a multitude of lighting conditions, things usually remain recognizable, unless of course we are talking a middle-aged man gazing at himself in the mirror. Then, the brain biochemically checks itself into an Urgent Care and all bets are off.
The visual equipment is not only capable of eliminating the irrelevant (two-plus hours of the Country Music Awards) and of recognizing the unfamiliar (Log Cabin Republicans :) it is also able to operate with limited information (the Obama administration as regards to health insurance.) But the eye “fills in” where there are gaps. The human eye demands completeness, much in the same way a first date will demand the lobster special and the best wine on the menu after already deciding you are far too creepy to allow you to touch them. The eye and the brain fight it out, each insisting on their own framework of making sense of experience, expectation and knowledge. The brain usually wins, given its vastly superior capability when it comes to correct spelling.
The brain and eye constantly analyze the information received, based on past experience, then usually sit down together and have a good cry.
Despite what the brain might tell you, given its far better press when it comes to intellect, the visual mechanism alone is equipped with enough of its own experience on which to make choices and its own brand of decision-making. The repetition of images creates an index of experience. The mere sight of dancing tampons will warn against ever turning on a television without the brain having to bother to step in and rule an edict.
The brain functions through a chemical form of electricity—wondrous in terms of what happens via consciousness but still not enough to power a nose hair clipper—whereas the eye processes what it does solely through light. This seems overtly simple, until one considers what can happen if light rays are bent and changed; you can enjoy a pretty sunrise or sunset or you can stare into a laser and fry your corneas into hash browns. In the same way that electricity can be manipulated—transformers, diodes, potentiometers—so can light. Refraction, bouncing waves, broken-down particles, 8mm porno movies. If this happens externally, what the hell can be done with light internally? In the same way applied chemicals can cause the synapses in the brain to fire more smoothly or misfire more erratically, can the rods and cones be jolted to make the act of vision a different experience? And if this is so, where does truth, in terms of what one is actually seeing come into play?
My friend Aubrey is both a drunk and an opthomalogist, which is why he works at Lens Crafters instead of having his own private practice. Thing is, he is probably more of in touch with the human eye when he’s shitfaced than when he’s on the job. For it is then that he will argue long into the morning hours the sort of conjecture that I’ve replayed above; mental stands that to which despite my best efforts he’s managed to win me over. He is funny, he is smart, and has managed to get me to believe that the eye is its own organism outside the brain.
I am amazed at what he does for a living. He looks at scratchings on a prescription pad, puts a piece of glass into a grinder and comes away with something a person can strap on their head and walk out of the store without any longer adopting the gait of a crack addict. People can suddenly read, close-up or far away. To me this is magic. To Aubrey it is all in a day’s work. He wants more.
“Light is the only source of color in the world,” Aubrey says, staggering off my couch and spilling his Canadian Mist and coke. No matter what the fuck you’re looking at, it’s just a reflection, a transmission, an absorber of what makes up light.”
“And my sofa is just an absorber of what you’re sloshing everywhere,” I say.
“Puddlewinks, you fuck, you just aren’t getting it. Without light, not a single color exists.”
“So?”
“So what is color?”
“BET?”
“Funny. But even using that, what is color?”
“Pigment.”
“And there’s your problem. Light is the source of all color and pigment is simply a reflection. Or an absorber. Or a transmitter. But not color itself.”
“Whatever, Aubrey. You are drooling down your shirt.”
And yeah, he was, but he instantly broke into that Aubrey-speak way he has of making me seem beyond retarded. “Name the primary colors,” he demanded.
“Yellow, blue and red,” I said.
“I know you’re a computer geek and have played around with configuring monitor colors. Name the others.”
“Fine. Cyan, yellow and magenta.”
“So where does yellow come from?”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s all about your precious pigments, what colors have you named, mixed together, that will create yellow?”
I thought for a minute. “Um?” I said.
“Exactly,” Aubrey said. “You can’t do it with paint, but if a beam of red light and a beam of green light are overlapped, it will produce yellow.”
“But I’ve seen yellow paint.”
“How are you sure?” asked Aubrey, right before passing out.
This color business was clearly a riddle, a puzzle, some sort of wordplay thing I hadn’t understood.
I shook him awake, not expecting in his condition to get anywhere. Instead, he informed me that in the band of wavelengths visible to man green is about 500 millimicrons whereas red is 700 millimicrons and that the eye averages the two to see one of 600 millimicrons, the yellow sector of the spectrum. Then he threw up a tiny bit, like a cat hacking hairballs on my couch.
He left the next morning, visibly shaking, but turned to me and said: “What you and I and science think of the spectrum is just the beginning. There are more colors out there than dreamed of. And I am going to find them.”
“I should probably call you a cab,” I said.

