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#i feel like a lot of people's automatic idea of queerness is the first four letters. when they say 'queer' they arent considering aspec ppl
frauggietheperson · 2 years
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reblog if you fully and intentionally are referring to aspec people as well when you use the word queer to refer to the community
clarification in tags
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feedmecookiesnow · 4 years
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love the one you’re with
For the anon who requested: “Can you write something for winterhawk where one of them gets nervous about PDA or being together publicly because lgtbq community wasn’t accepted for a while? (I have issues myself 😅)”
I’m sorry this has taken me so long to get to! As a fairly straight person, this isn’t something I’ve ever experienced personally, so I was asking around for some details to help me get this right. Thank you for your patience, and I hope this is what you were looking for.
***
“Can I ask you something?”
Bucky looks over at Clint. He’s hanging upside down on the couch, lazily throwing darts at the opposite wall. They’re forming some kind of pattern, although it’s too early to tell what yet.
“Yes, your abs look good like that,” Bucky tells him.
Clint snorts. “I know that. That’s not the question.” He throws another dart.
“What’s the question?”
“Why won’t you hold my hand when we’re in public?”
Bucky freezes in the middle of flipping a waffle onto a plate. “What?”
“Whenever we’re out.” Clint rolls onto his stomach and pushes upright. Bucky eyes the muscles in his back appreciatively. “You’ll touch me here, or in front of the team, but whenever we go out it’s like you shut down. Even when we’re on dates.”
“I don’t...” Bucky thinks about it. “Do I?”
“Yeah. Even if I initiate it, you pull away after a bit.”
Bucky clears off the griddle and snaps it off. “I don’t mean to.”
“So why do you?”
He sounds defensive about it, almost. Or something like that. They haven’t been officially dating long, and Bucky still finds it hard to read his tones sometimes. “I don’t know. Come eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You were hungry ten minutes ago.”
“I---” Clint stops, looks at the waffles. “Will you just answer the question, please?”
Bucky studies him for a moment. He’s rolling a dart between his fingers, and his whole body is tense. Keyed up, almost. Like he’s ready to bolt out the door.
“You think I’m ashamed of us,” Bucky guesses. “Of being with you.”
“It’s crossed my mind,” Clint says, trying and failing to look like this thought doesn’t bother him. “I mean, I know you and Steve used to be a thing, and I’m not anything compared to him. I’m irritating and hard to deal with and I mess shit up a lot. We don’t look like we go together at all. I get it if you don’t want to be seen with me.”
Bucky bursts out laughing.
It’s probably the wrong move, judging by his face, but Clint is just so far off the mark that it’s almost absurd.
“It’s not you,” he finally gets out. “Were you really thinking that? That’s not even close to being true. I love everything about you, irritating parts and all. You are not the problem here. Not even a little bit.”
Clint looks relieved. “So what is it, then?”
“It’s everyone else.” Bucky rubs a hand through his hair. “I mean---it’s just---when Steve and I were together, we had to hide it. If people knew we were queer like that...” He shakes his head. “Steve got beat up enough as it was, you know? They woulda killed him if we weren’t careful. So we had to hide it.”
“You don’t have to hide it now,” Clint says. “It’s the modern age, Buck. It’s okay to be gay. Or queer, or bi, or ace, or whatever the hell you want to be. No one cares.”
Bucky sets the waffles down. “Sure they do. Didn’t you hear those guys the other day? And then last week, you kissed me in the store and that one guy got in your face about it. You almost got your nose broken.”
“So what?” Clint pushes up onto his hands, walks a couple steps, then tucks and rolls up onto his feet. “You just gotta ignore them. That’s what I do. Or punch them, if they deserve it. I mean, anyone who gets in a fight with us is gonna regret it. That guy did.”
“It’s not that easy, Clint.”
“Sure it is.”
“It’s not.”
Clint looks at him. “It really bothers you, huh?”
Bucky shrugs helplessly.
“Why haven’t you said something?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping it would go away.”
Clint snorts and sits down, pulling a waffle over. “Because ignoring your problems is the best way to deal with them?”
“Okay, you are so not one to talk about ignoring problems.”
“Fair.” He takes the syrup out of Bucky’s hand and starts prying at the cap. “I wish you would’ve told me, though. You can talk to me about this stuff.”
“I know. I just...” Bucky takes the syrup back and pops the cap off, then hands it to him. “It’s really ingrained. I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time.” He sighs. “It’s just different. I spent my whole relationship with Steve trying not to talk about it, or show anything that would make people think that about us. And then there was Hydra and the whole Winter Soldier thing, you know.”
“That minor incident, yeah,” Clint says. He turns the bottle over and somehow manages to miss the plate entirely. “Aw, syrup, no.”
Bucky reaches over to the sink and tosses him a washcloth. “Anyway. I guess I’ve never really had a chance to work past it. I like you, and I want to be with you, But every time we’re out there---” he gestures to the window “---it’s like it all comes back to me. Even something as easy as holding hands just screams danger in my head. I don’t want you to get hurt because some asshole’s got an opinion about a couple of guys being together.”
“You’re worth getting hurt over,” Clint says, getting up to rinse off the cloth. He kisses Bucky’s forehead as he goes by, and Bucky has to take a moment to breathe past the sudden lump in his throat. “But I understand. I’m glad you told me.” He thinks for a moment, then brightens up. “I have an idea.”
“No,” Bucky protests, because Clint’s ideas inevitably end up with something going terribly wrong. He adores the hell out of Clint, but he also has absolutely no idea how one person manages to get into so much trouble. “Steve will kill us if he has to bail us out of jail again.”
“No one’s going to jail this time,” Clint says. “I promise.”
“We’d better not, because Tony still brings that up, and I’m really tired of hearing about it.”
“No jail. You’ll like this, I promise.”
Bucky doesn’t ask further. Clint would probably tell him if he pushed, but he also knows that it makes Clint happy to surprise him with things, so he just swallows down his questions and reaches for the syrup.
------
Two nights later, Clint knocks on the bathroom door. “You in here?”
“No, it’s a ghost,” Bucky says. “Of course it’s me, who the hell else would it be?”
Clint chuckles. “Okay, good point. Are you almost ready?”
“Yeah, yeah, give me a sec. Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Canada. Specifically, Toronto.”
Bucky blinks in surprise. “Canada?”
“Yep.”
“Toronto?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see when we get there.” He knocks again. “Come on. Nat has graciously agreed to fly us.”
“Really?”
“Okay, so I bribed her. Same thing.” He knocks for the third time. “Come on, I’ve already got a bag packed for you.”
Bucky looks in the mirror one more time. He’s slightly nervous for this, although he’s not sure why. “Yeah, okay.”
He steps out into the hallway, and nearly starts laughing at the look on Clint’s face. Bucky doesn’t think he’s wearing anything particularly special---it’s just nicer jeans and a dark grey shirt, but Clint looks like he’s been sucker-punched at the sight.
“Gonna catch flies like that,” Bucky informs him, but Clint doesn’t appear to be listening. He’s too busy dragging his eyes all over Bucky, from his legs to his chest to his arms and finally back up to his face.
“Ah,” he manages after a moment, a strangled sort of noise that Bucky wants to hear again in a slightly different context. “You, uh. You look good.”
“Not too bad yourself, doll,” Bucky says, kissing his cheek. “I like the jacket.”
Clint looks down at it. “Yeah, Nat picked it out. She picked out all of this, actually. Something about not trusting me to dress myself.”
“Figures. You said you packed a bag? I thought this was a one night thing.”
“Nope. We’re going on a weekend vacation.” He grins at Bucky. “We deserve it.”
“I’m in,” Bucky says immediately. “Can’t remember the last vacation we had.”
“Florida.”
Bucky thinks for a moment. “That was less of a vacation and more of us going off-grid for three days.”
“We take what we can get.” Clint thumbs towards the door. “Let’s go.”
------
They drop their things in their hotel, and then Clint leads him downtown Toronto, navigating through the streets with ease. “Memorized the map,” he says, when Bucky asks how he knows where they’re going. “I wanted to look confident. Is it working?”
“Definitely.”
“Great,” Clint says, two seconds before he trips over his own feet.
Bucky catches him automatically. “Careful,” he murmurs, smirking a little.
“Just testing gravity.” He straightens his jacket and grins at Bucky. “We’re here, anyway.”
“And here is...”
“Have a look.” Clint gestures behind him, and Bucky turns around.
It doesn’t look any different to the other streets they’ve been walking on, and at first he doesn’t get it. “Why...” he starts, and then he sees the crosswalk. It’s painted in rainbow colors, something that he’s come to recognize as having a different meaning beyond just pretty aesthetics. And it’s not just the road either---it’s on the buildings, and in the windows, and painted onto bricks.
Clint gently pulls him out of the way as a tall woman walks past, one arm wrapped around another woman. As Bucky watches, they kiss each other good-bye, then separate at the street corner. Another group of people hustles past, all done up in fancy dresses, and Bucky realizes with slight shock that four out of the five are guys. And it’s not that he’s never seen guys in dresses, but not out in public, and it takes him a moment to wrap his mind around it.
Bucky looks to Clint, who is watching him with an intent expression. “This is the Village,” he says, throwing his arms out. “What do you think?”
“I, uh...”
He turns, looking around at the multitude of pride flags, and the different people walking past, and he feels---
He feels at ease, for once. Relaxed in a way that he normally can’t get while out on dates. He’s always evaluating the crowd when they’re out at home, hyperaware of the fact that someone might see and react poorly to them being together. It’s never quite the violent scene of his youth---he once knew a guy who was beaten near to death for it---but it still happens. There’s still dirty looks, and whispered words, and other things that set his teeth on edge, making him paranoid to even stand too close to Clint sometimes
But this is different. There’s no looks, here. No muttered slurs. He’s pretty sure that he could display his metal arm and kiss Clint in the middle of the street, and nobody would even look twice at them.  
“I love it,” he says honestly, and Clint beams at him.  
“Awesome. I knew you would.” He points across the street. “I made us reservations there. Come on.” He holds out his hand, and after a moment, Bucky puts his own in it. It’s worth the brief flash of discomfort to see the look of joy on Clint’s face.
They get settled at an outdoor table and put in their orders. Bucky sips his beer and looks around at the street, taking it all in. “This is really something else,” he says. “Have you been here before?”
“No, but Steve and Tony were telling me about it. I thought it might be something you’d like.”
Bucky nods. “I do. It’s...it’s nice. I feel like I can relax. Like I don’t have to be worried.”
“You don’t have to be worried anyway,” Clint tells him.
“I know that,” he says. “Believing it’s another story. Some of the shit I used to see, Clint, you can’t even imagine---”
“This isn’t the 40’s anymore,” Clint says carefully. “I know people still suck, but it’s not quite as bad as it used to be.”
“Yeah, but...” Bucky shakes his head. “I’m trying, okay? It’s just hard to shake.”
“I know, Buck.” He leans forward suddenly, setting his beer aside. “Look at me.”
Bucky does, noting the serious set to his face. “I’m listening.”
“Good.” He taps his fingers on the table. “Here’s the deal. I’m insanely happy to be with you. I want to hold your hand in public and kiss you in public and possibly have you bang me in an back alley somewhere.”
Bucky blushes. “Clint, what---”
“Shut up and let me have my fantasies.” Clint winks, then turns serious again. “But I brought you here because I wanted to show you this.” He gestures to the street, and the people walking past. “That there’s places out in the world where you don’t have to hide. You can be proud of who you are, and who you’re with.”
Bucky nods, not sure if he’s really got the words to express what he’s feeling at the moment.
“You don’t have to do this at home,” Clint says. “I don’t want to force you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with. If you need me to play the straight bro with you when we’re in public, I can do that. But I just wanted to show that there’s more people out here, like us. We’re not alone. It’s okay for you and me to be together, and it’s okay to show that we’re together.”
He reaches out and covers Bucky’s hand. “There’s always gonna be assholes and people making comments or staring. I can’t stop them. But I like you too much to let it bother me, and I’m hoping that one day you can get to the point where you feel the same.”
“I...”
Clint smiles at him. “I’m in this for the long run, okay? And it’s gonna take a lot more than some moron with an opinion to scare me off of you. Got it?”
“Got it,” Bucky says quietly. “Thank you, doll.”
“I got your back,” Clint says just as quietly, squeezing his hand. “Always.”
“I know you do.” Bucky smiles at him. “You’re my guy.”
“Damn straight.” He pauses, then says, “Well. Straight might be the wrong term.”
“Oh for fucks sake,” Bucky snorts, burying his face in his hand. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Shut up. You love my puns and you know it.”
Their food arrives, and they spend the rest of the time talking and eating. When they’re done, Clint drops a couple bills on the check before Bucky can and stands up. “Come on,” he says, straightening his jacket. “There’s a bar down the street we gotta see.”
“Why’s that?” Bucky asks, standing up.
“Rumor has it they have a hell of a drag show. I’ve been dying to see it.” He holds out his hand. “Shall we?”
“Happy to,” Bucky says, taking it, and he pulls Clint into a kiss that’s probably not entirely appropriate for a public space. But he doesn’t care, and to realize that he doesn’t care just makes him even happier.
“Okay,” Clint says when they break apart. “You kiss me like that again, and we’re gonna move here full time.”
Bucky laughs. “I think I’d be okay with that,” he says, letting Clint pull him away from the table. “I like it here.”
“Me too,” Clint says with a grin, tucking his hand more firmly into Bucky’s. “Me too.”
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god it WILL NOT stop bothering me until i talk about it. the way we got here. it’s not just about the book anymore, not at all, and it’s certainly never been about “shipping”, at this point it’s how helpless the tactics of the guy make me feel.
step one: refer to people who have read previous venom books and noticed the trend throughout the nineties to portray eddie and the symbiote as a man and an agender alien in an ambiguously or not-so-ambiguously romantic relationship, which was picked up on and completely unambiguously canonised in the very last run, consistently refer to these people as “shippers”, lovingly condescend to them, do not ever treat “the ship” as existing beyond their imagination
[I LOVE THAT YOU GUYS EXIST]
result: make people forget that this is a complete misrepresentation and he has received no criticism whatsoever for “not making a ship canon” because that is not what he did, he decanonised it and then denied doing so and painted everyone it ever meant something to as essentially deluded - and, considering that that’s all they are, he’s being awfully kind and accommodating, isn’t he?
evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!
step two: actively seek out these no-good shippers on tumblr! tell them that you’re watching them! read their detailed posts in which they express their grievances about your comic book to their friends and misrepresent their points on your twitter so your bajillion followers can affirm that Those People are categorically wrong about everything!
[EDDIE IS CODEPENDENT]
people are mad at him because he said eddie was codependent! not because he’s reframing the extremely rare story of a troubled queer relationship that was ultimately still a redemptive force in these characters’ lives as an unhealthy compulsion that corrupts, hm, what a fresh and unfamiliar take, no reason why this would strike a nerve - and, recently, of course, as something inherently abusive, every bit of hope and change for the better vile and fake.
literally just start vaguing about people’s personal tumblr blogs on your professional twitter account with the little, little blue checkmark and everything, use that to make passive-aggressive references to people’s posts! why not!
[LOVE EACH OTHER]
people talk about how they like a symbiote and its host getting along (and they did, that very night, talk quite a lot about ngozi)? that is so dumb and lame.
[EVERYTHING IS AWESOME]
people get sick of edgy shock factor writing that throws one dark theme after another at them without treating any of them with the consideration they deserve? people expect some moments of levity in a venom book?
they’re asking for stories with no conflict where nothing bad ever happens! but it’s okay, he knows better, he knows you just don’t know what you want! it’s not like endless sadness is just as likely to be dreadfully boring or unintentionally hilarious as endless happiness!
result: o w n e d god he sure is shutting down every point no one has ever made
evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!
step three: literally get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only boil their opinions down to THE SHIIIIP but literally say that their opinions don’t matter because they literally would never say it “to your face” literally because it’s “easy to be brave on tumblr”
literally
say these words
[IT’S EASY TO BE BRAVE ON TUMBLR]
call people chicken shits for NOT talking to you directly! and then! BLOCK everybody who talks to you directly! or quote retweet them so your followers can descend like vultures! actually acknowledge that it takes bravery to interact with you if you’re in the Tumblr Demographic, you know, one of Those People, and frame yourself as in the right for it???
am i losing my mind???
[SIX PEOPLE ON TUMBLR]
get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only claim they’re the only people ever to talk badly of it but imply that you’re one step away from namedropping the specific perpetrators. that’s not ominous at all!
it’s an age-old question: how many times does one of marvel’s top writers with legions of fans have to imply his antagonistic awareness of your specific existence before you’re on a first name basis? and also paranoid?
result: stir shit. be a shit stirrer. faint when your shit stirring does in fact stir shit. you can’t go “you would never” and be surprised when people do, you... can’t...
evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!
step four: whip out your ally card... to whip the people you’re supposed to be allied to with it. try to use your knowledge of queer issues to shut down actual queer people.
[I DON’T THINK IT’S APPROPRIATE TO ASSUME GENDER]
either that, or straight-up make a “did you just assume my gender” joke. i can’t find the original tweet anymore, so it’s possible it was that and he deleted it because it was too blatant, lol.
result: MAYBE YOU GUYS WERE THE PROBLEMATIC ONES ALL ALONG
evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!
step five: remember that interview where he outright stated that he just wants to, just to be the definite venom run? just to put the biggest dent in canon he can? just to break everybody’s toys and emerge victorious as the one person with the valid take on venom?
yeah, those things become more noticeable in the actual book, over time, and acceptance of that is, uh, not universal? not everybody’s up for him spending several issues in a row on e s t a b l i s h i n g  d o m i n a n c e by having eddie sit around as other characters tell him that a ton of stuff other writers from michelinie to thompson to costa to kaminski to slott to jenkins have done actually sucked and was wrong and fake and never happened? through retcons that make no sense, like, factually don’t fit?
people don’t like you walking back character and relationship development to further your end goal of recasting the symbiote as the personification of addiction and abuse instead of itself a survivor of extreme abuse who has been constantly denied personhood in a way that is frighteningly resonant and who has been going through a genuine redemption arc for years now?
people don’t like you acting like eddie never had a reason for being who he is before and you had to make one up? one that doesn’t fit the character at all, which you didn’t realise because you apparently thought the character had no characterisation before you came along?
you can imagine how these things might spark nerd rage?
and you can probably imagine who this nerd rage was blamed on, yeah?
these criticisms inherently require knowledge of venom canon, because they’re largely about disrespect for it, these criticisms are not related to shipping of any kind - but of course the only thing people could possibly be mad about is the "ship", the only ones making a fuss are those “shippers”, those casuals, Those People who only care about One Thing and don’t understand the real gritty reality of the, god you get it i’m making fun
[I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT]
you’re the only one, don. it’s true.
and i know, i know for a fact, that he’s been aware of criticism from other groups all along, that he was, for example, witness to this livestream that spends like a solid hour a month mercilessly dragging him through the dirt, and you know what the extent of his response was?
thanks for checking the book out.
that’s it. that’s all. this guy hasn’t gotten any less loud about criticising him, either. wishing for his book’s cancellation and retconning. but nothing more. he gets to keep to himself. he is #valid.
people have been taking the piss out of him on youtube, on reddit. only tumblr ever earned his ire. only tumblr gets namedropped at convention panels.
and now, now more than ever? you better believe your regular run-of-the-mill nerds, straight, male, utterly uninterested in the icky stuff, everything, are mad. almost everyone who’s truly tits deep in venom lore is mad.
and so he’s said he’s received threats. and i’m sure he has. i’ve received threats. you’ve received threats. it’s never okay. it sure as shit never helps to send them.
he’s gotten a lot of fucking inappropriate personal vitriol! lots of it actually “ship”-related! i’m categorically against contacting the guy for any reason!
but who is to blame? who do people accept as being to blame? who do news outlets report on as being to blame? when, i presume, not every single one of them actually went “i’m doing this specifically because i’m a (thunder clap) shipper”? when large-scale retcons are literally always met with nerd rage? when a shipper-less fandom probably still would’ve had threats?
[THIS IS INSANE]
[IT’S THE SHIPPERS]
result: if all criticism = “shippers”, and “shippers” = harassment, then everyone who has no actual idea of what’s going on but who doesn’t like “shippers” is automatically on his side and nobody who isn’t a “shipper” wants to risk the association by criticising him.
get this stuff out to his followers, to news outlets, to people completely uninvolved and contextless, and watch the bile run over everywhere because lots of people are ready to accept this narrative in comic book spaces.
have people in the replies and comments eagerly discussing how this is more proof that c+o+m+i+c+s+gate was right and they’re the only reasonable ones. how disgusting and crazy "shippers” are. how donny should keep doing his best to trigger the gays. there’s no pushback against these ideas.
and i’m so fucking stuck between wanting to defend the man, wring my hands and apologise on behalf of the other These People, because i don’t see anything justifiable in their actions, and in being... just... just so frustrated... with everything... with throwing everyone out to the dogs... and claiming that he doesn’t mean to... when he has this whole history of belittling "shippers” specifically... of making sure their public image is that of people who just don’t know what they’re talking about and are in no way worth empathising with... of only drawing attention to the aggressive ones and blocking the reasonable ones
when he literally only stands to benefit from doing all this. 
this is massive amounts of free positive pr.
this makes him essentially immune to criticism of any kind.
evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes! 
i forgot! somewhere along the line, he did do something very good and disavowed association with co/mics/ga/te!
[C0M1C5G8]
why the fuck am i censoring? tumblr search stopped working decades ago.
anyway, it should come as no particular surprise why these people assumed he would side with them. not that any high profile writer who values his standing would, really. are there any? maybe there are, i’m not up to date on this drama.
i just think it’s funny - genuinely not his fault, but hilarious - that this was apparently enough to inspire a “boycott”? and it was a fart in the wind?
which is the least surprising thing ever because there is actually nothing whatsoever to hold these people’s ire to be found in venom? excluding aliens, there has been one real and present character who isn’t a white guy in 11 issues? it is actively less queer than it was before? donny has never caved to the essjaywoo pressure in any way, shape or form? what were they... thinking? it’s almost like these people are dumb?
all they've done is ensure that, without it actually doing anything, venom gets the commendation for being A Comic The Gators Don't Like?
anyway.
what do we do moving forward? i don’t know. nothing. not harassing anyone. keep being salty on tumblr. do not engage him. i think i’m more about stalling the chain reaction he’s caused than the man himself. if you’re not a “shipper”, of course, keep posting your criticism, maybe stand up for “shippers” who are being dogpiled over genuine criticism, don’t let people say This Is All Proof Of How You Can’t Have Queer Content Because Queers Are Crazy.
and be nice to mike costa.
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theheavymetalmama · 5 years
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And now, some Unpopular Opinions!
Because at this point, why the hell not?
Iron Man was better than The Dark Knight
I am in no way, shape, or form suggesting that The Dark Knight is a bad movie. Far from it, in fact. It’s a damn good movie with some fantastic performances, a gripping story, and some of the best written characters and dialogue in the history of movie making. So is Iron Man the better movie? For one, it’s not so stuck up its’ own ass about its’ message. The Dark Knight is a lot of things and one of them is pretentious as fuck, come off as less of a love letter to Batman and more of a method of the director Chris Nolan showing how much he has nothing but contempt for superheroes and comic books in general. Iron Man, in contrast, embraces it and has fun with the idea of a guy who builds a mech suit and fights bad guys. There’s also the question of influence, and that right there is no contest. The Dark Knight influenced Batman; Iron Man influenced the entire movie industry.
Final Fantasy XV was a massive disappointment
I kind of feel bad for dunking on this game considering they just cancelled the last of the DLC. Then again the last of the DLC was going to expand on Lady “Show Up and Blow Up” Lunafreya and Aranea “I’m here and now I’m not” Highwind’s stories and now we’re not getting them and I’m still bitter as fuck for the director’s pathetic excuse for why a girl couldn’t attend the coming of age road trip, so all bet’s are off! Okay, the ladies getting shafted aside, there is a lot to like about Final Fantasy XV, but was it worth the tedious development time? No way in hell. The game looks good but like many open world games feels mostly lifeless and empty, and of the four main characters only one of them is likable and isn’t even playable in the game’s vanilla form. The story is a broken mess that requires other forms of media to fully grasp (dick fucking move there, Squeenix) and the summons coming at random times serves as more of an annoyance than anything, especially since they always seem to show up except during times when and where they’d be useful. It also doesn’t say good things about a company’s management when a game can sell millions of copies in record time as well as do gangbusters on downloadable content and then still manage to lose over 30 million dollars.
And for the record, let it be known that Noctis is far and away the whiniest and most emo protagonist in Final Fantasy history, which is saying something considering this is a series where one such protagonist’s entire character is being so jaded and world weary to the point that his name is the sound a crying baby makes, and he doesn’t whine and complain as much as Noctis does.
Just because you’re a cop or a soldier, that doesn’t automatically make you a good person
I’m in favor of police and law enforcement and even though I believe our military budget makes Caligula himself look frugal in comparison I do support our troops. Having said that, being a cop or a trooper doesn’t mean jack shit if the person under the uniform is a complete and utter scumbag, which happens more often than many care to admit. In fact some people, many people, become cops and soldiers not to protect and serve or out of a sense of honor and duty, but simply because they like making others miserable and want to do it for a living. There’s a reason songs about fighting the law and unflattering depictions of authority figures date back as far as authority figures have been a thing. Respect is earned, not given.
‘White Nationalist’ and ‘Nazi’ are the same things
Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling somebody who abuses their spouse a rough lover. Stop beating around the bush and tell it like it is. Also, don’t debate Nazis, punch them. Punch them as hard as you fucking can. If they punch you back, punch them again, and again, and again until they either run away (which most of them do) or stop moving. Trust me, nobody is going to miss them. That goes double for the alt right. Oh, and speaking of which...
Far Cry 5 chickened out
As somebody who grew up in a dead gold mining community that was mostly Catholic, when the first trailer for Far Cry 5 came out I was stoked as hell for the chance to gun down religious fanatics and skinheads in a place in rural America that didn’t look all that different. Then the game came out and it was abundantly clear to anybody that something somewhere in the game was changed at the last minute. Some have argued that it was their intention from the get go, others claimed they didn’t want to alienate their core demographic. It doesn’t say nice things about your core demographic if you’re worried about depictions of white supremacist cultists scaring them away, but okay, fine. Then make a game that takes place during the decline of the Ku Klux Klan, or in a post World War II Europe where you hunt Nazi war criminals, or failing that make something akin to Black Dynamite or a wacky 70′s Kung Fu movie where everything is purposefully over the top and exaggerated, I don’t care! All your other games have you gunning down hordes of brown people, let people like me and my husband kill some skinheads god damn it!
If you still support Donald Trump after all the vile and abhorrent things he’s done, you’re a bad person
There’s no beating around the bush on this one. I don’t blame people who were swooned by this conman thinking he’d genuinely make a good president and have since regretted their decision. I have nothing but sympathy for them. No, I’m talking about the people who STILL trip over themselves to defend this vile, homophobic, delusions, misogynist, narcissistic bigot. Like when he called Nazis “very fine people,” or is still pushing for a stupid wall along our border that will be bested by two extension ladders and a pair of tin snips. The travel ban, the rollback on regulations that kept food insecure people fed, kids dying in his fucking concentration camps, yeah, no. He’s a treasonous scumbag who deserves to be locked in an 8x8 cell until he rots, and if you still support him then you can claim the top bunk.
