ziggyleroy.com

Dear U.S.A., Good Luck Babe

This week, the majority of U.S. voters decided we want more of the nonsense our nation went through between January 2017 and January 2021.  It's very 1980.  The U.S. Constitution?  Lol, nah we're good.  I've heard people describe our P.O.T.U.S.-elect using words like "proven leadership skills" and "solid economic policies" which seems delusional, not to mention misogynist and white-supremacist, but I want good things to happen so I'll do my best to quit using words like "incompetent asshole."  National political discourse is so cartoonish.  I want to opt out of viewing the P.O.T.U.S.-elect as an evil caricature like Art The Clown, because that's exactly how his fans see candidates whom I like.  Terrifier 3 is so dark and depraved, btw.  Will there be world war?  Will there be civil war?  Maybe.  The P.O.T.U.S.-elect could publicly execute me in the middle of Fifth Avenue and such a relatively tiny minority of the populace would care, but I try not to take that personally.  A lot of people hate the phrase "it is what it is" because they see it as an excuse for inaction.  Personally though, I like "it is what it is" because people often try to pretend it isn't what it is.  The human condition may be depressing, but my ego wants to tell myself I'm highly spiritual.  So instead of numbness, I describe what I'm feeling as spiritually at peace.  Instead of a state of functional freeze or executive dysfunction, I describe myself as calm, meditative, reflective, etc.

11/7/24

Yard Signs

Tonight when I walked into my piano lesson - rescheduled from yesterday due to Halloween - and my instructor asked how I'm doing, I said "Life is a chaotic onslaught."  Then I had a delicious supper and now I'm at the computer while the dog sits beside me whining for whatever reason.  It's a 49-hour weekend and I'll be using that extra hour to do voting research for Tuesday because, as much as I'd like to just continue scrolling gay halloween memes, a national election is happening.  In the exurban community where I live, there are about an equal number of yard signs that say "Harris/Walz" and "Trump/Vance."  A lot of those opposing signs are directly nextdoor to each other, as if one wouldn't be there unless the other had popped up first.  I thought my block had an unspoken agreement not to do that, but a couple days ago one house at the far end put out a Trump sign.  A month ago I was adamant that if anyone on my block did that, I'd get my own Harris yard sign but now it's too close to election day to bother.  Why would anyone put that sign up?  He's a grifter with no plan to do anything beneficial for anyone on this block.  Maybe I'll knock on their door and ask.  There's no good reason we're having such a difficult time deciding between these two candidates.  Is the U.S. better off now in 2024 than it was in 2020?  Yes obviously!

11/1/24

October 2024 Is Gaga

Yesterday I walked into my piano lesson at the local music school and my instructor asked, "How are you?"  I responded, "I'm frazzled," and he said, "Why?"  Well, let me tell you!  October 2024 is a crazy month.  There's uncertainty at work.  I went to a drag show with creepy protestors outside.  I went to a Brooke Candy concert in the middle of the night.  I hosted a party.  My brother had emergency surgery.  A couple people I know died.  Oh yeah, someone else I know died this week.  He was a 34 year-old who lived in the apartment across from my backyard fence.  This afternoon I saw a crew painting the door of the apartment where he'd lived.  Then this evening I was on the phone telling someone about it when my smartphone flashlight randomly turned on which is obviously a sign he's haunting me now.  I'm in the process of adopting a dog and learning to live with a pet for the first time in my adult life.  This morning we had the required veterinarian consultation and there were some health issues that came up which I'm not sure how we'll handle.  Plus, another thing that happened this morning is we think there's a mouse visiting our house again.  I didn't actually see one, but I don't believe it's our neighbor's ghost taking food out of the dog bowl overnight.  And I'm not even thinking about how voting has begun for the nationwide election 11 days from now.

10/25/24

Goodbye Carefree No-Pet Lifestyle

Today's a whirlwind, but the big news is my bf and I adopted a dog.  It's not official yet, but probably.  This morning I spoke with my brother who's feeling much better after surgery and he said, "You've talked about getting a dog for years and it never happens, so just jump in and do it."  Apparently animal shelters are really full right now.  Chicago Animal Control is a big scary facility and my first thought upon entering was how humanity made a grievous mistake domesticating wild dogs and cats.  We were there about 4 hours waiting in line after line after line.  We got a dog whom I'm referring to as Sophia Petrillo, insistently pronouncing all 6 syllables everytime.  Sophia Petrillo's preferred pronouns are she/it.  She's a pitbull mixed with maybe beagle.  She's not a toy, but still pretty small.  C.A.C.C. thinks she's 9 years old and she has white in the face, but doesn't act elderly.  Am I someone who loves dogs?  No I am not.  Can I love this particular dog?  Yes, I believe I could.  Did I feel remorse as soon as we got her home?  Absolutely, and that's where I'm at currently.  I've lived this much of my life with relative success and happiness, so why would I mess that up?  But I'm working through my feelings of fear and stress.  I keep telling myself that lots of people have dogs.  It's such a common thing!  If those people can do it, so can I.

10/19/24

Death Is Just Around The Corner

Last night I hosted a Halloween-themed party at my house which was chill and fun.  I'd thought about doing it for a while and I'm happy with how everything turned out.  Except it just so happened that at the exact same time when I was hosting a party, my brother was having emergency surgery that went until 1:00a this morning.  I knew our dad took him to the hospital yesterday, but today I found out how serious it actually was.  He could've died, and there's nothing like life-and-death scenarios to bring out complicated relationship dynamics.  I'm sending a card to my brother and decided to just write "Lots of love!" on it, because I do love him and what else is there to say?  We haven't been in communication for a couple months but I don't think that's because he's mad at me.  Every text I send him comes back "unable to receive, message blocking is active" but I do my best not to take that personally.  On October 1, someone around my age whom I liked died unexpectedly which is really sad.  It is shocking even though he wasn't the greatest about caring for his health.  Of course, whenever someone dies there's an outpouring of love:  "the sweetest soul," "always brightened my day," "great sense of humor," "one of the most fabulous & sassiest queens I know," "Chicago won't be the same," etc.  I can't help but think how it's probably very similar to the reaction whenever I die.

10/13/24

Holy Days

One year ago today, 1200 people were killed and 250 people were abducted as live hostages from a festival in southern Israel.  Since then > 41,000 people have been killed officially in Israeli military attacks with many more killed unofficially due to Israel's campaign of forced starvation and destruction of sanitation and medical care.  Many journalists and aid workers have been targeted as part of that 41,000 death toll.  I saw a sign that said there are currently 101 hostages, down from the original 250.  Some of them have been released and are now going about their lives.  Some of those hostages have been killed by the Israeli military.  The mainstream thought in U.S. politics which we're trying to convince ourselves is nothing that happened before 10/7/23 justified the actions of 10/7/23, yet somehow everything that's happened since 10/7/23 is justified by the actions of 10/7/23.  A fellow Illinoisan called me "anti-semitic" because I don't react well to Americans who tell me they consider Israel to be their "spiritual homeland."  As a modern U.S. citizen, I have no conceptual framework to process that.  To me, it seems like this person had so much fun on his "birthright" trip that he got indoctrinated into some culty stuff.  He's also under the stress of being a religious minority, including armed guards at the entrance to his synagogue.  I've always grown up with the worldview that religion, race / ethnicity, and nationality are all separate, distinct categories but maybe I need to rethink that.

10/7/24

Living In The Moment, Not A Phone In Sight

Trixie recently posted a reaction to a Jubilee video - which was the first time I ever heard about Jubilee - and the next day Matt Bernstein wrote, "We as a society have progressed past the need for Jubilee content."  Jubilee Media produces videos of people with differing opinions having conversations about potentially contentious subject matters, basically an internet comments section argument except in person.  I'm part of an organization that occasionally hosts events specifically designed to discuss contentious topics in real life.  I went to one this weekend and, yes, it was messy.  I was present in a room with about 15 other people, most of whom I'd met before but whose wrongful beliefs I wouldn't have been aware of if it weren't for this meeting.  I couldn't just click away or close the browser window whenever someone said something I didn't like.  Part of my brain does get so much pleasure from blocking Twitter accounts.  There are people who refer to themselves as "chronically online" or "extremely online," "terminally online," etc.  I probably fall into that category more than I want to admit.  Some people are proud of being "chronically online," maybe because of how inescapable or addictive it seems sometimes, but I aspire to the opposite.  Or at least I tell myself that I want to live life free from data flickering on computer screens until I actually get in a room with fellow humans uncomfortably working through our chaotic, half-formed opinions on big topics like politics and religion.

9/30/24

The God Concept

It seems obvious to me that different people living in the same world go about their lives operating on a widely varying range of assumptions.  At certain times we're less aware of those assumptions that we or other people are making, so I'm just going to write this out  . . .  Anything that doesn't physically exist in the physical world is a philosophy or an ideology, and lots of times people say they believe or don't believe in some philosophy or ideology but that's not the same as belief in the physical realm.  When someone says, "I believe in God," what they're saying is that the concept of "God" resonates with them, they relate to the concept and find it useful somehow.  With anyone who says they "don't believe in god," the inverse is true - the concept doesn't resonate with them and they don't find it useful.  Personally, I'm someone who says that I believe in god but in the past certain religious people have told me that I actually don't just because I'm honest about the meaning of what philosophical belief actually is.  To me, god means the vast physical universe beyond our individual planetary perspective.  God is love and the reason we exist and experience life, instead of not.  Everything that exists is because of love and is part of love, so I don't feel the need to convince myself of some literal external force that's going to give me what I want or punish me for doing sin.

9/24/24

Hidden Bombs Everywhere

Yesterday there was a wave of handheld electronic communication devices that exploded and today was another wave of explosions, in total thousands of devices - ordinary personal consumer products just out amongst the general public - causing > 600 injuries and at least 25 deaths.  Both times, the detonations occurred simultaneously in the middle of the day.  When I heard about this, I wondered how could something relatively small like a pager or walkie-talkie actually be a stealth bomb?  How big of an explosion could it really make?  But then again, bullets are small and they kill lots of people.  I've been keeping my smartphone further away from me than usual today, but in modern society it's not possible to stay distanced from electronic devices.  This terrorist plot happened in Lebanon and some are saying it was orchestrated by Israel.  If that's true, it'd mean Israel is unequivocally a terrorist state.  There's a thin line between terrorism and regular warfare and a lot of what separates one from the other is perspective, but in this case there's zero perspective this isn't terrorism.  Anyone saying this attack is justified is 100% lying to achieve some political objective.  Is the nation of Israel - or, more honestly, the U.S. territory of Israel - attempting to expand its war campaign further north into Lebanon?  Probably, sigh.  How will the U.S. and larger international community respond to that possibility?  There would be a huge public outcry about this if the public were still capable of making an outcry.

9/18/24

Take America Back

There's a woman whom I enjoy being around i.r.l. because I think she's fun.  I wish we were actual friends, but we are Facebook friends and recently she updated her profile pic to a photo of her with arms outstretched overhead holding a flag that reads "Trump 2024:  Take America back."  Since we aren't actual friends I haven't commented about it yet, but if we somehow happen to hang out at a bar again I can't not mention it:  "Hi, how've you been?  So I see you're voting for Trump."  Let's see where that discussion goes.  Why do certain swaths of middle class white people think fascism is a good idea?  Maybe it's because they see themselves as protected by the ruling class, or don't believe the rights being stripped away will impact them.  It seems like there's this idea amongst het cis white protestants that they're the only ones who own the U.S. so now they need to take it back because they've been overly generous and shared too much with everyone else.  Fuck that.  So, there was a live televised event last night with the P.O.T.U.S. nominees of both major political parties that got MTV to push back the Video Music Awards until tonight.  Attempts were made to stir up hostilities amongst the political divides and while most of us were kiki-ing about whatever zany soundbites ensued, the influencers I follow on social media were quick to say, "Stay focused on protecting the Haitian immigrant community in Ohio."

9/11/24

Everything Is Fine.  Keep Shopping!

I have a new personal smartphone.  My bf bought my previous one at Target on Black Friday 2020 for < $50 and I used it until last week when I dropped it on the tile floor of my Seattle hotel room.  In between its shattering and me walking into my local Best Buy, I noticed several smartphone commercials advertising things like a $1000 discount but I'm not trying to spend $1000.  For the record, it cost $216.99 and hopefully I'll use it another four years.  It seems like most of the products are about status not utility, which is gross.  I hate that Taylor Swift interview in which she talks about how "what kind of purse you have matters" where she grew up.  A friend gave me a bag which I call my purse and I've carried it around with me almost everywhere for maybe ten years.  Sometimes she asks whether I'm still using it, implying there's some reason I wouldn't be.  There was a meme, "I don't like Facebook's 'memories' feature because it shows me 6 years ago wearing the same shirt I have on right now."  And my response is why wouldn't we still be wearing the same clothes?  Don't give in to late-stage consumerism!  It's very Brave New World.  But having said all that, New York Fashion Week does begin tomorrow and I'm excited to get home from work in time to watch the livestream of Willy Chavarria's spring/summer 2025 runway show entitled América.  That's art though.

9/5/24

Bye Seetle

It's just after 9:00a pacific time and I'm at gate A12-A of the Seattle-Tacoma airport waiting for my 10:55 departure back to Chicago Ohare.  A week ago, I'd never set foot in Seattle but now I've spent six days here.  So I'm processing this whole trip.  Anytime spent outside the ordinary routine feels like some strange parallel universe.  All week, I've been doing my best to just live in the moment and experience whatever was happening directly without needing to immediately make judgments or form opinions.  Or god forbid, think about how I'm going to perform this trip on social media.  I came here for a work conference which definitely had great parts as well as shitty parts.  Every minute not participating in the work conference was spent going out sight-seeing and by Wednesday I was sick of that.  The first half of the trip I felt like "Seattle je t'aime," and the second half was like "Seattle fuck off."  It's so mountainous and forested.  I don't think humans are supposed to be building cities in places like this.  I literally could not believe the steep inclines of the sidewalks that people were just walking up and down like it was nothing.  Apparently mussels are in peak season right now, so several restaurants had mussel specials.  Another highlight was when a gay from work taught me how to ride a motorized scooter in a private parking lot of the Google corporation and we found the troll under the Fremont Bridge.

8/30/24

The 2024 Chicago D.N.C.