Mad World

I am an apolitical, jaded little fuck. But this moved the hell out of me. Maybe it's just the words, which mirror my state of mind nowadays. But that's what I tend to do: take a national tragedy and turn it back to me, me, me. Must run in the family. I had dinner with my religious brother right after 9/11 and told him how scared I felt on that day. He responded by saying he thought "Oh boy, I might get to go to heaven today!" I thought but didn't say "What if all of this isn't about you?" I should probably follow my own advice.

Glen Baxter

Glen Baxter is an English cartoonist whose drawings always punch me hard in the solar plexus of funny. Like Charles Schulz, or my own drafts, his work has gotten considerably worse over time due to medical conditions or the alcoholic shakes. The sense of humor is still going strong, though.

Origin of the Feces

I was four, maybe five. I had a stomach ache. I didn't want to tell Mom what was going on but had to anyway, because my hiding it from her would be considered dishonesty and bring pain to Jesus. The poor guy had suffered enough what with the lashings, crucifixion and being forced to drink vinegar without benefit of some vegetable oil and a light salad. So I told her. Mom had an immediate solution. A warm, soapy, solution she proceeded to squirt up my butt with an enema bulb.

I knew there was a chance this might turn out to be the suggested remedy, hence my hesitation at telling her. It had happened a few times before. Mom was starting to love filling my colon with water almost as much as she did predicting the end of the world—an ability she claimed anyone could do simply by comparing news headlines to surrealistic images of things with many heads from the Book of Revelations. Sometimes, though, when I claimed my stomach was hurting she simply gave me Pepto-Bismol, which I liked; it really could go either way. Not this time. She fetched her plastic-rubber device built like a huge ear syringe, the tip of which she rubbed on a bar of Dove soap to act as a token gesture toward a lubricant before stabbing me in the ass. What made this particular instance special was it was the first time I fought back. The very first occasion I made clear through body language, no, I do not want hard plastic and a lot of liquid jammed into my nether regions by my mother, one reason--although not the most pressing one--being she would later be handling my food. I tried to jerk away from her grasp. To absolutely no avail. The idea that I preferred not having things shoved up there against my will was a slap in the face to not only Mom's incontrovertible skill at diagnostics but also to our savior, yet again, as one of the ten commandments was Honor thy Father and thy Mother, meaning, simply, whatever crazy thought pops into a parents' head is law, and if it involves forcibly shoving something into a little boy's rectum then God has willed it and anyone who thinks different deserves whatever physical pain they might endure.

"You! Will! Do! What! I! SAY!!!" she screamed, accentuating each word by a hard, forceful thrust of the enema tip, in and out, like I was being sodomized, which I probably was, just to make sure I got God's message of parental authority. She grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the side of the tub with a metallic, cartoon Tongggg! and proceeded to use her bulb to, literally, fuck the shit out of me. I know there are people who will pay good money for this type of thing but as kindergartner, I wasn't one of them. Not that I am now. Still. The least she could have done afterwards was light up a cigarette and pass it to me, but unfortunately most Evangelicals live in non-smoking homes.

Afterward, bright red blood dripped into the cold toilet water, diffusing like spin art at the fair. I peeped between my legs and saw this, bringing on a fresh crying jag.

My father leaned in the bathroom doorway. "Now what's the matter?" he asked, obviously mortified at my being the type of weakling sissy who couldn't take it violently up the ass and show stern, Southern indifference instead of weeping like a goddamned fag.

"I'm bleeding!" I cried.

"Yeah? It'll do that," he said, leaving to go leaf through his well-thumbed muscle magazines and regretting the fact I couldn't catch a ball.

Lesson learned. Don't complain.

Forced enemas became a form of punishment for many non-related offenses. It always came out of the blue, like a sudden afterthought, as though my mother's current anger had nothing to do with my getting hauled into the bathroom once again. "I have told you to keep your room tidy and it looks like a hurricane blew through here! You! Will! Keep! Your! Room! Clean!" she would shout, her voice rising like a radio preacher. "Oh, and by the way, I don't think you've been as regular as you should be. I think you need an enema."

Mom was always good with arts and crafts, so she used construction paper and magic markers to fashion what she called my B.M. Chart and taped it up on the wall in my room. It was then, also, she decided I should become wildly social and started inviting relatives and my kindergarten friends over for play dates, putting us together in the room so that all and sundry could know how often I moved my bowels. Dad would come in and inspect the chart and shake his head, sorrowfully, on the days there wasn't a gold star. He, too, was shamed by my constipation. It was suggested I was doing it on purpose.