Climate change is real and coal can fuck off
Coal is dead. Let it lay down and rot. What, coal is your only source of income in the area you live in? Then move somewhere else! You think I would have left my hometown if there were any opportunities other than timber, fishing, and tourist traps? Sorry, but the longer we stay in the past with coal the lesser we can look forward to a future where a planet can sustain human life. If we want our planet to live then coal needs to die.
No, the left isn’t “just as bad” as the right
This is a fucking gas lighting farce that immediately falls apart when put under scrutiny. Are there extremists and crazies on the left? Of course there are, but they’re entirely different beasts as those found on the right. The left is more of a “eat enough kale and you can talk to dolphins” or “sleep with crystals under your bed and you can see the future” kinds of crazy, whereas the right is more of the “kill all the queers and let the brown babies starve” kind of crazy. Oh, and to each and every single person who said “Clinton is just as bad as Trump,” y’all can cover your reproductive organs in honey and stick them in a mason jar filled with live bullet ants and tarantula hawks, you ignorant scare mongering shitheels!
“Captain Marvel doesn’t smile!”
So what? She’s a space Navy Seal, not a boy scout like Captain America or Superman; she’s not supposed to smile.
No, the ‘alt left’ doesn’t exist and Antifa aren’t the same as Nazis
Are Antifa breaking the law? Yes. Should they be held accountable for their actions? Yes. Are people who want to kill Nazis exactly the same as people who want to exterminate the Jews and subjugate anybody who isn’t white while wiping other people’s culture off the face of the Earth under an authoritarian rule? Hell to the no and “Antifa is just as bad as the Nazis” is right up there with “Vaccinations cause autism” and “the Earth is flat” on the scale of “If you believe this, you are STUPID.” If Nazis and white supremacists went unopposed they’d go around raping and murdering Jews and non whites until there were absolutely none of them left. You know Antifa would be doing if there weren’t any Nazis around? Sitting in their crappy apartments smoking weed, sipping craft beer, eating pizza, and laughing their asses off at 20 year old Saturday Night Live skits. Ooooooh, scary! Yes, Antifa are assaulting people and destroying public property and yes they should be held accountable for their actions. But I’m not going to pretend, even hypothetically, that Nazi apologist scumbags like Tucker Carlson having his door banged on or actual Nazis like Richard Spencer getting punched in the face is on the same playing field as babies being put in cages, innocent black people being murdered by cops, or Jews being put into ovens, you fucks!
New She Ra is better than Old She Ra and 80′s cartoons in general
If you don’t like the new She Ra and prefer the old one, fine, you do you, but don’t act like the original is “So much better” because it isn’t at all. The villains were jokes, the animation was beyond cheap, the characters all looked the same, there were stupid talking animal sidekicks, and the story went nowhere really fucking fast outside of “Bad guys are doing bad guy stuff, our heroes must stop them” because they were commercials to sell toys. Nothing more, nothing less. If the new She Ra isn’t your bag then that’s all well and good, but don’t be a stupid asshole about it, talking about how it wasn’t featured at PowerCon like it’s a big fucking deal when only sad dorks like us give a shit about conventions, or whine about how you’re being oppressed and censored because a 16 year old isn’t rocking 44DD’s, or talk about “CalArts style” like that’s a real goddamn thing. Oh yeah, and speaking of which...
“CalArts style” is not a thing
Shut the fuck up, no it isn’t. It’s a stupid, meaningless buzzword hurled at people who never fucking went to CalArts in the first place. If you’re perplexed as to why modern cartoons all look like Steven Universe, the simple fact is that cartoons are made predominantly for children and shows are made to be aesthetically pleasing to them. With shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, Star vs the Forces of Evil, and Gravity Falls being soaring success stories while shows like Young Justice, new GI Joe, and 2011 Thundercats ambitious failures, it’s obvious that formal abstractionist non angularity is in while aspirational human physical fitness is out, and a big reason the latter was even a thing in the first place is because they were toy commercials first and there were only so many variations on plastic molds to form the fucking action figures and because it was the 80′s and Arnold was the biggest star at the time.
“Star Wars: the Last Jedi” is a good movie and fanboys can eat bantha poodoo
I’ve heard all the reasons for why The Last Jedi is a bad movie and they’re all either stupid nitpicky bullshit or meaningless fanboy gripes. I could write an entire essay debunking those reasons point for point, like how the reason Holdo didn’t tell Poe a damn thing because no admiral would ever a tell a lowly grunt anything about their plan, especially after being demoted for being a hotheaded little fuckup. Or that Rey being related to Obi Wan or any previous Star Wars character didn’t happen because that would have been stupid and the definition of predictable. Or that the reason Akbar didn’t do the suicide run is because he’s a meme that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about and that there’s no way in Hell that the Mouse would allow a character named “Akbar” to do a suicide run. Or that Kylo Ren not being an intimidating villain is the whole point and that you’re supposed to hate him because he’s a petulant Darth Vader wannabe and a snake to boot. Or that the effectiveness of said suicide run, where Snoke came from, or the state of the Resistance by the end of the movie, or that any other so called ‘plot hole’ doesn’t matter because this is a movie about space wizards for children and paying obsessive attention to meaningless and pedantic details is exactly how we end up with stupid subplots in the Beauty and the Beast remake and Metropolis and Gotham City being across the river from each other! But the biggest one is Luke wasn’t portrayed as some Jedi Clint Eastwood (why fanboys want that eludes me; the EU did that a few times and they were all terrible) and that him exiling himself doesn’t make any sense.
Sorry, but no, Luke running off to a far and unreachable island makes perfect sense. For one, it’s kind of a thing that disgraced Jedi do, and for two, Star Wars is a fairy tale in space. All of the characters draw inspiration from characters and archetypes from fairy tales and fables of old, and the one Luke Skywalker resembles most (largely by design) is King Arthur. Think about it. Common boy who doesn’t know who his real parents are, meets an old wizard, gets a legendary sword, discovers he’s of noble lineage, tags along with a few colorful characters, goes on a quest that’s bigger than him and the life he knew, hits a few bumps down the road, and then eventually he saves the kingdom by overthrowing his father who once was a great man and a hero but gave in to power and corruption and became a dark reflection of his former self.
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You will never unsee that. 
Oh yeah, and remember how things turned out for King Arthur in the end? He started a whole new kingdom, he had a few good years, he grew arrogant, things started to fall apart, and suddenly he and everything he worked to build up were undone overnight by a younger, more vindictive relative. Disgraced, Arthur was whisked away to an unreachable island deep rooted in his own legend and mythology where he remained until Britain had fallen to darkness and needed him again. Now of course Britain as we know it has yet to see such a thing (we’ll see how Brexit turns out) but Luke did exactly that. And no, sorry fanboys, but The Last Jedi wasn’t a failure in any sense of the word. It grossed over a billion dollars, received critical praise, the DVDs and BluRays sold like hotcakes, and was adored by kids, teenagers, and young adults, the primary audience that Star Wars is for in the first place. And I don’t give a shit what the audience score on RT says, because for one aggregate sites are a blight on film criticism and we went from this;
“Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad are AMAZING, Rotten Tomatoes is biased and paid off by Disney!”
To this...
“Star Wars: the Last Jedi is TERRIBLE, Rotten Tomatoes says so!”
In just over a year. To say nothing of the fact that what you’re currently saying about The Last Jedi was also said about The Empire Strikes, and like ‘Empire’ twenty years from now people will look back on the fanboy outrage and say “Wow, what a bunch of babies.” And before the inevitable response...
“But Solo bombed because of The Last Jedi!” 
Nooooo, Solo bombed because it came out right between Infinity War and Deadpool 2, was rife with development issues since day one of production, it was aimed overwhelmingly at fanboys obsessed with Star Wars deep lore answering questions that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about, nobody was even interested in the thing until the Lego Movie guys were signed on for a hot second, moviegoers aren’t currently hurting for cocky space cowboys...
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...and because of the simple fact that it’s a solo movie about Han Solo...and it’s not 1995 and Harrison Ford isn’t in it. See, fanboys don’t realize that just because nerd and geek bullshit is mainstream now doesn’t mean that everyone is now a fanboy deep rooted in everything from where the characters are from to where they’re going, because when people say “I love Star Wars and Han Solo is my favorite character” what the vast majority of them mean is “Those movies with the space wizards and the laser swords are a lot of fun and Harrison Ford is a great movie star.” That’s it. That’s extent of why people like Han Solo. Sad dorks like us may care about stuff like where and when he got the Falcon, how he met Chewie, where the dice came from and all of that and more, but the general audience just wants to see Harrison Ford do cool shit in space. That’s it. To say nothing of the fact that nobody was even interested in the spinoffs in the first place. When Disney announced that they were making episodes 7,8, and 9 everyone went “Oh Hell yes, sign me up!” Then when they followed up with that they were also making spinoff movies about stuff that happened off screen or between movies the same audience was like “Oh...well that’s neat, I guess.”
And no, that stupid fanboy boycott had nothing to do with. Even the dude who started that petition to strike TLJ from canon admitted that he was in a bad place and that he was being stupid and angry, and I can promise you that all the shrieking dorks on Youtube are the buzzing of flies to Disney. If that crowd had any box office and movie making decision influence whatsoever, the next spinoff we’d see a trailer for would be “My Twi’lek Waifu: a Star Wars Story.”
PewDiePie is the worst thing to happen to video games this side of the gaming crash of 83 and he needs to fuck off
Yes, you read that right, and I don’t say that lightly. All sorts of terrible things have happened in the gaming industry since the gaming crash of 83. The console wars, the Atari Jaguar, the Philips CDi, Jack Thompson, the death of the Dreamcast, WoW, an entire console generation packed to the gills with homogenous gray and brown shooters with protagonists who all looked the fucking same, GamerGate, microtransactions, DLC abuse, the death of Maxis, an increasingly toxic fandom, “women are too hard to animate,” the degradation of E3 from a showcase of the biggest and bestest in gaming to a corporately sponsored circlejerk of self congratulatory backslapping and so much, much more.
I don’t care how much PewDiePie gives to charity, or how many fans he has, or how many people think he’s just the greatest, because he’s not. He’s an embarrassing, stupid asshole who constantly gets busted for making stupid racist jokes and by extension making his fans and everyone who has even the vaguest ties to the word ‘gamer’ look like stupid, racist assholes. He’s a corporate ass sucking apologist who gives exposure to anti Semites and racist wastes of space to his audience of mostly 10 to 15 year old boys, and he’s more terminally obnoxious than an Adderall addicted Pomeranian. 
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The day he posted his first video of him overreacting to a jump scare while making loud screeching noises on top of edgy rape jokes was the day the progress of “gaming as an art form” was shot between the eyes, placed in a box that was then filled with concrete, and thrown into the ocean. He’s a dumbass man child that’s making all of us look bad and he needs to take his millions worth of corporate sponsorships and fuck off forever into some dark, lonely corner of the Internet where he’ll never be seen or heard from again until an inevitable meltdown that lands him on an episode of Down the Rabbit Hole.
And that concludes this post. I’ll give my final thoughts tomorrow, and on Saturday I’m closing this account forever.
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saywhatjessie · 5 years
Text
Fucking Hollywood
Aro!Dean 1.8k (Ao3)
“It’s just so frustrating!” Sam threw up his hands, the breath of his explosive sigh blowing his bangs around.
Dean just nodded non-committedly. Sam had been going on about this for the last twenty minutes.
“I mean, representation is important. Everyone knows that. Studies and stuff, right? So if we all know this, why is it still so hard to find content without sex in it?!”
Dean grunted. Sam waved a hand at him as if it had been a grunt of agreement.
This would be better if Dean had somewhere to go, but it was his own fault for offering to drive his brother back to school after his visit. He could have easily given the kid money for a bus but, no, Dean — being the amazing older brother he was — had offered to drive Sam back to Stanford.
And now he was trapped in his own car, listening to Sam bitch about sex in the media. Again.
“I’m not even talking, like, explicit HBO sex. But just this idea that sex is always the endgame and the thing that’s the most important of all things. When a character has sex for the first time it’s a Big Deal and like, why? Narratively? For what reason? Why does it matter in movies if someone’s a virgin?”
“Well, you know Hollywood, Sammy,” Dean reasoned, doing his best to diffuse the situation. “It’s like Hooters. Just there to do one thing.”
Sam snorted. “What? Titillate men?”
“Okay, A) You’re men. And two I meant make money. Sex sells, Sammy. I hate to say it but it’s true.”
Sam groaned. “Okay, maybe , but media also helps define culture. If we continue in this cycle where sex is the most valued commodity than how are we supposed to move past it?”
Dean sighed, unsure how to respond to that.
Sam had gone to college and come back gay. Or, rather, ‘queer’. Dean wasn’t totally sure what that meant except that, according to Sam, ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to fuck dudes. Actually, in Sam’s case, he was gay in a way that meant he just didn’t want to fuck at all. Or he only wanted to fuck people he also wanted to marry. Something to do with Demi Moore? Dean still wasn’t clear on the details.
Whatever Sam’s sexual status, he had also come back from college with a vendetta against society’s obsession with sex. Which, objectively, Dean could get behind. But as a card-carrying, porn watching, one-night-stand having red blooded American, Dean couldn’t invest any personal devotion into it.
“It’s not even just Hollywood! Fan created content has historically been a refuge for marginalized people to create a space in the universes they love for people who are like them. Like Kirk and Spock in Star Trek.”
“Are you writing a thesis? What the fuck?”
“But even in fan-created spaces it’s like all they care about is whether or not the characters are boning,” Sam said, disgusted. “Like, that’s not what their relationship is about. Kirk and Spock aren’t compelling because they wanna bone. They’re compelling because they’re, like, accidentally the greatest love story ever told.”
Dean sighed again, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.
“Okay…” he started, aware that the only way out of this conversation was through. “So I admit, I don’t know a whole lot about,” he gestured vaguely at Sam. “That. But me, personally, I have a hard time telling the difference between romantic and platonic love.”
“So like aromanticism.”
“No, what?” Dean glanced at Sam who was looking at him weirdly. “I don’t know. But one of the only ways I know how to confirm the difference is with sex.”
Sam was shaking his head before Dean had even finished. “But that’s not how that works. You don’t need sex to prove it’s love. That’s what I’ve been talking about!” Sam slumped dramatically in his seat, throwing his head back, before sitting straight again. “The difference between romantic and platonic love is there without sex. They feel different. They just do. As an asexual person, I know this better than anyone.”
Sam was pretty sure ‘asexual’ wasn’t the word Sam had used before but he didn’t really understand it all anyway and didn’t want to ask.
“Okay…”
“You can’t tell the difference between romantic and platonic love?” Sam asked, his focus now entirely on Dean.
Shit . Dean squirmed. “No, not really.”
“So you’re aromantic?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“No, no, stop looking like that.” Dean made an attempt to stop grimacing. “No pressure or anything, it’s just that that is, definitionally, what aromanticism is. Not being able to distinguish a difference between romantic and platonic love. Because you don’t really feel the first one.”
Dean was definitely grimacing again.
He looked down at his arm when he felt Sam lay a hand on his bicep. “Thank you for trusting me with this moment.”
Dean shook him off, scoffing. “Shut up, man. Whatever. You know how I feel about labels.”
Sam took his hand back, biting back a smile. “Yeah, I know. But it’s good to have a word for it. Helps other people understand where you’re coming from. Helps you understand yourself.”
“I think I have a pretty good understanding of myself.”
Sam just snorted, not bothering to further respond to that, but then, blissfully, changed the subject.
Dean hated himself for bringing it up but it didn’t stop him from asking. “Hey, Cas, you ever hear of aromanticism?”
It was Thursday which meant it was Roadhouse night. There wasn’t any real reason they’d chosen Thursday for their weekly bar meetup, it had just been the only night they had free early on. Further down the road, they had begun cancelling plans to make it to the bar on Thursday, and now Thursday was firmly bar night. The bar of choice: The Roadhouse.
Cas blinked over at him over his large pint of whatever shitty IPA he’d chosen that day. “From my understanding of Greek prefixes I can presume it means to be without romance.”
Dean snorted, taking a sip of his own (proper, dark) beer before nodding. It figured Cas could guess what it meant without being told. He was smart as fuck.
“Eh, kinda,” he continued, tracing patterns in the water droplets on his glass. “I think it means to be without romantic love. Romantic attraction?” He shrugged, eyes in his beer. “Sam explained it better.”
Cas nodded back, smiling softly. “It was lovely to see him. He’s grown up so much.”
Dean grinned, ducking his head.
It was a little embarrassing how soft he let himself get around Cas. They’d been friends for four years, meeting in Cas’s Sophomore year of college when he needed to interview Dean for his college paper. Dean had been working as a mechanic at the time. He was still working as a mechanic, actually, but Cas, as an actual reporter person, interviewed people far more interesting than Dean.
Cas had been there for John’s death. For Sam’s high school graduation. Sam going off to school. Cas had seen Dean in way more emotionally compromised positions. Dean let himself be soft around Cas.
It didn’t mean he’d let it last longer than he had to, though.
“Yeah. That kid picked up all kinds of wild shit in college. You know he’s gay now, right?”
Cas rolled his eyes, a touch of annoyance furrowing his eyebrow. “You really shouldn’t casually out your brother, Dean.” Dean rolled his eyes back. “But yes, I saw it on Facebook. He posted about it.”
“Well then I didn’t out him!” Dean waved his hand as if to say ‘there you go’. “And, besides, I couldn’t get the words right if I wanted to. I still don’t remember what he actually said he was.”
“Demisexual, heteroromantic,” Cas responded automatically. He blinked and then corrected himself. “Or… aromantic? Is that why you brought it up?”
Dean shook his head, looking into his beer again. “Nah, Sam’s not that. That’s what he says I am.”
A horrible pause of horrible silence Dean stared into his beer.
“Are you?” Cas asked, gently.
Dean looked up. Cas appeared nothing but softly interested.
Dean shrugged, all shoulders, no eye-contact. “Nah. Maybe. I don’t know about labels, man.”
Cas nodded, consideringly. Dean watched him take a sip of his beer. He spent a lot of time staring at Cas’s neck this way.
Cas tipped his head as he put his glass back on the bar. “You don’t have to talk about it. But it may be worth looking up so you can potentially learn more about yourself.”
Again with the learning about yourself thing.
Dean shook his head. “I don’t think I need to do that. I think I’m fine.”
Cas seemed to deflate a little, the sag of his shoulders making Dean cautiously curious.
“Of course,” he said, taking another long pull from his glass. “Forgive me, I suppose I hoped — ”
He cut himself off, looking sternly into the dregs of his own beer.
Dean watched him. His blue eyes were washed out in the yellow light from the bar but the dark shadows defining his profile made him just as striking. The clench of his jaw. The furrow of his eyebrows. The tension in his shoulders.
Dean downed his beer.
He put the glass gently on the bar, pushing both his and Cas’s away from them before turning and putting his hand on Cas’s shoulder.
“You wanna go on a date with me, Cas?”
Cas looked up at him, sharply, eyes wide. “Dean?”
Dean suddenly wished he had beer to nervously swig. Well, no going back now .
“If I don’t feel romantic attraction or whatever – if I’m not just waiting for the right girl and I’m never gonna – then I wanna be with my best friend. And that’s you.”
Cas’s eyes were still wide and it looked like he was biting his lip.
“My best friend who I’m still very much attracted to!” Dean rushed to correct, realizing that Cas might be afraid that this was just him settling. “Jesus fuck , am I attracted to you. I never did anything about it because I was probably straight, ya know? But obviously I’m not so...” He shrugged.
Cas was still just staring at him.
Dean’s hand twitched. “You gonna just leave me hangin, man? I don’t really know wh–”
Cas surged forward, hands coming up to cup Dean’s jaw as he kissed him quiet.
Dean had never allowed himself space to imagine this kiss. But he’s sure he never would have been able to capture it anyway. So easy. So nice.
It was the kind of kiss where if Dean would ever have had butterflies, he’s sure they would have been hammering away in his stomach at that moment.
Guess it’s official, then. I’m aromantic .
Dean could feel Cas smile as he kissed him.
I’m fine with that .
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wasneeplus · 5 years
Text
Responding to the Alt-Right playbook, part 1
Disclaimer: I wrote this after seeing the first four minutes of the video. While watching the rest I noticed a few things I bring up are addressed later, though in such a way as to lead to even more questions. Still, I think most of it stands, and it’s still useful as a kind of stream of consciousness response, so I’ll leave it untouched.
Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning when I just finished reading my newspaper, I will enjoy myself with a few infuriating youtube videos. Lately I’ve been quite disillusioned by the part of youtube calling itself liberal spouting nationalist propaganda at my beloved European project, so I’ve switched to some corners of the website which are friendlier to my blood pressure. That’s how I came across a video called "The Alt-Right Playbook: The Card Says Moops” by Innuendo Studios. Apparently he is somewhat of a big deal with his 150k plus subscribers, though I never heard of him. Just two minutes into the video though I knew I was going to write this response. While it didn’t make me angry the way I might have been in the past, there’s just so much wrong here, I cant bottle this up any longer.
Say, for the sake of argument, you’re online blogging about a black journalists’ commentary on marketing trends in video games, movies and comic books and you’re saying how the vitriol in response to her fairly benign opinions reveals the deep seated racism and misogyny in a number of fan communities, most especially those that lean right,...
Quite an unlikely scenario since I’m not in the business of assuming ones leanings on race, gender or politics based on their opinions on movies, games or comic books, but let’s roll with it I guess.
...When a right leaning commenter pops in to say: “Or maybe they just actually disagree with her about marketing trends! For Christs sake, there’s no mystery here. People aren’t speaking in coded language. They are telling you wat they believe. She had a bad opinion. Why do you have to make it bigger than that? Why can’t you ever take people at their word?”
Here’s where I feel validated in making this response, because while I don’t consider myself right leaning, as hard as that might be to believe for some, this is exactly the kind of response I might have given. So props to Innuendo Studios for accurately portraying an argument of one of his opponents. Unfortunately he then continues:
You pause and ponder this for a moment. Hmmm. Uh heck with it! You’re in a discoursing mood. Let’s do this! Mister conservative, in order for me to take you at your word your words would have to show some consistency. Let me just lightning-round a few questions about the reactionary web’s positions on marketing trends.
The first major problem should be obvious to anyone right about now. How is anyone supposed to answer for the “reactionary web”? Hell, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to be. The caricature in the video wears a 4chan logo on its chest, so maybe he’s referring to the /pol/ imageboard. Well, I don’t hang out there, and I’m pretty sure most of the people who would have been critical of that opinion piece don’t either. Therefore I feel justified in ignoring that particular remark and just give my own answers to these questions. After all:  the people on /pol/ are clearly not the only ones he’s talking to at this point.
Do you believe that having the option to romance same sex characters in an rpg turns the game into queer propaganda...
No. On a side note though: the video at this point shows an image of the game Mass Effect. I remember when that game came out there was some controversy over the game showing sex scenes between the characters. Remember that this was but a few years sine the GTA hot coffee mod upheaval, so people where a bit more sensitive about such things. But never have I heard anyone complain about the same sex romance options. I can imagine there were a few disapproving voices but I never came across them, even though I followed the launch very closely at the time.
...or do you believe that killing strippers in an action game can’t be sexist because no one’s making you do it?
I believe it can be sexist, but I never seen an example of it actually being sexist. Not because no one makes you do it, though. It’s because the amount of strippers killed in video games pales in comparison to the amount of other people killed. I’m willing to bet that video games depict more men being killed by women than the other way around, with the vast majority being male on male killings. The fact that there’s one or two games where a man has the option to kill some female sex workers hardly seems significant in that light.
Do you believe that the pervasiveness of sexualised young women in pop culture is just there because it sells and that’s capitalism and we all need to deal with it...
Yes, for the most part. I guess one can add a few nuances here and there, but that about covers the gist of it.
...or do yo believe that a franchise has an obligation to cater to its core audience even if diversifying beyond that audience is more profitable?
Ooh boy, where do I start? Okay, first of all: those two are not mutually exclusive. I know there is this pervasive idea in some parts of western culture that people can only identify with others of the same sex, race and/or cultural background, but that’s just not true. As such it’s perfectly possible to be both diverse and give your core audience what they want. Criticism of a failure to do the second does not automatically translate to criticism of succeeding at the first. Where the two usually meet is when creators use the first as an excuse to take away from the second, either because of their own incompetence or their disinterest in the franchise they are working on. 
Which brings us to our second point: while diversity does not have to hurt a franchise, too often creators are too lazy to put effort in making sure it doesn’t because they haven’t got their priorities straight. They think that covering their bases in terms of diversity is the most important thing and everything else is an afterthought. The movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi, who’s cast is partly depicted in the video at this point, is actually a perfect example of this. No one thought Finn and Rose were such interesting characters that audiences wanted to see an entire subplot devoted exclusively to them. They were clearly there just to tick some boxes, not because of a creative spark that led an artist to lovingly craft these characters. The result was perhaps the most universally despised part of the movie, at least among hardcore fans. And yeah, they do deserve a bit more consideration than any other demographic, don’t you think? They are the ones who made this into a franchise to begin with. Without them this movie wouldn’t even have been made.
Lastly: there is a reason the saying “get woke, go broke” exists. If Rose was just there to appeal to Asian markets that would be one thing. I do think there’s something to the idea that putting characters of the same race as the target audience in your movie makes them easier to market. The thing is though: it didn’t work! The movie bombed in China, and I think that’s also because of the messages the creators were trying to send. To take a timeless hero’s journey narrative like Star Wars and try to insert current events and political messages in it just can’t end well. Yet, the creators persisted, and this is reflective of a lot of the culture behind those narratives. When a political message becomes the driving force behind the creative process it’s almost certain to produce sub par results. A creator has to be extremely talented to pull this off, and lets face it: most aren’t up to the task. Instead the art devolves into soulless political propaganda, and this is what stings people who love the franchise so much. Me personally, I am a big fan of making the political personal when you want to convey a political message. We can identify with personal struggles much more than with abstract political ideas. So characters should always be the focus, even if you want to make a statement.
Do you think words are inherently harmless and only oversensitive snowflakes would care about racialised language...
Words? Yes. The ideas expressed by those words? No. That’s why intention is so important to me, and the “oversensitive snowflakes” who focus on just the words are so not helping the debate in my opinion.
...or do you think it’s racist if someone calls you mayonaise boy?
Probably, yes. Though I can’t think of any reason why someone would call me that, other than to insult me by way of my race. On the other hand, I do really like mayonaise...
And as long as I’ve got your ear: are you the party that believes in the right to keep and bear arms because you’re distrustful of all authority and what if we need to overthrow the government some day...
No, no and no. I am not a party, nor am I affiliated with any party that espouses those kinds of opinions on the possession of arms. I personally do not believe in the right to bear arms, though I’m not especially passionate about it one way or the other. I guess being Dutch means I'm not really caught up in any debate surrounding arms, since it’s a bit of a non-issue here. Also: while I think authority should always be scrutinised, I wouldn’t characterise this as distrust.
...or do you believe that cops are civil servants and we should trust their account of events whenever they shoot a black man for looking like he might have a gun.
Well, aren’t cops civil servants? I seem to remember so. Anyway, I don’t think “looking like they might have a gun” is ever a good excuse to shoot anyone, so there you have it. Do keep in mind that we send cops out on the street partly to use force in neutralising dangerous individuals, so we shouldn’t be surprised when that gets out of hand sometimes. But honestly, I am not well informed enough on this topic to know how much trust to put in any side of this issue. I think looking at this on a case by case basis is the only thing we can do.
Does optional content reveal a game’s ideology, or doesn’t it?