Well, the 2024 Democrat National Convention happened.  Apparently.  I didn't watch it but like everything, some people were talking about how inspiring it was and others how disappointed they were with it.  Most world news stories don't occur in the physical spaces where I live, but occasionally they do and when that happens us ordinary citizen bystanders don't quite know how to handle it.  Having lived through the traffic nightmare of a sitting P.O.T.U.S. attending the Bulls season opener, my main concern was gridlock.  But there are more important things, Karen!  All week I took the earliest express train into the city and the earliest express train home, and there were thankfully zero delays.  The D.N.C. was Monday through Thursday, then yesterday a co-worker was in the office wearing a tshirt that read "D.N.C. Chicago 2024 VOLUNTEER" and I wished I would've volunteered for it too.  On Tuesday evening I saw a live video, "Riot cops shoving protestors outside Israeli Consulate," and I recognized the intersection as the location where my train station food court is that I go to all the time, the place where I'd learned about Chicago selected as D.N.C. host city 16 months ago from the televisions at Sbarro playing local news during lunchtime.  A quarter mile from the office where I work five days a week, there's this skirmish between protesters and police.  So the next day I went to see it in person and magically there was no trace of anything unusual ever happening.

8/24/24

I'm Quitting Twitter, Eventually, Maybe

A month ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that the owner of Twitter "plans to contribute as much as $45,000,000 a month" to the campaign of the Republican P.O.T.U.S. nominee.  I then deleted all my Twitter posts and started looking for other porn outlets.  I know my usage of the site won't immediately go full-stop, but it's definitely in the process of phasing out.  Part of the hold-up for me is that several cool people whom I'm a fan of follow me back.  One of those is Scott Heim who's a favorite author of mine.  This morning Scott posted, "At Martha's Vineyard farmer's market.  One good star sighting (Seth Meyers) and one horrific (Alan Dershowitz, wearing a shirt that says 'Proud American Zionist')."  I'm accustomed to hardcore third party enthusiasts who say things like, "Genocide is a deal-breaker."  At the same time in the same country, there are people - from millionaires at farmers markets to greeters at Walmart - who have such a completely opposing viewpoint.  I like to say that we can hold space for people with widely varying opinions, but sometimes I'm not so sure about that.  The majority of Americans are opposed to the genocide we're supporting in Palestine, but we can't really change much about it within the context of our current electoral college political system because the margin isn't big enough.  Just because we don't currently have the political power to stop the genocide doesn't obligate us to give up every other right we do have.

8/17/24

Being Obsolete Is Fun

I did two major things yesterday.  Well, three because in between the other two I went to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie.  But before that I read the full 59-page text of Modern Man Is Obsolete, the seminal 1945 essay by Norman Cousins which was published right after World War 2 ended with the atomic bombing of two Japanese cities by the U.S.  "A self-made anachronism becoming more incongruous by the minute, he has exalted change in everything but himself."  Considering the world I've grown up in my entire life, obviously the philosophical concept of post-humanism always made sense to me but it's still not a fun thing to think about.  It's like Rupaul said on The View, "A lot of kids write to me and say they're depressed and I think if you are depressed in this world today, that it the exact correct response.  It is your job to find the joy, and it's not easy.  I like to laugh.  I like to dance.  I like to have fun.  Do not live your life in the darkness.  You can look into the darkness but don't stare.  It will suck you in."  That's exactly what I did when I took the train into the city and went to Northalsted Market Days.  I didn't even know who the performers were but I ended up seeing several different d.j.s and drag artists, a couple cover bands, the spirit brigade, Dragonette, Jaida Essence Hall, Big Freedia, and Billy Porter.  Amazing.

8/11/24

Boxing Helena, Except It's Italy & Algeria

Right now at The Olympics, an equal number of male and female athletes are participating.  On Thursday evening, a women's boxing match in the "welterweight" division was held between a boxer from Italy and one from Algeria.  Then all day Friday, there was a deluge of bullshit in the public discourse about it.  The spread of willful disinformation by anyone who has > 1,000,000 social media followers needs to be illegal.  It would be if non-billionaires had any political power.  The real question isn't only about insane social media influencers with gigantic worldwide platforms on which they're just allowed to continue spewing every kind of ridiculous bigoted propaganda for some reason.  The real question is why does the general public allow it?  Is human nature inherently ridiculous and bigoted?  It seemed that way Saturday night.  I went with some friends to an amateur "pro wrestling" event at a local V.F.W.  It was a whole immersive theatrical experience that involved cheering the good guys and booing the bad guys.  But how can they designate who's good or bad?  Well, the audience immediately booed anyone who walked out to the ring wearing sequins or feathers.  I did have a good time, but I'm particularly sensitive to gay-coding especially while the conversation about these Italian and Algerian boxers and their performances of gender is so forefront in the world's zeitgeist.  That public discourse got acted out exactly the way the crowd at the wrestling match cheered / booed the performers in the ring.

8/5/24

Stormy Daniels And I Used The Same Toilet

On Friday I went to an event held at a Unitarian Universalist church of Stormy Daniels doing stand-up comedy along with someone named Father Nathan Monk.  She's coming for Kathy Griffin's gig!  With everything she's been though, Stormy has volumes of material and I could listen to her for hours.  Ever since she's become really famous, I've always liked her.  I always thought she's smart, funny, and beautiful.  She is a sex worker which I love, but it seemed the rest of the audience that night wasn't mentally prepared for so much explicit sex talk.  Like maybe they just don't have the extensive experience talking with sex workers that I have.  Oh, plus we used the exact same toilet!  You know U.U. churches with their gender-neutral restrooms.  On Wednesday there were two infamous political addresses.  Ugh, I'm sick of politics but it is an election year.  The current P.O.T.U.S. gave his first public speech since announcing his withdrawal, and earlier in the day the prime minister of Israel set a record as the foreign head of state who's spoken to a joint session of the U.S. Congress the most number of times.  For some shameful reason.  A lot of Congressional members didn't attend so extras were brought in as seat-fillers.  Rashida Tlaib, the representative from Michigan whose parents emigrated from Palestine, was in attendance.  She held a sign that read "WAR CRIMINAL" on one side and "GUILTY OF GENOCIDE" on the other.  It happened to be Rashida's 48th birthday.  Work.

7/30/24

Pass The Coconut

On Sunday, July 21, 2024 - 107 days before the general nationwide election - the current P.O.T.U.S. announced his intention not to seek re-election in November.  We prefer "passed the torch" over "dropped out."  And he endorsed the V.P.O.T.U.S. who went on to raise > $100,000,000 since then.  The majority of that is small contributions of < $100 from private citizens including me.  There's an excitement about politics happening, a lot of which is because no one wanted a rematch of the same old candidates from 4 years ago.  That's great, even though getting caught up in personality-driven political figures isn't ideal.  Kamala Harris is not going to fix everything.  But I personally, along with lots of other people I know, like Kamala's personality.  Her most famous quote is re-telling something her mother said, "You didn't just fall out of a coconut tree.  You exist within the context of everything that came before you."  That's really the message the world needs right now.  We want to exist within a context.  Especially context with the new Charli XCX album.  Yes, her position in an administration that's still enabling genocide on a daily basis is awkward.  We always knew that not perpetuating genocide was never an option in this election, but she did publicly call for a ceasefire long before P.O.T.U.S. did.  The current P.O.T.U.S. faced questions about being too old to run for re-election but after his withdrawal, the Republican party's candidate is now the oldest nominee for P.O.T.U.S. in our nation's history.

7/23/24

The 7/13/24 Political Rally Shooting In Pennsylvania

On Saturday, July 13, 2024, at 6:11p eastern time, there was a shooting at a political rally in Pennsylvania where the former P.O.T.U.S. was speaking.  A 50 year-old man named Corey Comperatore got killed.  As for the former P.O.T.U.S. himself, he did have a smear of red on his face that resembled blood.  Was it blood though?  If it was blood, was it his or someone else's?  If it was his blood, did it come from a bullet graze wound or getting cut some other way?  The 20 year-old gunman was also killed, so he won't be giving any post-shooting interviews about his motivation.  Was the shooter actually attempting to kill the former P.O.T.U.S. or was there collusion with the former P.O.T.U.S. to drum up sympathy by pulling some kind of stunt?  Many people who saw the footage immediately said it looked staged.  This is the former P.O.T.U.S. who did incite an insurrection, so staging an assassination attempt does seem like something he would do even if bystanders got killed in the process.  This all happened right before the 2024 Republican National Convention - a.k.a. The Amber Rose SlutWalk Milwaukee - was set to begin on Monday.  So the R.N.C. took over the news cycle and it's bizarre how quickly a shooting at a political rally just got buried in the national discourse.  It's a shocking incident that's basically been forgotten over the past 4 days as the former P.O.T.U.S. is now making public appearances wearing an amateurishly-applied bandage on his ear.

7/17/24

I'm Flowing

For almost two weeks now - excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holiday - I've been pushing myself really hard working on a special project at my job.  I catch the first express train in the morning to go into the office and the last express train in the evening when going home.  From the time I leave my house until I get back is 13 hours.  I sleep, then do it all again the next day.  I love it so much.  For better or worse, I heavily define myself by my job.  And this special project is giving me a great opportunity to test myself and see what I'm made of.  I spent so many years trying to convince myself that this one thing - my job - which I spend more time doing than anything else wasn't the real me.  But this is how I want to show up in the world, excited and engaged, working toward a goal.  Last year I read the book Flow:  The Psychology Of Optimal Experience by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and according to it, I'm in the high challenge / high skill quadrant.  Flow lists "8 elements of enjoyment" which are 1.) challenging but completeable tasks, 2.) concentration, 3.) clear goals, 4.) immediate feedback, 5.) effortless involvement, 6.) sense of control over actions, 7.) self-concern disappears, and 8.) sense of time altered.  This is a special time right now and I know it can't last but I hope to find ways of setting myself up for success like this more often.

7/11/24

Happy July 4, 2024!

The 16th P.O.T.U.S. once said in a famous speech, "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."  But that was 160.62 years ago, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people has perished from the earth at least for now.  So, this is where I talk about how the S.C.O.T.U.S. is bullshit.  Justices of the court swear an oath, flagrantly break their oath, and are then rewarded for their oath-breaking.  It's especially brazen since their oath says "I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich," but now the majority of the court's 9 members are just living it up on the luxury payroll of a few billionaires and screwing over anyone who isn't a billionaire.  How long can such egregious corruption go unchallenged?  Currently a lot of people are discussing this week's "presidential immunity" ruling, but more important is last week's "Chevron doctrine" ruling.  It's so mind-blowingly heinous.  Of course most people who go into political work do it for selfish reasons.  How did anyone ever naively believe otherwise?  For non-billionaires to gain any power, we have to unite to some much larger degree than we're capable of right now.  I've supported harsh penalties for insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol 1/6/21, because their specific cause of overturning the election was ridiculous.  However, I obviously understand their underlying frustration that the U.S. government doesn't work for us.

7/4/24

Wild West Dark Web World

Right now a lot of people are talking about a highly-rated television show that aired live last night featuring the current P.O.T.U.S. with the immediate predecessor P.O.T.U.S. discussing golf scores.  I probably won't watch it, but apparently a large portion of the American general public is just now comprehending the reality of our situation.  A more shocking story breaking today is that a big star in the niche subculture of gay porn got arrested for possessing videos of sexual and physical child abuse.  As someone who enjoys pornography, I don't use the phrase "child pornography" that's in the criminal complaint against him because it confuses the issue which is already confused enough.  Child abuse is disgusting, horrible, reprehensible, and it's so inconceivable to me that anyone would willingly watch videos of children doing anything just in general.  Otoh, there's nothing more beautiful than consenting adults having sex.  Now that he's been arrested, people are saying he's manipulative, unethical, personally unpleasant to be around, etc.  However, the biggest talking point is criticism about films he's produced depicting adults engaging in age-play.  The legal document has been widely shared and it's a really convincing four pages, signed by a judge, of an F.B.I. agent clearly laying out evidence.  Some level of skepticism is always healthy, especially in this wild west dark web world where we live - and I'm not serving in any judicial court of law - but it seems highly likely that this man whose work I've enjoyed did categorically terrible things.

6/28/24

Just Live Today

Thanks to the tax-free revenue of the catholic church, there are currently several billboard advertisements by highways near where I live that say "June is devoted to the sacred heart of Jesus."  So whenever anyone asks me what I'm doing for pride, I say "I don't celebrate pride.  I only celebrate the sacred heart of Jesus."  Pride can mean different things.  I don't have shame, but I do have humility.  Like most people, I'm not a high-glamour billionaire shaping world history but I'm also not a nobody who's doing nothing.  With my birthday coming, I've been pondering more than usual "Who am I?  Who do I want to be?  What am I about?"  Do other people constantly ask themselves these questions or am I colossally unique?  I always say how I'm ready for death at any moment - 100% serious - and how disappointed I am to have survived the pandemic 4 years ago - quasi joking - etc, but I do think it's likely I'll live at least another 8,000 days or so.  Everyday I say, "Just live today.  Focus on now."  I tell myself, "Keep an open mind.  Life might surprise me.  Probably not, but maybe  . . .  and even less likely for a good surprise."  I've been down on myself recently, judging my life journey harshly, looking at where I am versus where I want to be and wondering whether I even have the energy to accomplish anything worthwhile anymore.  But that's all perspective.  And why choose a perspective unfavorable to my position?

6/22/24

Hullaba-RU

For me, the gaggiest moment on television last year was when Kandy Muse chose Jimbo over Jessica.  Ugh, Rupauls Drag Race All-Stars 8 was so good.  This season not so much, which as always has nothing to do with the cast's talent.  But it is causing hullabaloo.  What Plastique is doing on this television show is so beyond.  How dare I even consider doing drag when Plastique is out there giving level 1,000,000?  Queens all over are quitting en masse - which is for the best - because how could anyone compare to a fraction of her perfection?  Well, Gottmik is putting up a challenge.  Or at least was, because right now there's a commotion about Gottmik's unabashed plagiarism of Nikki Glaser in the most recent episode.  This cast will be touring a live stage show and I hope Gottmik does a number lip-syncing to the stand-up comedy routine she plagiarized.  Anywhoozle, the commotion before that commotion was about Gottmik's "A Tail & Two Tiddies" runway.  Queer gender euphoria!  There was an article about it in Newsweek.  It also got certain stochastic terrorist influencers really triggered which is good because targeting a media juggernaut pulls focus away from their usual targeting of ordinary individuals with no mass media experience who are just privately living their lives.  It needs to be recognized that for some people, a double-mastectomy is their worst fear.  While to other people, a double-mastectomy is their liberating ideal.  Both things are true.  We can hold space for diverse experiences.