The both of them were mystified when, soon after, I started shitting my pants on a regular basis. I was puzzled too, as doing it always got me in trouble, but now I wonder if it might have been my subconscious way of saying Hey, no blockage going on here. No need to trot out the hard rubber and soapy stuff. Everything's in working order with my butt, ok?" I guess this is what they mean by hindsight.

I would let go in my trousers and walk around in it so often that every time I farted Dad was forced to ask, "Did you fill your pants?" He was especially troubled that his five year old son was exhibiting signs of not being properly toilet-trained and would shout "The next time you do that I will run your soiled underwear up a flagpole for all the neighbors to see!" This, it turned out, was no idle threat. He got out a ladder, some nails, rope and a pulley and hoisted my dung-encrusted, child's underwear up a tree. I have to wonder about the sort of mind that would think of, much less do, such a thing. But even at that age I had mastered the art of passive-aggression. I, five years old, stood in the back yard like John-John Kennedy at his father's funeral and saluted it.

The enemas kept coming. After a while I was so used to it that I could calmly chat about my day while hard things were being rammed into my butt. "We saw a filmstrip today about fire safety," I'd say, while mom squirted Mr. Bubble up my ass.

I had a prodigious vocabulary at five. Years of various derelictions has worn this ability away, as reading anything I've written since will make abundantly clear. A family story, which invariably made an appearance whenever a date was introduced to my parents, usually while dining, describes the time I had a massive diarrhea attack on the way home from grade school. Liquid shit was pooling down both legs and into my socks. I'm told instead of coming in the house I rang the bell, and when my mother answered I sobbed out, hysterical, "I'm contaminated!" Kids say the darndest things.

First grade. Many pants-pooping episodes. Second. More of the same. Third, pretty much under control. Except for when I'd ordered a plastic Freddy the Flute off the back of a package of Pop-Tarts.

Freddy the Flute was a character from H.R. Pufnstuf, a children's Saturday Morning show, the plot of which I can't begin to explain without you thinking I've been smoking toad excretions. Visually, it looked like doing just that at a furrie convention, although the TV program probably had fewer musical numbers. What I didn't know then but realize now is, at age eight, I was totally, heels over head in love with it's featured child star, Jack Wild. He had the haircut that is popular once again and still turns me on, was British, and liked to dance. He wore the same yellow, wide-collared, button up shirt and brown corduroy trousers every week. Soon I had the same outfit, and I'd dance about the house singing in an English accent. This might be one of the reasons my father forced me to become a cub scout.

Once in the scouts I was required to earn merit badges. One was given for having a collection of some kind. The other boys showed off their baseball cards, pinned insects, and dried leaves. I had a massive gathering of pictures of Jack Wild, clipped from Tiger Beat magazine, which I described to the rest of the pack in glowing terms I'd pre-written for them as I flipped through my photo albums. "I collect photographs of Jack Wild, the English star of H.R. Pufnstuf. He brings to life the character of Jimmy. He also played the role of the Artful Dodger in Oliver! He is the most talented young actor working in Hollywood today. His performance of I'm a Mechanical Boy, on Pufnstuf, takes musical theatre in a whole new direction. Absolute genius." I think my father, in the audience, would have been less humiliated if I'd shit my uniform at a Jamboree.

This prefigured the imagined scenes now fueling the white-hot fear of fanatics who want to keep gays out of scouting. They can't sleep, tossing and turning in a sweat drenched bed, for repeatedly imagining the highly-valued, prestigious woodworking merit badge of their youth stolen away by a slender, well poised boy who's turned in an exquisitely crafted, miniature doll house. "See the way I put the tiny, carved scouting logos around the floor molding in the breakfast nook? They were going to be tulips until I realized this would be way more fabulous!"

In third grade, I fell asleep every night dreaming of being Jack Wild's "best friend." I wrote to him. I got back an autographed postcard. My mother caught me talking to it.

If Jack Wild and I had met in third grade, I am still certain in my heart, I would have switched him, instantly quit pooping my pants and we'd have grown old together. It would have been a life of high spirits, the pursuit of fun and randy, intimate jokes about his talking flute. This is how it would have turned out. I would have been the one to deal with the fact that he was diagnosed with oral cancer. I would have been the one to say Jack, it's okay, we can work around this when his lower jaw was surgically removed, although granted a few favorites from the funtime menu would have been put to rest. Even his death wouldn't have been a deal breaker. Your first crush is forever. I'd have simply had him taxidermied; Pufnstuffed.