Not necessarily, no
Is capitalism a defence for decisions you don’t agree with, or isn’t it?
That’s a rather broad statement. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. It depends on what you are trying to defend.
Is language harmful, or not?
If you use it to promote harmful ideas, then yes.
Do you hate authority, or love cops and the troops?
Neither, really. I don’t hate authority just for being authority, and if anything soldiers and cops invoke pity in me. I guess that comes from growing up with  a PTSD ridden veteran for a father.
Well, that’s the end of the questions. One might think I wasted a lot of time going through that, because shortly afterwards he goes on to say:
Now, I know the right is not a monolith and maybe these arguments are contradictory because they’re coming from different people.
Gee, you think? However, what then follows is an excuse to lump al these people together anyway.
We’ll call them Engelbert and Charlemagne. Maybe Engelbert’s the one who thinks any institution funded by tax money is socialist and therefore bad, and Charlemagne’s the one who says we should dump even more tax money into the military and thinking otherwise is unamerican.
I happen to hold neither of those opinions. Yes, it is actually possible to completely stand behind the hypothetical statement you made in the beginning of the video, and not subscribe to typical right wing convictions like that. But I know that there are people who do, so let’s see where his is going.
But here’s the thing: y’all have have very fundamentally different beliefs and you’re so passionate bout them that you’re entering search terms into twitter to find people you don’t even follow and aggressively disagree with them...
That’s quite a lot of assumptions there mate. I don’t think this is even a remotely fair representation of your opposition. Certainly not true for me. I don’t even have a twitter account (no, I wasn’t kicked off. I never had an account there to begin with), let alone do I ever browse that website. Putting that aside though, how do you know if there’s anyone who actually does this? People can retweet things after all; maybe that’s how they find the contentious twitter users. I found your video because youtube recommended it, and I clicked on it because the title intrigued me. I didn’t set out to look for things to disagree with, despite my quips at the beginning of this piece.
...and yet you’re always yelling at me, and never yelling at each other.
Certainly not true either. I've had quite a few online arguments with alt-righters, who in my opinion differ from actual Nazi’s in only slight and insignificant ways, and fervent nationalists. Of course that’s never going to garner the kind of attention as when Sargon of Akkad sends a mean tweet to a female politician. Speaking of Carl, his vicious disagreement with the alt-right is well documented, and their hatred for him caused quite a few equally vicious attacks against him and his family. But I don’t blame you for not knowing that. The majority of both of their vitriol is still directed at the extreme left, and why shouldn’t it? I don’t think there is an extremist position so pervasive in the western media these days. Again: there is no alt-right equivalent of Star Wars: the Last Jedi, because none of those people work in Hollywood, or anywhere else of note (with the possible and unfortunate exception of the white house).
...and I can’t say how often it happens, but I know if I let Engelbert go on long enough he sometimes makes a Charlemagne argument and vise versa.
Either you’re saying that both of them contradict themselves while framing it in quite an unnecessarily suggestive way, or you’re displaying a rather tribalist mindset in which worldviews can never overlap. Either way, I don’t think the following statement is justified...
See, I don’t take you at your word because I cannot form a coherent worldview out of the things you say.
The fault might lie with you in this case I’m afraid. The reason I went over those questions in the beginning is to show that it is perfectly possible to have consistent views on all of those issues and still be counted among those who would oppose you on this one. I don’t think you really know who it is that you’re projecting all this on. You think my worldview has to have inconsistencies if I disagree with you on the nature of the discourse surrounding popular media, but you’ve yet to correctly identify any. I think the saying “truth resists simplicity” is one you should tale to heart a lot more. Case in point:
Why are you so capable of respecting disagreement between each other yet so incapable of respecting me, or, for that matter, a black woman.
While that may seem like a coherent statement at a first glance, it actually betrays an incredibly simplistic way of looking at things. You see, you’re comparing three entirely different things one can respect: the fact of genuine disagreement between two parties, you, an individual person, and any given black woman, that is: a demographic. The first has to be respected, otherwise discourse is impossible. Though it must be said that me and the alt-right probably have very little respect for each others motivations, but unlike you the alt-right doesn’t ever really ask for my respect. The second deserves respect only when earned, and the third deserves neither respect nor disparagement, because it’s an incredibly varied group of people, some of whom deserve respect and some of whom don’t.
It kinda seems like you’re playing games and I’m the opposing team, and anyone who’s against me is your ally...
That entirely depends on what we’re talking about, doesn’t it? If we’re talking about diversity in media and the issues surrounding it, I will find myself on one side of the board surrounded by people I would usually disagree with, and you would find yourself on the other side, presumably only surrounded by people who agree with you one hundred percent of the time. It seems you think it a bad thing that people can temporarily overcome their differences when faced with a common problem. That’s why some call you radical: you cannot ally with anyone who isn’t in complete lockstep with you, because they are not pure enough in their conviction. But that’s what fracturing societies are made of, so if you don’t mind I’ll stick to my methods. If that leaves you outnumbered on your side of the board it’s because you chose to champion a very unpopular opinion, and I can’t help that.
...and you’re not really taking a position, but claiming to believe in whatever would need to be true in order to score points against me.
If I did that then why even bother engaging with me? Clearly I don’t actually believe anything I say, so there’s no need to convince me otherwise. Are you sure it’s me who is supposed to have contradictory opinions? But in all seriousness, I don’t see why I would ever adopt such a strategy unless I’m either just a troll or addicted to arguments, and hey: there are people like that, but they don’t represent your entire political opposition. Get a grip.
After that we get the title drop, which, I have to admit, was really clever and amusing. I never watched Seinfeld, but maybe I should. Anyway, my free Saturday is passing me by like a speeding train, so I will continue this later.... maybe.
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pom-seedss · 5 years
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So I went to this pain management group course the other day and....
...
I am so disappointed with the whole thing.
First, it is scripted. So even if the presenter is disabled and in chronic pain themselves, they can’t really give any personalized advice or aid to the group, making their function there be just a mouthpiece for mostly abled doctors who made the course.
Second, it’s seemingly designed for people who have never faced hardship of any kind before.
Like, the first day one of the things was “okay, you are walking to your car and you are in a lot of pain. How do you distract yourself on the way there so you can get to your car and not give up with the pain?”
I’ve been dealing with discomfort and pain literally my entire life, I’m a product of an abusive household, the youngest in a family where “shit rolls downhill”. I already know how to deal with discomfort and get through a situation. Like.... fuck.... I still have trouble with dissociation because ignoring my discomfort is so second nature to me.
And even if I didn’t have that experience.... it feels really patronizing to talk down to adults about how to distract themselves from pain. As though no one has been in a bad place they had to just get through before, as though no one knows how to handle discomfort. ... which I think is part of the problem they make chronic pain sound as though it is just discomfort when it is... so ... so much more than that.
Third, they also touted the model of chronic pain that there is no damage but it is just an overreaction in the brain. Which, I’m not knocking that entirely because it is a thing that happens, but my problems are not just pain but mechanical difficulties. If I push myself beyond the real pain, I usually will end up injuring myself. The *only* exception they gave was for heart attack symptoms, which I find completely irresponsible. 
Chronic pain has many sources, and that they reduced it to chemical imbalance that just makes you think you are in pain when there is nothing wrong is just so damned ignorant I was made by seeing no less than six doctors names on the course book.
Fourth, it demonized opioids. I don’t take them myself because my body just adapts too quickly to a lot of medication and after a week or two they are useless for me. But I know many whose lives are significantly improved by them and treating every use of opioids as wrong and bad was frustrating and demoralizing. Basically, the whole course was designed to make you shut up and bear the pain, rather than how to actually manage it.
Fifth, the presenters had no control over the group - partly because of the scripted nature of the course- so when someone else went on an anti-medication tangent for twenty minutes they didn’t say ANYthing about it. Here was a person shaming others and telling them their medication is going to kill them (even if it was just lyrica or gabapenten) and how all medication just makes chronic pain worse for everyone because it just causes inflammation and the people in charge didn’t say anything about any of it. So it wasn’t really a good place for someone who is reliant on medication to live to exist within. 
This same person on break tried to tell me that everything I knew about my body was wrong. She’d been dealing with her chronic pain for a little over four months, she knew via my introduction that I’ve been dealing with chronic pain for over fifteen years. And she still thought she knew better than me about my own body and potential diagnosis. 
I read ahead in the book, as I am want to do, and most of it was just... meal prep and how to lose weight to control pain. Which.... doesn’t even make sense with how they portray the cause of chronic pain in the first place. If it is only an overreaction in my brain to outside stimulus, then it doesn’t matter what size I am, the problem is my brain and my neurons not my body fat.
And yes, I know everything is connected and whatnot, but the way they set up their premises, the conclusion they come to (lose weight) doesn’t make all that much sense and it genuinely is presented with a “less body fat automatically means less pain” which isn’t the case for a lot of folks.
The worst part is I knew it would be like that? I looked in to the course awhile ago, I think last spring, and decided not to go because it seemed really basic and patronizing.
But my therapist thought I could use it. She insisted I try, because I guess she really doesn’t understand my medical issues. I’ve tried to tell her that just because the doctors don’t know doesn’t mean there isn’t anything wrong, I cite my mechanical difficulties and how my joints and muscles seize up after too much use and she STILL assumes that most of my pain is related to my past trauma just being trapped and causing me pain from within and I just need to learn how to control it.
And it is just frustrating. This is why I don’t like able bodied therapists.
Like, I complain about not having a job because of my financial issues and money is a huge stressor, and she just turns around and says “well why doesn’t the bird shop give you a job for like one shift a week or something?” or “there is a reason this keeps coming up...”
And long ago I decided I didn’t need a job to be fulfilled. That I would work the shit retail as long as I could do things I enjoyed with my own time. I don’t need a job to feel valid or like a “productive member of society” or to see my value.
I need a job because I need money to live and being disabled is fucking expensive. 
People don’t hire me because of that same disability. No one is going to give me just 5-10 hours a week. Even if I can do the job, if I can’t go above and beyond they won’t hire me. Because, surprise, there are plenty of other able bodied people looking for work who will go above and beyond.
And like... what the fuck am I supposed to do? I KNOW my own worth, I know what I can contribute, I know what I can do. The problem is, and has always been, how to I convince others of that value when all they see is my disability? How do I even get my foot in the door if I can’t consistently lift 50 lbs? 
That’s the problem.
And quite frankly I am a little pissed at her making me feel like I am actually the problem. Like disabled people could succeed if they just tried harder. Like my pain would go away when I realized my self-worth or some shit.
And I am just so fucking tired of it. New therapist was good in the area of queer stuff, but honestly she has no idea about disability and chronic pain or the constraints that puts on lives not because of the disabled person’s own volition but how other people treat them.
And I’m tired of her ignoring societal factors and disadvantages to tell me I have so much to offer a world that is offering me nothing in return. 
I just don’t have the spoons for it I think.
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bipositivepodcast · 6 years
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BiPositive Episode 1 - The Common Myths
Listen to it here.
[Intro music plays.]
Mari: Hello and welcome to BiPositive, a podcast by bisexuals, for bisexuals, and about bisexuals. My name is Mari and I am a therapist-in-training, and also a bisexual woman.
MD: And I am MD, and I'm also a psychologist in training, and also bisexual, and a woman.
Mari: And today we will be talking about some of the most common myths about bisexuality. There's a wonderful article in the HuffPost. But first, we will turn to the dictionary to actually define bisexuality. So... bisexual refers to noting or relating to a person who is romantically or sexually attracted to both men and women or to people of various gender identities. And we're definitely going to be talking more about that: whether it's just men and women, or if there are any other genders or non-gender-conforming people that bisexuals can or are attracted to but that's for a later conversation.
MD: And BiPositive is also Bi+, to be inclusive of all people attracted to more than one gender. All labels and identities.
Mari: And to start off, we just have a lovely article by the HuffPost, which is 8 Common Myths About Bisexuality, and the author already did some journalism work debunking those myths, but we just wanted to discuss them because... you know, reading these things is very surprising to someone who is that identity, and you're like, "how can people even think that way?" But then you go out into the real world and you realize that people do actually think this way and it's something that needs to be addressed and I feel like we're qualified to do so? So... Myth number one: "bisexuals are just gays with one foot in the closet." What do you think about that?
MD: If you take the theories of identity development, of gay identity development, it's not untrue because it happens that when are on your journey of realizing that you're gay, you might identify as bisexual first because it's a step, but it's not just that. It's also a full identity. And if people are just on their journey of discovering that they're gay, others are just fully bisexual.
Mari: Yeah, I feel like one of the perils of bisexuality is that you're sometimes seen as, like, gay light. If you know what I mean? So it's like, we're not as threatening, in a way. But also not fully complete. And... you know, spoiler alert: bisexuals are complete people [laughs].
MD: It's also less frightening for parents when kids come out as bisexual first, because, you know, there's still this idea that they might end up with a partner that would be... another gender, opposite gender; a traditional, heteronormative couple. But, the thing is... when you're bisexual, I don't even know if you can really be in a heteronormative relationship.
Mari: I... That is another discussion that we had previously. It's that if you're a queer person or a bisexual person in a relationship with a person of the opposite gender, is that relationship straight? Is it heterosexual? That's a discussion, again, for a totally different time. But just food for thought before we move on to number two, which is, "bisexual women – us – are straight girls having a fun dalliance or two before running off with a penis-swinging man." First of all, if you're a man and you swing your penis, then you should probably talk to someone about that [laughs]. And second of all...
MD: Those are not bisexual women, but... heteroflexible, questioning, curious, but no... that's not how it works.
Mari: And there's also been studies about the fact that women are much more flexible in their sexuality, so it's kind of natural to want to experiment a little bit to see where you stand, especially when you're, like, in college and you're super drunk and you wanna make out with your best friend... But that does not necessarily mean that you're gay or bisexual or anything else. It just means that you're developing as a human being.
MD: And also sexual attraction is not all that is, there's also romantic attraction and the possibility of seeing yourself in a relationship with someone of the same gender, which is different than just experimenting sexually.
Mari: And I think it also comes down to just... you know, it's about the term that you pick for yourself. you know? If you are comfortable with calling yourself bisexual, and you're comfortable with the label, then that is what you are. There is no reason for you to want to conform to what people tell you [that] you are just because you made out with someone in college, you know?
MD: And that's the thing, it's that it's very clear when we experience it because it resonates with you. You know your label is right for you. But if you never had this experience, it's very hard to understand and to share. That's also maybe why there are so many myths about it.
Mari: Yeah, that is very true. Okay, number three is "bisexuals are more likely to cheat." I love that one.
MD: Ugh. No...
Mari: [laughs] No... It just... You know, just because we have more options does not mean we're going to try to sample them. Like, when you go to a Starbucks, you don't just ask for every single flavor in your coffee because that is a mess. No, you try one, and then you try the other and that's how it works. That is not to say that polyamory doesn't exist in the bisexual community. Of course, it does. But that's not cheating, number one. And number two...
MD: I mean, it's a choice and a question of the person. And some people are really more comfortable with being in polyamorous relationships and others aren't and all of this is perfectly valid, it just depends on what works for you. A lot of actually straight people or gay people are in polyamorous relationships, which is not cheating.
Mari: Exactly.
MD: And I have this study, which is pretty interesting. They found out that bisexual women were the most likely to cheat were the ones who had a less integrated bisexual identity, their identity that is bisexual is more fragile. There's a correlation having more internalized stigma, homophobia, biphobia, and cheating more. So, actually, by spreading those myths about bisexual people, the stigma, you're contributing to making people more likely to cheat. When people are more at ease with their identity and who they are, they won't cheat. They're solid in their identity and they know what they want. They have no reason to cheat more than anyone else.
Mari: Okay, just to be clear, this is a correlation, but not a causal relationship?
MD: Yeah.
Mari: Just making sure so people don't...
MD: It's just the risk.
Mari: Exactly. Okay, number four. I love this one too. It's "you're not bi..." This is referring to women. "You're not bi unless you go down on girls." What do you have to say to that? [laughs]
MD: Like, all the time? [laughs]
Mari: [laughs]
MD: Because you have to stop at one point to... eat something else.
Mari: I just kind of feel that... [laughs] Ew. [laughs] I just kind of feel that... first of all, nobody is immune to the charms of oral sex. Okay? I feel like if you're any sexuality besides, you know, asexual... then you are likely to experience and to maybe even enjoy oral sex. And it is not exclusive to being in a same-sex... coupling. So this is just very, very strange to me. It's like if you're a bisexual woman, giving blowjobs is not something you do? Which is totally not true, I can tell you that. [laughs]
MD: I think it's probably more about... are you really attracted to girls? It's a whole thing about... for women, it's about... if you let a girl do some stuff to you, you don't necessarily need to not be straight for that. Because, you know, if someone does something to you and you enjoy it, you just close your eyes and you imagine whoever that might be.
Mari: So you're saying that you have to be actively... initiating it? Okay.
MD: I think that's probably what they mean? I don't know.
Mari: Yeah, that's just... It's a very strange one because I feel like... first of all, sex is about consent, so if you are participating in it even on the receiving end, that automatically means that you signed up for this, which means that you had agency in saying yes. You know?
MD: And you're at least a little bit turned on by the person that you're having sex with.
Mari: Yeah, exactly. Otherwise, it's just awkward for everyone. Okay, number five, "bisexuals are greedy." We are. We are very greedy people.
MD: Yeah... I don't even know what...
Mari: I think it just means that...
MD: Because we can choose...
Mari: Exactly! It's not like we're greedy, we just have more options. Like I said, you know, you walk into a store; you're not gonna buy all the candy, you're gonna choose some of it.
MD: It's like this cheating thing... It's based on the idea that when you're bi, you have to both have sex with a man and a woman, to keep it simple, but other genders also. But you can't just have one partner. You have to have several to have all your urges satisfied. But that's not how it works. And you can be with just one partner and be very happy, so...
Mari: Yeah, I think that speaks to the health of your relationship and also to how well you and your partner work together. If there are some things that are left unsatisfied, you can either address those or ask for an open relationship and look for them elsewhere. But that does not necessarily mean that you're greedy. It's just that they're your needs.
MD: I had this conversation with a friend... and it was a very long conversation because she couldn't wrap her head around the idea that it was not about having different partners at the same and she just couldn't get it. But I think it's also very symptomatic of how when you're cis and straight, you don't have to question your sexuality or your gender ever. Unless someone makes you do it. You just don't think about it and you don't get it at all unless someone helps you to understand.
Mari: Okay, so... Number six is... This one is kind of awful and very stigmatizing. "Bisexuals are more likely to carry diseases." If by "diseases" you mean mental illness, then yes. Yes, we are. Science proves it. [laughs].
MD: Yeah, like all the LGBTQ community has a higher prevalence of mental disorders but it's also been proven that it's associated with social stigma and even some kind of causation link... that it's because of social stigma and homophobia and biphobia that LGBTQ people have a higher prevalence of mental health issues. So...
Mary: So, basically, to reiterate, it's... Being gay or being bi does not mean that it's gonna make you "crazy." What makes you "crazy" is the fact that people are hating on you for being gay and being bi. In simpler terms.
MD: And even with microaggressions or things that are not absolutely obvious.
Mari: Yes, for example, like, you know, a trans person having to go to a bathroom that is of their gender assigned at birth, when in reality that is not what they want to be using.
MD: Or just being in the situation where you feel that there's something going on with you that's different from other people. You don't know what's going on and you have no example, no role model, nothing to explain it to you, nothing to make sense of what's happening to you.
Mari: And when you're a child reading fairytales, if you're a girl, you're probably gonna think that you have to marry a prince. And the idea of marrying a princess is going to be very difficult to internalize later on. [laughs].
MD: I'm very okay with marrying a princess now. [laughs]
Mari: [laughs] But going back to... No, bisexuals don't carry more diseases. We support sexual health. Please do get tested regularly and see your local andrologist and gynecologist and whatever GP that you go to. Please do that.
MD: And protect yourself.
Mari: Yes, do protect yourself because even if it's, like, girl-on-girl action, there are still some diseases that can be spread that way, so... Just take care of yourself, okay? And... okay, number seven, the penultimate one is, "bisexuals are looking for sex, while lesbians are looking for love." This just made me cringe.
MD: It's always the same thing! Like, greedy or... you have to have sex with so many people at the same time. But, like... Fun fact is that this was actually what I believed about bisexuals when I was younger.
Mari: Really?
MD: When I was trying to figure myself out and I didn't make sense of myself because I knew I was into men... I was realizing that I was attracted to women and actually in love with one at that moment. It didn't make any sense for me, because for me, being bisexual was being into sex and loving sex with whoever was available. And it took me years to realize.
Mari: And I also think that it's a little stigmatizing towards lesbians because, you know... Lesbians are whole people too, and you know, when you're a minority of any kind, there's always this thing, where your identity comes down to that one thing. So if you're a lesbian, you're just a lesbian. If you're Black, you're just Black. You can't be anything else. You know? So I just kind of feel like... when you're saying that lesbians are just looking for love, you're excluding a whole range of people who, you know what? Like having fun, like hooking up... and that is perfectly normal for any human being of any sexuality.
MD: And you can actually look for both.
Mari: Exactly! BEcause sometimes, you know, sometimes... spoiler alert, kids: sex and love actually go hand-in-hand with each other.
MD: And you can also be looking for someone to have a relationship [with] but if you don't find anyone, just have fun in the meantime.
Mari: Yeah. What do you think about bisexual men, then? Because there's already a whole thing about, you know, gay men being super-promiscuous and everything. Do you think that would make bisexual men even more promiscuous if we follow that myth?
MD: Oh yeah. Probably, yeah.
Mari: Yeah, okay. Cool.
MD: But I'm not a bisexual man, so...
Mari: We're gonna have to get someone to talk to us about that. Alright, and number eight is... the final one... and the big one. "Bisexuality does not exist."
MD: Yeah...
Mari: [laughs] We do not exist, you are hearing spirits' voices from the beyond.
MD: Yeah, we're ghosts.
Mari: The thing is... Bisexuality as a term may have been developed later than, you know, people realized that it happened, like, it was happening, they just didn't know how to name it. but it's not a trend, it's not something that just appeared out of nowhere. There are so many instances in history of someone being bisexual, it's just the fact that... a lot of the times, history likes to... Is straightwashing a term? I'm just gonna say straightwashing.
MD: Yeah...
Mari: Straightwash. Not just whitewash, but straightwash history.
MD: Yeah, it's about straightwashing. And it's also about, you know... Today we know there are more mental health issues in the LGBTQ community, and also research that proves that bisexuals have more difficulties with their identity than other... than gay or lesbians. If it were... I mean, if we had a choice, we wouldn't choose that. [laughs]
Mari: Exactly. Which is why sexuality is not a choice. You know, being transgender is not a choice. We don't actively choose to be miserable. There are many other things in life that make us miserable. And sexuality is actually one of the joys in life. Or it can be one of the joys in life.
MD: It should be.
Mari: It should be. If you learn to love yourself and if you learn to shut down the haters.
MD: Yeah, no... Bisexuals are real and... Yeah.
Mari: They're here talking to you.
MD: And not to take over the world.
Mari: That would be kind of really great. If we could do, like... A bisexual Marxist revolution. Down with capitalism and heteronormativity and up with... free love.
MD: [laughs]
Mari: [laughs] Alright, you kids go home and do your homework and... we will see you... I mean, you will hear us again next week. In the meantime, please subscribe to our Twitter, which is @bi_positive, and also subscribe to us on SoundCloud and iTunes. Take care!
[Outro music plays]
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eldritchsurveys · 4 years
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876.
5k Survey IV
151. What is louder and more annoying: 200 adults talking or one four-year-old screaming? >> I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard 200 adults talking at one time. Regardless, I’m sensory-defensive, so many things register as the same level of “too loud” for me. Both of these things would be simply “too loud”. 152. Do you believe the stories about planes, boats and people mysteriously disappearing into the Bermuda triangle? >> I find them vaguely interesting. I liked the X-Files episode about it, Gillian Anderson’s character (it wasn’t Scully, technically...) was excellent in it lol. 153. Who are you the most jealous of? >> I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. 154. What is the happiest way you can start your day? >> In an Inworld cuddle pile. 155. Do you ever have moments where you feel like everything is all right in the world? >> Occasionally.