6/16/24

I'm Karen

This week was my bf's birthday and it was great.  However, I did have a raging karen moment when I yelled at a cashier/ticket-taker working at the establishment where we were celebrating.  To his credit, the cashier/ticket-taker had zero response at my tirade.  It's very suburban, yet the whole parking situation at this place is really sketchy.  Still, it would've been okay if not for some stupidly parked car with a Minnesota license plate.  Thanks to that piece of shit from Minnesota, I had to walk an entire mile which I otherwise wouldn't have had to.  I recognize that in the grand scheme of world injustices, being forced to walk a mile because of someone's incompetence does not rank highly.  I don't get triggered the same way about genocide that's not happening to me directly.  But fucked up is still fucked up.  They parked wrong!  They're in the wrong!  And me walking that extra mile was basically the indigenous tribes on the trail of tears.  It was a whole altered state of consciousness - shortness of breathing, blurred vision - which I'm glad I got to experience so that from now on I can empathize with people in internet videos.  I also love attention so maybe there's security camera footage of my meltdown that'll go viral.  During one of my quarter-mile treks to/from my car, a cicada landed on the front of my tshirt and took a little journey with me.  I really felt the love and that helped calm me down.

6/9/24

Lawyer Reacts, Sponsored By Factor

This last week, the immediate predecessor to the current P.O.T.U.S. was convicted by New York state of 34 counts of falsifying business records to influence the outcome of an election which is a felony.  The number 34 isn't too impressive because he just did the same thing 34 times.  Also, it's kind of surprising how this even counts as a crime much less a felony.  Maybe I'm too cynical, but of course politicians make hush money payments to prevent stories they don't like from getting published.  His former attorney already served 3 years in prison after being convicted of "campaign finance violations" for this case, and I thought the same thing then.  In general though, white collar crime is a bigger problem than street crime.  People still don't see it that way despite the best efforts of Crackers the corporate crime-fighting chicken.  In the yawning cosmic maelstrom of media, so much has been said about this trial but I received my news about it exclusively from one single source because that's all the attention it deserved.  I watched weekly summaries of the case each of the past 7 Saturdays by YouTuber Leeja Miller, whose vast oeuvre includes such classic video blogs as "How Ronald Reagan Ruined Everything" and most recently "Is World War 3 Coming?"  Not unrelated to this trial, today was day 1 in the federal trial of the current P.O.T.U.S.'s only living son - whom I wouldn't exactly describe as a productive member of society - for felony gun charges.

6/3/24

Natural Wonders

Earlier this month there was a weekend when aurora borealis was visible throughout most of the U.S.  Scientists saw solar particles coming toward Earth and let people know what was happening, but I didn't get the memo in time.  I usually relate more to j.o.m.o. than f.o.m.o. but I'm sad about missing this event.  Just last month I drove hundreds of miles to see the total solar eclipse.  However, another phenomenon of nature began this week at my literal front door when I came home from work on Wednesday and there was a cicada above the door frame.  Then on Thursday, I saw a dozen more cicadas.  Then on Friday and Saturday, there were about a hundred cicadas that emerged from the ground both days like the zombies in Thriller.  There were empty exoskeletons on all my trees.  The effort they were putting out to wriggle back and forth, freeing themselves from their dead skin was the most beautiful thing.  I'm so glad I took the time to walk around and witness it, because it didn't last long.  After Saturday I haven't seen anymore emerging like they did those few days.  I went from concerns about whether the swarm would become monstrous and overwhelming to wondering "was that it?"  They might all be finished crawling up from the ground and shedding their old skins, but now there's a new alien sound in the distance.  The swarm has gathered somewhere and might be plotting to take over, which I support 100%.

5/28/24

Load Up On Guns.  Bring Your Friends.

I recently read Rules For Radicals:  A Pragmatic Primer For Realistic Radicals, the 1971 manifesto by Chicago legend Saul Alinsky.  Several parts of it are really important and I can see its present-day influence in groups like Just Stop Oil.  The part of this book that's a major revelation for me is about the schism between what people actually believe to be true and what people need to tell themselves in order to get anything done.  Deep down, I know there's no such thing as objective morality but we need to tell ourselves that right and wrong are real things that actually exist in some realm of the universe.  I felt ashamed when I realized life is a masquerade but I showed up in my real face.  It's applicable in so many fields:  sports, politics, religion, etc.  Our current P.O.T.U.S. can't make any uninterrupted public appearances right now without getting shouted at over the genocide in Palestine, and rightfully so.  But he always acts sympathetic to the protesters and affirms what they're saying is correct as if it were something he's incapable of doing anything about.  I plan on voting for him < 6 months from now since "no genocide" won't be an option.  In this period of history with the ongoing human population explosion, maybe there's no chance of any popular consensus about anything anymore.  A lot of the people I know are struggling to survive.  And a lot of other people I know are stocking up on guns.

5/21/24

I Wasn't There

Chicago legend and PinkPantheress of his time, Steve Albini, died.  When I told my bf about it last week, he responded "Who's that?"  I snapped, "We just watched that documentary about Chicago's punk rock scene in the 80s and you asked the exact same thing then!"  There's been times when he's repeatedly talked about some Asian popstar and I've been similarly clueless.  Sometimes I make the mistake of enjoying life so much that I get sad because others haven't got the same experiences I have.  Anywhoozle, I've been thinking recently about the Strauss-Howe generational theory and cyclical versus linear views of history and it seems like Steve Albini became so well respected for being the epitome of generation x.  Instead of having extraordinary talent, he gained notoriety from the context he existed in.  Why can't I get more of that?  I hate when people use the terms "baby boomer, generation x, millennials, generation z" to make generalizations, but that's probably because I'm on the cusp so marketers don't pay as much attention to me.  A few weeks ago when we watched You Weren't There:  A History Of Chicago Punk 1977-1984, I explained to my bf that Steve Albini was primarily known as a music producer followed closely in my mind for writing a bullshit attack against Liz Phair.  Since he died, articles have delved into his feuds with local bands.  He'd apologized for his past bad behavior while not mentioning anything specific, which is also highly characteristic of generation x.

5/15/24

Yaasss Anastasia

According to the bio on her website, Anastasia Chatzka is a fashion designer, brand ambassador, sewing teacher, and Youtuber.  I'm currently enrolled in her Sewing 101 class which meets every Monday evening from 6 to 9 for six weeks.  Her studio is such a fun place.  There's a Youtube plaque on her wall for having > 100,000 subscribers and, for me, seeing that was comparable to seeing an Emmy statuette in person.  Then again, she has the same number of subscribers as random underwear models suggested to me by the algorithm.  Ugh.  Sew Anastasia's channel is so much more creative and well-produced than Lovely Martin's.  I put on her videos to listen to while I fall asleep, but I haven't told her that in case it's creepy.  Anywhoozle, the Met Gala was this week but obviously I wasn't watching the livestream as usual because I was at sewing class.  This year's theme was "The Garden Of Time" which ties into a 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard that I printed out and read this week, and the Met exhibit is titled "Sleeping Beauties:  Reawakening Fashion."  I enjoy this theme for being conceptual and esoteric.  Let's just accept that things aren't simple and solid anymore.  My top toot of the Met Gala 2024 is Mindy Kaling wearing designer Gaurav Gupta.  Mindy's gown was such an art piece that it got its own title:  "The Melting Flower Of Time."  Meanwhile, I've sewed two bracelets so in my mind I'm basically Alessandro Michele.

5/9/24

Random Internet Commenters Love Gay Pride!

This week there were a couple announcements about small town gay prides.  Ahh small towns  . . .  they're just like everyone else, always changing yet somehow remaining the same.  Next month the municipality where I live will host its first-ever gay pride event.  Commentary on the announcement was mostly positive, but one person said, "I feel like there should at least be a dress code.  No leashes or dog masks.  Just keep it classy and focus on love."  I responded that we're just having a nice low-key afternoon so there's no reason for us to dive into the "kink at pride" discussion just yet.  The comments were more sinister on the local newspaper's social media post announcing the marshal of this year's gay pride parade in Woodstock, Illinois as retired celebrity meteorologist Tom Skilling.  Maybe I'm placing too much importance on Facebook comment sections.  It's difficult to really know how indicative internet discourse is of actual public opinion.  Are these statements being made by actual humans who live near me - as opposed to robots in China - and who are also over the age of like 10?  Plus, the majority of internet comments are definitely not well thought-out ideas presented coherently.  Everyone has a different perspective so I wish there were a way to know where anonymous internet posters are coming from.  I marched in Woodstock's gay pride parade the past two years so I'm excited for Tom Skilling to be there and I don't want darkness on the internet to dampen it.

5/3/24

Starving, Bloody, & Literally Dying

A thing happening recently is college students in many places across the U.S. have set up camps on their campus lawns to protest the genocide in Palestine.  The weather has turned nicer, so that sounds really fun to me but apparently some people aren't liking it.  There are so many layers of bullshit attached to these stories though.  Counter-protests happen, then militarized police attack the encampments while ignoring counter-protests, and pundits clutch their pearls about anti-semitism and categorize the whole thing as violent.  Some old lady gets shoved in some ruckus and politicians threaten to send in the national guard.  It's more instances of citizens of the same society living side-by-side in the same physical spaces while being worlds apart in every other way except physically.  It's so weird how some people claim not to understand why young adults at colleges are protesting genocide.  We're bombarded everyday with videos of Palestinian children starving, bloody, and literally dying, but apparently the algorithm isn't showing all those videos to the people asking why we're protesting.  And none of this has anything to do with Judaism, which is a great choice as far as world religions go.  Most Jewish people oppose the genocide in Palestine just like most of the world's general population does.  It's only a minority of Jews who've become the latest in a long line of power-hungry aggressors hiding behind religion to claim their holy book justifies genocide.  Protest encampments on college campus are not dangerous places for Jewish people.

4/26/24

Ruview Of RPDRUS16

Last night was the finale of RPDRUS16.  As someone who's watched every single episode of the entire series in real time since its beginning in 2009, this wasn't a favorite season of mine for several reasons.  Obviously none of those reasons is the talent of the cast.  My favorite RPDRUS16 queen is Amanda Tori Meating.  But really my favorite part of RPDRUS16 was the secondary participation with Salina Estitties.  It's difficult for me to describe my deep love for Salina Estitties.  I'm a gay man of a certain age, so I gravitate heavily to Salina because of the unparalleled authenticity which is becoming increasingly rare.  She released weekly videos as part of a series called "Tit Or Quit:  The Road To The Golden Boot" and it was a highlight of my week.  I watched the live Youtube premiere Thursdays at noon central time whenever work didn't get in the way.  Awkwardly though, it seems like the official Golden Boot might've been retired.  With the major humanitarian crisis and genocide happening in Palestine that the U.S. government has decided is worthwhile for some reason, I had zero space in my brain for any RPDR drama.  Q quit Twitter?  No one cares.  Someone said something on The Pit Stop?  Can't be bothered.  I guess there's always lots of bad things happening in the world that I could've been focusing on in previous years instead of all the petty RPDR drama that's lived in my brain, but this has been a tipping point.

4/20/24

Too Close To Home

This morning I was in Oklahoma with my dad, but thanks to > a dozen gallons of fossil fuels burned I'm now in a central Illinois hotel.  The town I left is where four people are in jail charged with the murders of two women whose vehicle was found abandoned on a desolate road with "signs of foul play" 3/30/24.  Police won't say what that means, but people are basically imagining Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  All week, everyone there was abuzz with crazy rumors.  Yesterday the arrests finally happened and mugshots got released.  That comment section is bonkers.  "The face of pure evil," was one comment on a photo of literally the most typical-looking Oklahoman imaginable.  "Supposedly they fed the ladies to the hugs!?!"  Well, the latest news from the Oklahoma Bureau Of Investigation is they've found bodies believed to be the victims in question.  So I guess they weren't fed to hugs after all, Patti.  At least not entirely.  The whole thing was giving satanic panic vibes:  feeding dead bodies to pigs, some cult named "Sovereign Citizen."  It reminded me of 5 years ago when a woman in my neighborhood beat her child to death then pretended he'd wandered off.  At the time I encouraged everyone to remain calm, but in that case everyone's wild speculations eventually turned out to be true.  In classic small-town fashion, I have a personal connection.  One alleged perpetrator's mom goes to church with my dad and I grew up family friends with his grandparents.  

4/14/24

Once In A Lifetime

I'm in Arkansas right now at my brother & sister's house which was in the path of a total solar eclipse this afternoon.  If they weren't in the path of totality, I probably wouldn't have traveled so far for it.  In 2017 I saw a total solar eclipse from the campus of the university where my bf who lives with me now was studying at the time.  That was such a great experience so I felt uncertain about turning that once-in-a-lifetime event into a twice-in-a-lifetime event.  But I've been thinking about how every moment we're alive is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.  No matter how often we repeat doing the same things over and over in the same places, each moment is actually fresh and unique.  Astronomically, planet Earth is always moving and never returns to the exact same place it was before.  Even though Earth might return to the same position in relation to other astronomical bodies, those bodies are moving through space too in constant universal expansion.  After totality passed by, I sat with my sister on her back porch for a long time having a really great conversation.  Technically she's my sister-in-law, but we decided to drop the "in-law" part since I've known her for 90% of the time I've been alive.  Last year her dad died not long after my mom died and we talked about what that's been like.  Tomorrow, my plan is to drive to Oklahoma City and meet up with my brother who lives there.

4/8/24

Voices Inside Of My Head

I decided to stop piano lessons with John.  Nine months ago today was my first and this weekend was my last.  I needed to quit while I still have some money in my savings account.  I always knew I couldn't afford it long-term, so part of me says I should've never begun it.  I intend to re-start lessons with a local teacher who isn't world-renown but who costs 58% less.  Right now I'm feeling majorly sad about that, "Tears In Heaven" level dramatics.  Whenever I feel sad about something in my personal life, there's a voice telling my sadness that I'm so privileged I don't deserve to feel sad about anything.  After all, we're constantly being bombarded with images of mangled human bodies and every conceivable bloody misery.  Then the voice of my higher self re-assures all the other voices that I'm allowed to feel however I feel, and running away from an emotion or pretending it doesn't exist only makes things worse.  There are so many different voices in my head that sometimes it does seem like pluralized they/them pronouns would be preferable for me.  I could start saying "we" when referring to just myself.  Everyone in modern society is non-binary anyway, so if it were up to me everyone would use neo-pronouns.  I say I don't have preferred pronouns, or that my preferred pronouns are any spoken with respect.  One of my biggest aspirations is to become more singular, solid-focused, but life is so full of shiny objects.

