Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Go Deep


There was quilt he was looking for. A soft, shear quilt. Something that reminded him of his mother, I guess. He never explained that kind of stuff. I walk in the door and he comes bounding in out of a sleep so loud that I heard his snoring before I ever got inside.

“Where’s my quilt?” he asks, already knowing I’m alive by just seeing me.

“I might be sitting on it.”

He turns around. “Throw it to me.”

“Why?”

“If I never saw it on near your anus, I’ll be able to sleep on it.”

I like to be reminded of things like having an anus, so I get up make the blanket into football. I throw it, but it lands five feet short. I get up and try it again. Two feet short.

He turns around and I hand it to him.

“It wasn’t near my butt,” I say.

He sniffs it. “Cut down on those chicken nuggets.”

“They're from Trader Joe’s. They can’t be bad for me.”

“Do you dip them in semen or something?”

“It’s yogurt. Pineapple yogurt. The semen is on my shirt.”

Thursday, October 26, 2006

The Train


There was carpet everywhere. Brownish carpet on the seats, greenish-brownish carpet on the floor, reddish-brownish the back of the seats, and none of it was comfortable. If you grazed up against it or accidentally touched it, you would see that it was thick with spills and dirt and bad breath. And then there was all the luggage. So much luggage that Mike felt like if he didn’t find a seat before the train started moving he’d be stuck in an aisle all the way through the Alps. He’d arrive in Milan, sleeping standing up with pulled muscles and aches that would ruin his entire week off. So he moved fast climbing over through and around bags, spotting one empty seat all the way in the back of the car.

The whistle blew and suddenly everyone shifted themselves. They were just adjusting their asses for the long ride, but Mike couldn’t help but feel that they were all lunging for his seat. He stepped faster; almost jumping, and the train began to move as he leapt for his spot. He landed on it with his knee, the weight of his bag finally getting to him. As he wrenched himself straight in the two and a half feet allotted for him, he saw a smile. A girl’s smile, surrounded by a pale face that was almost American, except for the sleekness of her eyes. Almost Asian. Almost Scandinavian, because they were blue. Almost devastating, Mike thought, as if his life had become a perfume commercial. As Mike stuffed his bag under his seat he saw that the girl was already tucked under a blanket and turned toward where he’d be sitting. On her other side was a tall man in a tall suit. He had such exaggerated facial features that he might have jaws instead of teeth. But he was asleep. So asleep that his eyes looked like two closed drawbridges. It was easy to see why the girl was sloping away from him; his suit was the same color as the carpet on the back of the seat. As Mike settled, he thought, I may be fooling myself but I’m pretty sure she’s pretty happy that she’s going to be leaning towards me for the next five hundred miles.

It became dark fast outside, and the lights inside the train only made it brighter, which made the first dumb question harder, but Mike got it out. Do you speak English? She knew a tiny bit, but Mike could tell she liked listening. And when she asked if he spoke Italiano, which he loved and had been learning more or less all his life, he nodded yes. Then her head passed the armrest and settled against his seat. Inches apart, they whispered every word they knew in Italian until the lights in the train went out and then suddenly she wrapped her blanket around Mike too. The she tucked him in and Mike leaned his head until it was resting on hers. Then he slept. For a minute? For a second? An hour? He wasn’t sure. But he slept until he felt her hands on his chest, under his shirt like that was a simple thing to do in the tiny amount of room they had. Even in the dark, he could see that her eyes were open, reflecting the movement of the world outside. And then on his leg he felt her other hand. Do you want me to touch? Mike asked her in Italiano. And she nodded. She was so small that it was almost impossible to find where her body began under the blanket. But when he did, she breathed out so much that she became even tinier. He wanted to find some flab on her. Some proof that she was human, and even where the small of her back met the seat there was just skin and muscle protecting her bones. Sit back, she said in English right into his ear lobe. And Mike did. She leaned in to his mouth, stopping to investigate his eyes. As she kissed him, the hand on his chest slid down, finding his muscles in his stomach, there were some, then finding the button on his pants, and kept going.

This is amazing, Mike thought and repeated to himself. This is amazing and all I can do is pray that she’s not really a man.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Borat's Press Conference from Kazakhstan

Monday, October 23, 2006

Elliott Smith: 3 Years Since His Passing

And still surprising.

Enjoy this rock version of "Needle in the Hay."



And this great blog which clears up the difficult subtext inherent in the comic Marmaduke.