The fact that a plastic Freddy the Flute, just like his, was on it's way in third grade put me that much closer. If we both had talking flutes, we were destined to meet. It was just that simple. I would use the pay phone at school to call my mother.

"Did it come yet?"
"Did what come yet?"
"My Freddy the Flute! Did my Freddy the Flute come in the mail?"

Heavy sigh. "No. Why are you calling me every day about this?"

But the one day came when she answered, "Yes. It's here. Thank God."

Upon hearing these words my anus opened up and everything inside shot into my pants like my colon was clearing a space for Jack Wild himself.

There was still half a school day to get through. I went to music class.

"Do you smell something?" the girl next to me asked.

"I do. I bet someone has filled their pants." I used this ruse for the remainder of the day.

After school I raced home, avoided my mother, then grabbed the box off my bed and headed for the basement. As much as I wanted to rip open the package and assemble my new talking flute, I had business to take care of. Or rather, business to get rid of.

I took off my pants and removed my shit-caked underwear. A half a day had caused it to set like cement. Leaned against the wall in the basement was a stack of plywood that had been there for years. I stuffed my soiled undergarments behind it, then used an old newspaper to halfway clean my buttocks. This I threw away in the can my father used for his basement workshop trash. I put my pants back on and opened my parcel. Following the instructions, I put together a plastic recorder that had the added feature of a face and a mouth you could work like a puppet.

"When is Jimmy coming over?" I said in the same, falsetto voice used in the TV show while moving the flute's plastic mouth up and down.

"He'll be here soon."

"Good," Freddy said. "He really likes you." The flute had the decency not to ask why the hell I wasn't wearing any underwear and smelled like a compost heap.

A few days later my Dad mentioned, over supper, "I think a rat died in the basement or something. It stinks to high heaven down there."

The ritualistic enema punishments had stopped by this time. Maybe my parents had simply come to the conclusion I was too old for that sort of thing, or perhaps had put two and two together and realized a son with an overwhelming interest in hair care and Hollywood stars, combined with systematic stimulation of his prostate, might be counterproductive to the idea of grandchildren.

I had a good six months or so until Dad offered to give away, to a neighbor, the plywood in the basement he wasn't using for anything. They carted it out, piece by piece, until the last slab was removed and revealed my crusted undies, the incriminating but still recognizable evidence now covered by a green, hairy fuzz. After the neighbor had left he stormed into my room, furious, the lobes of his ears blazing red.

"Do you have any idea how embarrassed you've made me?" he snarled.

I ticked them off, mentally: Thin and not buffed. No good at sports. Speaks like people on TV instead of West Virginian. Not mechanically inclined. Zones out during Navy stories. Makes his own puppets.

"No," I lied.

"Bill and I found your drawers full of mess."

Oh yeah, that one.

"He saw it just the same as me. Now everybody in the neighborhood knows just what it is you do."

But do they know why? I'm guessing not. I can't imagine the housewives got on the phone with one another and traded ideas on
how to insert water into their kids' colons against their will if they've done something wrong and are in need of punishment. You know, their enema tips.

QueenAdreena--Jolene

Holy hell! It's the point where Tor and Ray's minds collide!

Fake internet friend Troy Palmer posted it on his Facebook page and I had to swipe it for here. Wasn't familiar with this band but after seeing this I want more!

More Carl Einar Häckner

My new favorite magician has gobs of clips on YouTube.
Click here to see him go nuts on German television. Never mind if you don't speak the language; see it through to the end.