4/1/24

Oh Say Can You See

Today at 1:28a in Baltimore, an enormous freight liner collided into the enormous Francis Scott Key Bridge which caused its total collapse.  Last night I randomly happened to wake up at 1:46a central time so I ended up spending the night voraciously following the story which I thought would be a much bigger deal.  In the bright light of day, it's barely getting discussed.  Sure it was an accident, but it's still major news with broad political implications worth mentioning.  I audibly gasped the first time I watched the video of it taken from some 24/7 surveillance camera out on Chesapeake Bay.  It looked like toys, building blocks crashing down but on a much larger scale.  As I was following the updates, two people were taken to hospitals and five others had gone missing.  It was reported that one was in critical condition and the other had refused medical treatment.  People were speculating about what could motivate someone who survived such a cataclysmic event to refuse medical treatment:  arrest warrants, outstanding child support, etc.  Then I thought, oh no, they're probably undocumented migrants.  Yes, it turned out that every human casualty from this huge catastrophe were migrant infrastructure workers.  As the freight liner lost power, it sent out a distress signal which caused authorities to block automobiles from crossing the bridge but the workers who were there didn't get evacuated in time.  It's so sad, and I probably wouldn't know about it if I were capable of regular sleep routines.  

3/26/24

Bombs Not Humans

On Friday I went to an event where Marianne Williamson spoke for a couple hours.  It was at a yoga / wellness studio in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago and there were about 100 people in attendance.  Meeting anyone else on the ballot in a setting like that would've probably cost at least $10,000.  She talked about what the U.S. is and what the nation could be idealistically and it felt good to be around people who are discussing real political issues and things important to me.  The Illinois primary election was yesterday and on my ballot were two contested races, nine uncontested races, and a question about whether public mental health services will be funded through sales taxes or property taxes.  I voted Marianne Williamson, Qasim Rashid, and property taxes.  None of those votes turned out to be in the majority but the important thing is getting out there and participating in life.  Or something.  The world makes no sense.  People protesting U.S. bombs in Palestine frequently interrupt events where the P.O.T.U.S. is speaking then he'll respond by saying, "They have a point.  We need to do a better job of getting more aid through."  Wtf?  The slogan is "Food not bombs," not "Bombs! & maybe a few crumbs of food."  It's time for me to do my taxes and I'm having such a difficult time with it this year.  I intend to write "murdering Palestinians" on the memo line of my check whenever I send in my 2023 return.

3/20/24

I'm Great At Doing Stuff

I identify as a man because I was assigned male at birth and don't personally see value in identifying as anything other than a man.  Being a man doesn't mean anything deep to me and I'm too busy to explore the sparkle genders.  Alas.  Although, Natalie Wynn released a 3-hour video essay about Twilight recently and I've listened to it like five times already.  But that's as far as my gender ideology goes.  Sometimes people say things about how there's a lack of male role models in the world and Idkwtf they're talking about.  Huh?  Sometimes people say there's a crisis of young men being unable to make their way in the world, but is that a real thing or is the percentage of people who can't find their way in the world the same as always?  The Oscar Awards were this week and ever since then I've been singing to myself, "I'm just Ken and I'm enough and I'm great at doing stuff."  I also really enjoyed the bit that John Cena did while presenting the award for best costume design.  "The male body is not a joke."  Then Jimmy Kimmel said, "Mine is," but John reassured him, "No it's not."  I feel like that was a really heart-warming bro moment with an empowering message.  I'm a die-hard defender of the Barbie movie.  It was my favorite movie that I saw for the first time in 2023 and I fully wanted it to win every award in every category.

3/13/24

The Immense Scale

I just found out the State Of The Union is tonight because Youtube advertised it to me.  Yeah, I already have plans so maybe I'll watch it over the weekend.  Or not.  It seems unlikely that anything worthwhile will get mentioned.  In the past five months, the U.S. decided to kill > 30,000 people in Palestine.  Talk about that.  This week the V.P.O.T.U.S. finally called for a 6-week ceasefire, after blocking a ceasefire resolution at the U.N.  There's a constant stream of real-life horror stories everyday.  Little atrocities within the over-arching big atrocity happening everyday.  I don't want the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell to dominate the narrative, but I've always had a morose fascination with self-immolation.  And I relate to his message:  "Many of us ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I were alive during slavery?  Or the jim-crow south?  Or apartheid?  What would I do if my country were committing genocide?'  The answer is, you're doing it.  Right now."  Aaron was 25 and those questions were probably things I still thought about when I was his age.  "This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."  So of course there's Aaron Bushnell self-immolation merch.  Get your cotton/poly blend "I Will No Longer Be Complicit In Genocide" t-shirts, tank-tops, and hoodies!  Available in 12 colors and now with slender & youth sizes, starting at $21.95 + $6.95 shipping.  Some people have bombs and war machines and other people only have our humanity which apparently isn't worth much.

3/7/24

My First-Ever Stitches

Twelve days ago I had an accident when I fell and cut my leg against the hard wooden edge of a piece of furniture.  An hour after it happened, I got 6 stitches which were then removed this morning.  The actual details of my accident are so boring that when people ask how I hurt my leg, I tell them it happened while doing "weird sex stuff."  It's annoying how I can spend so much time working toward major life goals only for it to be set back by months with some tiny split-second decision.  Several people witnessed the accident in real time and immediately rushed over to ask if I was okay.  I was rolling around on the floor gushing bright red blood onto black plastic flooring - my blood seriously looked so much like paint that it reminded me of a Dario Argento film - but I told them, "Everything's fine.  Nope, don't worry about me."  What that meant was, "Please leave me alone because I need time to process this by myself before I can let you know how I am."  However after the excruciating physical pain subsided, an exponentially worse realization arose:  the looming dread that now I had to deal with the health care industry.  They recommended getting a tetanus shot, and I was willing to pay $82.99 for it, but I ended up not getting one.  So since then whenever I've had any irregular muscle ache, no matter how slight, I'm like, "Oh is that tetanus?"

3/1/24

Rest In Peace Nex Benedict

When considering notable Oklahomans who died there during the month of February 2024, some will automatically think of Toby Keith.  For a lot of others, the first person who comes to mind will be Nex Benedict.  Sigh.  Nex was a 16 year-old who died 2/8/24 after being beaten by three classmates in a girls restroom at Owasso High School, where they were all students.  It's been decades since I graduated from an Oklahoma high school so I don't pretend to know exactly what it's like for kids today.  A week ago I visited a local high school and was somewhat taken aback by seeing its prison-esque security measures.  "Lockdown in progress when this sign is flashing."  Life in general can be difficult and high school even more so.  Especially when the adults in charge of the educational system in the state where you live do stupid fucking things.  For instance, Owasso schools was recently targeted by right-wing nut jobs who forced an 8th grade teacher to resign under the pretense that he'd made inappropriate comments in support of lgbtq+ students.  Otoh, I remember countless instances growing up when one of my public school teachers stood in front of our class and brazenly spewed the most homophobic garbage, completely un-self-conscious and with impunity.  After Nex died was the first time I ever heard the term "stochastic terrorism" because of how the attack on that 8th grade teacher in their school probably contributed to an environment of hatred resulting in their death.

2/24/24

Reality Simulation Upgraded

A couple days ago, it was announced that a new product is coming out eventually called Sora.  According to openai.com, "Sora is an a.i. model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions."  There's been an explosive reaction to the promotional videos:  "state of the art," "insane," "spectacular," "changes everything," "can't comprehend that we got here so fast," etc.  Other reactions include:  "Should some people fear for their jobs?"  Also, "A.i. is like reverse Hitler because we keep waiting on it to kill everybody but it won't stop making art."  And most cluelessly elitist, "Why isn't a.i. doing the tedious shit for creative people instead of the creative shit for tedious people?"  I have some other thoughts about it which I haven't seen addressed.  Sure I'll enjoy creating my own movies - mentally, I have at least 10 feature films ready for the green light - but my first thought is what about police brutality videos?  Once computer-generated video looks completely indistinguishable from real world video, anyone can generate any video of any thought they have and say it's real.  I'm already non-committal about believing anything on social media, and that believability will continue to plummet.  Engaging with media has always been tricky.  Even with thresholds for checking sources, it's difficult to know exactly what specific truths to believe.  I know the overarching general truth that my U.S. government is committing genocidal atrocities in Palestine.  But without context, videos of bloody and starving children aren't concrete proof of anything specific.

2/17/24

Friends United In Truth & Kindness

Toby Keith, one of the most popular country music performers, died this past week from stomach cancer at the age of 62.  I guess cancer can grow anywhere in the body, but the stomach seems like a particularly nasty place for it.  He had a couple songs that I passably enjoy and a lot that I actively despise, but he's most well-known as a supporter of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq twenty years ago.  For his whole life, he made his home in Oklahoma unlike me who was born there and moved away as soon as possible.  It seems everyone in Oklahoma City shared some personal connection about him like how every gay man in N.Y.C. has some anecdote about a run-in with Faye Dunaway.  My uncle was his high school coach in Moore and when my uncle died in 2012, Toby Keith sent a sympathy card to my cousins.  Also, my brother was his dog groomer and said that his family was "the nicest people."  I love how my brother can remember the names and breeds of a dozen dogs he worked with decades ago.  Don't get me wrong though, in the feud between him and Natalie Maines I was solidly on her side.  When I hear about Moore, Oklahoma, I'm happier about the rainbow dildoes delivered by flying robots than I am anything related to country music.  However, I don't feel the need to interject stuff I hate when other people are talking about stuff they like.

2/11/24

The Algorithm's Favorite Keyword

Taylor Swift has been attending major league football events.  That's probably super fun for her.  I know about this because of internet posts claiming to react to other people being upset about it.  I'm pretty sure no one is actually mad about Taylor Swift attending sports, at least no portion of the population of any material size worth mentioning.  It's one of the rampant fake narratives people like to use to distract themselves from what's actually going on in the world.  Taylor Swift is so famous that she's in a whole other stratosphere where discussing her is its own industry.  I'm not interested in who goes to football games.  I'm also not interested in the Nicki / Megan or Bob / Maddy feuds, nor any other clickbait that only exists to increase traffic and engagement.  These celebrity figures depend on the amount of views they get to make their money, but this bullshit is how they do it?  Give me a fucking break.  On the other hand, Lifetime announced an upcoming documentary about Wendy Williams and I'm totally here for that.  It's called "Where Is Wendy Williams?" - a question I've asked repeatedly for the past couple years - and it's a 2-night event premiering later this month.  I've been analyzing every delectable tidbit of the trailer and discussing it with friends.  Wendy decided to appear on camera without her wig!!!??  I say this to point out there's bullshit celebrity fluff that I like to distract myself with too, lest I get too sanctimonious.

2/5/24

It's Been A Year

Wednesday morning last week, as I did ten repetitions of a weightlifting exercise called a snatch with a 115-pound barbell, I suddenly felt something - a twinge perhaps or a cramp - in my back on the left side.  All day I grimaced in pain with any move I made.  Fucking snatches!  I never knew exactly what happened but I googled strains, sprains, pulled muscles, "what does it mean when someone says they threw their back out," etc.  It's since went away and I don't think it was any permanent damage.  However, I felt something deeper about the frailty of human bodies and being trapped inside one.  For the last three years of my mom's life, she was unable to walk and bed-ridden which she complained about the whole time.  Yes, that is really upsetting and sad.  It makes sense that she got to the point of pulling out her tubes and i.v. needles.  Obviously I've been thinking a lot about the events that happened one year ago right now.  The pain of my mom's last days was one of the most traumatic things I've ever been through.  That series of events began with the phone call 1/17/23 saying she was unconscious and going on hospice care then ended 1/30/23 with me back home as if nothing ever happened.  Everyday since 1/17/24 I've been thinking about what was happening one year ago on that particular day.  I wish I would've been gentler with myself during that whole period of time this year.

1/30/24

Power To The People, LOL

Last week was the Iowa caucuses and the week before was the Golden Globe awards, two events I thought we'd moved past as a society.  Thankfully no one still observes Groundhog day.  Like Violet Chachki says, we need new things and new traditions.  One of those new things that I personally want is maximum ages for holding public offices.  The minimum age to run for P.O.T.U.S. is 35 and we really need to instate a maximum age of 70.  The P.O.T.U.S. election is 287 days from now and I've already been thinking way too much about it.  I will be voting even though democracy is basically over.  It was a cute and fun period of history when we pretended that masses of the general public held the power.  I've voted in nearly every single one of my local and national elections in the past 27 years.  In 2020, I was an enthusiastic Biden voter but enthusiasm is difficult to maintain just in general.  We already have our two presumptive candidates, two white men in their 80s ordained by mega-corporations, and the central question of the 2024 P.O.T.U.S. election is which of them is less senile?  It's so stupid and disheartening that with everything going on in the world, that's the central question we're being forced to ask ourselves when choosing a leader.  That being said, Joe Biden is obviously the less senile of the two.  Sigh.  Jill Stein, Cornel West, and Marianne Williamson are all candidates I'm taking note of.

1/23/24

Cold In January?  Groundbreaking.

This week, the weather where I live remained solidly below zero degrees fahrenheit for over three whole days.  It actually got down to -30.  Right now the temperature outside is +11 and it seems outright balmy.  A few weeks ago 11 degrees fahrenheit felt noticeably chilly, but not anymore.  It just goes to show how people's perceptions of normalcy can be highly adaptable.  Luckily none of my utilities ever went out and my water pipes didn't burst.  Last time the weather here got this cold was the last week of January 2019 and it was even worse then.  Every winter I've dreaded the possibility of a cold snap as harsh as the one five years ago.  There's been cold weather ever since I came to Chicago, but temperatures that severe were unprecedented.  It sure was nice when the planet had polar ice caps.  There's an infographic I've seen shared multiple times on social media:  "A periodic reminder that less Arctic ice means a weaker jet stream that allows cold air further south.  The frigid temps you're experiencing happen because of a warming planet, not in spite of it."  That seems logical to me, but not to everyone who feels like commenting on strangers' internet posts.  There are people out there who believe the melting of the planet's ice caps is somehow unrelated to the increased frequency of -30 degree weather in Illinois, U.S.A.  I might not believe their perspectives are valid, but those people probably will be voting in November.