156. Who thinks that you are offensive? >> I don’t know who thinks I’m offensive. It’s not like people go out of their way to tell me that or anything. 157. If you had to teach a class in something, what would you be able to teach people? >> I’d rather not. I greatly prefer being a student, anyway. 158. Have you ever had a spiritual experience (an experience that cannot be explained by science)? >> I’m sure science could contrive a reasonable enough explanation for the things I experience (and if it can’t now, it probably will eventually). Regardless, I prefer my explanations, and I’ll stick to them. 159. Do you believe that this experience was truly mystical or do you think there is some scientific explanation for it, only you don’t know what it is? >> An experience being explained in a scientific fashion doesn’t prevent it from being mystical. There are plenty of mystical experiences that science has an explanation for, after all, but the people involved in those experiences keep their own counsel. I think both a mystical explanation and a scientific explanation can exist comfortably side-by-side in my brain; they’re both useful for different reasons, particularly when it comes to communicating the experience to others (I wouldn’t use a mystical explanation when speaking to a hard materialist, for example, because, like... what would be the point...?). 160. Do you get offended easily? >> I wouldn’t say that, no. But I tend to be automatically distrustful of people who seem to go out of their way to be “offensive”. Just because whatever they’re saying doesn’t directly hurt me doesn’t mean I want to hang out with someone who says the kinds of things they say. 161. Would you still love and stay with your significant other if he or she had to have a breast or testicle removed? >> I can’t imagine being affected by that sort of thing at all. 162. Do you believe in fate or free will? >> I don’t care to choose a side. I think the discourse around it is interesting. 163. Do you believe that only boring people get bored? >> Of course not. That’s a rude (and, of course, entirely inaccurate, but mostly rude) thing to say. 164. Can life change or are we all stuck in vain? >> What does this even mean? 165. What changes are you afraid of? >> The kind that cause me pain. 166. Are you a day person or nocturnal? >> I prefer to be awake in the daylight and asleep at night. 167. What one CD could you listen to for an entire week (no mixed CD’s, it must be an album)? >> Why would I even have to do this anymore? It’s 2020. 168. Which is worse, working in retail, food service, or an office? >> For me, all of them are equally bad. Well, okay, maybe food service is worse because there’s the added layer of having to handle food and be around mucky gross things. 169. What’s the coolest job you ever had? >> Manning merch tables at local shows. 170. What is one central idea that your thoughts seem to come back to? >> There is no central idea...? I’m not sure how one even determines this. 171. Have you ever wanted to be an actor/tress? >> I was one in Inworld’s first iteration, when I was physically a child. But I have never really had interest in being one in this world. 172. If you had the power to control one person and make this person do anything you wanted for a whole day, who would you pick and what would they do? >> Total power exchange is totally not my scene, I’d get bored of it way too easily. I could absolutely see myself snapping, “make a fucking decision for yourself for once” after like an hour or two, lmao. 173. What star sign are you and what is your sign like? >> Gemini. I’m not going to go into an explanation of Gemini’s commonly-recognised traits, Google can take care of that for you. 174. Did the Blair Witch Project scare you? >> I haven’t seen it. The new Blair Witch game looked vaguely interesting. 175. Are you in constant fear of death? >> Not constant. I did spend about a year or so like that, recently. It sucked pretty bad. 176. Does fear of death keep you from building a life? >> No. Sometimes I get that bone-deep “what’s the point” feeling, but like... that feeling will just have to exist on its own while I go ahead and keep doing stuff. I can’t give in to that. 177. Do you like all your movies to be in wide-screen? >> I’m not sure what the alternative is, or what the difference is or whatever. 178. Are you a fan of any comic books? >> Sure. 179. At what age did you attend your first funeral? >> I don’t remember. I vaguely recall one happening when I was young, but I have no idea what exact age I was. 180. What do you smell like (lotion, cologne, sweat)? >> Just... like, a person. I showered this morning, but the fragrances from soap and lotion don’t linger very long, and it hasn’t been long enough for me to start smelling like sweat or anything. So I’m somewhere in the middle. 181. What are your greatest sources for wisdom? >> Oh, you know. People. 182. When you were little, where did your parents tell you babies come from? >> My father never had that discussion with me, I figured it out from reading books. 183. What is your favorite band? >> I don’t have one. 184. What’s the best cheesy 80’s song? >> Come On Eileen. /picks one at random 185. What’s the best kind of movie to see on a date? >> I’m not the person to ask. 186. Do you like to sit in the front, middle or back of the Movie Theater? >> Back, absolutely. And woe unto the people who have the same idea and try to sit near me. 187. Have you ever been inside an abandoned building? >> Yeah. 188. Under what circumstances would you agree to work for free? >> The circumstances where I really just want to do whatever-it-is and it isn’t too intensive, I guess. And where I feel like my work is valued in some other way if not financially. 189. Candles or strobe lights? >> Candles. Although sometimes in a dark area, a candle flame dancing around on the wick will have a kind of strobe-y effect, and I hate it. 190. Do you think the Lord of the Rings movies are true to the books or did Hollywood change the story too much? >> I don’t know, I didn’t read the book. 191. When you see a stranger on the street does your first reaction lean towards thinking of this person as a potential friend or as a potential threat? >> I don’t think of them as a potential anything.  192. Is it natural for human beings to fear and distrust each other, or is it cultural? >> Obviously it’s cultural, or every human being in every society on earth would fear and distrust everyone else with or without cause... which... is not the case... 193. What do you really want to buy? >> Nothing. I don’t have the money to buy anything right now, anyway. 194. You have to choose. Would you be happier marrying someone rich for their money or living in the streets and subway tunnels with someone you love? >> God, do I hate this question. First of all, neither money nor love are “everything”, but “love” is work, not some kind of magic bubbly gushy feeling that happens no matter what, and that work starts to take a backseat when all one’s energy is devoted to simply surviving from day to day. How do I know? Take a wild guess. Second of all, the question doesn’t take into account whether you can also love someone you’ve married for the sake of financial security. (Spoiler: remember, love is action and will and intent, not magic, so yeah, you can.) Third of all, can I stress that there’s nothing fucking romantic and movie-like about being homeless? Because sometimes I feel like people imagine “we’ll share a cardboard box and be free of the shackles of modern society <3″ or some shit and meanwhile I’ve seen homeless couples, many homeless couples. I’ve been homeless couples. It sucks. That’s the end of the story. It sucks. (There’s probably similar romantic notions about marrying some tycoon and being a kept lady/boy, or whatever, which do not at all measure up to the reality. I’m sure a lot of people end up abused and neglected and miserable in their gilded-cage master bedrooms, afterwards. But since that’s not my experience, it wasn’t the focus of my fathomless ire with this question, lol.) 195. If someone wanted to understand you what book could they read that would help? >> That’s not going to happen. 196. Do you think it’s odd that Americans have freedom of religion and yet call themselves ‘one nation under god’? >> I don’t think it’s odd because I’m pretty used to how the United States works in that respect. I know it operates under conservative, Christian hegemony while playing the role of secular, progressive Western nation on the outside.
197. In what sense are you a minority? >> I’m Black, disabled/neuro-atypical, socially considered female, trans, and queer. I think that covers it. 198. Are you anti social? >> No. I have a few asocial behaviours and inclinations, but I’m not anti-social. 199. Do you photograph well? >> Sometimes. Not often, in my opinion. 200. Do you think that human beings would survive through a nuclear winter? >> I don’t know. I’m not knowledgeable enough about either human biology (and psychology) or the specifics of nuclear winter to say.
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artdjgblog · 4 years
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​Innerview: Pete Dulin / Present Magazine​
January 2007
Art & Photo: DJG
Note: Interview for a Kansas City, MO art and culture blog.​
0​1) How long have you been designing posters and CD packaging/artwork?
If I were to say I’ve been designing this stuff since Mom gave birth, well you might think me to be pompus, new agey and bit queer. However, in the past few years I’ve come to the conclusion that everything I’ve experienced has brought me to this point. Information has been at a constant and consistently carried in the backpack(s). Though, it’s more the matter of channeling that. I’ve always been making things. To put things into a more professional, or “text book” answer, I’m in the sixth year developing a bad back of my own accord. And tack on another four and a half of formal training before that. In which two of those I was making things for people on the side. So, really about 7 or 8 years in a design sense, but only offically five under my DJG belt. So, I’m still a youngster. But, I feel design years add up like dog years. ​0​2) How would you describe your approach or design aesthetic? With certain I have my influences and I’ve had formal training. However, the majority of the time is spent not thinking, rather just doing. And I’m not trying to push athletic shoes. Each day my head gets up different. I am always hungry and eat food the same way. I always put my pants on the same way. I lock the door the same way. I walk the same way. That stuff is all automatic. It’s my head that differs. As the mush upstairs is assembling for the day, my thinking and process(es) tends to come different, though it can all be intuitive to me at the same time. True, somedays I’m not in any shape to win the pennant, nor even give a care about art or design. Yes, I do crank out the work by just doing…and my portfolio is always eating. But, I still feel I’m the laziest guy in my woom, even on a good day. I don’t really consider myself an artist or a designer. I just enjoy the act of making those things but there are moments I just don’t feel like it. When design isn’t doing “it” for me, I read or write or watch things. If I’m not doing anything, I have to be doing something. And I’ve quit the whole notion of actually being something other than just myself. And my self is not always in the mood for me. And I don’t think about a design being good enough to measure-up or anything silly like that. It just has to feel right and true within me. I can tell when something feels forced and without life. For me, the work has to be breathing and has to say something. Now, whatever it conversates to the viewer/audience is all up in the air. It’s always a hoot to hear what others think. Back on the subject of others’ talk of an aesthetic. This is one of the few times I truely think about how I’m doing things. I then start overthinking and that can be a dangerous place. People come to me all the time and say things like, “Oh, you are really great at this and are such a skillfull artisan of the such ‘n’ such…(more nonsense fluff ensues).” This is a complement I suppose, but I tend to take it as a way of them saying that it’s all coming to easy for me. I am my only competition so this is when I start to push myself a bit harder. I’ve got to stay ahead of myself. I like the silly idea of someone doing their best work every day. I don’t know how long I’ll be around, but I hope I’m always doing my best work from my perspective. ​0​3) Historically, society has shifted from the Age of Mechanical Reproduction since the advent of the printing press to the Age of Digital Reproduction. Why is it still important to make a man-made mark on something seemingly short-lived as a band flyer or poster? In taking foundation courses during my first year of formal education we did not use computers. Everything was very basic, hands-on cutting and pasting and drawing fundamentals of design. My friends were complaining about how they couldn’t wait to get on the computer. Personally, I was so naive and so in love with making things by hand (ever since I could remember working my fingertips as a child) that the idea of designing with a computer was not in my vocabulary. I stated to my friends how I was going to take the route of design that didn’t include the aid of computers. They simply laughed at my lunacy. Being that it was the late ‘90s, it was inevitable that we’d be using computers. What’s funny now is that for some odd reason I’ve been able to succeed a bit working with my hands and most of the people I went to school with tire of staring at their computer screen day jobs. I definately appreciate a computer and I use one. But, I think of it only as a tool. I use it as a way to ease production a bit and of course it can be a time saver for layout and print. The problem with computers, the internet and desktop publishing gear is that anybody can be a designer. It’s definately eased things I suppose, but we’ve got people cranking out the most obtrusive visual clutter. I don’t aim to sound arrogant. It’s just that everybody thinks they know what they are doing. Everybody wants the cliche in high-gloss makeup, filled to the brim and in suffocation galore. Why not? We over-consume everything else. It’s just sad to me. I even see trained designers doing it. And most everything just feels so fake and soulless. When I first saw those early cave paintings in grade school text books, something about those expressions just delighted me and it felt right and true. And now when I see graffiti on the wall or a shopping list or letter I just think about the heart and energy behind it all. One of the best things that ever happened to me (with design) is when my computer crashed about five years back and I lost the ability to use 2,000 some fonts. When I had them, I tried to use them appropriately and sparingly. But, they were nothing but a crutch to me. Rarely do I use computer fonts now. If I do there better be a reason or a restraint in my time. I just found it important to really speak honestly with my work. Each day is different and so is my voice and thought. Hand scrawls, handmade type and thumbprints bring forth the idea of a human identity and feels like thought and life was put into the expression. True, if we had the ability to actually see people’s verbal speaking expression there are some voices that would be just plain dull and in the same ol’ font and face over and over. And I suppose at times that would be appropriate. But, just think about the endless images bouncing from each other if everybody’s words, language, expression, feelings and breath stuck around in a clear visual form and of their own signature. That would be incredible. But, I’m sure it would do more harm than good. But, it would definately be something else for people to complain about so then there would be even more imagery because of it! The great artist Saul Steinberg communicated language as marks of visual expression in this way in much of his work. A poster to me is exciting because of the fact that it is short-lived, yet it can be very in-your-face and of the moment. A good poster to me is like a big zit. And a good one will pop and speak all over…let you know that it’s there. It boggles me when people don’t take advantage of this idea. It just seems like people push a duplicator button and paint with boringness and fluorescents over and over. It’s very zombie. (though, zombies could probably make more creative things). In this digital age of people getting information via the web and myspace and cell phones and music players and all that garbage, it’s even more important to get them to focus at things again. I’m all for the internet, but I feel hardly anybody under the age of 35 truely looks at anything in actual form anymore for more than 2 seconds. I am guilty of this too. And this possibly stems from perception of wanting everything bigger, better, faster and right now. These things that are supposed to make our lives easier, yet fill life to the brim and we’re still wondering where our time went. So, it does mean a lot to me when people actually stop and look and think…maybe come back to it again. It’s warming to me when something measley like a concert poster can get somebody to stop their busy life and take notice in a notice. Maybe even get a tickle out of it and a smile in their heart to make their day…maybe even take it home for their own wall. That just means the world. ​0​4) Do you have particular influences in art/design? I used to think you had to have a little man with flash cards or answers written in undershorts for quick draws whenever approached with this question. Anymore I don’t care about impressing people. I touched before on my influence of just existing and growing. I don’t understand it when people find or ape a “style” and milk that into retirement (unless it’s a true and pure speciality like most folk artists, Edward Gorey or Jean-Michel Basquiat). Gosh, I would cut off my hands as opposed to making the same thing everyday until I die. But, I would also do the same to be able to draw or paint like some people. What it is that I do is not something I punch a time card for, nor pound a keyboard to compute my solutions. It is a way of life and life is always changing. Silly, but the only way to stop it from my body is to spill my skull. And then have the bums burn my thumb prints to keep warm at night. I’m blessed to have been raised in a rural environment with a bit of old-fashioned and hands-on approach to things. I wanted so badly to get out of that environment when I was coming of high school age. Now, I really appreciate this aspect of my life. Don’t begin to ask me how I reached into the design grab bag and pulled out this funny-lookin’ rabbit i’m wiggling on. It just kind of happened. Most of it belongs to my always active imagination and having many acres to romp. There wasn’t really a drain plug on what I could do or absorb. Every day my siblings and I were into something new and building our own altered universe from the inspiration of television, movies, tractor pulls, rodeos, demolition dirbies, state fairs…you name it. A great aspect of all of this is that I never really shed any of it. If you could devise a way for me to go back into my time as an eleven-year-old, you bet I would. I feel so many shear that skin as they reach puberty and young adulthood. Even in my late teens when everybody was out dating and all that nonsense, I made myself go to my room and draw and make things. Shoot, I was still building tree houses and playing war (I still do at times). I am constantly fumbling back for it all. I’ve still got most of my childhood things all around me here in my basement club house. I don’t throw anything away. Everytime I go home another bag or two is brought back. The older I get the more I believe my streak stems a lot from my Grandmother on my Dad’s side. I still have many of the things she’s made by hand: fridge magnets, cat head pillow, blankets, book bag. As well as carry the images of wearing bread bags on my feet to school, creating toys out of thread spools, baking and cooking all the time, building forts in the living room, making pretty ladies out of flowers and especially sporting my beloved dead animal backpack (denim with plastic lining for easy blood clean-up). These things sound strange to others, but my world is built from them. She was constantly making or doing (as most of her generation did). I’m a big fan. It’s sad to me as nobody really just makes things anymore for the heck of it. And it’s really sad as she sits and bides her time in the nursing home, limited in her making and doing. I hope my engine breaks from making and doing before I get put in that point. If not, take me to the back forty and shoot me rotten. If somebody were to ask me to place my work in some sort of design bracket…well, I suppose it lands somewhere in the land of Henryk Tomaszewski meets Saul Steinberg meets Lester Beall meets Saul Bass meets Push Pin meets Ray Johnson meets Art Chantry meets Jim Henson meets Folk Art meets garbage in the street…or something like that. It’s really hard to answer that question. Anyway, I get bored with the look of a lot of current design and fashions. Though, there are a few great designers my age coming out of the woods more and more…doing fresh things and in creative ways. I think it stems from growing up in a time of the media of television, film, video games, computers, animation, graphic novels and just the overall mass consumerism of culture and language. And all of these things shaking hands with the idea of pushing boudaries and smothered with a glaze of technology. But, then again every generation is a little bit more ahead of the last…I guess to some degree. I love and appreciate my upbringing and even my access to the culture now. Still, I do wish sometimes I could have lived and designed some fourty, fifty or sixty years back. Though, I’m sure I’d still be in some basement, garnering enjoyment making things the way I want to make them. ​0​5) Does your work relate to the subject matter? For example, do you consciously try to create artwork that suits a band’s music or image? I think some people in the music industry don’t know how to take my work. For one, I feel most of the so-called scene takes itself way too seriously. It’s funny to me, all this playing dress-up and rock star…and especially when it extends into the late twenties and thirties. But, I do suppose some people were just born to be stars. My work isn’t for every person. But, there are a few out there who for some odd reason “get” it and it��s all very flattering of their attraction. It’s even spreading across the country and into other parts of the world. I don’t aim for cool points. I take it serious only to the point of being non-serious. However, when designing it’s important to be held accountable with your client, city, audience, environment, venue, peers and yourself. And I have morals with the world design community, art and design history and with myself. When it comes to marrying my work to a certain band’s music or image…well, what do I have to base on for an image? I have nothing but other designer’s interpretations of where to categorize the idea of what/how a sound or scene should register as. I have an appreciation for the past and present, but I really find it odd when somebody comes to a designer and says they want to play look-alike-dress-up to something already in existence. True, nothing is original anymore and I’m not saying that I’m anything special. Rather, I feel personality helps white wash things a bit and a lot of design these days lacks it (especially in the music industry). These days you can throw a rock and hit many kids making things (music and art). But a large chunk of it seems to be lacking proper development and form…and life. You can’t pick somebody else’s nose and expect to smear those boogers for yourself. You’ve got to earn them. You’ve got to get dirty along the way and find a way to bark, have fun, be yourself and just do things to do them…and then have Mom hose you off at the back door. ​0​6) Pick one of your favorite creations. What do you like best about its elements? First of all, my designs to me are like multiple babies to a mother. Yes, some may look more handsome and pretty and say all the right things and in the right way. Some may pay their own bills and some may be a pain in the rear. Each one is a favorite to me at the time of their creation and birth and in memory to the place that I was at the time of conception. You can point at every 300 and some poster I’ve made and it has a name, place and means something to me. If you said for me to create something for you like one I did back in 2001, well I couldn’t. It was in and of it’s place in my time. It won the race for that given moment. Shoot, sometimes I can’t even work within the same manner fifteen minutes ago. One creation that comes to mind for this question is a package design and identity for The Elevator Division. It’s one that I can call a significant and critical moment in my design sensibility. It’s one that garnered lots of attention and even though I plan to always be making my best work, the “Whatever Makes You Happy” EP CD will always be in my all-time top ten. I came up with the insane idea of cutting, spray painting imagery and making elaborate inserts for 250 packages (I vowed I’d never do it again, but funny how I work…and how I nearly exhausted my tank a month ago repeating this ridiculous process for another CD project). Anyway, so here I am the night before making all of these things and I end up changing my concept at the last minute. Thankfully, it still fit the real estate of the cardboard package, though It required spraying each cover three times as opposed to once. So, production time was tripled and time was not on my side but the design I felt was…and it worked and said a thousand time more than the original. What I had was an attention grabbing image of a hand shooting one of it’s fingers guised as a missle. The idea of shooting off one’s options…or, whatever makes you happy. It worked. It popped. It spoke exactly what the title and the band were speaking of in the music with relationships and with the political climate of war and post-terrorism America . And it came to me the night before (Anyway, I’m boring you with all that designer yap). So, my excitement of the new imagery, fueled my creation of 250 packages in less than a 48 hour period (and let’s not forget to mention i was working a day job). I was really smart and thought it was an awesome idea to spray paint in a basement with no ventilation. At the end of my final hour I erupted from the fumes and haze, with red, white and black paint caked to my hands and coming from my mouth and nose. I flung open the front door of the house as lightning crackled to find a hard rain falling. I was Noah and my boat was taking off…or landed, based on perspective of the event. In revival I jumped and slid head first down the steep grassy embankment and into the dirty, flooded street. I was washed clean. Sadly the design was so effective that it sold-out within a couple of shows and I had to do it all over again. But, the next round was adapted to a standard jewel case. ​0​7) What’s essential on a poster or flyer to grab a viewer’s attention in mere seconds? How does form and function come into play? I’ve touched upon this a wee bit in an earlier question. People tend to have short attention spans and walk with their heads down…and/or simply don’t look at things. Because of this a design has really got to pop, have immediacy and definately needs to say something. It’s funny because people have told me things like, “That is probably your worst poster.” It’s rare for people to be so honest in this way, but I love it when they are so passionate about it (and I love it when they say probably because that means they’ve really put some thought into it and have had discussions with themselves about it in comparable reason with my past efforts and wasted time wrestling with it). But, for some reason that poster really must have spoken to them to have so much feel for it. Normally these are the posters that end up being published and placed in traveling exhibitions. It’s really funny to me. At the time of creation I’m not trying to piss on anybody nor try to make something groundbreaking or award-winning. I just feel like doing things the way I do them in that moment and I feel I make them work. Form and function is an important application for design. Here is another thing I’ve already mentioned…I feel so many kids see something cool and just start cranking out these cool-lookin’ forms…hand-picking the way their things will look. There is a major lack of growth in most art-music these days…even outside of these areas…even just in someone’s persona. I’m not saying you can’t have influences, everybody’s got them and everything’s been done before and done better. I just long for things that speak of their own island. It’s like on “Jurassic Park”. You can’t go in and recreate the notion of copying dinosaurs for yourself. You can only get away with that for so long. Anyway, I also spoke about designs grabbing attention by way of having human elements and a definate soul behind them. I’ve come to compare a poster to a pop song. Sure they’ve been done a thousand times before…but, you can tell the ones that have a true sense of personality and heart to them. There is so much dead-beat fluff out there that can’t even be compared to something that’s alive…something that knows the rules but takes them and reassembles them to their own architecture. It’s very evident in music especially. For instance two bands can play on separate late night talk shows within minutes of each other. Both write pop songs. One speaks freshness and purity, even looks sincere, despite being just a pop band with another pop song. The other feels like actors assembled to play a song somebody else penned for an instant “fat wallet”. It just feels too perfect and calculated…and lifeless. Not everybody cares about this or sees this. It is subjective to a certain degree, but there is a true difference. ​0​8) In your opinion, are flyers and posters a low-brow form of art? People have really started holding posters in higher regard the past five or more years. Poster making is hotter than ever and it really hit a certain peak a couple years ago. The work is spreading farther than just within its respected cities. The artists are becoming just as popular as their art.A poster these days is living beyond it’s short life on the street, on a corkboard or at the venue. People are excited about it. Exhibitions, magazines, websites, books and design annuals celebrate the scene. Collectors and fans of art and music are snatching them up. True, the art of the poster has been around for a long time (and I’ll just reflect on it from my vantage point at the moment). But, I feel that it’s now (band posters in particular) really being taking seriously in the art world. At one time (and in some cases and by some people, still are) posters and flyers were being seen as litter and visual clutter. We can’t help but owe a lot of the commotion to modern pioneers like Art Chantry. He basically single-handily changed the way of the poster back in the ‘70s and ‘80s with experiments, lavish production methods and design aesthetics. He is considered a master artist to the trade and even in the arts in general. Shoot, seeing him lecture in college six years ago helped me decide to take that leap onto the starving artist limb-limbo, doing my own thing as opposed to working for another man. I spoke briefly to him after that lecture and told about my interest in independent music design. He was honest and said, “Expect to starve…several times over.” And I have. I still need to tell him that…and tell him thank you. Though, many poster artists these days no longer have to starve. It’s being taken so seriously and the quality of art is held so high that some can do it for full-time income…and do it rather successfully. A lot of them have full-fledged design studios and cranking out more than just posters. And there are a lot of guys like me with day jobs and coming home to moonlight out of basements and back bedrooms. For myself, I kind of hit the scene at the right time when it was really starting to explode..even though I didn’t really know what I was doing, other than just “doing”. I feel it defin​i​tely takes a certain mindset and you’ve got to make some sacrifices. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but with poster art, anyone can do it…it’s easy to do and with limited resources. And then you’ve got the excitement of people bringing back almost deceased production techniques like the letter press. My only rant right now with poster art is that though the quality of work looks great, I feel there is a defin​i​te cohesive “look” and style to a lot of it right now. There are a few doing their own thing, but a lot of it is starting to look the same and almost becoming too easy and formulated for some. This is where I give my two cents of brain fart. What’s great about a poster is it’s actual short-lived life on the street. It makes all the more reason to try new things and really push the art form and most importantly gives reason to just be yourself. If it fails it will be gone or in the gutter within weeks and another will take its place. -djg
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For Goody
LAST GAME OF NUMBERS
  Towards the end of sandlot days, we had trouble getting eighteen guys on the field for pick up baseball games. We invented a truncated baseball game called Numbers. We played Numbers with four guys on a team. A team would take the field with two infielders and two outfielders. The batting team supplied its own pitcher.
  A swing and a miss counted as an out as did two foul balls. A ground ball, pop up or line drive gloved by an infielder counted as an out. Anything hit to right field was an out.  Anytime an outfielder caught a ball in the air, that too was an out. Nobody ran the bases, too hot and dusty for that crap. We assigned numbers to all non-outs. A fielding error or single was one point, a double was two points, a triple three and a home run four. The numbers were judgment calls as nobody was running bases. In the field we had a way of erasing Numbers from the score. If somone made a “nice” play in the field, it subtracted a point. If someone made a “great ” play it erased two points. If someone made a “sensational” play,known as a “sensay”, it would erase three points and automatically bring the fielding team to the plate.
  I can still see Rick Cicotta charging in from the outfield claiming “sensay,sensay” after a making a sliding diving grab in shallow left field. Of course, Frog, on the hitting team would claim “no sensay” and the game would slow down for awhile until a consensus was reached, usually without a fistfight.
  We kept track of the numbers. Higher number after seven innings wins.
  The only 5 point number was a ball hit against or over the fence into the cornfield. The fence was three hundred feet from home plate, guarded by an apple tree and about ten feet tall. Some of us, were able to reach the fence but no one had gone over it. If a batter hit a home run, not only did he get four points but he immediately got another at bat.
  Late August heat was upon us. We had been playing baseball, not only all that summer but also what seemed like our entire boyhoods. We were tired of being boys. Baseball was beginning to slow down and wear out. Cars were appearing. We were starting to get around.
  On that day, we had only one playable ball left. We had either lost or beat the life out of all the rest.
  The Numbers game proceeded as usual. One side up, one side down with only the occasional arguments about a number. Precedents had been set and were referred to. “That’s not a ‘great’ play, Feeb made a much better play than that last week and it was only 'nice’ etc.” As the summer grew more heated, the arguments grew less heated. We had other things on our mind and we were just trying to play the game and get off the field. We were finding new places where the kids were hip.
  Efficiency was the beauty of Numbers. A seven inning game took only about an hour and a half at the most.
  On that day, it was the bottom of the fourth inning when Jake  came to the plate. Over the course  of the summer, Jake had made the the most dramatic progress with his swing.
  Jake had three nicknames besides Jake, which itself was a nickname for Jeff. Jake was called Crocodile or Crock because his nose came to a pointed snout. He was also called Cement Mixer or Mix for his mix of muscle and determination along with his complete absence of behavioraland/or linguistic subtlety. He was also called Chim..short for Chimney because he smoked like one.
  Jake signalled to Big Joe, where he wanted the pitch. Joe threw it right there and Jake went yard. Easily clearing the fence.
  Everybody on both teams appreciated the shot. Jake asked for priase and he got it.
  The blast broke up the momentum of the game. We had to climb the fence and search for the ball. Everbody on Jake’s team lit up while my team trudged to the fence, climbed over it and searched for the ball. This took about fifteen minutes.
  Dogs Drexel finally found the ball.
  The game resumed.
  Jake was still at bat.
  He signalled. Big Joe delivered.
  Jake blasted another one outta here.
  Everybody oohed and aahed. We climbed the fence again. The hunt for the ball in the cornfield recommenced. More sun. More cigarettes and in the corn on the bench. Another fifteen minute search
  Somebody found the ball.
  The game resumed.
 Jake still at bat.
  KEERAK
  Another one.
  At this point appreciation turned into irritation and irritation was approaching awareness and contempt. Everybody started yelling at Jake. Instead of praise, Jake started getting blame and venom. “You big muscle bound asshole. You’re ruining the game with this shit. C'mon Mix, let’s get this shit over with.”
  Jake was in unchartered territory and he had taken all of us with him. The suspicion started to grow that the field was too small for Jake and he could go yard at will. We were starting to get too old and too strong for Numbers.
  The search for the ball took even longer this time. The game had been decided. What was the point of the search? What was the point of continuing? What was the point of hanging around every day at a baseball field?
  So hot.
  Sun so relentless.
  Jake still at bat.
  The whole afternoon was starting to feel like Hell.
  Like eternity.
  Finally the ball was retrieved.
  As Jake dug in at the plate, everybody on both teams was swearing at him. He was a muscle bound, lame brained, crocodile faced, cement headed, goofy, queer, cock sucking walkin cancer factory etc. He had ruined our afternoon. He was in the process of destroying the game of Numbers which was our last link to sandlot baseball, in many ways our last link to boyhood.
  Jake didn’ give two shits. Guys like Jake love pressure as much as they love pissing people off. I’ll never forget watching Jake at that moment. He didn’t care about anything that anybody was saying. He didn’t even care about the end of boyhood or for that matter, the ash dangling from his Marlboro as he dug in at the dish. Those kind of distractions were for sinlgles hitters like me. Power don’t go there.
  Big Joe was tired of lobbig the ball where Jake wanted it. This time he reared back and put all of his mustard on a fastball, inside corner. Joe had plenty of mustard. He was 16, six foot two, two hundred thirty pounds.