Socks

Since hitting puberty, the common sock—tube or dress—has been my preferred article of choice for cleaning up the aftermath of the act of masturbation. It’s generally the last garment one takes off before sliding beneath the covers, usually piled into a heap on the floor, next to the bed in easy reaching distance, which later one can easily toss back to the same general area from whence it came in blissed-out, though solitary, afterglow when aim tends not to be at its best.
It is not a perfect system, as just this morning the cat came lumbering onto the bed and up my body with a cotton, men’s crew-length seemingly glued to its butt. It was not a problem for long, as fortunately cats are just so flingable. She bounced off the edge of a dresser but the sock stayed put. I was forced to grab an end and peel it away with a gooey, tearing noise, a tuft of cat hair remaining in place as though the sock had chosen to grow a mustache. I did not eat breakfast.
At thirteen, I discovered the concept of necessary camouflage. If you squirt your spew into a white tube sock and toss it under the bed, in a matter of days the invisible white-on-white color scheme will transform into a viscous and crusty dried yellow, giving the game away. If you blow your nose into the same sock, though, the dried snot will blend with the other body fluid and you can explain yourself to the person in the family who does the laundry by saying you were too tired to get out of bed and find a Kleenex. Trouble is, the dried spunk can have a sharp edge and inflict upon your nose the equivalent of a very nasty paper cut. Handy tip: it is much easier to tell your mother that in the act of blowing your nose your fingernail accidentally scratched your flesh than to admit the truth that your own crusted semen has done damage and also recently intermingled with your bloodstream.
Pounding the pud is no longer the wondrous phenomena it was at puberty and is now an involuntary, yet necessary, activity like respiration or sweating. So I tend to forget when and where I’ve done it. Given what happened last week, I should probably start making some kind of chart with gold stars and smiley faces.
I’d hit the snooze alarm way past the point of timely arrival to work. I’d blown off the concept of shaving, rationalizing that my scruffy look would be taken as the apex of cool rather than a wino stumbling into a pressboard cubicle. I had no clean laundry, so I simply pulled items out of a pile, squirted them down with Febreeze and threw them in the dryer to fluff out the wrinkles. No time for a shower, so I rubbed an anti-perspirant stick over every square inch of my body. It was from the Axe line of products and I hadn’t bathed; I figured my scent would be too peculiar to be identifiable, like what would happen if someone burned a stick of Nag Champa incense in a pile of parmesan cheese.
Not thinking, racing to exit my apartment in time to make it to work, I suddenly discovered there was not a clean sock in the house. It was winter; it was cold; so I figured I could re-wear yesterday’s hosiery as it hadn’t been hot enough for my feet to perspire and send out their usual scent, which in summer tends to be along the line of Viet Nam Mustard Gas. I pulled on the recycled socks, forgetting entirely about their former use as a Splooge squeegee, and ran out of the house, hoping to get to work without a write-up.
Half a block down the street I noticed that my feet felt, well, slimy.
Suddenly it hit me just what that tapioca-pudding-like sensation actually was, smearing against the balls of my feet. I could have turned around. I could have gone back into the house and hand washed some socks in the sink using a combination of shampoo, dishwashing liquid and foaming face masque; drying them later by wrapping them onto the nozzle end of a hair dryer and letting them inflate with hot air like a Rugrats balloon at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but no. If I kept on walking, I could make it to work just in the nick of time.
So I did just that. Squish, squish, squish. Five minutes later, Jon, in the next cubicle, pulled me over and whispered in my ear.
“So I guess someone got lucky last night.”
“What?” I asked.
“Dude. You absolutely reek of sex.”
“Huh?”
“You live the life I dream of,” he said, clapping me on the back.
My semen-infused socks, through the open rivets in my Converse high-tops, were venting the scents of my own jiz dump into the open atmosphere.
“Something smells yummy,” said Pat. “I can’t put my finger on it but I’ve tasted it before…”
The embarrassment was causing my every gland in my body to secrete, particularly the ones in my feet, and the heat blasting from my vented sneakers might as well have been issuing from a ceramic fan heater.
“I know,” said Keckler, several rows over. “It’s sort of a mixture of buttermilk and Clorox.”
“I smell cum,” said Chris, getting to the point.
I stood up and put on my coat, as if going outside for a smoke. Instead I ran to the bathroom, kicked off my shoes, peeled off my pungent socks and threw them into the sink where I squirted them down with a sizeable quantity of liquid hand soap. I ran hot water over them, doing my best to wash away the remnants of my joy juice. I figured walking around the rest of the day in wet socks, which perhaps might smell of wet dog, would be better than throwing off an aroma of a popular male body fluid. What, unfortunately, I hadn’t taken into consideration was the simple act of locking the door.
My boss, Steve, walked in on me. Now, Steve is great because he is so low-key and unlike every other supervisor I’ve ever had he’s not up your ass every minute of the day. But the man has his limits, and walking in to see me barefoot and hosing the DNA off my socks in the employee restroom may have crossed one of these or two.
“Dan, what are you doing?”
“Washing my socks.”
“Oh. Ok,” he said, beating a hasty retreat. The less known, the better. This is why Steve is the best boss ever.
I squished my way back into Cubicle City, fragrant water flowing out the rivets in my sneakers and leaving moist footprints.
“I smelled it and then it was gone,” said Chris. “It was like a poltergeist was masturbating and suddenly the house was clean.”
Jon leaned over and sniffed me. “Oh, you went and had one of those whore baths in the sink. You don’t smell like Fuck Town quite so much.”
“Shut up, Jon,” I hissed.
And I got away with it. The phantom, spew-drenched aroma was not associated with me or my vile shoes.
But the sock thing is still causing problems. A motherfucking bat flew into my window last summer, pounced onto my footwear and flew away with a dark stretch-sock pasted to its chest. It flapped around my room, bouncing off the walls, until it banged against the ceiling against the rafters just above my open, girly, screaming mouth, where the sock dislodged and fell straight down into my open cavity. The dried semen flaking into my mouth wasn’t the problem. It was just that, out of habit, I’d also blown my nose in it.