1/17/24

Yes Gorge

I'd never heard of Natalie Wynn before February when Peaches Christ shared a Contrapoints video essay.  Now I quote Natalie all the time - "that must be super fucking hard for you, gorge!" - and she's probably the most influential figure of 2023 for me personally.  She led me to Matt Bernstein and his great podcast A Bit Fruity.  Matt discusses a lot of important topics, but the most recent is titled "Bud Light And The End Of Rainbow Marketing, For Now."  I don't pay attention to endless right-wing outrage cycles, so before Matt told me about it last week I'd still never heard of Dylan Mulvaney and was only vaguely aware of some controversy surrounding Bud Light and Kid Rock.  Modern society is weird how something can be so major to certain pockets of people but whole other swaths of people just miss out on it entirely.  Good job, algorithms!  Both Natalie and Matt discuss serious topics while throwing in some humor.  Other content creators / commentators whom I began listening to in 2023, such as Nick Diramio and Hugo Henderson, forego serious topics altogether and part of me is worried that maybe I don't sincerely find them to be funny and instead am becoming the lecherous old gay stereotype.  Like Stanchris fans.  The most recent episode of No Gorge is an "in and out" list for 2024.  "Social media" is obviously on the out list.  Sad but true.  And my favorite thing on their in list is "getting over it."

1/11/24

2023:  Life Is Basically Good

There were other things that happened, but in the future when I think about 2023 I'll probably remember it foremost as the year my mom died.  In my 40s, time seems to be going very slow and 2023 felt like a really long year.  As opposed to when I was in my 20s and it seemed like time was moving so fast.  Alas.  I'll also remember 2023 as when people pretty much completely forgot about the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 and decided to drop basically all prevention measures and just go back to getting sick again.  At some point in the future I won't associate 2023 with either the Ukraine / Russia nor Palestine / Israel wars because 2023 will just be included as part of the dash in between some prior year and one yet to come.  Recently, people have been saying "Don't stop talking about Gaza," but what else is there to say?  Yes, I am aware that atrocities are still happening but I have to keep moving on with life.  It's terrible that bad things are occurring on the planet but I can't live my daily life focusing on the worst.  Life is basically good and if other people don't feel that way, then they're entitled to their perspective as well.  I assign a slogan to every calendar year - you know, just one of those fun quirky things I do - and part of me wants my slogan for 2023 to be "The Planet Is Literally On Fire!"

1/4/24

Sanctuary City On An Uninhabitable Planet

In 1985, the highly popular mayor of the city of Chicago made an executive order declaring Chicago as a "sanctuary city."  It was a general statement that city officials wouldn't ask about immigration status.  In recent years, Chicagoans have taken that "sanctuary city" designation as a badge of honor.  But then over the past couple years, the state of Texas has shipped > 21,000 undocumented migrants to Chicago and the city council recently introduced an initiative to overturn the "sanctuary city" status via voter referendum.  That initiative ultimately didn't get enough support.  Yet.  Aldermen were saying the 1985 executive order wasn't intended to be an incentive for undocumented migration to Chicago.  Hmm, but really wasn't it though?  More recently, undocumented migrants have been dropped off by the busload in places like Elburn and Kankakee.  That's lead to every small town suburban municipality in northern Illinois scrambling to quell bourgeoning hysteria.  Pray tell, how are small town municipalities going to address the worldwide crisis of mass human migration on an increasingly uninhabitable planet?  Well, many have threatened to impound buses that drop people off without a permit.  Lol.  Lots of places in the U.S. have looked down at Texas and clutched our pearls at their distasteful use of things like concentration camps and hidden razor wire, but now that worldwide mass human migration is spreading more to our communities, will we also treat our fellow human beings like a pest infestation?  Based on the internet comments I've read, we probably will.

12/29/23

Ziggy And The Bland Prolonging Of The World

There's a new show called Carol And The End Of The World.  It just came out but I've already watched all ten episodes.  The premise is that astronomers discover a large planet with a trajectory that will collide into Earth, so everyone knows exactly when they're all headed for extinction and change their behavior accordingly.  There's kids trick or treating every night, people flying hot air balloons, over-the-top Christmas decorating, shooting fireworks, running down the street naked, just everyone out there doing whatever they really want since they know they'll all be dead in < a year.  Then amongst all the hedonism, another group of people is choosing the comfort of working 9 to 5 office jobs.  There's a high possibility I'd be in that category under this scenario.  Right now I'm going through an annoying 5-day "holiday" period.  I want to focus my attention on something else, but I'm basically just waiting for the 26th when I can return to the office.  I'm practicing piano everyday and going to the gym, and I guess doing two things per day is all I can handle at the moment.  I'm also babysitting a friend's dog which is making me really happy that I don't have any pets or kids of my own.  Ugh.  Why do I get like this?  If only we got the closure of some cleanly apocalyptic situation.  We all know we're going to die sometime, but it's nothing urgent.  I want to run down the street naked too.

12/23/23

The Meaning Of Christmas

This time of year there are so many discussions about Christmas which seem alien to me.  I want to be friendly and at least in theory I want to participate in community with people around me, but I can't handle inane conversations about things like Christmas shopping.  I'm not a fan of the whole concept of gifting which is why I don't personally do Christmas shopping.  My house is already too full of stuff and I don't like people spending their money to give me more stuff I don't want.  I feel pretty neutral about Christmas.  The thought of it doesn't trigger me either way, happy or sad.  There's a new trend I've noticed this year of "blue Christmas" events which are intentionally somber.  I can see how this would be good for anyone who's ever felt pressured to fake cheerfulness.  I plan on attending one this week because it's something I've never experienced, but I don't feel pressure to pretend to be cheerful.  My willful disregard of social dynamics has its advantages.  Another trend I've noticed this year is groups hosting "winter holiday" parties in January instead of December.  I appreciate the frugality of off-peak venue booking, but that's too close to polar vortex time for me.  The whole point of Christmas is creating happy memories before really getting into the grist of winter when we'll need as many of those recent happy memories as possible to remind us that life is a good thing that's actually worth living.

12/17/23

Blue Monday 2

There's a photo of a U.K. street scene that's been widely shared on social media which I think is likely genuine.  It shows a sidewalk ad that reads, "Israel's killing children again.  Enjoy your weekend."  That's exactly what I was planning!  I mean, what else was I going to do other than just enjoy my life?  Although, thanks sidewalk ad for preventing me from going full Barbara Bush:  "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths?  It's not relevant.  So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"  When I was in bed Monday night, I read that Sophie Anderson died but she's had death hoaxes before so I put away my smartphone and went to sleep non-committal of believing it.  But it turned out to be true, "Sophie A Slut" a.k.a. "Sophie A Success" died Monday at the age of 36.  Now I guess we'll never get a Slag Wars season 2.  A few days prior, Henry Kissinger died at the age of 100.  Sophie Anderson and Henry Kissinger were both human beings who lived and died on this planet during this time period and all the baggage associated with it.  Also, they're both people for whom I have complicated thoughts and feelings.  There are parts of my psyche that want to be like each of them, which is about the conflicting ideas for how we exert power.  Incidentally, the average of 36 and 100 is 68 which is probably a realistic lifespan for me.

12/10/23

Chicago Goes Hard

Yesterday I visited various locales across Chicago, and the city was citying really hard.  I saw penis - yay penis! - on the red line, one of several red line incidents.  There were vomit and feces on the Clark Street sidewalk.  Although, it makes sense there's feces smeared on the sidewalks considering how few public restrooms exist and every public restroom stall is occupied with unhoused persons.  I went to Unabridged Bookstore and purchased Man's Country:  More Than A Bathhouse by Owen Keehnen, autographed by the author.  It's an account of the infamous establishment for which I was interviewed back in September 2022, so I'm excited to read that.  I also went to Willies 'N Waffles, a new chicken & waffle shop where the menu refers to all chicken items as "cocks" and all their waffles are served on a stick in the shape of either dicks and balls or labias and vulvas.  I ordered "Santa's cookies and cum" which is a waffle dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with Oreos, and topped with whip cream.  The person behind the counter whose gender I wouldn't even begin to speculate about, which is just the way I like gender, does a whole performance art piece grunting while thrusting the dick-shaped waffle into the chocolate then orgasmic moaning while spraying whipped cream.  Just when it seems like Chicago is losing everything that makes it great, new legends like Willies 'N Waffles emerge.  I fully expect it to have lines around the block any day now.

12/4/23

A Nice Thanksgiving

Today a co-worker asked, "Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?" and I said, "Sure."  She replied, "You don't sound certain about that."  Then I responded, "I can't remember what happened on Thursday.  That's like 5 days ago."  It's so glamorous when rockstars on world tours talk about waking up and not knowing where they are.  My version of that is waking up on the train and for a brief moment I'm unsure whether it's the morning commute and I'm going to work, or it's the evening commute and I'm going home.  That happens to me a lot.  Both my morning and evening commutes are completely in the dark now.  Also, it snowed on Sunday so there'll probably be snow covering the ground continuously for the next four months.  Sigh.  When I take a moment to think about what happened on Thanksgiving, the first thing I remember is sitting on my living room couch watching the New York City parade followed by the national dog show.  Right before the parade ended with Santa Claus, Cher performed "DJ Play A Christmas Song" which is the new single from her most recent album.  Later that day, Dolly Parton performed at the halftime show of a major league football game.  Some people were saying how inspirational it is that two 77 year-old women gave such high-profile televised performances on the same day.  That's great and all, but personally I was more excited that an azawakh won the hound group at the national dog show.

11/28/23

Berlin Nightclub Has Officially Shuttered

In an alternate reality, I work in nightclubs and never moved out of the city.  That alternate version of me is a real person named Greg Haus.  Yesterday, Greg made a statement about Berlin that said he'd planned to celebrate its 40th anniversary this week but its closing is imminent.  I responded, "So you were planning a celebration but aren't now?  And Berlin hasn't officially closed yet?  It couldn't be any worse than Touche's 40th anniversary."  Later in the day, Berlin Nightclub in Chicago officially announced its permanent closure.  That is sad.  I'm one of many people who have many emotions about the whole situation.  There's a lot of people sharing photos of the "great memories" they had there.  I have innumerable great memories there too, but memories don't pay bills.  I also have some not-so great memories when the cover charge for the night had been advertised as $5, then I arrive and the doorperson tells me it's actually $7 or $10.  I've been following the ongoing saga about the nightclub's employees unionizing for a couple months.  The whole mindset is different now than previous decades.  Maybe the young people of today are overly entitled or maybe they're just expressing a current economic reality that can't support a non-corporate place like Berlin.  Ultimately, management did not keep up with the times.  There's been a crowdfund set up for employees who just lost their jobs which wins the award for the crowdfund to which I'm least likely to ever contribute.

11/22/23

I Care

I love the "I Don't Give A" song that Peaches did with Joan Jett because I enjoy punk rock posturing.  When people say they don't care about anything, it's a posture.  We don't all care about the same specific things to the same degree, but the whole point of being alive as a human is to love and care about stuff.  Although as individuals, we humans have to draw boundaries just to survive and get anything done.  There's so much going on in the world and there's very little out of everything that we can get involved in or devote our limited time, energy, and attention to.  Last week I said that 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past month by Israel.  Well now that number is 15,000 and I'm sure it won't be long before it's 20,000.  There were some protest actions at cities along the U.S. coast to attempt blocking ships carrying weapons to Israel.  Maybe the idea was that if a big enough mass of people just showed up at a dock, it'd create barriers.  I like that idea in theory, but in practice how do all those people know what's on which ship going where?  There's an idea that it's wrong to judge people by the actions of our governments.  Palestinians are not Hamas.  Israelis are not Netanyahu.  Russians are not Putin.  U.S. citizens aren't Biden, Trump, Moms For Liberty, The Heritage Foundation, etc.  We are not our governments!  But then again, yes we are.

11/15/23

Craziness Is Sanity

In the past month, > 10,000 Palestinian people have now been killed by Israel.  Although, smarmy Israeli politicians deny there's currently any humanitarian crisis in Gaza and disingenuous U.S. government officials publicly undermine that 10,000 death toll.  Some refer to any actions taken by the nation of Israel as the actions of the U.S.  I've heard commentators talk about how all of Israel's military artillery is bought with U.S. tax dollars which would basically qualify Israel as more of U.S. territory than Puerto Rico.  What'll it take before there's a ceasefire?  I talk all the time about how when I was a child, I was so confused and disgusted by the idea that things like slavery and the holocaust would ever be allowed to occur but then it made sense when I grew up and started to understand more of what humans actually are.  It'd be great if people wouldn't kill other people, but apparently that's not even an option.  And we're all supposedly cool with that.  Everything happening on the planet right now is enough to make me question my sanity, not because I see things that aren't there but nothing makes any sense to me.  We're at a pinnacle of the world right now, the peak of human experience, and this is what we're doing with it?  Life is short and we only get one, so why is this how we're choosing to act with our most precious valuable limited resource?  Who needs love when we've got bombs?

11/9/23

Two-Thirds Life Crisis

This week, the weather where I live had a dramatic cold snap for the first time this season.  Thanks Mariah.  Everyday there's been literal dozens of homeless people gathered at the train station in downtown Chicago.  Yesterday I went to the food court early to beat lunchtime crowds and was approached by several unhoused persons asking me to give them food or money.  I gave one of them a $3.35 "snack wrap" from Burger King because he seemed particularly close to death.  But after that I wondered whether I might be avoiding this particular food court for the near future?  I said that sometimes I feel like my life is falling apart with no purpose, well how do those people feel about their lives' purposes?  What even is this experience of life that we're having?  Everything feels hollow.  I will fill out that internet comment form to contact my elected official.  People are sharing a meme referencing the "daylight" time change most of the U.S. observes this weekend:  "Saturday night, don't forget to set your clocks on fire.  Time isn't real."  Reality isn't real.  Nothing matters.  Who cares?  So what?  The point is to keep trying, keep exploring, continue to love as much as possible for as long as possible.  That's the only thing that's real.  I'd say all these so-called "big questions" I've been dramatically grappling with lately qualify as a mid-life crisis, except at the age of 45 it seems like my life is thankfully > half-way over.