  Jake got around on it.
  I never had and never will see a ball hit that far on that field. That last shot went fify feet further back into the bushes surrounding the cornfield, into zone unknown, out of boy’s town into manland. Jake’s blast lost the last ball on the last pitch of the summer……..
  Everbody stopped mocking Jake. We were all pals again. We gave Jake the praise he deserved but we realized the game was over.
  We went home
 We had changed
No one bothered to find the ball or even look for it.
We never played Numbers again.
Summer ended.
Two weeks later
Dogs was driving
Soon, my buddies and me would be real well known. We were going to college and/or getting drafted.
PIZZA MIND
 First day in college……
  I got to my dorm room before my other roomies. The room had a bunkbed and a single bed. I didn’t know which bed to take or whether I should wait for my roomies to arrive and we’d decide together. My mother gave me her last bit of pre-college advice.
  “Take the single bed. We’re here first.
  That’s some great advice.
  I took the single. She helped me make it.
  They said goodbye.
  I was on my own.
  I lit up a Newport and realized nobody was going to stop me. Smoking was still a big deal in 1964. I exhaled and the smoke never looked more beautiful. I blew exquisite smoke rings and rings through rings.
  Eventually, my two roomies showed up. They were both big guys. Rob was from Utica and Louie was from Auburn. I left the room while they got unpacked. I explored the rest of the dorm. When I returned, me and my roomies began to feel each other out. They had settled in the bunkbed…Rob on top…Louie below. Louie was a basketball player and Rob had left his girl back in Utica.
  We decided to take a walk uptown, into the village and get a pizza. I had never had a pizza before in my life. First day in college, first day with new roomates and about to have my first pizza.
  We walked up the hill to Main Street past the fountain of the bear and made our way to Pontillo’s pizza. I was pretending that I’d done this many times.
  We sat down and Rob ordered for us.
 While we waited for the pizza, we talked about why we chose Geneseo State and why we wanted to become teachers. We were so young and so earnest. They had a juke box in the pizza joint. I played two songs. “Pretty Woman” and “Baby, I Need Your Loving”.
  I told Rob that I played “ Baby I Need Your Loving” out of respect for the girls we had left behind and “Pretty Woman ‘ for the girls we would meet.
 “Baby, I Need Your Loving” came on first and it arrived as our pizza was served. I had no idea how to eat a pizza so I watched as Rob expertly spun the pizza around and separated the pieces.We were in semi-formal mode. We hadn’t laughed or cursed at each other yet.
  Rob removed the first piece of pizza abd put it in his mouth just as the Four Tops were singing “OOh Ooh Ooh Ooh, Oouh Ooh, Oooh Ooh”
 The piece was too hot and Rob stated going "Ooh ooh ooh” in pain just as the Tops were singing Baby I need Your Loving.“
  While he was oohing and aahing in pain a big gobby string of cheese ahd slipped off the pizza and was stuck to his chin all the way to the pizza which he had pulled away from his face.
  He looked hilarious. I tried not to laugh at his pain but couldn’t help myself.
  He didn’t mind. He laughed too and so did Louie.
  Louie and I decided to wait a little bit before we took our slices.
  I was very careful with my first bite of my first slice of pizza.
  I’ve eaten a lot of pizza since then and not always as carefully.
  Soon, I would meet a pretty woman but that’s another story.
 Whenever I hear either of those songs, I think of that day and that pizza.
Man in Orbit
  I had been in my Blake Hall dormitory for about a month when I got a visit from Vin. We walked around the quad. In order to walk around the quad, the walker had to turn right outside my dorm... walk to and past the college center... turn left.... walk pastthe Wadsworth building.... turn left walk past the library turn left past the administration and then take a ralph past more dorms until the walk ended at the entrance to Blake Hall. About half a mile altogether.
  This was in October of 1964, almost exactly 55 years ago.
   At that time the moon was not a documented magnificent desolation but more of a benevolent mystery. Astronauts were learning how to maneuver in space while satelites like Telstar were orbitting the planet for the first time.
  Vin observed that the quad walk "would make a beautiful orbit".
   I didn't know what the hell he was talking about and asked for an explanation.
    "Here's what you do, get a bunch of guys from your dorm. Send out one guy at a time to run around the quad. Time the run. Call every timed run an orbit. When one man completes his "orbit" have another guy take over relay style. Maybe make an aluminum ball that one orbitter can pass to the next orbitter. While in orbit, if the orbitter passes anyone they are required to say "beep beep" while passing. If you get the right guys, you might be able to keep that orbit going for a long time: hours, days, nights, weeks, months maybe until we land on the moon. You and the orbitters might make this quad famous if the media gets ahold of the story."
  I liked the idea and told Vin that I would get an "orbit" going soon.
  Over the next couple of weeks, I talked up the idea of the orbit to the guys in my dorm. I set a time and a date for the "launch". At launch time, we had the aluminum ball ready to go and an orbitter on the launching pad which was really the steps outside Blake Hall. We had gathered the usual 10 guys who counted down the launch.
   The first man in orbit was Butsh Conboy. At the call of ignition, Butsh took off. Everybody had a clear view of the launch and commented on its beauty and how all systems were go etc. Up near the administration building, trees blocked the porch view of the orbitter. We all knew that blockage was coming so we had called it the dark side. I remember when Butsh disapeared from view. No one had ever entered the dark side while orbitting. Everyone was very relieved when Butsh emerged from the dark side and headed home for his landing.
   The next orbitter, Don Horner was waiting to receive the aluminum ball and begin his orbit. While Horner was in orbit half of the guys were watching his orbit and the other half were questioning Butsh who was in quarantine until Horner completed his orbit. In quarantine, Butsh was asked about the condition of the orbit. Was there a lot of debris? Did he notice any satelites. How many times did he beep? And then Horner was in the dark space until he emerged tothe cheers and admiration of porch monkeys and future orbitters.
   The aluminum ball was passed many times but momentum began to wane after a couple of hours. Either the orbit would spred to another dorm or it would fade away. At that point a new guy entered the scene. He had been in the college center listening to Manfred Mann on the jukebox when he heard about the orbit. He wanted to beep and carry the aluminum ball.
    He had run cross country in high school and he thought he would be comfortable with multiple orbits until replacements could be found. He took off on his orbit when the sky darkened and the rainstorm began. Everybody ran for cover, the mission aborted except for the orbitter who to the amazement of all completed his orbit and then with lightning and thunder booming and flashing, he did the unthinkable. He went for one more orbit.
  He completed that orbit. He was soaked to the bone. I met him on the porch. He handed me the aluminum ball. I saluted him and said "Mission Accomplished." I had never met this person before although I had seen him around a few times.
  I asked him his name and where he was from.
   He said "Wild Bill" from West Babylon.
   The orbit had ended but my friendship with Wild Bill went on for days, night, semesters, years, moonlandings,decades, half centuries and lifetimes.
OUT OF HERE
   Sitting in the Merchant's Bar and Grill at last call. Dino, the bar tended, has changed his shoes. He's ready to go home which means we are as well. I’m with Al my long time pal.
   Five hours from now, we'll be heading to a job that we both hate.
   We'll arrive at the shack on Jay Street in a dirty old part of the city. Some old fart will tell us what tools we need and how much feritlizer, mulch or whatever penance we had to load on the truck in fifty pound bags. Everything we loaded, we knew we'd have to unload. It was like picking out the whip that somebody was going to beat you with.
   Then we got in the dump truck, in the back, with the penance.
   Usually, the bosses would stop off at a bar and grab a couple of shots of whiskey before taking us to the worksite.
   The level of the work depended on the mood of the field boss who was usually in fear of the master of the work domain who we used to call the janitor but now we called the custodian and he/they didn't like us because they suspected we were colllege kids/lazy long haired assholes.
   We worked all day with a couple of breaks. One time we took a break and went down to the beach where Richard, a fellow sinner, lost his shoes. It did not go well with Richard when we returned to work. Old Joe was our boss that day and he hated Richard. Richard tried to get out of work on the basis of having no shoes. Old Joe wouldn't have anything to do with that. He went deep into a shed and came out with a gigantic pair of ancient rubber galoshes and some twine. He made Richard twine the galoshes onto his feet and get on with the job.
  After declaring that he wasn’t gonna wear “these fucking things”, Richard  disappeared somewhere and he took his spade with him. Nobody knew where he was until suddenly he emerged, staggering at galosh speed, whooping and brandishing his spade like a spear. He was chasing a giant rat and sure enough, he launched the spade into the air ahead of the rat who ran into it with its face and then ran eyeless and noseless into some bushes. When we got to the spade, imbedded in the mud, it was full of ratface.
   Eventually, our work was finished and we got back in the truck and drove to the dump. Going to the dump was the highlight of the day because it meant our work was more or less over.
   From the dump we went back to the shed, where we told the story of the galoshes and the ratface spade. We went home and cleaned up. Went back to the Merch where Dino would always say "Two fer you?" when we walked in knowing that we weren't going to get just one draft at a time, we were going to order two which we did and before long we started to dread the next day and hope that our bosses for the next day would be the black guys who instead of stopping off at the bar for a whiskey, took the truck into the ghetto and used the equipment on the lawns of their neighbors. When that happened we would sit in the dump truck and sleep it off as best we could. The riots in Rochester had ignited in this very hood.
   Then it would be back at the Merch. Sometimes we'd put a buck in the jukebox and play  "We Gotta Get Outta This Place" ten times in a row. .
Eventually, somehow, we did.
SKY CATCH
  We played catch constantly on the Avenue and in the field.
  If you’re gonna play baseball, you’ve got to be able to catch the ball.
  We all loved our mitts.My favorite mitt was a Rawling’s six fingered, Eddie Matthews model. Partly because of that glove, I earned another nickname. They called me Raw, short for Rawlings.
  Catch came in many varieties.
  At first we just tossed the ball back and forth, over and over again. This of course required a partner. When we were alone, we learned to throw the ball against porch steps and catch it when it bounced back.
  Eventually, when we had a partner, we’d play pitch and catch. In pitch and catch…one of us was the pitcher and one of us the catcher. The "pitcher” would do the full windup and throw the ball to the “catcher” who was in the crouching position. Occasionally, the catcher would call balls and strikes would make a clicking sound upon catching a “strike”. The click meant the ball was in play. The throwback would be a pop fly or a hard hit ground ball. The pitcher had to be prepared for the click. If he fielded the ground ball, for instance, he would become a momentary infielder and fire the ball back to the catcher who had become a momentary first basemen. Every three “outs” we would change position…the pitcher would become the catcher and the catcher would become the pitcher.
  Me and my buddy Al played the most pitch and catch.
  Then there was “pepper” which involved a bat. Pepper was played in close range, maybe three feet apart. The fielder would underhand the ball to the guy with the bat and the batter would tap it back. Pepper was all about reflex and bat control and trust. Once again, Al was my best partner for pepper. He had great bat control so his tap backs were hard but not too hard. We weren’t trying to kill each other. I trusted Al.
 Two of my crazier friends, X the Known and King, invented a game called wipe catch where they would fire the ball back at each other as hard as they could while decreasing the distance between them. That game usually ended with either King or Known getting wiped out by a return throw that came in way too fast and too hard and ricocheted off their bodies.
  Nobody wanted to play wipe catch with either of them. They were trying to kill each other.
  I kept playing baseball all the way into college. I played on a great intramural fast pitch softball team. We were great because we had the “fastest” picher in the league…a guy named Don Peterson. We called Peterson Cougar because of the word and insignia on the Zippo lighter that he always carried which had  Cougar written on it. He could care less if he killed the batter or not. Nobody dug in against him. Nobody even wanted to bat against him. One guy I knew got hit in the ass by a Peterson fast pitch and didn’t go to class for the next week. I’m not saying that his bruised ass was the only reason he cut all his classes but he used his ass as an excuse.
  My freshman year, I lived in Blake Hall which was a temporary residence while the new dorms were being built. My sophomore year, the new dorms were available. The new dorms had suites of three rooms surrounding a common room. My suite was B1d on the ground floor of spanking new Wyoming dorm.
  In freshman year, we had no choice of roommates but by sophomore year, we were able to choose and be chosen. Six guys in a suite. Six all stars. My suite mates were Paul, Butsh, Cat, Beast, and Murph. All of us were ballplayers and some of us, like Paul, Butsh, Cat and Beast were varsity players in thier freshman year.
  All of them were great guys. Murph, Cat, Butsh and I came from Blake Hall so we were already friends. Paul and Beast were from Sturges hall where they had been roomies. I didn’t know Paul that well but I knew he was a tremendous athlete.
  On moving in day, Paul and I settled in first. We had a few moments so we decided to play catch. Catch  measures trust as well as skill.
  It was a different kind of catch. Paul didn’t have his glove so he threw and I caught. Paul had a formidable arm. He started throwing the ball high, frighteningly high, up into the air. It was wipe catch except the ball speed was based on the velocity of its descent. The first couple of throws he made got my attention. I’d never seen a guy throw a ball that high.
  I was in a space between the dorms that was still scarred by construction. There wasn’t a lot of room and the area that was available was loaded with ditches and rocks.
  After I caught the first couple of throws, I could tell that Paul was impressed. I was getting a little nervous. I raised my index finger to signal “one more”.
  Paul realized this was the last throw and put everything he had into it, the highest fly of them all. I circled around trying to avoid the obstacles. I got under the ball when I stepped into a ditch and lost my balance. I fell to the ground. While on the ground, I remember thinking “damn, I was right under that ball”.
  An instant later I realized how “under the ball” I was as the ball, picking up speed all the way, hit me right on the top of the head.
  I’m told that the ball bounced fifteen feet in the air directly off my dome.
  Momentary visions of Willie Mays and the sound of Buddy Holly took over my brain. I must have been “out” for a few seconds.
  When I regained my consciousness, I realized that most of my new suitemates had gathered just as Paul threw the ball. Everybody saw what happened and everybody froze. When I focused on them, they all had an expression of horror and humor on their faces, especially Paul.
  Somebody yelled, “Are you allright, Raw.”
  I didn’t know if I was or not but I managed to say “Yeah, I’m good.”
  With that everybody broke out into relieved, raucous laughter.
  I picked myself up and joined them at the entrance to the dorm.
  I didn’t know exactly what to say but I remember uttering these words: "I knew I was under it.“
  "Yes, you were” they all agreed while stifling their laughter.
  Thus began the daze that I lived in throughout my sophomore year, a year that played out like some kind of radio dream, full of music and surprise.
Airquotes in Lipstick Land
We don't know where we came from.
We don't know where we're going to.
But in between, we think we know where we are and "we" try like hell to hold on to the mortal interlude, to enjoy it, to understand it. Two of the three are impossible. Although sometimes "enjoyable", the incomprehendible interlude, the mortal coil, will always slip away.
So we have a question mark at the beginning and a question mark at the end but in the middle we have an exclamation point. Some of us, I suppose have an additional asterisk in the middle...see Roger Maris. Some of us, I suppose have an additional dollar sign in the middle....see the Donald Trump. Some of us have an additional + in the middle.....see Meryl Streep but all of us have the ! point in the middle and the question marks that surround the ! Because we don't know where we come from and we don't know where we're going to.
Some of us know and love the parents that we come from but where did they come from etc and where did all those people go..long time passing.
Were they ever here?
One of the rules of a dream is that within the dream, you can not remember how you got into the dream. A dream always occurs "in media res", in the middle of things. Things, in this case being question marks. Middle in this case being exclamation points. Therefore in the middle of the dream of question marks is the dream of exclamation marks.
A dream within a dream.
The guy I Invented named Poe was right, almost.
He forgot about the airquotes. In lipstick land "everything" needs an airquote. " ? ! ? " is a dream within a dream within a dream. " ? ! ? " is everything that you've just read and everything that you will ever read. " ? ! ? " is Thornton Krell. And I am he as you are me and we are all together.
It' has frequently been argued that there are too many "air quotes" at work in written renditions of "lipstick land".
"Lipstick land" is, of course, "shorthand" for the "realization" that the box in space created by "our" collective and individual "minds" is nothing more than a mass "hallucination" in which "mass" refers not to many more than one but rather "one" subdivided infinite times.
The "inhabitants" of lipstick land are those who have come to "embrace" the fragmentary, figmentary, fictitous essence of "their" own "existence" and who in their everlasting "introspection" continually ask themselves "what's wrong with 'me'" only to be answered with the wordless, soundless refrain "What's wrong with you is none of your goddamned business".
To these inhabitants, "everything" is surrounded by "air quotes" so whenever paragraphs are composed with "words" to describe lipstick land, tremendous "restraint" must be used in order that every single "word" not contain air quotes or rather be "contained" by air quotes.
This form of "punctuation" is needed to "convey" the essential "authenticity" of lipstick land but since its practice runs against the "norm" of the aforementioned hallucination, the air quote "punctuation" method is minimized almost to the point of non-existence in traditional "everyday" non-lipstick land "writing".
Every so often in that non-existant realm, a "comedian" will use "air quotes" and usually get a lot of "laughs" because the audience "perceives" a secret glimpse into lipstick land which makes their actual non-existence seem somehow "funny". Of course all of "this" is "superfluous" and could be summed up by the all inclusive expression "?!?" which is a "succinct" and "truthful" a description of all "things"as "possible".
I and we all are the artists known as ?!?
EVERLASTING DEVIATE
It came down to me and Larry Walker in the basement of the dorm with about 10 witnesses. Somebody got the idea of an intra dorm boxing tournament. I am a student of boxing. My father had been training me for this moment all of my life.
I had won quite a few fights in my neighborhood because nobody actually knew how to fight. When a fight started, I never rushed in rather I got up on my toes and waited for the guy to charge me. I knew how to punch and had power in my right hand as well as a developed left jab. I didn't develop these weapons by accident.
Ever since I was a young boy my father and I played a game called "Clever Boy". My father would wave his open hand in front of me and invite me to hit it with my fist before he could tap me on the forehead with his hand. If he tapped me before I pounded him, that was declared a point for my opponent, an imaginary boxer whom my father called Clever Boy based on a term he had heard describing the boxing style and persona of a fighter that he had heard on the radio.
He taught me how to set up my right hand with left jabs and when I came across and landed my right, that was a point for me and if I landed it hard enough, he would declare it a "knockdown" and if it landed perfectly enough he would call it a "knockout". He taught me how to turn my hand at he moment of impact.
In the street I had in fact scored a knockout when a kid rushed me and I went left-right and smashed him in his nose which more or less exploded thereby ending the contest as his buddies came in and pulled him away. After I landed and before they pulled him off, he had bled all over me. I remember after the fight, I went into my house, covered with blood and cried tears of rage because my anger frightened me I never wanted to get that mad again. I never wanted anymore blood on my hands.
That was my last fight until, for shits and giggles and nuting better to do I was matched Larry in the dorm. I knew Larry and liked him although we travelled in diffferent circles. This time we had leather, Everlast boxing gloves on our fists as protection.
Somebody rang a bell and Larry charged into attack. I waited for him, I feinted a left to the body and came across with a right cross that completely nailed Larry on the jaw as I suspected it would. I thought that I had seriously Larry him and grabbed him before he fell down. I held him in a clinch, and asked him if he was allright. Somebody came in and separated us. To my surprise Larry cleared his head and headed back at me again. Same exact thing happened except this time my feint was an actual left hook to the body followed once more by a whistling right cross right on the jaw which caused Larry to fall to the basement floor. I wasn't angry this time but I was frightened by the actual damage that my fist could do even when it was gloved in leather.
Larry got up, wiped himself off and to my amazement wanted to continue.
Once again he charged in. Once again I went with my left hand feint but this time Larry caught the feint and came acrsoo with a right hand of his own that caught me square in the nose. I thought that he had actually flattened my nose against my face. This time I grabbed him and held him tight and whispered "that's it Larry."
I suppose it might have been called a technical knockout. I wasn't concerned about the competitioon anymore. I was concerned about the condition of my nose. I didn't feel any blood coming out and I figured that the reason that no blood was coming out was that my nose was so smashed that my collapsed nostrils were preventing not only the flow of blood blood but also preventing my brain from leaking out.  I was literally seeing stars. Up to that point in my life, it was the most excruciating pain that I had ever suffered.
The witnesses congratulated us on an amazing "bout" which had lost all of its allure to me. I went to the mirror and was very relieved to discover that I wasn't permanently disfigured. I took off the gloves and never put them on again.
Many years later, I went to the doctor's office for a routine physical. I was running road races at the time and the doctor pronounced me to be in athletic good health except for what he described as the obviously deviated septum.
He asked me if I usually had a runny nose or if I snored. I admitted that yes, I did almost always have a runny nose but that I didn't snore.
He asked me if I had ever had a sports related injury to my nose. I began to say no and then I remembered back to Larry and the shitz and giggles bout in Blake Hall which had completely slipped my mind
I told the doctor about Larry's right hand that flattened my face and he said laughingly "well that's where you became a deviate, I suppose."
A few years later, I got married and found out that I definitely DID snore.
I don't snore every night because sometimes my wife falls asleep before I do and, ya know, if a snore happens when nobody's awake to hear it does it really count as a snore?
Apparently last night, Lynn fell asleep after I did. She reminded me of that fact this morning and threw in this tidbit as well...."And for Christ sake will you wipe your goddamned nose."
CLASS of 1917 REUNION
 1967 was a very good year for Sinatra. I was a junior in college and at the top of my undergrad game. I was still young enough to rock and roll. I was a drummer in a band that had gone from garbage to garage to bar to cover to dance. Everybody on campus knew me. I had a beautiful, blonde girlfriend. We were in love… “Oh How Happy” she had made me.
  Viet Nam and LBJ were concerns but the shitstorm that was 1968 was still obscured by clouds over the horizon. I attended summer school, mostly to play in the band. The beginning of the summer sessions were fun because that’s when reunions were going on. I remember one reunion in particular; a 50 year reunion. I couldn’t believe what a bunch of old, out of it fogies were in attendance. Right then and there, I hoped I’d die before I got old.
  They had no idea how to party so aside from freaking out, I avoided involvement with them.
  I never bothered to subtract the 50 years so I didn’t realize that these were folks who graduated in 19freakin17. When these folks were my age, they were raggin’ out to “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”, “Tiger Rag” and the most popular recording artists of the year The American Quartet who had made the charts consistently with numbers like “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh”….”Goodbye Broadway Hello France”….”Sailin’ Away on the Henry Clay” and the number one song of the year…. “Over There”.
  If they were 21 when they graduated, that meant that these old farts were born in the nineteenth century…right at the turn of the century when, according to BeeGee rumor everything was happening.
  I failed to realize that these folks had lived through the first selective service draft and had lost friends and relatives in WWI. I further failed to understand that in the year they graduated life expectancy around the world was 52 years and in 1918 because of war and flu it dropped to 39. They had lived through, among other things, Prohibition, Depression, Two World Wars, the Korean War and were now living through the Viet Nam “conflict” They didn’t show a lot of empathy towards the long hairs and filthy hippies who were as usual trying to do the impossible and “shocked” when the impossible failed to be realized. All we were sayin’ was “give peace a chance” like a bunch of pansies.
  Unlike the oldies, most of us had no real concept of war but we knew it wasn’t righteous, brother. To me, the 50 year reunion folks seemed to be more about remembering the dead than celebrating life.
  I attended a keg party. The highlight of the party was a piano player who hammered out the traditional, fraternity drinking songs like “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” “The Sheik of Araby”, “Give My Regards to Broadway”, “Rock a Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody” etc. To me these songs were the height of camp….it’s taken me all these years to realize that to the fifty year fogies, these were the anthems of their lives.
  I might have connected but chose to dis, aloof as I was..
 I didn’t want to imagine my fiftieth reunion. First of all, as a rock and roller, I didn’t want to live that long and as a fool, I never wanted to be uncool.
  A few months later, 1968 arrived. I sold my drums. I started my career. I got blindsided and blueshaded by a “buddy” who stole my girl by pretending that he was dying. I earned the blues the hard way, I suffered for them. I was starting to grow up. The draft was devouring boys/men of my age. We learned about war. I didn’ want to die.  Most of my cool disappeared replaced by anxiety, beer, cynicism, incapability and the ferocious shadow of going over there.
  I attended my 50th reunion last year. We were still rockin’. I got a chance to play the drums for the first time in forty years. I chose Gloria for my number. Before I got my chance on the skins, the dance floor was pretty quiet even though Mike Woods and his band Easy Money were killing it. Then, while Money was playing “Memphis”, some of my brothers and buddies showed up. Linda Miller and I started air guitaring in the aisle and singing all about “long distance information” as if we were twenty again. The music stopped for a second and I spotted Wild Bill coming in the door. The dance floor was still pretty empty.
 I said “c’mon Bill” and we went down to the floor and started our crazy dancing. Before long, the floor was full and we old farts were dancing furiously and foolishly. I noticed two young girls, maybe even students, gather around Bill trying to imitate his moves as he nodded and grinned, feeling every note and beat. Beautiful. Nobody feels music like Wild Bill.
  Soon I got my chance on the drums.Mike said “we’ll set the rhythm” which means the drums come in after the opening guitar riffs. I had forgotten a couple of things about high hat use but eventually got into the groove. G L O R I A. It was the first time and probably the last time that Lynn watched me play the drums. She liked it. She was dancing with Wild Bill both of them responding to my beat.
  When we finished the song, I thanked Mike for convincing his drummer to let me sit iin. It was the Friday of the weekend celebration. I realized that the weekend had peaked plus we were homeless, Lynn and I. We had closed on our Rochester home that morniing and we were on our way to close on our new home in Carolina.
  My only regret was not having Wild Bill on stage with me. Bill sings the best Gloria this side of Van.
 I closed the book on Geneseo and went out kickin’ ass.
 That night we headed South and I felt like a rock and roll star.
  Redeemed.
  No More Shades of Blue
SHADES OF BLUE
I thought every kiss was precious
I used to count them
Until I lost count
at over a thousand times
each of them meaningful
if meaning is love
and love is making happy
and oh how happy
you had made me
all of this before
we made love
which reduced the meaning
Of Remaining kisses
until they became meaningless
and we became he and she
and you and him became them
and kisses became strategy
Measuring the Pursuit of Perfection
   A common bromide in the ever expanding universe of statistics states that "if it can be measured it can be improved".
   The classic example of this statement is the four minute mile. Roger Bannister proved that it was humanly possible to run a mile in less than four minutes. Since that day, hundreds of runners have improved upon and shattered that barrier. One of those runners was a Rochesterian named Dick Buerkle. Dick and I were members of the same parish and graduated from the same elementary school. Dick was one year my junior. We all were familiar with the sight of Dick running around our neighborhood but none of us suspected his greatness. He didn't start running track until he was a senior at Aquinas Institute but once he started in 1965, he kept running and running. He attended Villanove University.
  On January 13, 1978, at the CYO Invitational held at the Cole Field, Buerkle  broke the indoor mile world record with a time of 3:54.93 He allegedly ate nine Oreos and two peanut butter jelly sandwiches only a few hours before the race. Dick is the only graduate from St. James parish to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Inspired by Dick's achievements and training regimen, I took up running although most of my efforts were confined to training.
    I didn't run much but I ate a lot of Oreos and peanut butter sandwiches. Perhaps if I had added jelly to my sandwiches, I might have succeeded more than I did in the Delta Kappa Greek games. My best effort was a farcical, sarcastic and sad two mile race during which I smoked a couple of cigarettes but yet finished the race within a half mile of the runner who finished second last in the event. Nobody even bothered to clock my effort but if they had, it could definitely be improved.