The Poetry of Lung Function

A bit of fiction where a cigarette butt hits on a gum wrapper. Click on the title if you want to read it. I wrote this one about ten years ago.

Suede--Sleeping Pills

An old song that brings up memories from a decade even before.

Absinthe

Ah, one of the true joys life has to offer is sipping a glass of a splendidly-crafted absinthe. So much mis-information and crap is out there: if you believe half of what you read on the net you'll think that after half a glass you'll see your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Not so. Here, Lance Winters describes the effects, the myths and the production of this legendary drink.



St. George's is by far the best tasting of the domestic absinthes I've tried. Lucid is ok, and I like the convenience of having it available at the liquor store on the way home, but it's not a world-beater. Consumer tip: any brand with the word 'bohemian' on the label will taste like lighter fluid mixed with window cleaner, although not as pleasant. This is not a historically accurate absinthe at all but a clever marketing ploy when people from the Czech Republic found they could put any kind of high-octane hooch in a bottle and call it absinthe. Stay away! You should probably also steer clear of Absente Grande, which tastes like a black gumdrop. Haven't tried it, but hearing good things about Trillium, distilled in Portland, Oregon.

By far the yummiest absinthe I've ever tasted is the Absinthe Eduoard by Jade Liqueurs. It costs an arm and a leg but is astounding to drink. The internet absinthe nerds will say I'm slumming, but I also enjoy Mari Mayans, a Spanish absinthe. Absinthe has never been outlawed in Spain, so supposedly the stuff is about as historically accurate as you can get. The glow-in-the-dark color makes me wonder, though. Still, for taste, I like it a lot.

Pariah The Clown

In the Spookshow canon this is one of my favorites. Deep within the vaults there is even a version with me playing guitar, but I still like this keyboards-only version better. What is presented here is a remake of a really old track where I sang, but again I like this version better, especially without my no-talent voice fucking with things. Click on the title to listen or save one of my finer moments.

Let's Call The Library

Another one from the never-borne Spookshow In Your Pants radio show. Joe and I were bored and thought we'd call the story line at our local library. The music is from a jam session when me and non-descript lived across the street from one another. Click on the title to listen or save.

Driving Drunken Idiot

Ray sent me this after watching 'Kitty Cat Dance' and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Wasn't familiar with this guy's work but on the strength of this I checked out more. Turns out he's a college kid named Damian and a bona-fide internet celeb among a certain demographic. His older stuff is funny but I think he's really hit a new level with this one. Far more professional than the other dorm-room hijinx. His friend Kyle who plays the drunk guy is a freaking comedy genius waiting to be discovered. Frickin' hysterical.

Edit 3/8: Fuck it, I had an embedded post but Blogger crops the living shit out of any YouTube vid posted, so instead click on this link to go directly to YouTube to see it there. The reduced screen chopped out half the funny, so it's much better watching here.

Nuprin

This is another mostly true story from my days in Cincinnati. It happened in the same time period as 'Pedro Wants A Buddy Boy' and 'Making My Living In Sandy Land' so I guess it constitutes part of a trilogy. Click on the title if you want to read or save my tale of being around someone more highly-strung than I.

A Prayer For Miss Melba

Brother Russell is a genius when it comes to phone pranking. His character, Melba,is goddamn freaky. Spookshow In Your Pants took one of his calls to Bob Larsen, the crazed, fundy talk-show host and set it to music. Click on the title if you want to listen to a religious nut praying with what he thinks is an old lady.

Five Guys

Have you had one of these things yet? Jesus creeping shit, these folks sell the best burger I've ever tasted. One opened up half a block from where I work and I suspect they must put morphine in them because I've been there every day this week. Five Guys burgers are drippy and gooey and have enough grease to turn your aorta into a Crazy Straw, but man, are they tasty.