11/3/23

Purpose-Driven Delusions

There's a phrase I often repeat, "Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated individual, so maybe calm down a bit."  I say it frequently to other drivers in traffic.  Although, lots of dead bodies lots of places were once individuals who didn't give a shit about anything.  On a spectrum between boldly climbing a mountaintop or despairing in a gutter, most people live somewhere in the middle.  According to my life plan, right now was the time when I wanted to get licensed as a foster parent and take children who need homes into ours.  That isn't happening like I wish it were, and sometimes it seems like my life is falling apart with no purpose.  I could take up Tiktok and Onlyfans then make that my new purpose.  Ugh.  I was recently saying the only real purpose of life is to experience it as fully as possible.  So there's no need to get overly burdened by external objectives since life is really about internal experience.  But ultimately that's just another false dichotomy because in the universal grand scheme there's no separation between internal and external experience.  Maybe we all need those external objectives to be our purpose just so we can continue to get through day after day.  Lots of people around the world are facing lots of difficult situations and maybe we actually need those signifiers of external value because the pure rapture of being alive isn't enough to sustain everyone all day everyday.

10/27/23

World Events, Local Events

First thing this morning I made a list of all events I'm interested in from today until Halloween.  There are > 50 things happening on that list and hopefully I'll actually do 10 of them.  Another thing happening this morning is a friend of mine challenging me about my comment that I'm ignoring the Israel / Palestine conflict the same way I ignored last year's Amber Heard defamation trial.  She said that Gaza has 2.5 million people - which is approximately the same population as the city of Chicago - and Israel could just decide to slaughter them all, but the U.S. Congress and P.O.T.U.S. could stop it.  On the one hand, I believe my friend is right about this.  On the other hand, it's something I really don't want to think about.  The tension of these dual realities co-existing in my brain feels uncomfortable.  And it seems pointless.  Part of me believes that nothing about humanity's world order has ever changed, except now us peasants have come to believe we have some kind of say in world events.  I love people who fight for justice and go against the grain, but those people will never be glamorous celebrities.  My vision for my life is having a cocktail and going to the Arts In The Dark parade, not filling out a comment form to contact my elected official.  Then again, she also shared the M.L.K. quote, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

10/21/23

Make The Art You Want To See In The World

I'm not feeling Halloween this year.  I generally like participating in seasonal rituals, but won't force myself to get festive.  Doing anything on a regular basis is difficult for me, so I participate whenever I feel like it.  I'm sort of participating in Drawtober / Inktober, by which I mean I'm pretty much doing the same things as always but drawing some inspiration from the Drawtober / Inktober prompts.  Recently I've been thinking about what art I'm producing and considering other expressionistic mediums.  I probably won't ever be a professional artist, but certain arts feel natural to me.  The professional screenwriters and screenactors have been on strike for almost 3 months now.  I said how moved I felt by A.O.C.'s "Don't let the cynics win" speech, and another recent speech I found really inspirational was the screenactors union president announcing their strike:  "This moment in history is a moment of truth.  What's happening to us is happening across all fields of labor.  If we don't stand tall right now, we are all in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business cares more about wall street than you and your family.  Most Americans don't have more than $500 in an emergency.  What are we doing?  Moving around furniture on the Titanic?  We are labor and we stand tall.  We demand respect and to be honored for our contribution.  You can not exist without us."  Sadly, I've yet to see any viral videos of drag queens lipsyncing to either speech.

10/15/23

Happy Columbus Day 2023

It's a 3-day weekend, and yesterday I laid in bed sick all day just moaning and fantasizing about death.  I didn't die though, which is vaguely disappointing.  Today on social media, the main topic of discussion is the Palestine / Israel conflict which is particularly violent and bloody right now.  But then again, when is it ever not violent and bloody?  I heard a news story that said so far over the 3-day weekend, 1,500 people have been killed in the Palestine / Israel conflict.  That's a bummer, but nothing anyone is saying about it is more profound than war is a bummer.  Personally, I've been ignoring the Palestine / Israel conflict for decades.  I don't understand why people here feel the need to choose a side or bring out one of the Palestine / Israel flags.  Ugh, flags.  Staying silent in the face of oppression is taking the side of the oppressor, but ultimately there just has to be some cases when that's fine because it's no one's job to study over a century of history and figure out which side is the oppressor and which side is oppressed.  A sitting U.S. Senator did call for all U.S. military aid that's currently going to Ukraine be diverted to Israel.  Fuck that.  The only thing I will speak up about is that I want my nation out of it entirely.  Because even not knowing anything about the situation, the U.S. empire's insatiable quest for power is obviously some dubious factor.

10/9/23

The Netflix Effect

After 25 years in business, Netflix DVD no longer exists as of Friday.  I still subscribed to it right up until the bitter end.  Sometimes people would ask why and I'd say it's because I need the whole range of selection.  I have anxiety about it shutting down because older, smaller, more independent or experimental movies that aren't widely available otherwise, how will I see those now?  It feels like those types of movie gems are being lost.  But it seems that the general public just isn't interested in such a wide variety of choice.  I've heard people say things like, "I tried to decide what to watch for 30 minutes before eventually just watching the same old thing."  Assholes.  A couple years ago there was a controversy about a local public library circulating DVDs unsuitable for children.  A friend of mine commented that kids today don't know what a DVD is because for their entire lives the only content they've watched has come directly from the internet.  I appreciate how Netflix has handled ending DVD operations, clearly communicating to customers and allowing us to easily download all our saved information.  I'm brand-loyal to barely anything, but I will stay brand-loyal with Netflix.  Incidentally, Hulu informed me that it's raising its price this month so I canceled it.  Hulu asked why I was canceling but didn't give the option for me to tell them its app is shit.  As opposed to Netflix's streaming app on my smartphone which consistently works.

10/2/23

Rainy Days And Tuesdays

It's autumn and the weather where I live has been really rainy this week.  Last night I had a phone conversation with my dad who lives about a thousand miles away which is sort of a different climate zone.  I mentioned that I need new rain gutters which set him off.  He told me, "It's a fact that rain gutters are useless."  Just boldly stating ignorance as if it were scripture.  We argued for a while and both got really upset.  So heated over a topic so boring!  But flooded basements are just like everything else in life:  If you've never dealt with it, you don't know how traumatic it is.  Speaking of traumatic things related to my dad, he now has a girlfriend.  The first time I spoke aloud the phrase "my dad's girlfriend" was a moment for me.  I had to preface it with, "this is something I've never said before in my entire life and never even imagined that I would ever say."  Although, I was quicker to accept their new relationship than either of my brothers.  She's a woman from the community whom I grew up with and I've always generally liked her.  I'll probably get to know her more next time I visit.  My brother visited them and said it felt highly awkward, but I think I'm better than he is at navigating certain situations which others would consider awkward.  And none of it has anything to do with our mother, God rest her soul.

9/26/23

Don't Let The Cynics Win

This past weekend there was a demonstration in N.Y.C. to end fossil fuels that was attended by 75,000 people.  That's inspirational, and there were some really powerful speeches.  Most notably was A.O.C. encouraging the world to stay engaged and not become cynical.  "The U.S. continues to approve record numbers of fossil fuel leases and we must send the message that must end today.  Some of us are still going to be living on this planet 30, 40, 50 years from now and we will not take no for an answer."  I am cynical, but that oratory really moved me to reconsider.  At least for a few minutes.  Ending fossil fuels is definitely the most important issue and it'd be great if we just did it.  It's a cause I'm willing to die for.  However, an annoying thought persisted in my brain while listening to all those great speeches, rudely intruding on my good feelings and joyous inspiration:  "How did 75,000 people from all over the globe gather together in one place without fossil fuels?"  The climate crisis was caused by the population explosion.  The population explosion was a result of the industrial revolution.  The industrial revolution was made possible by European colonization.  European colonization was caused by white supremacy.  And I'll follow the thread another step which is that white supremacy and patriarchy result from a dearth of spirituality.  Spirituality means finding center and balance, and sexism, racism, and all the other isms are caused by a lack of it.

9/20/23

The Meaning Of Life

I constantly say things like, "Nothing matters," and, "We'll all be dead soon enough," etc.  But I really have been enjoying life recently.  There's another week of summer left and as much as I'd like to keep the good vibes going into autumn, that's probably not how vibes work and before long my joy will again revert to angstiness.  That's fine, because it won't last too long either.  There's an Andrea Dworkin quote in Natalie Wynn's most recent video essay that I'm pretty much listening to on a daily basis right now, "No one can bear to live a meaningless life.  Women fight for meaning just as women fight for survival."  Purpose and meaning are considered such virtues but I don't understand why.  Maybe it's my privilege, but I believe the only meaning to life is experiencing it as fully as possible.  So everyone out there fighting for meaning needs to relax imho.  My philosophy is more in tune with the Joseph Campbell quote, "What's the meaning of a flower?  What's the meaning of the universe?  There's no meaning.  It's just there.  Being alive is the meaning.  Your meaning is that you're there.  We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture associated with being alive, is what it's all about.  What we're looking for is having an experience of life, and we're shutting ourselves off by naming, translating, and classifying every experience that comes to us."  That's beautiful.

9/13/23

Lypsinka Is Amazing

My piano teacher is the incomparable John Epperson who's most well-known as the drag queen Lypsinka.  I've been a fan for decades, so it's amazing that we now regularly call, text, and email each other.  We even became Facebook friends.  To me, this person is so legendary that no introduction could possibly be too much of a build-up.  When I went to Nightgowns on 9/28/18 - Janet Jackson was in the audience that night - Lypsinka was the one performer I was most excited about.  Part of me is so incredibly star-struck every time we interact.  However, I'm not getting it twisted because we do have a professional relationship.  I pay money for the service of teaching.  That wasn't exactly in my budget, especially since last month I encountered an emergency $5,369.90 home repair.  Sigh.  But I feel like the wisdom imparted by an artist of such world-class caliber is worth it.  Plus, sometimes I get some hot t.  On 8/1, a new episode of Trixie and Katya's podcast "The Bald & The Beautiful" came out in which they spend an entire segment discussing Lypsinka.  The next day I told John about it, to which he replied "Trixie as in Mattel?"  Yes.  "And Katya who?"  Gag.  I explained they're a frequent duo who do this podcast and he said, "Lady Bunny does a podcast with some other queen too."  Double-gag!  Lypsinka doesn't know who Katya Zamolodchikova or Monet X. Change are.  It's almost worth the full price of that session.

9/7/23

I Play Piano

Two months ago today, I started taking piano lessons and tonight was my ninth session.  I took piano lessons from age 14 until I went away to college at 18.  It was somewhat inspired by Tori Amos, but when I was growing up every household just had a piano in their living room like a piece of furniture.  An ex of mine is a professional pianist - and organist! - who now lives in Europe and seems to be doing great touring around according to his Facebook.  One time he posted saying he was starting to teach piano lessons over the internet.  So I sent an inquiry because I had this vague idea about wanting more art in my life to exercise the under-stimulated parts of my brain.  He never responded which is how all my exes treat me.  It's for the best though because I would've especially hated going through all the indignities and humiliations that come with learning a new skill in front of him.  I found my current piano teacher when I saw a social media post by cult movie icon Mink Stole.  She said that learning to play piano was something she'd always wanted and was finally starting in her 70s.  How inspiring!  Mink also described her instructor as "exactly the patient and encouraging teacher I need."  Love that.  So I sent an inquiry to Mink's piano teacher who just so happens to also be an icon whom I've been a huge fan of for decades.

9/1/23

Political Boogaloo Heat Advisory

I started viewing politics in a deeper way around 2011 which was the era of Tea Partiers and Wall Street Occupiers.  I guess politics has always been a shifting landscape / minefield, but then this P.O.T.U.S. who won the election in 2016 came along and we've been facing unprecedented conundrums ever since.  I'll stop referring to these situations as "crazy" or "bonkers" etc, because the concept of craziness implies rationality is a thing that exists which I no longer believe.  The former P.O.T.U.S. is being charged with crimes which imho is long overdue and he needed to be in prison a long time ago, but like I said, this is all unprecedented.  Recently I was having a phone conversation with my dad who said, "These democrats really don't like Trump," to which I replied, "Well scam artists can only get so far in life."  And my dad is far less radicalized than many of my other family members who've put bumper stickers on their pickup trucks and changed their Facebook profile photos to the former P.O.T.U.S.'s mugshot in support.  It's so wild that some portion of this nation sees the former P.O.T.U.S.'s indictments in terms of one political party attempting to silence the other.  Especially since that's what literally happened on 1/6/21 at the U.S. Capitol.  There was a republican debate in Milwaukee this week.  I won't quote anything said at the event because so many politicians are such bad faith actors and I'm sick of the narratives they're promoting.

8/26/23

We'll All Be Dead Soon Enough

I'm all in favor of believing things that are useful or expedient as opposed to "true" because in the big picture what does truth even mean?  Is any one philosophy truer than any other?  Truth equals power so it's difficult for me to not believe that my species is some kind of virus or death cult.  It seems obvious, a foregone conclusion.  But while that philosophy might seem inescapably true to me, is that belief something that's helping me in my everyday life?  When I was a child and the world didn't make sense to me, I had the idea that I'd eventually grow up and leave my small town and learn about life so everything would make more sense to me.  That did happen, but then again there are still things that come around often which make no sense to me.  For instance, the annual Chicago air show is going on right now.  It's not cool.  It's horrifying.  The Chicago air show is literally just tens of thousands hanging out watching war jets scream across the sky.  Why are so many people into it?  Experiencing this year after year for so many decades, I'm incapable of seeing it as anything other than a bunch of assholes saying, "Hey look at the great stuff we can do by unnecessarily burning fossil fuels and making the planet uninhabitable."  Humanity is inscrutable so instead of ruminating on things I don't understand, I'm doing my best to focus on things I do enjoy.  

8/19/23

Alive At 45

When I was in some business & economics course at college - so approximately 20 years old - I mentioned something completely incidentally in a paper I wrote about how I only planned to live to around the age of 45.  My reasoning was that I wanted to live independently and on my own for longer than the amount of time I spent living with my family and that'd be enough for me.  Well, the professor of that class just so happened to be 45 at the time when he read my paper and he felt some kind of way about it.  He made it a point to specifically tell me his age because I guess he thought maybe I didn't understand ages.  But in my mind I was thinking, yeah it is about time for him to wrap things up.  Now that I am actually 45 years old, I still pretty much agree with 20 year-old me.  I could die at any moment and that'd be fine.  I've had enough, more or less.  There was a time when elders were a rich source of wisdom, but now surviving to old age is so common that lots of idiots are doing it so there's a deficit of vital wisdom amongst the elderly.  That's highly cynical and misanthropic, but it really seems that people like Jimmy Carter are such a tiny minority.  You know what they say, "You either die of AIDS or you live long enough to become Ronald Reagan."