  On the other hand "if it can be measured it can be improved" does not take into account the possibility of perfection. Perfection is possible, most notably in bowling and in golf. In bowling, a perfect game means twelve consecutive strikes in one game stretching from the first frame to the final frame. It is impossible to roll fewer balls and succesfully complete the game.
   I've witnessed one perfect game in my life. When that kid rolled his twelfth strike, the crowd erupted. In this case, the crowd was me, my daughter and the proprieterix of the lanes. I had alerted the proprieterix after I noticed that the kid on the next alley had nine strikes in a row. The only people in the establishment at the time were the bowler and we three viewers. The kid buried the last three strikes with no emotion. We cheered. The kid was very calm. He immediately began his next game and threw yet another strike before he finally spared the second frame of the  game at which point Mary and I left the building.
  Although the lanes were empty, this did not diminish his achievement in my eyes. I had seen perfection! I'm still writing about it today.
  In golf, a hole in one is perfect. It is impossible to put a ball into the hole in less than one swing unless you just carry the ball to the hole and drop it in without swinging which defeats the purpose of the game. Although I am not a good golfer, I have somehow struck a hole in one on two separate occasions. I was alone on the course on both occasions.
  Here's what a hole in one feels like. You take your swing and the swing feels good. Part of the reason why the swing feels good is because you have kept your head down during the swing. When you look up maintaining your backswing, you see that the ball is heading towards the hole. You think 'Damn that IS good'. You watch as the ball lands on the green, rolls a bit and then disappears from view. You approach the hole and with every step closer you wonder "jeezuz, did that go in the cup". You get to he green. The ball is still invisible. You walk to the hole and there it is. It went in. You look around and realize there will be no crowd roar because there is no one else in sight. You pick up the ball. You put it in your bag. Gonna keep that ball.
  Perfect.
  A beautiful thing to see, even if you are the only one seeing it.
  This perfection always takes me back to another feat of perfection that I witnessed with ten other guys, including Wild Bill, in my college days at Geneseo. We were always trying to come up with competitve measures for non-competitve situations. One of my dearest friends a guy named Dugie had set records in almost all events including the fastest apple ever eaten. There were problems with that record as it was difficult to establish a standard apple so any record would always have an asterisk. According to one legend an attempt  had gone terribly wrong, John McCormick attempted the record and took such a huge opening bite of the apple that his jaws locked and the apple had to be cut from his mouth while he was turning purple in suffocation.
  We were living in the splendor of a brand new dormitory which featured a spacious lounge. The whole dorm would gather at the television in the lounge to watch "The Monkees" and "Batman" but aside from those shows the lounge was usually empty even on Sundays before the NFL became a relgion. One of the "draws' to the lounge was the Coke machine . I started wondering what would be the fastest time that a person could drop his dime into the machine, grab the Coke, drink it and put it in the deposit case next to the machine. I set the standard as 12 seconds.
  Eventually, word got around that a standard was in place so challengers began to emerge. John McCauchey thought that he would give it a shot. John was big guy whose distinguishing Coke idiosyncracy was that he liked to buy a bag of peanuts and pour that into his Coke before drinking. Someone speculated that if John skipped the peanuts part, he could match the standard no problem.
  John decided to go for it.
  He gathered a few people and went for the record. He dropped the dime, he got a pretty good drop time, around three seconds. He did well on his opening as well. Very quick but deliberate. A bad opening would destroy the effort. It had to be smooth. John grabbed the Coke bottle and chugged it. The time from the drop of the dime to the placing in the case was 7 seconds. Everybody cheered and praised the big man for his accomplishment. He had smashed the barrier.
  Since it had been measured, it could be improved.
  Later that week, Dugie got wind of the standard and thoiught he could challenge it. Most people thought that was impossible but few people at the time, knew Dugie as well as I did. Dugie contended that it all depended on the drop and open time. If the dispenser produced a slow drop or the opening of the can was off the mark, then yes 7 seconds was impossible to beat but he thought he had a chance.
 The moment came and it drew an audience of about a dozen guys with nothing better to do.
  I can remember the attempt even more clearly than I can remember my holes in one.
 Dugie, who stood as tall as McCauchey but whose avoirdupois was more magnificent stood before the machine in the posture of a gunfighter in a showdon at high noon. At the signal Dugie dropped the dime into the slot with an extra push and got a perfect drop.  Less than second passed before  the Coke appeared at the bottom of the machine. In one fluid, uninterrupted, upward motion, Dugie got a perfect 'open' and continuing that motion brought the bottle to his lips and hurled the contents down his throat before slamming the bottle into the case. Elapsed time between 3 or 4 seconds with the official time being recorded as 3 seconds.
  The activity had been measured but was never improved. I don't think anyone even tried. For the rest of my time in that dorm, guys with nuthin' better to do would gather at the machine and tell the story of the perfect drop, the perfect opening and the unbeatable time.
  3 freakin' seconds.
  Perfection
  Dugie went on to establish many more "records" at Geneseo before joining a band and splitting for the coast where he once beat Carlos Santana in a game of ping pong.
REDEMPTION DIMENSION
  Redemption is a refocusing, a relief and a release. As we reach a certain age, our redemptive memory kicks in and we begin to forgive ourselves.
  Once we got glasses as kids, the BIGGEST fear of them all was losing those glasses. The remedy for this childhood fear was simple….DO NOT TAKE THEM OFF until you go to bed and when you go to bed put them next to your bed so you can PUT THEM ON as soon as you wake up.
  I had glasses before any of my gang. Al was the youngest kid in our gang. He was already a  Parsells Avenue legend because one day after the milkman delivered a dozen eggs to his house, we talked Al into dropping an egg off his concrete front steps onto the asphalt driveway that was his sideyard. The egg splattered to the delight of everyone, most particularly Albert who was thoroughly enjoying the attention of us older kids. I’m thinking Al was maybe four years old. The oldest kids were eight. I was six.
  After the first egg shattered, all the kids started yelling “Drop another one, Al.”
  Al dropped another one to the cheering of the gang. Al kept getting more cheers and kept smashing more eggs until the entire dozen was yolking and scrambling on the summer asphalt. We all knew it was funny but we all sensed it was kinda wrong. Al’s Dad, a WW 2 Marine who made his living driving a Coke truck and who drove a Buick when not driving the truck would be home soon. We all took off after the last egg was smashed and before the Coke truck appeared. Al was alone on his steps, kinda proud but kinda worried.
  There are a lot of rumors about what happened when his Dad got home. All I know for sure is we didn’t see Al again for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile we played baseball in my backyard. The lilac bush was first base. The cherry tree was second base. The bench was third and the bottom of the hill was home plate. Anything hit over the barbed wire adjoining the lilac bush was the end of the game until somebody gathered the gumption to ask Mrs. Goode our next door neighbor if we could “please” get the ball from her yards. She never refused anybody who said “please” but she watched each interloper with an eagle eye.
  Eventually, Al joined us and to the surprise of everybody, he had a talent for baseball. Kid could hit, throw and run.
  Summers passed and by the time he was eight, Al was a full fledged member of the gang. He was good at everything…Baseball…football…king of the hill…Cowboys and Indians…. Hide and Seek….Tag….Green Arrow…..Soldiers….Snowball fights. He became my best pal as the other kids abandoned the Avenue for the suburbs or California.
  Then one December day, Al showed up with glasses. I explained the rule DO NOT TAKE THEM OFF. Al said that his Dad had already made that rule VERY clear.
   The next day was my birthday. My father took five of us downtown to the movies. We went to see Hondo starring John Wayne. I don’t think that Al had been to a lot of movies in his life but as an expert Cowboys and Indians player, he was blown away by Hondo. So were we all. It’s still one of my favorite movies because of that day. The cinematography was full of blue sky and white cloud and they really popped. Today, as a photographer I am a confirmed cloudman always looking to pop. That’s part of the reason we moved South, for the sake of the popping clouds and blue, blue sky.
  After the movie, we started to drive home when somebody noticed that Al’s glasses were not on his face. Everybody panicked. We headed back to the theater which had refilled. We looked for the glasses but couldn’t find them.
  My Dad felt terrible, worse than anybody but Al. He went across the street with Al when Al had to report the loss. The hope of course was that they would turn up at “lost and found.” Al’s Mom took the news in fake stride knowing that the shit would hit the fan when the Coke truck pulled up. We all knew that Al was gonna get it.
  Apparently he got it because once again we didn’t see him for a couple of weeks.
  He didn’t have glasses when he showed up.
  He didn’t get another pair for about a year and he heard about the lost pair every day of that year along with an extra emphatic WE TOLD YOU NOT TO TAKE THEM OFF OF YOUR GODDAMNED FACE every time he heard about the loss. When he finally got this new pair, he followed the rules and kept them on his face. By this time, I was only wearing my glasses part time.
  Still Al carried, for the next fifty years,a shade of insecurity and paranoia that comes with losing something valuable as a young kid. Plus he couldn’t figure out why in hell he had taken the goddamned glasses off in the first place. Why had he disobeyed such an essential commandment? He definitely knew better. We often wondered about that over the next couple decades as we encountered the mysteries of rules and obedience.
 It always bothered him.
  Why had he done it?
  One day a couple of years ago, Hondo came on Turner Classic Movies. I watched it again for the first time since the day of the lost glasses. I still loved it. At the conclusion of the movie, the TCM host provided a few tidbits about the movie. He explained that Hondo was one of the first 3D movies.
   Ah Ha.
 I called Al. We hadn’t spoke in years. I told him I had figured out how and why he had lost his glasses.
 "Al, Hondo was in 3D!. You took your glasses OFF to put the 3D glasses ON. You forgot to put your glasses back ON after you took the 3d glasses OFF. You had only been wearing your real glasses for a day or two so it’s perfectly understandable that you didn’t realize that you weren’t wearing them until we were almost home.“
  "Holy shit, you’re right”, Al responded. “That’s exactly what happened. Thank God Almighty. I’m not as big an asshole as I thought I was.” We talked for another couple of hours, comparing notes on Parsells Avenue, Buddy Holly, bus trips downtown and Red Wing games.
  The next call I made was to Vin. I repeated my insight. He knew exactly what I was talking about.  He remembered the day well. He too felt relieved.
  When we take our glasses off  in exchange for artificial viewers to get a better vision of a temporarily manifested illusion, we’ve got to remember to put them back on when the illusion fades into reality
  Never too late for redemption, no matter the dimension.
MANDELLA MAN
The Mandella effect is a syndrome in which a large mass of people believe an event occurred when it didn't. Every time I see a clip of JFK arriving in Dallas, I keep thinking that somehow what followed isn't going to happen and when I see Chauvin on the neck of Floyd, I keep hoping it's a Mandella but realize that it isn't.
Yeah, I think Bogart said "play it again Sam" and I swear I've seen a painting of Henry 8 eating a turkey leg. The monocle on the Monopoly guy? I get that wrong as well.
I'm susceptible to Mandella and I suffer from the effect almost every day. Let me 'splain.
I am careful to put the toilet seat down when I finish urinating. I am careful to turn the light on in the john to more accurately avoid any splatter caused by water closet darkness. My wife has emphasized these points very succinctly and passioantely over the years.
I swear I put the seat down every time. I know I do and did and I've turned the light on and off every time as well so it amazes me when I hear my wife slamming the toilet seat down. She doesn't even say anything anymore (as the SLAM of reality speaks for itself)  unless I left the light on at which point she says "you left the light on" immediately after she SLAMS the seat down.
Every SLAM fills me with confusion and disorientation as I could have sworn that I put the seat down and sometimes I'll even say "I swear I put the seat down" to which she replies "well I know I didn't put it up and we're the only two people in this house etc."
I think I had better luck when I didn't even think about putting the seat down (or up for that matter). Now  that I'm cautioned and tenderized as soon as I step into the room I start concentrating on a) turning on the light b) putting the seat up c) for sure (count to 3....concentrate) putting it back down d) turning off the light.
Then I'm in another room
Then SLAM
Mandella, Mandella, mandella.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only married man who suffers from this syndrome. I thnik that I and those like me constitute a significant percentage of men.
Forgive us, we know not what we do.
And let's hope that the George Floyd tragedy is a Mandella that we all thought we saw but that didn't actually happen...same with the virus.
SLAM SLAM SLAM.
SNEEZE
SLAM
A Scene From Smartfellas
Remember Goodfellas, the scene with Joe Pesci, as Tommy, terrifying Ray Liotta as Henry Hill? "But I'm funny, how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to f***** amuse you?"
A new movie is in the works called Smartfellas. The Smartfellas are a bunch of pedantic, courtholding intellectual snobs who suffer fools very, very badly. In a scene paralleling the Tommy terrifying Henry scene in Goodfellas, Roger Charles a tenured professor and Ph.d confronts Linus Albert a probationary adjunct teacher with a Masters degree after a department meeting during which Albert innocently observed that he found Charles quite humorous.
Charles: Do you think I'm humorous? Do you think I'm aiming at discovery by observing human nature for the benefit of a sympathetic audience?
Albert: of course not Charles.
Charles: Maybe you think I'm witty. Do you think I'm using words and ideas to surprise the intelligent while I throw light at them? Or maybe you think I'm an absurdist, so full of despair that I refuse to recognize the validity of everything including my own desperation?
Albert: (backtracking) no Charles that's not what I meant I.....
Charles: (interrupting) Or maybe you think I'm satirical, amending matters by accentuating morals and manners to the self-satisfied?
Albert: Of course not, I simply......
Charles: (interrupting again) Oh right. You think I'm sarcastic. You think I enjoy inflicting pain by inverting the faults and foibles of my victims in front of attentive bystanders. Is that what you think?
Albert: (rallying) Well, I am a little concerned about your differentiation between irony and invective.
Charles: Don't you even know the difference between the public and private inner circle. The difference between direct statement and mystification. The difference between misconduct and a statement of fact. Can you ascertain the difference between a motive of discredit and an aim of exclusivity; to say nothing of the difference between crypticism and incomprehensibility?
Albert: I see no need for cynicism
Charles: Believe me Albert, I'm not trying to justify myself through exposing the nakedness of modern morality and before you even accuse me of being sardonic, let me assure you that I'm not getting any relief by using pessimism to illustrate the adversity that I continually face.
Albert: Well then I don't get it.
Charles (motioning towards the door): I agree and since you obviously don't get it you might as well get out, you got that.
Albert: Got it.
The influence of Village Time
I've been digging some jazz lately on record, on tube, on Spotify and in person.
I got my first taste of jazz in Greenwhich Village in the sixties where I saw Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith perform at different times. Yeah.
My buddy and I used to say that it was good jazz when we could say "oh yeah" at any time during the rendition of whatever that whoever was jammin' and those two words would fit in perfectly.
Oh yeah.
The best "oh yeahs" came when our eyes were closed and when we opened them, we noticed that the musicians eyes were also closed as they escaped into the groove. I knew that they were getting even higher from the music than I was and I envied that elevation.
For many years, I've wanted to write like that, so goddamned high that I don't even know where I am because I am nowhere and everywhere at the same time but undeniably HERE from what I HEAR in the music that surrounds, comforts and challenges me and the words that somehow emerge and the moods they reveal and the lessons they teach without trying to teach.
I can't quite get there and part of the reason is that after all these years, I still don't know how to type. I went to college in the sixties when college was more or less a typing contest. I was a shitty typer than and I'm not much better now except now we don't have to fiddle with whiteout and typeovers and tearing typing paper ouf the typewriter and throwing it into the trash can and lighting another cigarette and starting all over again on a new piece of typing paper that might live for ten minutes before being balled up and thrown into the same garbage pail as all the others while the clock on the wall ticked away the hours and minutes until deadline and the goddamned thing was through and you're still kinda drunk etc oh yeah.
We produced a lot of typists in the sixties before God invented word processing.
See, if you're as good with a keyboard as Gerry Mulligan was good with his sax, you don't have to look at the keys at all. You can forget about them, yeah. You know where everything is and that includes the vibe that you're laying down and you don't even have to see it until you're done with it and then it stands as proof that you were away for a little while.
The Force is with you yeah.
No need for garbage pails or fucking white-out. The proof is on the screen. Hit save. Print it out or publish it. You were there baby, you were there but you did the whole thing looking at the keys and looking at your fingers and God knows there's another realm above and beyond, the realm of jazz. Yeah, you're finger lookin' good but that ain't good enough....not free enough....not invisible enough. Too much gravy not enough train.
I want to get there someday. And take y'all with me. Today was close.
Yeah.
VIN
  Yesterday was my father’s 93rd birthday.
  Of course, he wasn’t around to enjoy it; that is if you consider these mortal coils by which we’re bound a condition to celebrate rather than tolerate.
  Pretty sure he’s in a better place and celebrating in the way they celebrate in better places. He shuffled off four years ago. He was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He worked his ass off to gain release from the nursing facility/rehabilitation center that wouldn’t let him out until he proved that he could walk.
  He proved it. They let him out. Three days later, he woke early went to the bathroom, told my mother “Today’s the day. I feel great” While in the bathroom, he collapsed and shuffled off.
 It became clear that all the work that he did to get out was motivated by his desire to die at home which he pulled off.
  I talked to him the day before. His last words to me were “keep busy”.
  He had a top hat.
  Fifteen years before all of this, when all of this was more than any of us could have imagined, he bought the tombstones for him and my mother. He took a picture of those tombstones, engraved with every thing but the dates. He proudly brought the pictures over to my house one day.
  This was the first time I ever thought he could die.
  “At my funeral, wear my top hat, will ya?”, he asked.
  I said I would.
  I did.
  Just before we put him into the ground, just after we launched the balloons, I put his top hat on on top of his urn and snapped. So long, Vin.
  He was a firefighter, a captain.
  He was a Veteran of Foreign War… WW2…the Phillipines.
  He decided he wanted to be cremated.
  He knew a lot about fire.
  We picked out the urn that we thought he would have liked. Not real expensive…black and gold. We all got to carry the urn around at the funeral. We took our last picture with him. No relative of mine had ever been cremated before unless you count my Uncle Sam who drank a couple of pints of bourbon every day of his life and when he was cremated, they couldn’t put out the fire.
  That last part about Uncle Sam was a joke.
  Let’s get back to my father. For the preceeding decades, I called him Vin. We all did. He could have been Captain or Dad or Pop or Daddy or Father. Captain was way too formal. Pop was a Coke. Father sounded a little too Catholic. Daddy was for infants.
  Why not Dad?
  All of my buddies had a Dad. Their Dad did this and their Dad did that. My Dad was so much braver, so much funnier, so much smarter, so much more willing to get out in the backyard and throw the football around. My Dad was something other than what I perceived everybody else’s Dad to be.
  He was someone else. Everybody had a Dad. I had a Vin. His middle name was Vincent. Yesterday was his birthday.
52 YEARS BETWEEN AVALONS
  My life changed in 1958. I was a kid.
Clarabell on Howdy Doody had broken his silence, the last two words of Doodyville. He said “goodbye kids.”
Elvis had said hello.
Davey Crockett had died at the Alamo.
I had never heard an electric guitar.
Then a rock and roll show came through town into our sparkling new War Memorial. Al’s 18 year old aunt Carol bought three tickets. They took me along.
Clyde McPhatter, The Elegants, Jimmy Clanton, Johnny Tillotson, the Olympics, the Danleers, the Coasters, Dion and the Belmonts
I was sitting in the third row in a packed and screaming house.
I was changing fast.
Then Bobby Darin came out
Splish Splash
Queen of the Hop
More change for me, contractions coming quicker and each more intense
Then Duane Eddy
Yup
Cannonball
Rebel Rouser
Twangy, super amplified twangy guitar.
In some ways, I lost my virginity right there.
Then Buddy Holly and the Crickets
Oh Boy
More guitar
Every day
Peggy Sue
And the last act
The star of stars
The teen idol
The heart throb
Frankie Avalon.
 I wasn’t even a teenager yet but I found a teenage girl sitting on my lap calling me “honey” and screaming “Frankie”.
Dee Dee Dinah
Gingerbread
Venus
  When I left that night, I was an authentic rock and roller…not just a kid anymore. I still am and  clearly am not.
  Next came the sixties.
  Fit hit the shan………..I graduated from grammar school. I graduared from high school. I graduated from college. I started my profession all in the fitshan of the sixties between assassinations, Cuban Missile Crisis, Mississippi burning, Beatle invasions, Viet Nam, the draft, Manson, Muhammad Ali, Woodstock etc.
  Fifty two years later I went to Seneca Casino and saw Frankie Avalon once again.
  Frankie was seventy now.
  He has eight kids.
  Phil Everley’s son is the lead guitarist in Frankie’s touring band. Annette Funicello was long gone.
Frankie’s forty seven year old son is the drummer and he is damned good at it
Frankie looked like a happy man.
From what I’m told, so did I.
And so, at last I am.
Today anyways.
TWO MEN IN TEXAS
  Shelley Seton was expecting, expecting. Shelley Seton was expecting twins. Why wouldn’t she be?
  Shelley had an identical twin named Kelley. Kelley and Shelley grew up dressing alike. They were so identical that nobody even bothered to try and tell them apart. They were known individually and collectively as Kelleyandshelley or, depending upon the suspicion, Shelleyandkelley. Or the Macdonald twins.
  One fine day, Kelleyand shelley met Ronaldandonald. Ronaldandonald or Donaldandronald, depending upon the suspicion, were the Seton twins.
  The attraction was immediate, intense and opposite. The only difference between Kelley and Shelley was that Shelley was left handed and Kelley right. The only difference between Ronald and Donald is that Donald was right handed and Ronald left.
  The twins began double dating and in so doing gave new dimension to the term double dating; doubles dating double dating. Opposites do tend to attract. Left handed Shelley was attracted to right handed Donald. Right handed Kelley fell in love with left handed Ronald. World War two was raging.
  All over the country, young couples were getting hitched just before the males were shipped overseas. Ronald was drafted and headed for war after boot camp in Texas.
  The two couples decided to get married.
  They gave new dimension to the term double marriage.
  They got married in Texarkana. Before the marriage, the couples thought how neat it would be if they were to take the girl’s last names. Then the boys could be Donaldandronald Macdonald or Ronaldandonald Macdonald based upon suspicion. After a few laughs, the couples decided to stick with tradition. Shelley MacDonald became Shelley Seton.
  After the marriage, the boys went over to the line separating Texas from Arkansas. They got into position like two centers ready to hike two footballs with the line of scrimmage being the state line. Shelley snapped the picture.
  Two men in Texas, two asses in Arkansas.
  A year before the two asses squatted in Arkansas, Shelleyandkelley and Donaldandronald realized that they had a problem. The old twin switcheroo.
  Except this time, the possibility existed for the almost impossible to comprehend double twin switcheroo. Vertently or inadvertently,it was possible on any given night for left handed Shelley to wind up with left handed Ronald and/or for right handed Donald to end up with right handed Kelley.
  The couples decided that one way to prevent this problem was a sign-in sheet. The sets of twins could and should demand a writing sample before every date and even during some of those dates, particularly the double dates, before moments of intimacy, after arguments at any time of doubt or joy, of hope or faith.
  A request for a writing sample, it was agreed should never be turned down. Obviously, it wasn’t the content of the note that was important, it was the hand that was used to write the note. If anybody was ambidextrous, he/she kept it a secret.
  Donald would make sure that the twin from whom he was getting a writing sample was writing with her left hand and that would prove it was Shelley. Then Shelley in turn would make sure that the guy writing the note to her was writing the note with his right hand and was indeed Donald. Even though the content of the note wasn’t critical, the foursome decided to come up with a note that would unite them while simultaneously dividing them.
  The note had to be long enough to test writing skills but short enough to not take up much time particularly before moments of passion. This is the note they decided on.
  Ronaldand donald would write: “i am who i am and that’s all that i am, I’m Ronald (or Donald) the Seton twin”.
  Shelleyandkelley would write: “i am who i am and that’s all that i am, I’m Shelley (or Kelley) the Mackdee twin”.
  Let’s hope it worked because as mentioned earlier, Shelly was preggers.
  Shelley had the names picked out for the twins she was expecting, expecting.
  If they were girls they would be Helen and Ellen in honor of Shelley’s mother Ellen and her identical, dress alike sister Helen, formerly the Tower Twins Helenandellen or Ellenandhelen Tower.
  If the expected twins were boys they would be named Merle and Earl in honor of Donald’s father Merle and Merle’s identical dress alike twin brother, Uncle Earl, formerly Merleandearl or Earlandmerle Seton.
  If they were a boy and a girl, the twins would be named Merle and Pearl in honor of Donald’s father Merle and his wife, Donald’s mother, Pearl.His parents were known as merlandperl.
  Around the sixth week of her pregnancy, Shelley experienced some unusually heavy bleeding without much pain or cramping and was alarmed until she visited her obstetrician and was assured that the pregnancy was still viable. The heavy bleeding was nothing out of the ordinary at that stage of pregnancy according to Dr. Rudolph.
  This was way back in 1946, well before the advent of sonograms, ultrasound and amnioscentisis. No one knew then what we know now.
  This is what we know now.
  Women have always carried twins with far greater frequency than imagined. In the old days, those twins were never captured on sonogram so most women never knew they were carrying twins and when they experienced heavy bleeding around the sixth week of their pregnancy, they were unaware that they were actually miscarrying one of the twins. They would go to the doctor the next day and the doctor would say what Doctor Rudolph said to Shelley. “This is nothing out of the ordinary” Which was true.
  Sorta.
  So the expectant mother would go home assured that her unborn child was still developing according to plan and totally unaware that one half of the in utero twins had already left the building with very little fanfare.
  Earl was gone and forgotten not only as a has been but a never was and never even had been.
 Merle went full term and was born alone. The only evidence that Earl existed in the first place is the evidence that Merle brought with him. Surviving twin babies have one consistent characterstic. They are overwhelmingly left handed.
  As was Merle.
  Six years later, half-twin Merle Seton Fell out of the bunk bed.
 Bunk beds had quite a history In the Seton family. Merle’s mother and her twin sister had both slept in bunk beds As had Merle’s father and his twin brother. Merle’s grandmothers and grandfathers had also slept in bunk beds. All four of ‘em, always two per bed.
  None of them had ever fallen out of a bunk bed before.
  Of course, all of them had lived in Dubuque.
  Merle and his Mom and Dad were sleeping in Nevada.
  His Dad had done his war time stint working on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan project was only the beginning. The experimenting continued.The war was over but the Reds weren’t.They were all over the place. Some were in Nevada. “Spying”, Merle’s Dad said.
  Merle’s Dad never said much else ‘bout his work even the morning after the night That Merle fell out of the bunk bed. The top bunk of the bunk bed. Thank God, it wa a low top.
  Merle Seton was a dreamin’ bout sittin’ on a dock three above soft rocks that were covered with warm Lake Water. Merle slipped gently off the dock, feet headed for the rocks but found only air and instead of warm crystal clear water his bare feet found nuthin but floor beneath his six year old soles.
  Somehow he landed on his legs before he fell on his ass which was the cause of the crash which woke Merle up uninjured. Merle climbed back up the ladder, no wiser and no sadder, to the bunk not the dock. He took a look at the clock which was pointing to midnight. He fell asleep in atomic fright Feeling kinda sore and sad. Where the heck were Mom and Dad?
  See, the Setons lived in Nevada as close as anybody to the atomic bomb testing grounds and were in the forefront of American fifties families who learned to love the bomb. Merle’s father was involved emotionally and economically with the atomic arming of the Cold war. His great triumph occurred with his contribution to the Manhattan Project which probably saved the life of his twin brother who was stationed in Manila and warming up to be cannon fodder during the inevitable horrific invasion of Japan that would make Iwo Jima look like Ding-Dong school but then we dropped the bomb on 'em and all the living brothers came home.