Borat v. Tenacious D



Which Movie are You More Excited About?
Borat
Tenacious D
Free polls from Pollhost.com

More info: Borat | Tenacious D

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The Challenge of Hygiene

I developed girlish hips suddenly. It was the middle of my eighth grade year and some freak of scheduling had resulted in me being the only male in my entire Health class. The other twenty-eight students were girls or females. And the teacher was a woman. Also a female.
At first they all ignored me as best they could, even the girls who knew me since Kindergarten wouldn’t look me in the eye when I was inside that classroom. I had to show up early on the day of our first test to tell the teacher that she had never checked me out a book. After that, she would lay still, solid sidelong glances at the desk that surrounded me whenever she said a word that she thought of as particularly male, like semen or anus. And it was fine and not horribly embarrassing until we got to a particularly intense section about the design of the penis. Then my expertise was needed. “Don’t speak,” Ms. Hill told me, as she stood four feet in front of me on some sort of wooden pedestal that at some point has some use in a classroom. “Only nod yes or shake no.” She quizzed me in her slightly worn-away German accent about the affects of circumcision. Yes, the head could slide back into the shaft if forced. I could and had done so, at least. No, I had no idea if my pleasure had been reduced by the operation. No, I had no idea what foreskin looked like because I had never seen my own or anyone else’s. This was before the Internet, when seeing something extremely human that you were curious about but might sicken you wasn’t one click away.
The females appreciated my silent contribution, but I think they were more thankful that I did everything possible to still myself and disappear when we discussed the important issues, like ovulation. “I have my own theory,” Ms. Hill said, her fist bracing her chin like the weight of her theory might bring it down. “When the woman is ovulating, she dresses more sexy and more seductive.” The girls in the class all bowed forward like they were about to receive some extremely sensitive piece of information. I did too. “Like last Tuesday, that green sweater I wore. I didn’t even choose it. It was like it’d chosen me. I had to burn it when I got home so that would never happen again.” I remembered the green sweater. Something about it had centered the entire world on her mug-like bosoms that day. It was especially distracting the way it clearly depicted her nipples, which kept popping out every few minutes, often over the head of a student the way a light bulb appears in cartoon whenever someone has a good idea. The bizarre logic of her breasts and the clarity her sweater gave to the inclinations of her body and the folds in the stomach were enough to keep me preoccupied for her entire lecture that day about “The Challenge of Hygiene.” I think I was entirely able to prevent every fact she stated from entering my mind. Except something about only using warm water.
Still her theory about ovulation stuck and treaded so much in my thoughts that it was the first thing that came to mind when after eight weeks of class I suddenly developed girlish hips.
Short shorts were not the style for boys in the late 80s, though revisionists and humorists might like you to think otherwise. Our shorts didn’t make it to our knees, but they definitely swung loosely around the majority of our thighs. The only true pair of short shorts I owned was from a soccer team that I quit briefly after my bar mitzvah, when within one month I quit every organized activity I was involved with except school. They were white with an elastic waist and had nothing to do with my thighs. Their design was neither unique nor appropriate for boy to wear to school. But somehow I woke up one Thursday showered, dressed and left my house wearing my short shorts.
That morning I walked with a sharp pace that was definitely shiftier than my normal gait; I felt graceful and charming in an entirely new way. But I wonder if I would have entirely noticed my girlish hips on my own if I hadn’t been whistled at as I hurried across Devonshire Blvd to get to homeroom before the bell rang. It was that trademarked leering whistle—you know that exaggerated, drooling whistle that men do that says, ‘Hey, baby!’— that shocked me. It was so loud and that it dove straight in my ear. I had to turn around to see its source, because I was the only person in sight. A man driving an ice cream truck made instant eye contact with me and began motioning his hands, suggesting some mix between an apology and an “it wasn’t me” kind of thing. But he’d definitely whistled and the shrapnel of the whistle was still floating in the air attaching itself to me. I pulled my shorts down a bit and hurried along. It was too late to change and, really, the air felt so smooth and pleasant on my legs.
I filed in and out of rooms in groups of other students, staying seated and quiet for most of the day. It made me mostly anonymous in my classes. I tried to not think about anything specific at all, hoping that would make it so no one would think about me too much. It seemed to work until I was leaving Health class and Ms. Hill stopped me. “Boy,” she said. I don’t think she ever learned my name. Or maybe she had and would never use it. “Would you vait a second please?” I had tried to blind myself to her prolonged, disenchanted stares at my desk for the entire class, but that had only angered her, apparently. So I waited, hips pressed against the to the top of a student desk, as the girls passed me. Almost all of them nodded pleasantly into my eyes for the first time inside that room. They were all in short skirts and tight tops. A couple of them were wearing the exact same shorts as me. They must have raided their brothers’ drawers. Something about their shy smiles told me that I was about to receive some new level of acceptance, some secret I’d never imagined. Maybe I would even be allowed to speak in class.
I realized that was just a fantasy when I looked into Ms. Hill’s face and noticed that her enraged eyebrows almost formed exclamation marks.
She sat down on her desk, crossing her legs snugly because that was the only way her tight green skirt allowed. A brown overcoat hid the rest of her body. “Boy,” she said and looked my legs and the way they splayed out from my girlish hips. “I’ve spoken to Coach Vanderswell and he has a Health class this exact period. Well, it’s not Health, it’s a PE class, but I’d like you just to attend his class for the remainder of the year. I’ll give you an A in this class if you would do this for me. No questions.”
I nodded affirmatively because I knew that is what she wanted. Then I hopped up on the desk and crossed my legs almost the exact same way she had hers. It might have hurt normally but my genitals were so cooled and diminished by the constant air the shorts allowed in that it felt as natural as the urges to shave most of my body that I’d been having. “Did I do anything wrong?” I asked, defying her order.
“No, of course not. But I do think it would be a good idea if you burned those shorts when you get home.” She nodded at me slowly until I joined in her nodding. Then one last time she let her eyes travel down my torso to my hips where she stopped and turned away. She braced her self by pressing her hands into her temples and trembled.
I didn’t burn those shorts, of course. I just kept them buried in a drawer and never really felt the urge to wear them out again. Still every few weeks—when I knew I was alone—I’d put them on and glide over to my mother’s full-length mirror. There I’d just stand and watch my girlish hips, noting just how sad I was as they slowly faded away.