8/13/23

No Aloha Freezeheads

When I was in high school I learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis and thought, "Hey, my parents lived through that.  They probably have great stories about it."  But when I asked them, not only did they have no memories of it, they didn't remember it at all or even know what it was.  That seemed strange to teenage me, but it was the beginning of my realization about how people's perceptions of the world contrast with reality.  Reality versus perceptions can be a complicated ballet, but in October 1962 my parents had three children under the age of 4 so of course that's what they were focused on at the time instead of major world events.  In 2007 there was a discussion on daytime talk show The View in which Whoopi Goldberg asked co-host Sherri Shepherd, "Is the world flat?"  And Sherri responded, "I don't know if the world is flat.  I've never thought of it.  But I'll tell you what I have thought about is how I'm going to feed my child and how I'm going to take care of my family.  Whether or not the world is flat has never been an important thing to me."  So maybe the real lesson is that parenting makes people stupid and it's okay for me to give up on my dream of becoming a foster parent.  Like The Breeders say, "Motherhood means mental freeze."  Lots of species die immediately after procreating, meanwhile humans stubbornly insist on far outliving our sexiness.

8/7/23

Apocalyptic Angst & Home Ownership

I recently said to my bf, "I just don't think home ownership is working out for us."  Compared to living in an apartment in the city, owning a house in the exurbs takes a lot of maintenance work.  I'm constantly saying things like, "Oh I'd really like to go see Kevin Aviance tonight in the club, but it's raining so I need to stay home and empty the rain buckets."  And now I'm wondering why am I even continuing to do all this?  We had plans and goals, but it seems like we've made no progress toward them in the past several years.  So maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board.  We wouldn't be the first people who ever gave up on our life's goals.  I'm thankful to be in the position I'm in.  There are so many people who are much worse off than I am.  The situation right now with massive migrations of people just trying to survive on an increasingly uninhabitable planet gets continually more dire all the time.  I'm very thankful that I haven't had to personally experience those kinds of hardships yet.  So what if I never get married or have kids.  So what if I missed Kevin Aviance at the nightclub this time.  It seems like every generation of humanity has always had some apocalyptic angst about something.  But the end of humanity is closer now than ever before, which means our current apocalyptic angst is more valid than ever before.

8/1/23

Mom Stuff

Today - well, tonight at 10:53p - is six months since my mom died.  One week ago today was her first posthumous birthday.  Right now she's the foremost thing on my mind.  I saw roadkill in the street and immediately thought, "I wonder if that dead squirrel was anyone's mother?"  But the universe seems to be shoving it in my face.  I received an email this morning advertising Dead Mom Stuff, a show by comedian Eve Ellenbogen opening tonight in N.Y.C.  Plus, a friend shared a social media post which was a photo of a gravestone with the inscription "She loved her family in her own way."  The commentary was about how did she get that epitaph when all the others say "beloved" this and that?  For me it's too real though.  I pretty much made as much peace as possible with my mom while she was still alive.  We loved each other even though the love each of us were capable of giving the other might not have been what we would've ideally wanted to receive.  Maybe it's my projection, but I have a sense that she was always carrying around some profound sadness her whole life that I relate to.  An additional strange cosmic coincidence is that another friend's mom died recently and when he was making arrangements last week, he texted me a photo from the funeral home which was randomly using the pamphlet from my mom's service as a sample.  That got me feeling some type of way.

7/25/23

The 2023 Summer Blockbuster Zeitgeist Moment

The two most highly-anticipated movies of 2023 are both opening on the same day this week:  Barbie by director Greta Gerwig and Oppenheimer by director Christopher Nolan.  It's like when Seven and Showgirls both opened on the same day in 1995, or Hedwig & The Angry Inch and Ghost World in 2001.  I'm actually considering spending > $30 for the Barbenheimer tshirt.  I have an idea that I might go to the theater with one friend on Friday dressed all in pink for Barbie, then go see Oppenheimer with another friend on Saturday wearing all black.  While listening to Blackpink.  There's something to these whole thematic worlds coming together like this that makes a statement about where human society is at right now:  dichotomies of femininity / masculinity, optimism / pessimism, artifice / realism, cheerleader / goth, etc.  I could write volumes about each one and I haven't seen either movie yet.  I'll settle for memes though.  I don't usually pay too close attention to new movies coming out and I've already discussed how I live in a targeted-advertising bubble which I consider to be true reality.  According to me, the most highly-anticipated movie of 2022 was Bros.  So I looked at the box office top ten and was surprised to learn there's a seventh Mission Impossible movie currently at number 1.  And at number 2, ugh, no further comment at this time.  Next week I'm hoping to see Barbie at 1 and Oppenheimer at 2 in box office numbers.

7/19/23

Apocalypse Meh

What a time to be a flesh and blood human being alive on this planet!?  We've had a good run, but it seems like the era of humans as the dominant species is rapidly coming to an end.  I'm not trying to predict the future though.  There's an unhinged Netflix documentary show called The Future Of which presents various non-apocalyptic visions for the future.  Like, bending so far over backwards to avoid any scenario that might possibly seem apocalyptic in any way.  Meanwhile I've finished watching the entire new season of Black Mirror, the science fiction Netflix show that's specifically dedicated to apocalyptic visions of the future.  The opening chapter, Joan Is Awful, is especially relevant with the current Hollywood writers strike.  No one was really predicting that artist would be a profession so rapidly overtaken by artificial intelligence.  We were thinking truck drivers would've been taken over by now but that artists were irreplaceable.  Artificial intelligence is like Beyonce telling workers, "to the left, to the left."  I produce a webpage, so technically that makes me a "content creator" which is a title that I love.  People who call themselves content creators aren't claiming what they do is art, informational, nor entertaining.  They aren't even claiming to be particularly influential.  We're all just manufacturing content in whatever media as grist for the algorithm.  In Black Mirror's closing chapter, Demon 79, the titular demon says it's afraid of "eternal oblivion."  I don't know why.  Eternal oblivion seems fine to me.

7/13/23

The Gay Bubble I'm Living In

On June 20 at 3:42p someone named Rob Anderson made a popular social media post "proof you live in a gay bubble" with an infographic that reads:  "Last Night" by Morgan Wallen, it's been the number one song in the country for 10 weeks and you've never heard of it.  "Padam Padam" by Kylie Minogue, hasn't touched the Billboard 100 but plays in your sleep and feels like it's always existed.  I seriously thought there's no way this can possibly be real.  But then I fact-checked and, oh yes, it's 100% accurate.  My mind is boggled.  The political science professor who was recently a guest on Dr. Phil wrote a piece titled "Culture war isn't a political distraction.  It's the heart of politics."  I believe that's true and it's also something I file away in my misanthropy box.  This week was July 4th so culture wars were loudly intrusive with people lighting literal bombs that set off car alarms a dozen times per evening five nights in a row.  Plus, last weekend was the added spectacle of a professional car race on downtown Chicago streets.  I don't want to shit on anyone else's fun - professional car racing is a skill and art! - but it's all so incomprehensible to me.  There's just some part of humanity that wants to blow up the world.  There's some element of our collective psyche that wants to burn the planet in exchange for fossil fuels making us go fast for a few seconds.

7/6/23

Survival Birthday

Today is my 45th birthday and I'm sitting alone in the office watching the Netflix dating reality show The Ultimatum on my smartphone.  I'm so into this show that there've been times watching it during my commute when fellow passengers have asked me to calm down.  I've also been watching the show Yellowjackets, the best part of which is obviously Christina Ricci as Misty.  Yellowjackets is frustrating because the characters get stranded in a wilderness survival situation but continue acting out petty drama as if they're still living in the suburbs where focusing on survival isn't a priority.  Then again, that's pretty much the situation our whole world is in.  There's been bad air quality in Chicago this week, but my experience of it didn't seem as bad as the photos of N.Y.C.'s bad air quality a couple weeks ago which looked like the city was in a spaghetti tupperware container.  I tested negative for coronavirus, but I'm still wearing face-coverings indoors around people.  However, others are now wearing face-coverings outside.  I heard a couple people say they had to buy face-coverings to wear outside because they didn't still have any.  My Wednesday evening commute was delayed 90 minutes and someone came over the intercom saying they had to park the train for an indefinite amount of time because the track ahead was on fire.  Tonight I'm going out to a fancy cabaret with a couple friends because everyday is one day closer to death and that's something worth celebrating.

6/30/23

I'll Never Be Hot Slut Of The Day

Humanity is so disappointing with the dull things that capture its imagination.  There's a news story that people won't shut up about right now but which I'm trying to ignore.  I'd like to willfully disregard the gruesome deaths of five random billionaires the same way billionaires willfully disregard the gruesome deaths of people all over the world every single day to maintain their billionaire status.  The story I think the world needs to be focusing on right now is the announcement that Dlisted is shutting down.  On my birthday!  I cried real tears when I read that.  Dlisted is a comedy website that's been in existence for 18 years and it's been my favorite website for 16 years.  Its creator, Michael K, is the greatest comedic genius of my generation.  I've been saying that the entire 16 years of being a fan and I truly believe it, so the idea of Dlisted shutting down hurts me personally.  I was sick a couple days this week.  I tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday which was the first time ever in my life that happened.  Although, what does being positive for coronavirus even mean in June 2023 now that there's no more national emergency?  I'm doing a 5-day isolation which means no performing at the drag show tomorrow.  As fun as last week was, I definitely don't think an amateur drag show is worth the risk of spreading coronavirus over.  Hopefully I'll test negative soon and everything can go back to normal.

6/24/23

Boyfriend Wanted At Shows

Last month, a friend and I made a plan to go to a concert which was last night.  Yesterday though, he bailed on the plan because he'd unexpectedly been hospitalized earlier in the week.  It's fine, but if I expect life to be disappointing does that still even count as disappointment?  He emailed his ticket to me so I could've just attended the show by myself for free, but I bought another one at the door because I wanted my bf to go too.  Ever since that whole pandemic thing of 2020 happened, I avoid advance ticket purchases as much as possible.  The concert was Pansy Division with Bev Rage & The Drinks at Beat Kitchen.  It was lit.  I was excited for both bands.  My bf and I had gone to Pansy Division concerts separately before we met each other.  Then a year ago, I saw Bev Rage & The Drinks play at Chicago's big gay pride street festival and have been a fan ever since.  There was a third band that went on first which wasn't technically very good but still got me feeling the joy and freedom of rock and roll.  As Hedwig said, the thrill, the rush, etc.  Tonight we went to a small restaurant / bar in our neighborhood that hosts drag shows.  It was amateur night and I had so much fun that I volunteered to perform next week.  My last public drag performance was pretty cringe, so hopefully this next one goes well.

6/18/23

Just A Spring Haze

Today was my second time walking in the Woodstock, Illinois lgbtqia+ pride parade and it was a lot of fun.  I've been on a depression spiral this week.  In the past month, I've noticed several occasions when the sun seemed strange.  Someone told me it's from widespread wildfires in Canada making the skies hazy thousands of miles away.  N.Y.C. is currently in the news because of these raging fires making their air quality dense with smoke.  How is this okay?  How is everyone going about our normal daily lives when the planet is literally on fire?  I guess there's nothing else for us to do, but you can't watch the world burn without catching fire yourself.  I've been inundated my whole life with the doctrine/dogma of heaven & hell dichotomy.  Now when there are so many fires in so many places at all times, part of me wonders whether we're actually in hell right now.  Abandon hope, y'all.  It's a state of mind because other times I feel bliss like I'm in heaven.  Whatever bomb explosion we're living in is fine.  Tonight is my 500th weekly movie night:  Disney's 1996 animated version of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.  I'm excited because it ranks high on my favorite movie list but my bf has never seen it.  It's so good that I get teary just thinking about the music.  One of the songs is titled "Heaven's Light / Hell Fire" so it really fits in with themes on my mind lately.

6/11/23

Worth The Effort

I participated in a big event June 1-4 out in the woods of Michigan with approximately 100 other people from all over.  It was great, but it was lots of hard work that I'm not accustomed to.  I've been pushing myself so much lately and it's never enough.  Why does life require such herculean effort?  Why can't my floors just be clean without me figuring out where the vacuum is?  Then plugging it in and turning it on, ugh.  I'm already tired just thinking about it.  I met someone this weekend whose actual profession is to go to Disneyworld and produce internet content about it.  Good for him.  Would I be a happier person if I went to Disneyworld everyday?  Sometimes I think my dream job would be as an artist working in nightlife, but then I meet people who've lived that reality and it's never actually as fun as I imagine.  Hopefully we can maintain a friendship even though he lives in Orlando.  We were away from the internet for four days and I told him how much I appreciate him before I even knew how many tens of thousands of followers he has across social media platforms.  Everyday is a choice to lie down and die or stand up and live.  I'm more likely to choose life when I'm in contact with a community of people I respect and/or relate to in some way.  Otherwise it's just misanthropy, despondency, hopelessness, and despair in my circle of best friends.

6/5/23

Unironically

Alanis Morissette killed irony in the mid-1990s.  She had this huge hit song called "Ironic" and people complained that nothing in the lyrics was actually ironic, while overlooking that the whole spectacle of a song so majorly popular called "Ironic" that doesn't depict anything ironic is itself a great irony.  Although, why would anyone try to apply literary devices to their everyday life?  People who say they like something ironically are just protecting their own ego.  I hate when someone like John Waters insists there's some difference between "good" bad taste and "bad" bad taste.  It's just mental gymnastics to create a separation so they can tell themselves they're better than other people.  There's a band called Ur Pretty which just released its 4th official song "Fill Me Up" this week.  It's the side-project of musician Jake Hill who apparently became popular for a different type of music even though I'd never heard of him before Ur Pretty.  The band's four songs have a distinctive aesthetic of beautiful gay romance mixed with graphic descriptions of man-on-man sex.  I love it so much that I actually cry while listening to it.  However, the comment section for every song is mostly about how hilarious it is.  And how good it is, but in an ironic way.  Either people think gay sex is a lolcow or they're laughing in shock because they never heard of Pansy Division or Man On Man.  Gay sex is no more of a joke than any other sex.