When you order a burger there you actually get two patties; you specifically have to indicate that you want a 'little' burger if you want only one. I always go for the cheeseburger, which has a La Brea tar pit of cheese slathered between the meat slabs. Then you get to pick your toppings which includes all the standard burger accessories but also gives you a choice of grilled mushrooms, A-1, grilled onions, hot sauce or whatever. No heat lamps here, each thing you order is cooked right then and there, which accounts for a slight delay in waiting time but oh good lordy it's worth it. They way I figure, it gives me time to stare at the overly-pale Emo dude behind the counter so it's a pretty even trade-off.

Five Guys' French fry situation is off the hook. If you order a regular size, they give you a small cup of fries but then act like total freaks and dump three times as much into your to-go bag on top of the rest of your order. You literally have to dig your way through French fries to get to the main course. These come in either the regular or Cajun spice variety. You could seriously make a meal of the damn fries, which is too bad because a 'regular' hamburger is more than enough to fill anyone up. To look at the hamburger wrapped in foil, no, but looks can be deceiving. The total onslaught of meat, meat, meat puts enough dead cow fat in your stomach to induce a near-psychedelic experience. In between clutching my belly and groaning I saw my deceased grandmother masturbating with a cattle prod and bitch-slapping Wendy.

They only offer burgers, fries and hot dogs. That's it. Today, I opted for the hot dog. It was like wrapping my mouth around God's main vein. Assuming it had been split in half, the pieces placed side by side on a bun and topped with onion, tomato, pickles and mustard. But hell, he's omnipotent; he can take it. Again, more food than I am incapable of ingesting so I spent the remainder of the work day moaning like I was in labor.

Here's a handy tip: At the drink station they have Minute Maid fake lemonade on tap but right next to it they have a caddy full of lemon wedges, presumably for the iced tea. Fill a cup with Minute maid, then grab a handful of lemon wedges and squeeze it into your drink, then plop the rest, peels and all, into the cup. It really sparks things up a notch. Granted, your hands will smell like you've been experimenting with urban legend contraceptive formulas, but it's worth it.

The stuff's a little pricey. But for the amount of food you get and the quality it's an outstanding value.

Okay, my new career as food critic for the New York Times is assured. Assuming that whole giving head to God thing isn't a stumbling block.

Kitty Cat Dance

While most of my time is spent obsessing over serial murders, owl molestation, hot tapioca enemas, anorexics with nipple clamps, skull-fucking Irish Setters, peeling the skin from Karen Black, going up against John Wayne Gacy in a yodeling contest, nuns shitting live mice and forcing the Jonas Brothers to surrender their purity rings inside my bowels...a very real part of my brain looks and sounds exactly like this:

Konxari Cards

Got my set tonight...



So I figured, I'm game, and gleefully ignoring the instructions to never use the cards alone (which technically wasn't the case since the cat is here, I did my first spread. You shuffle the cards, and lay them out in Who, What, Where, When, Why, How order, along with two other positions representing The Problem and The Solution.

Oh. My. God.

The Where position was a card called 'The Closet' (keep your jokes to yourself.) What makes this creepy is that my apartment back in Victorian times, used to be a home for unwed mothers. Upon moving in I discovered a boarded up

Young Forever

I know. Me posting a Jay-Z clip is like seeing a Miley Cyrus video that has a severed head and a rape scene, or a 50 Cent concert featuring a surprise, walk on appearance by Wayland Flowers and Madame. (I guess it would be quite the surprise, since the man, and presumably his puppet, have been dead for years.) This is so top-40, so unlike who I am. Except that back in the day when I was coming of age I was a HUGE Alphaville fan--the band that wrote the original song Mr. Z is rapping over. "Forever Young" was in fact my favorite out of all they did. What Jay-Z has done here is vocalize in no uncertain terms the thoughts and feelings this song evoked when I listened to it all those years ago, although perhaps far more eloquently than I could have put into words at the time, since I was all about zingers and never putting my real feelngs out there. Decades down the road, the original words and Jay-Z's addition cause me to experience the song with a whole new meaning, given that I'll be rounding the corner soon enough and the feeling of immortality has been replaced by the fear that you never know when they're going to close down the show. So live like you're young, savor every opportunity, or as Warren Zevon advised when he knew he was terminal, "Enjoy every sandwich."



Oh, one more thing. A rap video where they censor the word "weed." What the hell is wrong with you kids?

Ingrid the Happy Swede

An older short story, that frankly needs to be ran through the Huff-O-Matic a few more times before I can say I like it, but what the hell, I'll post it anyway. It's about an insufferable neighbor that fortunately moved away. Click on the title to read it.