If You Like Sex and Rap

You might enjoy the video I made for the Meanest Man Contest.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Valley Jew's List of Books Every Writer Must Read Before They Turn Thirty

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Making Perversion New

My pal Mike shocked me the other day.

He told me that he might quit MySpace.

I told him that that was like quitting email.

After that, he stopped responding to me. But I think that was more because I was trying to get him to start a blog with me. I had just found out that LoveFakeBoobs.com was available.


The way the conversation began is that I'd sent Mike this link Not just youth on MySpace: half are over 35.

It is depressing, in a way. But it was also a great point to make me feel better about something particularly pervy I did one night when I was drunk. Being new to the area, I decided to say hi to every 23 year old who lived within 10 miles. Being drunk, I told myself that the fact I was being so specific would excuse me from the actual perversity of randomly contacting females born in 1983 for no reason other than to be an old pervert. Of course, this was before the Foley Scandal became public. And well before I was ever elected to congress, which will never happen because I'm on MySpace.

Anyway, one of the girls told me that I was too old "to have a Myspace". Actually wrote me back to tell me that.

So this news story, while in no way absolving myself of having a fetish for women of exactly 23 years of age, definitely proves that I am not too old "to have a MySpace."

I know I'm weird because deep down I don't feel bad about being old. Of course, I am shamed by my lack of accomplishments. But that's about being me, not being old.

I'm glad to be alive in an era where being old is being redefined. Eventually we will have 20 year olds who have been social networking for 10 or 15 years. Will that make them think I'm older or younger? Hopefully it will just make everything more interesting and better.

Because as much as we live in a fucking boring world, it is actually a horrible tragedy at the same time. I don't mean this in a pessimistic sense. This is factual. It's everywhere. Even in America, children suffer in varieties of ways, sometimes even starving to death while childhood obesity increasingly becomes a problem. 10-15,000 people are given the death penalty in China every year. Often without any sort of serious legal vetting. Then their organs are sold to bidders from around the world for up to $100,000 while no money is given to the donor's family. Not to mention what happened in the Gulf Coast last year, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, fuck, most of Africa. And all the other terrible horrors I know nothing about because obviously all of this terrible shit isn't enough to motivate me to actually do anything with my life.

And what's boring about our world? I love the sunshine, the smiles of children, the wags of domesticated tales. I'm not ignoring all that. There's so much good (as I write this Project Runway and America's Top Model are both in new episodes) that it's easy to ignore the bad. The horrible banality that disenchants the majority of our life. The disgusting traffic, people, food, air and time of the weekdays, where hating yourself is part of the daily coping. Working till Friday when you can obliterate yourself with wine, women, shopping, home improvement and sushi.

But fuck all that. I can't think about that.

So,yeah basically, I think MySpace is part of the new world that can improve all that. Make everything more social, less painful and more promising. Even if it makes me an old perv, it's better than being an old perv in the old world.

Friday, October 06, 2006

How Gross is the Foley Scandal?



Over the last few days there's been a lot of discussion about whether Mark Foley committed a real crime. The age of consent is sixteen in Washington DC. Or if he is really a pedophile at all since he didn't have actual sex with kids?

Based on the dictionary definition, a pedophile is anyone sexually attracted to children. So we are all pedophiles to some degree. On Kinsey's scale of Sexual Orientation of one to five, most normal people rate between a one and a two, if we can see sexuality in kids at all. Maybe Foley is only a four since he hasn't transgressed to kidsex. But still, is that an appropriate way to behave with kids (or anyone) you are responsible for educating? Of course not.

To get a real sense of how inappropriate Foley was, you have to listen to the Juan Johnson's transcript of Foley's sexual chat with a minor as acted out by two cute girls (above). Maybe if you do, you might give Foley his five.