  Since then Merle’s Dad had labored on various sidetrips, brilliant defense measures that ended up being expensive dead ends. These dead ends included the nuclear bazooka, the F3H jet, the atomic artillery shell and the various pills and nostrums the atomic alchemists devised to cure radiation poisoning including what would become LSD. Yeah, Merle’s Dad was convinced that the bomb was his friend and the guardian of his family.
  Shelley had her doubts but had learned how to be married as the forties turned into the fifties. She kept her big trap shut.
 The Setons were used to seeing flashes and minutes later feeling their house rock. Shelley heard the crash from the bunk room. She opened her trap, nudged her husband and whispered, “what’s that” Merle’s father, worn out from a hard day’s night at the plant sleepily replied “Jezzuz, go back to sleep, it’s only an atomic bomb . I gotta be at work early tomorrow.”
  Before shutting her trap and settling back in bed, Shelley whispered to her husband “All right. I was afraid that maybe Merle had fallen out of the bunk”.
A GUY IN A HURRY
  My mother was an independent and self-sufficient person. She was my transportation for many years. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I so vividly recall the last time that we were in a car and I was driving.
 It was the fifth of July. We were returning to Rochester from Crystal Beach after a fabulous fourth.
  Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea as East Lake Road was one big traffic jam.
  The day was beautiful and neither one of us had any particular place to go so we were having one of those mother son chats that have been missing from my life now for the last few years. Those conversations don’t seem all that important at the time you’re having them because they always were and they always would be. Death was far from our minds on that Independence Day.
  Except, it wasn’t.
  Whatever we were talking about, my mother’s words ended with “well, we’re in no hurry”.
  At that moment I looked into my rearview mirror and saw a guy on a motorcycle hauling ass in a white line fever, speeding by dozens of cars in the jam.
 I said to my mother “well here comes a guy who’s in a hurry to die.”
 By the time I got the words out of my mouth, the guy was dead.
 Four car lengths ahead of me, somebody had decided to turn off the road into a beach parking lot which was directly to the left of his car not more than five yards away from his steering wheel.
  He started to make his turn, signal on and the guy on the bike drove right into it.
 I heard this clicking sound and saw the bike hit the car and saw the rider go flying off the bike about fifty feet and smash directly into a stone wall that separated the beach from private property on East Lake Road. When he hit the wall, he broke.
 There were four cars in front of me.
  The first three pulled off the road and headed for the guy.
  I had a decision to make.
  I drove right by as did the guy behind me and the cars behind him.
  I knew the biker was dead so there was nothing I could do for the dude other than clog up the Road and maybe cause another accident.Four cars, I figured was enough and maybe two too many.
  Stunned, my mother and I had one more mother-son chat after the death on our way home. That chat concerned God, fate, speed, space, death, responsibility, haste, destiny, empathy, sympathy, reflection, vulnerability, infinity and eternity. The kind of chat I will never have again but the kind of chat that helped make me the man that I am.
BEARDISM
  We all know that isms exists. Some isms are active but, seemingly polite. Most isms are simply passive. They hide themselves in etiquette even as they damage. They are in sinister ways even more dangerous than the aggressively active isms. They are the masters of micro aggression.
  Let me illustrate this by inventing "beardism".
  I have had a beard for many years. Beards go in and out of fashion. Sometimes, like now, my beard is generally accepted.
   Other times not so much....
  I have experienced active "beardism" as in " Hey weirdo, when are you gonna shave that fucking thing off your face" or "what are ya, a goddamned communist. If you don't like this country get the fuck out" etc.
  I have experienced passive "beardism" as in "Oh, I like his beard" and in private (the same person) "we're not gonna give this job to a guy with a beard".
   Another form of passive beardism goes like this. The active beardist says " Why don't you scrape all that food off your beard Jerry Garcia and feed it to your goddamned dog." The passive beardist, overhearing this activity just laughs.
   To counter all this, there is active third party non beardism. Instead of just laughing, the third party active non-beardist might/should answer the active beardist rants with this comment."  I recognize and reject your attempt at beardist intimidation but thanks for illustrating it with your observation".
   Unfortunately, there is no such thing as passive non-beardism. If we don't object, we approve.
  One current example is the Republican response to Donald Trump. At first the "establishment" politely laughed off his sexist xenophobia. They should have stopped winking and laughing a long time ago because now it might be too late. Trump's form of "beardism" is  becoming the definitive platform of their party.
  Isms are everywhere but we're not always aware of them even as they are harming us.
   A few years ago, I was in a giant workshop aimed at reducing "isms" in the workplace. As part of one concluding exercise, we were all asked to identify four groups in which we considered ourselves members.
  I chose; A) Caucasian B) Male C) Creative personality D) Husband.
  Then we broke up into caucuses based on our group identification
  When we got into the caucuses, we were asked to identify stereotypes about our group that had caused us disadvantage in the past. Then we had to relate how that stereotype had been used as a subtle form of discrimination/intimidation against us.
  I was assigned caucuses B and C.
  The commonalities with the caucuses were amazing. Of course, I could go on and on but I want to make this short. For males the most frequent lowest common denominator was "immature". For creative personalities the LCD was "crazy".
  We all took a vow to recognize and reject those terms as a form of intimidation whenever we heard them applied to ourselves as members of that group. I have been fairly vigilant in that vow.
   In this way we would become active anti-stereotyping in or own group and more sensitive to the stereotyping of other groups as they reported back to the workshop.
  Very valuable feedback.
  Also amazing were the amount of people who claimed to have never in their lives experienced any kind of stereotyping whatsoever.
  Only one in the entire group insisted that she had no experience with any kind of "ism" and she was a forty something Asian person.
  I've always wondered about that.
Windbroken Silence
  Maybe it was the fall from the bunk.
  Maybe it was the radioactive Nevada weather.
 Maybe it was the fact that Merle, unlike ShelleyandKelly or RonaldandDonald, didn't have anybody to talk to in the womb or if he did he was still suffering from pre-natal grief.
  Whatever the reason, Merle was about to turn five and was yet to speak his first word. His parents were beside themselves with concern/guilt especially when Grandma Pearl and Grandpa Merle came for their annual visit.
  ShelleyandKelley and Pearl prepared a feast, while Ronaldanddonald and Grandpa Merle sat on the porch and smoked. Little Merle was silently running between groups until they all gathered at the table.
  They passed around the mashed potatoes while Grandpa Merle cut the ham. Meanwhile someone else cut the cheese. Everybody ignored the  eruptive disruption except for little Merle who spoke his first words. "who farted?"
  What followed was an unusual silence, part joy....part astonishment....part guilt....part relief. After what seemed like minutes, the silence was not broken but the answer was supplied. Grandma Pearl sheepishly raised her hand.
  That's when the laughter began and it lasted until Ronaldanddonald asked the next question. "What the hell took you so long, son.?"
  Little Earl answered. " I never smelled a fart before."
  More silence followed by more laughter until Grandpa Merle summed the whole thing up as Grandpas tend to do, "There are two kinds of men; smart fellers and fart smellers. I guess we just learned which kind little Merle is gonna be."
  Everybody agreed.
  Many years later, after secretly putting a pickle in his ice cream, Merle Seton met Jem Masters who was a smart feller in search of a fart smeller.
More on Merle
No matter how erudite and urbanite
Merle Seton pretended to be,
he was plagued by tics and scratches,
weighed by cups full of hicks in batches
adjustments and anti-climax.
eyes full of crust, ears full of wax
Every time he tried to think
Merle could count on a wink or a blink
he was always biting his fingernails,
adjusting his foggy glasses,
running his fingers through his hair,
wondering what was going on up there
picking his nose and scratching his balls.
refusing to answer any phone calls
Seton lived to itch, the scratchy son of a bitch
Whose idiosyncracies were not brought to his attention
because nobody paid enough attention to mention
To Merle his distracting symptoms of tension
.
One day Merle realized that as far as he knew,
nobody had ever put pickles in their chocolate ice cream.
Merle scooped himself a load of ice cream
As if it were part of a sweet, sweet dream
He covered the ice cream with pickles
poured chocolate syrup on the whole concoction.
He looked at his creation for several minutes
He enjoyed everything that was in it
wondering if he had produced
a miracle or a monster on the loose
He put his spoon into his invention
Ignoring the laws of convention
loaded it with syrup covered pickles.
He scratched his head, shifted his hips
before lifting the spoon to his expectant lips.
Merle put the spoon into his mouth
looked again around the house
blinked his eyes a couple of times.
Yeah, it was cold
As a witch's tit
Yeah it was sweet
As sweet as pickles could get
Yeah it was creamy
As a Genesee malt
Yeah it was salty
but less salty than salt
Yeah it had a slight crunch.
Merle's eyes began to water
his nose which was always running,
ran a little harder and faster
He had experienced cold before.
He knew about creamy sweetness.
He knew about salty, crunchy and sweet.
He felt the athlete in his feet
Merle wasn't shocked.
his emotions were locked
Merle wasn't delighted.
Nor were his taste buds ignited
his creation was far from a big wow.
Three spoonfuls were enough for now
He threw the remainder into the crapper
He adjusted his glasses as he flushed the john
He scratched his sun ruined, blemished forearm.
He figured if no foul, then no harm
The syrup pickle ice cream disappeared.
Merle took a look in the shithouse mirror
He shrugged his shoulders.
His mouth felt colder
He stifled a yawn
His inspiration gone
decided to take a nap.
He gave his thigh a slap
Because nobody else saw or heard
Mum was rendered as the final word
Thus the whole misadventure never occurred.
And if it had, he didn���t mean it
In case someone had seen it.
Which someone had
Which wasn’t bad.
MOTHER’S DIE
  Mary was born on Christmas.I was her first born son, 25 years and five days later. Mary’s father died when she was sixteen.She raised her two younger sisters and younger brother.
  She was with them all on their death beds after they had lived interesting, productive and full lives.
  Mary was married to my father for nearly seventy years. We called my mother  Red like we called my father Vin. Everybody had a ma or mom or mother. We had Red, more beautiful, more spirited, more reliable, more essential than the rest in our eyes,
  She was at Vin’s deathbed as well, which in fact was the bed they slept in as he was determined to make it home to die. He did so in her arms.
  My brother, my sister, my wife and my children were at her death bed. She was spared the opposite. She wouldn’t have to sit at ours.
  The lessons at her bed were profound as her death was so much the opposite of her life. She was diminished, dementiated, starving and morphine ridden.Yet she held on even while muttering over and over again;
  “I can’t breathe”
   "I can’t help you"
   While she breathed and helped us all to confront death and learn its lessons.
  Each time I visited, I was pretty sure this would be the last time.
  The last time, I was sure it was the last time because her physical resemblance to the fierce, funny, reliable, self sufficient,woman she had always been had all but disappeared. Still she hung on.
  In what I thought was going to be my last moments with her, I told her the story of California. When I was young, many of my friends moved to California.Little did we suspect at the time, that we would never see one another again. Going to California might as well have been death.I named those friends to her, Richard, Mike, Pam, Ann those kids we never saw again. She remained silent, eyes closed. I like to think she was remembering
  Now was the time for me to do the thing that the oldest child is supposed to do. Give her permission and encouragement to go. I tried my best. I told her that she would be going to California in my mind where she would see her Mom, her Dad, her brothers and my father and all of our friends. I said We would be fine, my brother, my sister and our families. She had done a great job.Then I said “You can go, we don’t need you anymore”.
  She opened her eyes and said “Oh yes, you do”
  Then she shut them.
  We were all astounded.
  We went home as the vigil continued.
  That night, she died.
 Those were her final words to me.
  She was right. She was right and she was wrong. We did need her and continue to need her forever. She was right about that.
 She had said she couldn’t help us. She was wrong about that. She  got me through this essay and my struggle with cancer.
BEYONDZEE: Misunderstanding Generations
   Generation Z is as far as we can go in stereotyping generations with alphabet letters. What comes after Z? The edge of the generation beyond zee is 10 years old in 2019. They will be a formidable faction in the presidential election of 2028 which will be decided by millennials.. Beyondzee is to Generation Z what the millennials are to Generation X and what Gen X was to Baby Boomers. We’re just now beginning to understand some of the tendencies of the millennials. Because so many of them (40% according to Johnson and Seton) are racial minorities, they take multiculturalism for granted. Millennials are not on the path of their predecessors. Millenials are headed back to the cities without marriage or driving licenses.
  The behaviors of Z have begun to manifest themselves as they became a factor in the “blue wave” of the 2016 elections, seemingly concerned with environmental and multicultural issues.
  Beyond Zee is anybody’s guess except for those teachers grades 4 through 6 where behavior Beyond Zee is begining to manifest in contrast to Gen X and preview the future.
  Here’s an example.
  In September of 2019 Mrs. Imogene Seton (generation X)  received an email from the school of her fifth grade son Earl. The mail came from the school librarian Ms Kreckle (Baby Boomer) who was “concerned” about Earl’s behavior earlier in the week. On that day, Ms. Kreckle ( the kids called her Krinkle) had left a lesson for the substitute librarian Ms. Slater (millennial) who passed on to Ms. Kreckle the concern that Ms. Kreckle wanted to share with Mrs. Seton about Earl’s performance on that assigment that Ms. Slater had activated for the absent Ms Kreckel.
  Ms Slater read several stories relating to empathy, respect,self regard and the unique nature of every human being. At the conclusion of the reading, during which Earl had been given several “reminders”, Ms Slater passed out a work sheet upon which was a huge blank egg shape representing an expressionless human face. Next to the face were two words and a blank. The two words were I AM and the blank was where the kids were supposed to describe themselves using some of the vocabulary and context from the stories selected by Ms. Kreckel and read by Ms. Slater.
  Most of the kids got right to work but Earl seemed incapable of the introspection needed for the assignment and responded with behavioral and attention disruptions that seemed to affect the rest of the class and were clearly unacceptable and disrespectful library behavior. Ms Kreckel hoped that Mrs Seton would stop in for a “chat”.
  The next day Mrs Seton arrived for the conference. Ms Kreckle confessed again that she wasn’t present for the actual class but she had pulled aside Earl’s work on the assignment. Mrs Seton took one look at the work and was “horrified.”
  During the meeting, Imogene used her phone to take a picture of Earl’s drawing. She sent the picture to her husband Merle who was “working on a project with Jem” in North Carolina.
 Earl had scribbled lines across the “face” making the egg look like a werewolf with long dangling earrings. He had added shoulders to the  egg. In the space provided for the self description, Earl had printed I AM…the person that you will never meet because I am FAKE and on a piece of paper.
  Mrs Seton, momentarily overcome with shock and awe, thanked the librarian for her concern and assured Ms. Kreckel that she would discuss the matter with Earl, which she did.
   In the subsequent “discussion”, Imogene reinforced Ms Kreckle’s expectations. Earl indicated that he understood but some of the blame should go towards his ADD friend who was poking him and making him laugh throughout the lesson.   Mrs. Seton decided to send the picture to her Gen X sister, Carrie.
  A few seconds later Carrie texted back
“if the goal was to talk about the  unique qualities of every person, the drawing represents a unique individual. The image represents a non-gender person who has a beard and earrings so he’s got that right and the person is additionally unique because he/she/it is not real, he isFAKE and he exists only on a piece of paper. Now, as far as having to be told to ‘listen and behave’ everyone knows that when there is a substitute or the regular teacher isn’t around, it’s a free for all. They should be thanking Earl that he didn’t draw a picture of the woman who assigned the project saying “I’m home sick and I had to come up with something to keep you kids busy or I would get in trouble with my supervisor” or he could have drawn a picture of Ms Slater saying “this whole thing wasn’t my idea and my outfit and shoes look like they landed on me when a hurricane struck Dressbarn.”
  Upon receivng the text from her sister, Imogene couldn’t help but laugh and although still concerned with Earl’s behavior she knew that his picture and the  whole hullabaloo  would become part of family legend.
 I see it as a peek into the future.
 A peek at the alphabet just before and just beyond z.
 Here they come
URGENT MIRRORS
 Hello friends. It’s nice to be back.  I’ve been stealing mirrors and seeing men about horses for the last 10 days. I subscribe to the Vonnegutian concept that a mirror is a leak to another, parallel universe. The image that we see when we look into a mirror is the image of ourselves in another realm which is momentarily in synch with our own. We just show up at the same time and take a gander at each other. Thus a mirror is a leak into another world.  So whenever someone says “I’ve got to take a leak” what they are literally saying according to Vonnegut is “I’ve got to steal a mirror”  I’ve stolen so many mirrors in the last ten days that even my image in the parallel universe is freaking out and looks very tired.  I don’t know exactly what’s causing the guy in the mirror to show up 50 or 60 times a day but “I” know why I’m there.  I’m stealing mirrors as an after effect of the radiation treatment that I have been receiving for the past sixteen days. I knew beforehand that one of the after effects of radiation is increased, urgent urination.  Still you never really know about an after effect until after it affects you after.
 I haven’t slept now in five days because of the “urgency”. I go to bed. I’m there for ten minutes then I have to steal a mirror. I come back to the bed and the urgency comes back with me. I tell the urgency “look I know you’re just some spasmic bladder because I just stole a mirror and there’s no way I need to steal another one so soon.” Then the urgency goes away for maybe 10 minutes at which time I try to catch a few winks because I know the urgency will be back and that will wake me up.  10 minutes later, the urgency is back.  10 minutes after that I’m stealing another mirror.  And then the whole thing starts all over again
 This goes on all day and all of the night.  I remember what it used to be like 20 days prior and what I took for granted.  
 A few times a day I’d get that urgency but the vast majority of the day and the night, the urgency disappeared. I thought nothing of it. We get used to normal until it disappears and then we crave it like we crave yesterday.  But yesterday’s gone.  The after effect flips the script. Instead of non urgency leading to a mirror steal seven or eight times a day now the urgency is continual with 60 or 70 mirror steals within every 24 hours.  Yesterday, my doctor prescribed some new medication. I won’t even tell you all the rare and catastrophic potential effects of the prescription, they are too humiliating and horrifying to even think about.
  My pharmacist tells me that they have to put those warnings on the label if it comes to their knowledge that any one at any time had ever come up with the particular after effect. If someone has, then it must be included on the label. This is supposed to be comforting information.   Don’t worry about the after effects because they are rare but if you start getting one or more contact your doctor immediately etc.
     The new medicine is supposed to reduce the urgency and thus reduce the mirror stealing. However, for some people it has a paradoxical effect which not only reduces the urgency but also makes urination impossible. If that’s the case, contact your doctor immediately becasuse you will need to be catheterized
 I really don’t want that.  As of this instant, the urgency has lessened.  That is why I can stop back here and say hello.  But now I’m kinda worried about my flow.  I want no more after effects, that, my friends is for goddamn sure  Not cured from what I’m suffering with but suffering from the cure.
THE ART OF GLOVE
 A guy named Arthur Gregor walked out of the classroom, apparently on his way to the john. The boy on the way to the john, Arthur Gregor Junior, almost always suspected that he had a sex problem.
 The reason Arthur Gregor suspected he had a sex problem was because his father, Arthur Gregor, suspected that he, the father, had a sex problem. Arthur Gregor Junior’s mother Sara knew that her husband had a sex problem but she didn’t know exactly what it was nor how to describe it which led Arthur Gregor Senior to have even greater suspicion about the sex problems of his son etc.         So one day when Junior was eight, his parents took him to a psychiatrist named Dr. Schinetzki. Schinetzki suspected that he himself might have an undefined sex problem, that is why he specialized in detecting sex problems in others.
 When Junior walked into Schinetzki’s office, he had no suspicion that he might have a problem with sex. He was eight years old. He didn’t have any idea what sex was. So Schinetski started showing Junior some pictures and asked him to identify the pictures. The pictures were very concrete; an apple, a desk, a lamp, a shirt, a dog and then a bra.
 Junior nailed the first  five and then the trouble began.
 Junior hesitated when he saw the bra. He knew what the name of the item was but he didn’t want Dr. Schinetski to know that he knew what it was for fear that Schnitetski would tell his parents that their child knew what a bra was which of course he would have and that would have been considered normal and that might have eased the suspicion that Senior had about Junior which might have eased the suspicion that Senior had about himself which may or may not have dented the wall of certainty that Sara had constructed about her husband and hence her son.
 Tragically, Junior chose to overthink the situation. He figured that no “normal” kid his age should know what a bra is or where it goes or what it does.  
 Junior decided that he either had to continue in silence as he contemplated the picture which he figured would be suspicious or he could mis-identify the picture. Junior chose option two.  “Well, Arthur, can you name this picture?” asked the good Doctor with an edge of impatience in his voice.  “ Oh yes, Doctor. That’s a glove”  “Very good young man” said the doctor and moved on to a picture of a goat, and then a telephone and then a piggy bank all of which Arthur identified. From that day on, the suspicion of Arthur Senior about Arthur Junior began to grow and then one day that suspicion appeared within Arthur Junior and it started to grow.  That day was a Sunday in January  
 The next day, the day after sexual suspicion started within his son, Senior uncomfortably explained the birds and the bees to his boy and Arthur began to believe that bees were having sex with birds and if he got stung by a bee, he could get pregnant.
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katrinawritesthings · 7 years
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Jonghyun/Taemin; nails i guess; PG
me, having never gotten a manicure before and knowing absolutely Nothing about them: yeah i can write a fic from the pov of manicurist jong easy
Taemin glances at Jonghyun out of the side of their eye. “If there was a dude that wasn’t in a frat, but walked by one three times a week, and didn’t want to give any of the dudebros any reason to notice his nails and make fun of him or whatever, what color would you pick?”
“I mean,” Jonghyun says, lifting a hand to hide a giggle at that question. That was extremely specific. “Is that dude you?” he asks.
ao3
“He did not. Oh my god,” Jonghyun shakes his head, one hand lifting to cover his mouth in disbelief, but Gwi still nods as she pokes through her phone.
“He fucking did,” she says, and holds it up to show Jonghyun the picture. Jonghyun can’t even look at it for more than a few seconds before shaking his head more and gently pushing it away.
“Oh my fucking god,” he says. “And he thought that was romantic?”
“I guess?” Gwi says, shrugging wildly. “And, like, I didn’t–oh.” She stops short with a glance over Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun turns and follows her gaze to the front door of their nail salon, currently being pulled open by what looks like a college kid with wavy black hair. Gwi smiles her fake customer service smile and Jonghyun smiles half of a real smile because they’re actually pretty cute as they look around the salon like they’ve never been inside of one before. He likes their long spike earrings and dark jacket.
“Good morning!” Gwi smiles when they finally notice them behind the counter. They smile a little nervously, slipping up and resting their elbow on the desk. Jonghyun watches Gwi’s eyes immediately narrow and zoom in on that action and hides a smile by glancing behind him at the cash register. He loves when she hates people touching her desk.
“Hi, um,” the college kid says. Their hand automatically lifts up to grip the strap of their bag over their shoulder in what Jonghyun is pretty sure is a nervous gesture. Aw. Little bub. “I don’t really know? A lot about this stuff,” they say, “and, my nails are kinda. Bitten and stubby.” They look at the nails on their other hand as they speak and then show them to Jonghyun and Gwi with a sheepish shrug. Jonghyun raises his brows at the sight of them. Those are pretty nubby and uneven nails alright. “But, I have twenty dollars?” they continue. “And I wanted, like, just a coat of polish and maybe the fancy hand massage, if that’s a thing? I’m not sure if that’s a thing.”
“It’s a thing,” Jonghyun assures them. He leans up on Gwi’s desk as well, wanting to smile closer at this cute clueless babe. He likes them already. Their eyes are a warm dark brown and their lips are positively plush.
“It’s a thing that’ll be around sixteen dollars, with the polish too,” Gwi says. Jonghyun nods. Sounds about right. With an extra four for the tip, if they aren’t a garbage human.
“Oh, nice,” college kid says. They smile a little wider, more relaxed now that they were right about something. “I, uh, don’t have an appointment, or anything, but I can make one? If I have to? Do I have to?”
“I’m free right now, actually,” Jonghyun says. He glances at the little list of appointments on the desk to make sure, and yeah. His next appointment isn’t for another while. “I can do you,” he smiles. Gwi gently kicks his foot under the desk and he less gently kicks her back for trying to make that an innuendo thing. College kid bounces a little happily on their toes at that information.
“Great,” they say. Jonghyun bounces back just to bounce.
“Great,” he repeats. “C’mere and pick a color and I’ll get all set up. I’m J,” he adds as he leads them to the polish wall. It says his name on his shirt, but he just wants them to know. They glance at him, glance at his nametag, and nod.
“Taemin,” they say. Jonghyun nods back. That is a cute name. “Hey, um,” Taemin says when Jonghyun starts to leave to set up his nail station. They’re looking blankly at the rows of color, bottom lip between their teeth. They glance at Jonghyun out of the side of their eye. “If there was a dude that wasn’t in a frat, but walked by one three times a week, and didn’t want to give any of the dudebros any reason to notice his nails and make fun of him or whatever, what color would you pick?”
“I mean,” Jonghyun says, lifting a hand to hide a giggle at that question. That was extremely specific. “Is that dude you?” he asks with a cocked brow. Taemin’s lips quirk up into a little smirk.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says. Jonghyun snorts, but looks at all of the colors anyway. Hmm.
“Maybe like a dark blue,” he hums, pointing a finger vaguely towards the blue section. “Or dark green looks like it would be nice with your skin, and is also stereotypically manly, I guess,” he adds. He wouldn’t know. He stopped being a dudebro a long time ago and doesn’t know the new trends. “Maybe black, but that would a little too Hot Topic, especially with your earrings,” he shrugs.
“Mmm.” Taemin hums, lifting a hand to feel up his earlobe with a sheepish grin. “True, yeah,” he says. He hums again, looking between the greens and blues contemplatively, and Jonghyun scoots away to set up his station with a fond glance over his shoulder. He loves him a nice dudebro disliking human that values his opinion.
A minute later, he’s got his water and oil and lotion all prepped and Taemin shuffles over to him with a dusky berry blue bottle in his hand. Jonghyun nods encouragingly at his choice. That’s cute. A good color.
“Have a seat, wash your hands,” he says, papping the table in front of the chair and the little sink to the side. Taemin sits, looking nervous and self-conscious but still excited for a little pampering. “Do you want me to explain everything I’m doing?” he asks. He knows that calms other newcomers, but Taemin shrugs, shaking his head.
“Nah,” he says. “The mystery is kinda cool,” he grins. Jonghyun snorts, but shrugs back. Alright then. He hands Taemin a towel to dry his hands with. “Uh, just, here?” Taemin asks when he’s done. He hovers his hands over the little rests and Jonghyun nods.
“Perfect, yeah,” he says. When Taemin places his hands down Jonghyun gently picks the left one to inspect it. He tsks at what he sees; half of his fingertips are more skin than nail, he’s nibbled so much off. The skin is messed up too, both at the tips and in the little frays at the corners. His cuticles are okay, though, and no hangnails, so. Not as bad as it could be. There is a little dark red spot on the corner of his pinky that looks like it used to be a hangnail and is currently healing, but still. Pretty decent hands.
“A nail biting gremlin, huh?” he asks, glancing up at Taemin with a cocked brow. Taemin looks away, rubbing his nose embarrassedly with his free hand.
“I mean,” he says, voice a crooked little smile. “A picker, too,” he says, looking at his nails again before putting his hand back down. “I figure the polish will at least stop the biting, you know?” he says. Jonghyun nods knowingly.