History

This is from the now-defunct arthoar.com site which once housed the definitive history of Spookshow In Your Pants:


SPOOKSHOW IN YOUR PANTS

The phenomenon known as Spookshow In Your Pants started in 1990 after the accidental combination and ingestion of several household cleaning products. Charles Nelson Reilly appeared to members of the band wearing a poodle skirt and floating in clouds of ammonia/chlorine gas, whereupon he commissioned the composition of music befitting his eventual 1000 year reign on earth before the seven seals are opened and the apes take over. SSIYP met this challenge head on and immediately began constructing an immense cream cheese pipe organ (to this day the backbone of their sound) in order to properly convey his mighty, nasal glory. Their sonic scope expanded in 1993 after second-dealing their way through a high stakes poker game and winning a Vegas novelty act consisting of a six piece horn section played by specially trained cats. Tragedy befell the band in '97 when it was discovered their lead singer, despite his protests to the contrary, didn't actually exist. SSIYP immediately re-grouped and, hoping to ride the lucrative boy-band trend to the top of the charts, began their strictly enforced policy of mandatory cheekbone implants, some members sporting up to seven or eight pairs. The dawn of a new century brought exciting changes, finally, in the form of a recording contract! If the band agreed to buy seven more at regular prices within the scope of two years, it read, they could get the first six CDs for only a penny. It was during this period they composed their masterwork, the title of which no one bothered to remember; the master tapes unfortunately ending up baked in a pudding. Currently the band is wishing away their future without actively pursuing a single goal in a tangible manner. This may continue for some time.

Get Your Tentacles Off My Pentacles

Not much to say about this one other than the opening spoken bit is from the same session I mentioned in 'Even It Out' where I was roaring drunk and recorded myself just so I could later be properly embarassed. The rest is from a vintage Bozo the Clown cartoon with my music thrown overtop.

Click on the title to listen or save.

Good Times/Bad Times

I'm currently reading Riding James Kirkwood's Pony, a biography of one of my favorite authors. I read his novel Good Times/Bad Times when I was 18 and it felt like someone had peeped inside my head and stolen my soul. I had just graduated from the crazy Christian nightmare world of private school, and this novel, about a boy away at prep school, was so on target with not only that world but the one inside that I almost felt violated. How dare someone put in print the things I was feeling but could not speak!

My mother found and read the book and immediately declared it 'filth', probably because the religious headmaster in the story is revealed for what he is instead of being seen as the mouthpiece of God, which in my world the people who were teaching me were supposed to be; at least they'd better be for the tuition my folks were paying. The book completely zeroed in on religous people's penchant for turning the most innocent of situations into fuel for their outraged need for drama. But it also focused on EVERYONE'S need for a best friend.

Kirkwood wrote a number of novels, including P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, another good one, but Good Times/Bad Times remains my favorite. I read it every couple of years or so and it always takes me back. Always. As an adult, I realize the prose is not nearly as genius as I thought it was at 18, but the story and the mindset is outstanding. I hope this thing never goes out of print.

If you want to read it, you can order it insanely cheap from Amazon here.

Fun With Verizon

I bought the Verizon USB760, advertised as "wireless broadband" and it's been hell. I even popped for a signal accelerator from a third party company but still, if I try to watch net video it plays for ten seconds, stalls for a full minute, plays another ten seconds, stalls another minute, and so on and so on. Thing is, I have a damned strong signal but apparently that means nothing.

I called Verizon and the service rep told me, "Well, wireless broadband isn't the same thing as actual broadband." This is like being suckered into an ad for a jet-powered Volkswagon. "Wait a minute...I've been in a jet but this thing is spluttering and clunking down the street..."

"Well, Volkswagon jet-powered is not the same as actual jet-powered."

Then the guy tried to sell me on the fact that the G4 network will be coming out at the end of the year, which supposedly promises to replicate cable broadband. But, hello, this is only fucking February and the end of the year is a long way off. Plus, I'd have to buy a new G4-compatible toy to get it to work.

Thing is, the Verizon Droid is an awesome phone and streams net content without skipping a beat. Why can't they use the same technology for the modem as they do the phone? It's amazing, but the USB 760 is the dictionary definition of rip-off. Apparently this thing is good for checking your e-mail but that's all it does. It's not broadband in the slightest; it's dial-up circa 1990.

I'll be returning this piece of shit tomorrow. Buyer beware.

UPDATE 3/3/10: Ditching Internet Explorer for Google Chrome has made this worlds more practical. Video sputters a bit during the first minute, but then plays fine for the duration of the show. Google Chrome is way faster, so in the chance I might wind up somewhere without Wi-Fi or net access I'm keeping the gizmo and the account after all.