“A lot of people come in here with the same idea,” he says. He thinks it’s neat that Taemin is trying to stop a bad habit like this. Taemin nods, wiggling his little fingers. Jonghyun bites his lip, looks towards his lotions, tries not to blush. He’s so cute close up and wiggly like this. His nose has a slight hook at the end that Jonghyun almost wants to kiss already. He’s so weak for cute boys.
“So, um,” he says quickly. “I’m gonna start,” he says, and pops the cap on his skin cleanser.
From there at least it’s pretty much muscle memory. He doesn’t have to think too hard to clean and massage Taemin’s soft hands, but he still has to look at and focus on them to work. It leaves him free to talk easily to him but also saves him from having to look at his face and blush the whole time. Jonghyun likes the situation very much.
Taemin goes to the college a few blocks away, studying mostly botany and a little bit of music composing. Jonghyun doesn’t know much about plants but he does know a lot about music, so he latches onto that to talk about. He learns that Taemin has composed a few songs himself and written lyrics for more and that he is very shy about both of them. Jonghyun is less shy about his work, so while Taemin’s hands are soaking, he sings a little bit of what he’s been working on lately. Gwi shakes her head at him behind Taemin’s back in judgement but Taemin earnestly tells him that he sounds really good, so Jonghyun knows which babe he’s listening to this afternoon.
He won’t lie and say that he’s not touching Taemin’s hands more than he has to during this whole thing. They’re just so. Soft. And warm. And slightly sweaty, which is kind of gross, but he’s had sweatier boyfriends before. It’s whatever. He looks up at Taemin through his lashes every time he does, smiling and loving the way he smiles back. He’s a little hard to read, but from the way he smiles to the things he has to say Jonghyun is getting subtle queer feels and for once he really hopes that his gaydar is right. He’s not going to come out to some stranger during their first manicure, but still. It’s nice to be gay for someone that’s probably gay also for once.
All too soon it’s over; all too soon he’s rubbed and oiled and trimmed and filed and painted and cleaned Taemin’s little nubs to perfection. They’re still short and nubby, but now they’re smooth and even and blue as they sit in a little ice bath. Taemin hasn’t really spoken since he dipped his fingers in; he’s wiggling his legs under the desk and pouting at the chill while Jonghyun tries to clean up his station instead of laugh and blush about how fucking cute that is.
Normally he has people take their hands out after three minutes, but he can’t stand Taemin’s little pout so he takes the bowl away after two. Close enough. Taemin’s first breath after Jonghyun takes the water away is one of relief, smile probably wider than normal as he gently pats his fingers dry. When he’s done, Jonghyun takes his hands, smiles at them, then smiles up at Taemin and wiggles them gently.
“All done!” he chirps. Taemin blinks, looks down at his hands, smiles at the dark blue on his nails.
“That’s it, really?” he asks, lifting them higher to get a better look. “I love them, heck,” he says. Jonghyun wiggles with pride and pats Taemin’s hands gently.
“They’re not all the way dry yet, though, so be careful,” he says. Taemin stops wiggling his fingers immediately with a little hiss and Jonghyun chuckles softly. “Just don’t go rummaging in your backpack or anything for a while and they should be fine,” he says. Taemin nods, gently touching his fingertips and nails with wonder. Jonghyun loves when he gets new clients that marvel at his work, even if it’s pretty basic. It feels good on the inside. It’s doubly good because Taemin is so extra cute as he does it, too.
“Thanks, so much,” Taemin says. He bites his lip as he glances up at Jonghyun and Jonghyun resists the urge to want to do that himself. “Do I just–do I pay and tip at the desk?” he asks, pointing behind him with a blue finger uncertainly. Jonghyun nods, flapping an encouraging little hand.
“Come back anytime,” he smiles. “You can make an appointment with me online specifically if you want,” he adds. “Gwi has the business cards,”  he adds to that, in an attempt to make it look like he wasn’t blatantly flirting. Taemin smiles, standing up carefully and still holding his hands up to look at his nails as he does so.
“I will, I promise,” he says, and gives Jonghyun a tiny wave before he walks away. Jonghyun bites his lip as he watches him walk for a moment before going back to his cleaning. Heck. Heck heck heck. He’s so fucking cute. Jonghyun hopes he actually does return for another manicure sometimes soon.
By the time he finishes cleaning his station, Taemin is gone, but Gwi is still chilling behind the counter and his next appointment hasn’t shown up yet, so he scoots back there to chill with her.
“Did you–”
“Here,” Gwi hums, handing him a five without looking up from her phone. Jonghyun blinks, takes it, folds it and stuffs it in his bag under the desk. “Your new boyfriend fumbled for like five minutes trying to ask if he should give me the tip or go back and give it to you personally,” Gwi says.
“And you let him struggle like that?” Jonghyun asks reproachfully. Rude. The way Gwi’s lips curve up into a little smirk tells him that she did it one hundred percent on purpose just for the amusement of it and he huffs again. Extra rude. “He’s really sweet, you know,” he grumbles.
“Yeah, sure,” Gwi says. “Look what this fucko sent me.” She holds up her phone to show Jonghyun another picture from the same dude as before. Jonghyun cringes almost immediately and pushes the phone away.
“Oh my fucking god, that almost makes me want to not be a boy anymore today,” he mutters. “What’d you reply?” he asks, pulling her phone back to snoop.
“Nothing yet,” Gwi says. She tugs her phone back possessively. “I told him earlier I was gonna be working and not replying until tomorrow.” Jonghyun snorts. He guesses his snooping will have to wait until tomorrow then.
~
The next day, Jonghyun learns during his quick lunch break that Gwi told the dude he was gross and blocked him and already found yet another dude to talk to. He peeps over her shoulder as he sips the smoothie he got from the place next door as he judges their conversation.
“You know, you can get your validation from, like, a different source than one new fuckboy a day on kik,” he tells her. “There’s like. Friends and the comments on baking videos on youtube.”
“Yeah, but those are like, emotional platonic validation,” Gwi mumbles. “This is like. I post a pic of the titty and boom, seventeen guys are trying to hit me up, and then double boom, it’s glaringly obvious that I’m better than all of them.”
“So you’re saying you just want to know that there are fuckboys out there that wanna bang you but will never be good enough to,” Jonghyun says flatly. Gwi shrugs, an innocent little smile on her lips as she replies to some dude that she’s better than.
“Maybe I like feeling royal,” she hums. “Besides,” she says, clicking her phone asleep and looking up to seal a chip from Jonghyun’s bag. “It’s not like–oh my god.”
“Hmm?” Jonghyun glances over his shoulder to follow her gaze to the door of the salon and the person that’s opening it. He does a doubletake when he sees who it is. It’s–”Oh my god,” Jonghyun whispers himself.
“Uh, hi,” Taemin says a little sheepishly as he walks up to them. Jonghyun glances at Gwi; Gwi glances back at him in the most judgemental way possible before looking back.
“Hi, can I help you?” she asks pleasantly. Taemin rubs his nose, bites his lip, looks at Jonghyun a little guiltily.
“Yeah, um,” he says.”Remember when you asked if I was a nail biting gremlin, and then I said I was also a nail picking gremlin? Because, uh.” He holds up his hands to show them his nails–his completely bare, polish free nails.
“Holy shit,” Gwi says. Jonghyun thinks the same thing but doesn’t say it. That’s honestly impressive.
“So, uh, yeah,” Taemin says. “I would’ve made an appointment online but I lost the card, but, um, when? Is your next opening? I just want, like, the most basic polish and nothing else.” He wiggles his clear little fingers with a hopeful look. Jonghyun just leans his chin up in his hand and smiles.
“You’re really cute,” he says bluntly. Taemin blinks, smiles, looks away, bites his lip, and blushes. Gwi kicks Jonghyun under the desk again but Jonghyun can’t even find it in himself to care. He’s just enjoying watching Taemin’s face scrunch all up in embarrassment.
#jongtae#jonghyun#taemin#fluff#pg#gwiboon#is also there#kibum#key#gwi: honestly hes not even that cute ur taste in boys is so bad#jong: um??? excuse me??? ur talkin to boys that send u unsolicited dick pics on the daily#gwi: okay u know what fuck u#anyway jong does taems nails again nd just paints them the same color blue#nd when taem leaves hes like i promise ill try not to pick it all off in less than one day again lmao#and tbh he does last two days that time#and then four days and then he lasts a whole !!! week#and from there he kinda stablizes to one a week and slowly gets better#and at one point jongs like u know u can just buy some polish nd do it urself#and taems like ha ha no i can not i got shaky hands havent u noticed???#(((jong has 100% noticed bc he lovs taems hands in every way))))#but he feels bad bc taems spending so many monies on this and he doesnt want the fancy pick resistant polish or anything#but eventually taem keeps it on for like almost three weeks nd jongs like uwu soon u wont have to come here anymore#and taem kinda smiles like yeah but i think id still want to just to see u#and jongs like oh my fucking god and turns into a tomato and hides his face and melts on the inside bc that came from nowhere#nd taem is so cute and sweet and good and very very pan#jong asks him the heck out nd they get ice cream nd its good#jong is also mostly a trans dude but sometimes he feels like being jung again#hes a lil ro repulsed when hes a lady but taems like ye thats okay im a lil ro repulsed at arbitrary and completely random times#it works out
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kinetic-elaboration · 7 years
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April 27: Thoughts on 4x09 DNR
[spoiler alert: I didn’t like it and most of what follows is me ripping it to shreds]
Okay, just finished watching 4x09 DNR. And I’ve basically come to the conclusion that I cannot be pleased by this show anymore. I’m sorry, but S4 had a good start that has now devolved into…I’m not going to say worse than or on the level of season 3 but basically into one big nonsense mess. That’s what this episode was, imo, a big old mess.
One thing—and I am being completely literal, this is the ONLY thing I liked in this episode—Miller/Jackson is going to happen and I am on board. I love Miller/Bryan and I always will, and in a way I’m bummed because I’m pretty sure this spells the end of Briller but I can’t be upset because I started writing a Miller/Jackson piece weeks ago and I thought it was a crackship and now I’m like well wow Jackson is definitely queer and he and Miller are gonna hook up it’s completely inevitable COMPLETELY. (If this were an m/f couple I’d say it was out of nowhere and random I admit that but the rules are different for minor character same-sex couples and anyway this was just the initial seed being planted, we’ll see how it goes but so far I’m all in.)
Now for how much I think everything else sucked:
Clarke and Polis
What to say besides I thought this was boring and stupid? First of all, war is boring. War has always been kinda boring but at least in season 1 it was new. But it’s been so fucking constant in every single season and I just cannot care. I have far surpassed the outer limits of fucks I give about martial story lines of any sort. I am not one of those people who has whole shelves of books about WWII in my library okay (and, frankly—are most of the people watching this show that sort of person? I would guess not but what do I know about the cw core audience?). And war story lines are even more dumb now when, much as I disagree with her a lot, you have Clarke there literally spelling it out in great big shiny colorful letters for everyone to see that the radiation is coming in less than a week dumbnuts, put aside the squabbling for like five seconds for the love of all things!!!!!!! I mean she’s not wrong. At one point I just thought, hey, how about everyone who thinks war is a good idea just goes out and fucking slaughters each other—try to get it done in like 2-3 days please, tops—and then everyone who’s smart enough to not want to slaughter each other can live in the bunker. Win-win.
Speaking of Clarke, though, I’ve said it before that I have a supremely complicated relationship with her character but she is at Peak Insufferable Levels when she gets all up her own ass about how she’s the only one to be able to solve everyone’s problems. This was something Lxa cultivated in her—not that I blame L entirely because I think we see the seeds in S1, I mean there was something to cultivate in the first place—and she’s gotten a bit better over S3-S4 but every now and then that side of her that once said “you’re the Chancellor but I’m in charge,” to her own mother, at the ripe old age of barely-18, rears its ugly face and this was one of those episodes. I get that smart-girl frustration of seeing everyone else being So Fucking Dumb and just wanting to knock some heads together until the sense floats up to the top but still the outstanding hubris of her wanting to become the Commander I mean !!!!!!!!!!!!! Which she like apparently off-screen convinced Gaia to go along with because it was only Roan that stopped the whole thing? Oh Roan. You’re often quite boring and your voice annoys me but every now and then you have your moments.
I will say, I did like the way Abby said “WITH SCIENCE!” though.
I wouldn’t say the fight to the death is the worst idea anyone’s ever had but four complaints:
1.      The radiation is coming in literally 6 days MUST WE WASTE TIME WITH THIS SHIT?
2.      Obviously there are counter-arguments to this and I’m necessarily biased but imo Arkadians researched the bunker (Jaha), found the bunker (Jaha et. al.), and figured out how to open the bunker (Monty) so, like—shouldn’t they automatically get some of the spots? They can’t possibly have many people left after the multiple massacres their original 2k population has taken over the last year or so--the clans can have their 12-way brawl for the rest of the space after Arkadia has taken what’s already theirs.
3.      Next episode is going to be so boring I already want to weep,
4.      Is this the fucking Hunger Games now? Just like I didn’t sing up to watch Game of Thrones, I didn’t sing up for the Hunger Games either. JFC
 Raven, Murphy, and Emori
I liked Murphy and Emori both in this episode. I thought Murphy had some good lines and there was a lot to like in his last scene with Raven. And I liked that Emori’s story in this ep was about learning to trust the Sky People. That was a nice little narrative flourish.
But the rest…I don’t know. I just don’t know. I liked how Raven’s story line was thematically consistent with the DNR kids’ story line, how she is, in fact, another person who is literally saying Do Not Resuscitate, except that her case is more…it’s closer to how these issues really play out in real life because she is, personally, because of something in her actual physical body, not outside of herself, going to die, and now she’s preparing to do it on her own terms. I mean it was a little on the nose but they earned that because they’ve been building this Raven story for a while.
I couldn’t really get into it, though. I can’t explain why I couldn’t. Maybe it’s that Becca’s lab has been so off-putting to me this entire season. Maybe it’s because I have such a deep hatred of all of this going into space bullshit even if I’m a little more open to the possibility of just blasting off the rocket the one time for a suicide mission. (It’s a little less totally-out-of-left-field-versus-previous-seasons utterly-batshit-implausible and more along the lines of within-suspendable-disbelief ranges.) Maybe it’s just bad luck on my part that it’s not resonating with me even though there’s nothing wrong with it. I want to like the concept of a fucked up code getting into someone’s brain and setting up a home there and messing with them, but something that I can’t pinpoint in the execution is just off for me, like a barrier between something I feel I would enjoy and my actual enjoyment.
 DNR
THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CENTURY. Heavens me this was the MOST SHALLOW TREATMENT OF SOMETHING I’M INTERESTED IN THAT I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS. I demand my fucking money back. (IDK what money in particular...my internet bill I guess? My law school tuition? The monetary equivalent of all the time I’ve spent thinking about The 100 or at least this story line? Something.) I probably put more effort into my rambly Jasper meta than they writers did in writing this episode or possibly this entire arc. If I ever need evidence for my contention that this show is shallow af and the PTB don’t know how to write philosophical or even meaningful discussions lasting more than a dozen lines, I’m going to point to this episode.
First, it bothered me that no one thought to ask themselves or each other: hey, why do we want to take these people with us? Like hear me out because maybe it is or should be obvious, but I think this is the time to ask that question. Why do we want to force people to live? Because we do, we force people to live all the time. You can be very simple about it and just say “because all life is good and all death is bad and suicide in particular is bad and our moral obligation as people/the state’s moral obligation as the guardian of the people is to ensure that everyone stays alive even against their own will absolutely no matter what.” I mean that’s a legit position, even if I think it’s a bit simplistic.
You could say that you want them to live because it’s all hands on deck to keep humanity itself alive—which is the argument Jaha hints at initially in his conversation with Jasper, and exactly the type of argument the DNR group could most easily and most fairly reject. I’m always 10000000% on board for discussion of the Ark or comparisons of the current situation to the Ark but we get only a tiny itty bitty hint at this, instead of a long discussion. (TALKING’S BORING RIGHT WHERE ARE THE SWORDS.) (I’m sorry to anyone who actually reads this; I just can’t contain my bitterness.)
You could say that a desire to kill oneself is generally a symptom, not a disease, and a general, moral, human compassion obligates us to interrogate that suicidal urge when we see it in others, and would especially so obligate us if we saw that urge in a large group of people such as the DNR group. Which is pretty much my position but if that’s the position anyone on the outside of the door were taking they’d probably not want to solve the problem by blowing up the door and taking everyone prisoner so.
That Jasper is literally using the phrase DNR—which generally applies when the person in question can only be saved by some kind of extreme and immediate measure—should have prompted some sort of discussion. Another term for DNR is “allow natural death.” To use that phrase is, first, to say that the bunker is a life-saving measure akin to CPR, something that you do at the last moment to stave off what would otherwise be your (natural) time to die; second, it is to say that Jasper and his followers view the bunker as, in some sense, unnatural (not a way to live, as Jasper puts it); and third, it is to say that they consider themselves right on the verge of death--as in, this is an emergency situation. I just…I’m so frustrated that they used that phrase, they made it the title of the episode, they put it forefront in the trailer, and then it’s like…never dealt with!!!!! There’s so much material there!!!! Whoops sorry guess we gotta budget in about ½ the running time for fight scenes and talk of war lol. Wherever are my priorities???
All we really got was a knee-jerk “life is good, survival is good, you kids are bad” from Jaha and friends.
Second—it only gets worse from there because then, as soon as Bellamy says, “Hey, um, maybe it’s kinda understandable what they’re doing??” everyone just throws up their hands and goes “Hey, you’re right. I guess we’ll just let them die.” Like what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There aren’t enough exclamation marks in the fucking universe. I’m sorry but that’s literally just straight up immoral. THESE CHILDREN ARE SUICIDAL. Does that not fucking bother you, any of you??? I’m disgusted. I’m even more disgusted that the narrative seemed to stand with the death squad, like it allowed only the rational arguments to stand without interrogating at all the bitter pain beneath them.
Third, and this is a smaller point but… Bellamy’s the male lead, and he was definitely flirting with Jasper’s philosophy a mere episode ago. Now he’s all back on the survival train. Just like that. I know we don’t have time to go deep into everyone’s head here but Bellamy’s in such an interesting place—I think he’s one of the few people who is really, honestly torn between Team Survival and Team Fuck It—and not only is he a character with a unique vantage point but there is literally only one character even arguably more important than him so if we’re going to give a few extra minutes to ANYONE shouldn’t it be him? Does he not deserve that? He got like 2 lines and 3 minutes of screen time this week and that was pathetic.
Also—not be shallow—but—I’m gonna indulge in a bit of supremely bitter ranting here. As I’ve said repeatedly, I hate (TRULY TRULY HATE) Monty/Harper. So the fact that 80% of Monty’s story was about Harper and maybe 20% if I’m super generous, was about Jasper pisses me off. Monty being all “Harper you’re the only thing more beautiful than the hydroponic farms” made me want to vomit. Monty’s “I love you” made me literally scream NO YOU DON’T YOU CHILD at the screen. Look, I’ve started a relationship with a random hook up in real life, and it’s a sham, I can speak from deeply personal experience, this relationship is a sham. And that Monty’s emotion is all being shoved into this Random Het Nonsense with the minorest of minor delinquents who has pretty much no personality and has only had the screen time she’s had this season because she had the good luck to be shoved into a ““““““romance”””””” with a main while actual main character since the fucking pilot Jasper has been shafted at LITERALLY EVERY TURN is just SO MADDENING I MIGHT LITERALLY SCREAM. (Yes I consider Harper and Jasper to be zero sum. It’s one or the other for screen time and Monty’s heart and I know where my allegiances lie.)
I don’t feel much of anything about Monty staying behind. Like… I probably should, but by that point in the story I was just exhausted with disappointment and counting down the minutes until it was over. On the one hand, what other choice did he really have, narratively? Like he wasn’t going to leave the most important people in his life behind. But then on the other hand, I can’t help but think it was sort of dumb of him. This is just about as high stakes as it gets. And he’s going to die for what, like, to make a point? To be nice? Hmmmm, suspicious. Further, and to go along with my rant above, I was pretty pissed off that all of his emotion in his last scene was reserved for Harper and he and Jasper just got a bro moment LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. I guess on the upside, if Miller/Bryan is any indication, we’re probably supposed to take from that that they’re in love (get it? Because Miller and Bryan bro-hugged in S3? I’m still not over that btw).
Finally, and more seriously… I don’t believe that Monty has really engaged with his friends’ arguments. Am I supposed to think he somehow did off screen and that’s why he’s there? I think not, first because Monty is SO HARDCORE on Team Survival that that would be a massive mental undertaking and one we should really see at least part of on screen, and second, and more importantly, because he literally says he’s just there to help them out when they change their minds, lol. He’s loyal but he hasn’t learned anything.
I did like the Bellamy/Jasper hug. I was waiting for it, I was literally saying “hug him, hug him, Jasper loves hugs, he’ll love this so much” the entire time they were talking. And then they did hug and Jasper DID obviously love it so much and it was sweet. Unrequited Bellamy/Jasper hero-worship-crush (head) canon (further) confirmed.
A few other little things I did like: the call back to Mt. Weather (especially because it came in the form of Monty pointing out that Jasper’s good at this barricading himself in shit, but also because it invited the viewer to remember the Mt. Weather situation and maybe do what I’m not doing right now and dig deeper into the comparison); the shot of Wells in the door that Jaha sees. Both of these things were examples of this show’s occasional ability to be Deep but tbh these moments of depth are always just moments and the general shallowness of everything surrounding them almost makes me think they just luck into these gems.
 Octavia
Oh yeah and Octavia was in this too. Almost forgot. I still don’t buy her and Ilian for a hot second. I did have a literal second of thinking Ilian COULD have been interesting, but heavy emphasis on could: if he’d been introduced as a farmer and we got some good farm-society world-building, it would have been nice as something actually different in Grounder society for once. But…first Ilian was too boring at the beginning and between that, and the completely unforgivable burning of Arkadia, I’m never going to like him. And second, he’s apparently a warrior too, quelle surprise, so I guess that “oh look something different” thing I was talking about is actually a no-go.
Similarly, I’d like to see Octavia try out a farmer identity. But for more than two scenes lol. She could have been interesting. She could have had an interesting arc. But it’s all just too little too late for me at this point. They clearly don’t know what to do with her. TBH if we’re going to continue insisting that main/important characters need to die to give the story weight (lol this story’s problems are way bigger than “not enough deaths” I mean…. That’s so ludicrous I can’t even find the words)…maybe it’s her time to go. Just a suggestion.
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adhd-ahamilton · 7 years
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Hold Your Grandmother's Bible To Your Breast 6, 11, 14 :)
6. What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
Well, the biggest and most obvious thing is that this is the first historical RPF fic I ever wrote. And I was shitting myself, haha. I’d been reading about these characters and this period for about eight months, and while I loved it all, I’d literally never studied any of this stuff formally (never studied any American history at all), and was... very tensely aware that basically any American out there had a greater foundation in this time period than me, hah. Right up until a week or so before I wrote it, I was entirely convinced that this would be a fandom that I just could not write in, ever. 
And then... IDK what it was. But I just had these scenes so fully realised in my head. (As I said, it came from me thinking ‘how would a bio series about Laurens cover the Manning situation in about half an episode?’) And I’d seen some other people write about this whole thing so... why not me? And it just kind of happened!
Still, when I posted it, I really was terrified. I was so SURE that I’d come back to like, torches and pitchforks ready to march me out of the fandom, for writing something so Historically Inaccurate and Misleading and Bad because the fic was totally implausible and I clearly didn’t understand these people or this setting or anything and I was ruining the fandom by forcing terrible fic like these into the tags!!!!! ...but then I actually got good reviews! So. :P Here I am, lol!
Also for some reason I got like, weirdly fixated on the question of whether Laurens’ sister was actually in England at the time for her to have a conversation with him? And I looked up john-laurens’ blog and found a story where she was arriving there about a year or two before this fic and was like PHEW and wrote it, but then found out later that we have a letter from him to her really close to the event, so SOMEHOW she must’ve traveled between those times, and got really annoyed?? Come on, guys. Why the heck do y’all have to travel so much, it took you like a week just to get to a nearby town, just calm down and stay where you are already, sheesh.
11. What do you like best about this fic?
Well, I really like that I got to write something different - not just in being a historical AU, but also being queer gen, which I’m always really pleased to be able to put out there.
I also kinda liked the headcanons I came up with for Martha. I kind of wanted her to have a fairly distinctive presence - to really give off the impression that she does have her own personality and life outside of all this, even if it’s a very John-centric fic. I imagined her as being at heart a very people person - someone who likes being around people, and is very good at dealing with people; someone who isn’t really interested in politics, but loves the idea of building relationships and saying the right thing and putting forward the right face. Who can be a bit pushy, but it usually works because she’s so charming - it only hits a wall with John because what’s going on with him is so far beyond her realm of experience. Someone who’s actually quite romantic - because that’s what she’s experienced her whole life so far, and that’s a good thing. I rather like her, haha.
But of course overall I just really liked getting into John’s head in this, and I’m pretty pleased with how it came across! I guess specifically... In the first draft, John was going to hear Martha’s declaration that she was going to make him love her, and was going to basically realise that he wanted that to happen, and it COULD happen, and that maybe he was just setting too high expectations for his relationships as he does for himself and this was actually the love he was supposed to have all along, so he would try to work with this from now on. Except... when I wrote it out, I realised that it felt jarring as the end of a fic, because, well, he doesn’t. He writes her like one letter that we have and that’s it. Obviously people could gather that this promise of his didn’t pan out, but it still felt kind of misleading. So I sat back and tried to write a better version, and ended up falling back on his nihilism regarding the idea of relationships between men, and I actually preferred this version a lot. It’s much more bitter, but it felt far more real and honest to me, and it allowed me to express some of the thought I’d been having about how he’d view these things for a while - thoughts which have made it into a lot of other things I’ve written/planned, particularly my current series. So I’m pleased about that!
14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?
Hmmm, IDK about learn - I pretty much figured that readers of it would already be familiar with the basic details, and my version wasn’t offering any drastic new interpretations or anything. Oh, actually, I guess mine was probably the first to utilise the Kinloch interpretation @john-laurens came up with, after finding out that break-up and the conception must’ve happened fairly close to one another? But it was more that I wanted to put together how it might’ve happened IRL than that I wanted to teach anyone about it!
I did want to explore the compulsory heterosexuality part of it all, especially, though. In my early drafts in particular it was even stronger, so that I wondered whether I’d have to confirm in an A/N that he IS being written as gay but just doesn’t understand what that means at all, but in the end it was clearer than I anticipated.
And I guess there was sort of a point about less obvious aspects of heteronormativity, too - the way m/f relationships, particularly marriages, get romanticised as sacred and perfect and pure, whereas same-gender ones are automatically considered negative and harmful and not truly loving. And how m/f relationships are essentially forced on people - and once he ends up in this marriage, John feels compelled to really try to make it work - while it’s so EASY for same-gender relationships to break apart or be separated. What he had with Francis was a lot more real than what he had with Martha (even considering Francis’...pretty confused and unclear feelings about John), but he’s sure not thinking that at the end. Again, not really about learning so much as me thinking through things and writing them up, lol - and all this stuff comes up in a lot of other things I’ve written, too. (In fact I have a draft that directly addresses this stuff that I wrote, like... four months ago, now??? but it’s been stymying me ever since bc I just can NOT figure out how to do the opening lines. RIP me)
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