5/30/23

The Passing Of Everyday Human Events

There's a lyric I've been feeling a lot lately:  "Nothing suffocates you more than the passing of everyday human events."  It's gross when middle-class white people complain about the boringness of our lives.  Oh you're too relatively safe and secure?  That must be super fucking hard for you gorge, in the words of Natalie Wynn.  A few weeks ago there was a group of nazis - literally embracing the term and its symbols - protesting a drag brunch in Columbus, Ohio.  Luckily the "Columbus Police Dialogue Team" was on the scene.  I'm pretty sure everyone was there basically due to boredom, like the vast majority of all human pursuits in the modern world.  Unlike most of the animal kingdom that's too busy just surviving the elements out in nature to ever get bored.  Maybe I'm fatalistic, but it seems like highly-functioning societies will inevitably produce both drag queens and nazis.  Also nuclear bombs, slavery, climate crisis, etc.  In addition to sanitation, infrastructure, fine arts, etc.  During today's morning train commute I was struck by this quote in a Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi book that I started reading yesterday:  "The mark of a person who is in control of consciousness is the ability to focus attention at will, to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal and not longer.  And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life."  So what are my goals?  What am I giving attention?

5/24/23

Just Another Wednesday In My Disco Room

On today's regular-season episode of Jeopardy! there was a clue about the Las Culturistas podcast.  They put a photo of Bowen Yang on the screen but none of the contestants knew who he was.  Girl.  I yelled at my television.  I mean, what world are str8 ppl even living in where they don't know Bowen Yang?  A similar thing happened recently with Pat Benetar.  Anywhoozle, I'm off work today.  I take as many Wednesdays off as possible.  Some people I know believe they aren't mentally well enough to work 9 to 5 jobs.  I'm the opposite because I need my 9 to 5 job to stay somewhat mentally well.  Being super highly-functioning at work is great but it might also be nice to have maybe a tenth of that productivity when I'm at home.  Architectural Digest came out with a feature on Rupaul's Beverly Hills mansion with a disco room, kitchen breakfast nook, formal dining room decorated as a circus tent, etc.  She says, "We put a stage over the jacuzzi and have shows outside!"  Top that, Trixie.  Actually, there are several of Trixie Mattel's video blogs that I re-watch whenever I want to feel bad about myself but in a good way.  Here's this person I knew before she was famous so I contrast all her many accolades from years of working hard and being smart with my own life which is like, "Hey I only accomplished 0.7 things today but at least it's better than nothing!  Yay me."

5/17/23

Zombie Rehab

It's a good week to be a Jeopardy! fan.  With the primetime masters tournament, we're getting 3 new matches everyday.  The current regular-season champion lives in Chicago so this past week I've been hoping to run into her whenever I'm out in the city.  I've gotten so excited about these games, like how people who love sports or Tiktok or whatever feel about the thing they enjoy spectating.  Occasionally I do 24-hour rest periods from looking at any screens -- no televisions, no computers, no smartphones.  Maybe I'll do that this weekend seeing as it's the first Mothers Day since mom died.  My eyes need it, and there's so much immediate stuff in the physical real world that I'm constantly ignoring to instead disappear into this dream world inside the screens.  Once during one of my 1-day screen-time breaks, a friend told me she could never do that.  Everyone in the modern world has some relationship to the internet.  Sometimes it almost feels subversive to sign off.  It's the new narcotic and I'm addicted just like the rest of the masses.  We all need to go to rehab for being zombies.  Recently there were discussions about banning Tiktok.  I'm pretty sure it won't happen in the U.S. on privately-owned devices, but doesn't China already ban all the platforms from the U.S. there?  Apparently 100,000,000 people in the U.S. use Tiktok.  I don't specifically use it, but all the social media apps are intentionally designed to be as addictive as possible.

5/11/23

From The Great Kunty Beyond

The Met Gala was this week, so Monday evening I was sitting at my dining room table eating supper watching the livestream and wondering wth Janelle Monae was doing.  The theme this year was Kunty Karl, which was an interesting choice.  I've been thinking of every reference point I know about Karl Lagerfeld:  the "KuntyKarl" tag on Dlisted, the bit Margaret Cho did in I'm The One That I Want, the Vice Magazine interview with Bruce LaBruce, Anna Wintour's over-the-top tributes upon his death, etc.  Since I subscribed to Vogue Magazine when he died, I knew how highly Wintour revered him.  I haven't subscribed in so long though, because I wasn't even aware that Adut Akech has hair now.  This also brought up all Lagerfeld's personal controversies, a.k.a. the reason so many people referred to him as Kunty Karl.  By choosing him as the theme, were they making some kind of commentary about being post-cancellation now?  Anywhoozle, my top toot is Lil Nas X.  His look is spectacular.  I'm not sure whether it's spectacularly good or spectacularly bad or even exactly what is it I'm looking at, but it's definitely next-level.  My biggest boot is some celebrity named Eileen Gu who looked like she was either riddled with bulletholes or broken out in oozing inflamed pustules.  Good for her being someone I didn't know but grabbing my attention by looking tragically heinous.  I love discussing all this petty celebrity fluff, meanwhile the S.C.O.T.U.S. is flagrantly corrupt and thinking they're untouchable.

5/5/23

Draft This, Bitch

Most Fridays I go out in the city after work, but tonight I came directly home like most other weekdays.  I was looking forward to a regular routine of relaxing ordinary domesticity:  get home around 6:30, watch Wheel Of Fortune, eat supper, watch a movie and/or television, then be in bed asleep by 9:00 to 9:30ish.  Except right now, W.O.F.'s time slot is being pre-empted by  . . .  the NFL draft.  Not even an actual game.  How.  Fucking.  Dare.  They.  It's good that I don't have access to any nuclear codes because I'm ready to blow up the entire planet.  You know what they say, "Nuclear bombs don't kill people.  People kill people."  It's not like I can't watch some bootleg of tonight's episode over the internet, but this NFL draft has got me twisted up.  It's a multi-day event that people have really been talking about a lot today.  As if it were shit.  I've been apologetic lately for discussing drag so much, but no more.  There's this guilty part of me who tells myself that my interests ought to be more high-minded and worldly.  Well fuck that!  All these people being so unabashed speaking up publicly about their own personal interests is inspiring to just talk about whatever the fuck I want too.  I mean, my interests are so much better than professional big league sports.  Let's pre-empt Monday night football to broadcast a live feed from the Met Gala.  Okay, end rant.  I'll go watch that bootleg W.O.F. now.

4/28/23

Meaningless & Vapid

Yesterday my bf said to me, "Since Rupauls Drag Race is over for the year, is there some other television show you'd like to get into watching tonight?"  And I replied, "People in remission from cancer don't go trying out other types of cancer."  Besides, a new season of RPDR All-Stars starts in three weeks and I'll probably renew my subscription in spite of myself.  Anywhoozle, I'm aware that just about everything people talk about is superfluous.  We're all dying.  The planet is dying.  Our whole existence is an anomaly and the vast cosmic void is engulfing all of us more and more every moment, so we might as well have fun and party and do whatever we want to enjoy life for as long as we can.  I like to live as if deep down everyone actually understands that and are really just pretending to be so serious about all the bullshit they say they care about.  There's some type of civil and/or proxy war going on in Sudan right now.  It just seems like two ridiculous karens trying to prove how big their dicks are by killing a bunch of people and destroying their nation's infrastructure.  Something less homicidal but equally annoying to me right now is celebrities complaining about Twitter's blue checkmark.  The new owner of Twitter decided that blue checkmarks aren't useful so the whole thing got re-worked and it's become the epitome of meaningless vapid status symbol fuckery.  Celebrities, stfu about your damn checkmarks already!

4/22/23

Ruview Of RPDRUS15

My tastes may be eccentric, but I'm part of a growing yet still relatively small number of people for whom the Rupauls Drag Race finale - original U.S. franchise - is an annual cultural event of significance surpassing things like the Grammys and Oscars, definitely any sports championship.  All day Friday I was telling people, "Happy Sasha Colby crowning day to all who celebrate."  When it's right it's right.  I saw Sasha Colby perform at the Baton Lounge before RPDR was a thing.  My choice for top two with Sasha was Luxx Noir London whose finale performance is my absolute favorite even though it reminds me of Kristen Wiig's "Fashion Forward" sketch on SNL.  After the first episode I predicted Anetra in the top two with Sasha, but by like episode 10 I was ready for her to sashay away.  Jumping over Marcia did not give me life.  Fuck her for doing a dangerous stunt while Marcia was in that vulnerable backbend position.  So it was unsurprising when a backup dancer got injured while filming Anetra's finale performance.  The inevitable rise in production's hazard insurance premiums is her fault.  Speaking of Marcia, I think she deserved the Golden Boot more than Salina.  Yes we all wanted Sasha to win, but my favorite queen from RPDRUS15 is Salina Estitties.  I mean, I love everyone but each season my favorite is usually someone who obviously won't win:  Jade Jolie, Laganja, Nina Bonina, Vixen, Tamisha Iman, etc.  This season I'm a lil nip.  

4/16/23

The 2023 Chicago Mayor Election

Last week's municipal elections had me concerned.  It all seemed so polarizing.  For months I've witnessed Chicagoans getting into heated exchanges on the topic.  I was actually out in the city one recent Saturday evening eating at a fancy restaurant with a group of friends when one of them said, "Who's everyone voting for Chicago mayor?"  My whole body immediately clenched.  One person did speak up that night and answered the question but then I pretty much shut down any further conversation by saying that I felt like punching him in the face.  Obviously, the candidate he supported was not the same one I did.  Upon reflection I now understand that was really shitty of me.  But that was an important moment because it made me realize I needed to loosen the fuck up and accept whatever happened.  I was actually praying every night leading up to election day that there wouldn't be any irregularities, voter suppression shenanigans, violence in the streets, etc.  Well nothing like that happened and with > 600,000 ballots cast, the candidate I supported won by > 25,000 votes.  Brandon Johnson will be inaugurated into office on May 15.  All parties accepted the results and there wasn't any trying to undermine or overturn it.  I heaved a sigh of relief, but it's amazing how low that standard is now.  In my own exurban community, we elected mayor, city council, park district, several different boards of education; and 13 of the 17 candidates I voted for won.

4/10/23

Rest In Peace Heklina

After getting home tonight, I was reading about tomorrow's Chicago election and last night's RPDRUS15 finale filming.  Both sordid, scandalous topics.  Then right while I was sitting down to eat supper, as I was about to put my smartphone away, I saw news that Heklina died today at the age of 55.  It's unexpected and shocking.  It turns out he was found dead in a London hotel room by Peaches Christ.  Poor Peaches.  Heklina was the drag persona of Stefan Grygelko, an amazing artist and entertainer who's representative of a certain type of drag.  T-Shack is probably the closest thing to what most people who are out there in middle-America protesting drag shows right now are thinking drag is.  T-Shack is legendary and no, it isn't for children.  I'm an adult so I prefer entertainment designed for adults, and I love a good sleazy offensive show.  I also love San Francisco which is where I'd live if I were anywhere else.  Last time I visited was almost 9 years ago for Dore Alley weekend.  My bf at the time and I went to a Heklina-produced Sex & The City parody show and I remember that perfect moment when Heklina first walked onstage in the full Carrie Bradshaw characterization.  The audience immediately erupted in cheers and it demonstrated what drag can be, lovingly illustrating the ridiculousness of life.  I hope the RPDRUS15 finale includes an in memoriam segment that features people like Heklina, Leslie Jordan, Jojo Baby, Darcelle, Cherry Valentine, etc.

4/3/23

Drag Is Not A Crime

I'm a fan of drag.  I would pursue the art of drag as a performer myself except I'm an even bigger fan of being comfortable and sleeping at night.  It used to be that drag queens were basically seen on the same echelon of society as porn performers, but that's not how it is anymore.  Now, there's lots of drag entertainment designed for audiences including children.  I personally think it'd be great if all children were raised completely away from modern society from birth until like age 5 so we'd better understand how to care for the Earth and how everything humanity decided to build in the world was our choice.  But since children are actually watching television and movies and listening to music streamed over their smartphones etc, some of them are going to see drag performances too.  Not all drag is for children in the same way that not all songs and television shows are either.  People always say things like, "Art is political!" "Drag is a protest!" "Glamour is resistance!"  Well, the pendulum is swinging back to the right and drag is being politicized in a regressive way with the introduction of a whole lot of bullshit legislation all over the U.S. aimed at silencing queer expression.  And it's being reinforced with a deluge of fascist propaganda.  There was violence recently outside a drag event for children in N.Y.C. when an organization known for street fights showed up to protest.  The immediate future isn't looking so great.

3/28/23

Signature Silicon

On 3/10/23 and then 3/12/23, two different bank failures happened which are notable for being the second and third biggest bank failures in U.S. history.  The only larger bank failure was 2008.  The whole thing doesn't fully make sense to me.  $264 billion in deposits and $319 billion in assets if I'm reading the FDIC chart correctly, and still considered medium-size banks?  Forbes says there were "shockwaves through the U.S. financial system" but somehow I so far remain thoroughly unshocked.  I do know that people got mad about it.  Maybe not mad enough to dust off the guillotines just yet, but definitely mad enough to make spicy social media posts:  "The fed just bailed out a bunch of idiots who took stupid risks and lost yet we will have to pay for it.  However, let's just change the rules and let these companies keep all their money and give the banks an out for running a shit company."  Also, this whole thing was 100% predictable based on footage of Elizabeth Warren speaking five years ago - when regulations got rolled back - describing exactly what's happening now.  Maybe this is just the beginning of even bigger systematic failures or maybe it's something that'll blow over in a few days and everyone forgets about.  Either way, it's not like I'm going to actually do anything about it.  I have a pretty stable life that I'm overall happy with.  Still, there's always some underlying anxieties lurking, threatening to disrupt the delicate balance we've arranged.

3/22/23

Rest In Peace Jojo Baby

A great Chicagoan died this week.  News came out on Tuesday that Jojo Baby passed away.  This is a huge loss for the entire city, and for specific communities of gays, artists, club-goers, not to mention me personally.  I'm so privileged that I got to spend some time with such an amazing creative soul.  Words can't describe.  A legend.  An icon.  Jojo Baby was a mind-blowing artist who worked in Chicago nightlife for decades, manifesting art as a club kid, drag queen, hairdresser, dollmaker, sketch artist, performer, puppeteer, set designer, the list goes on and on.  The only time I ever saw Jojo designate a preferred pronoun, that pronoun was "it" which I'll gladly use.  Besides bumping into each other out and about for years, one time Jojo sketched me at its home and then we went to breakfast.  Jojo told me about some really shitty things it'd been through in life, and I was like "whoa."  But in the same conversation, we discussed the subject of suicide.  That's a topic impacting a lot of artists, as well as myself, and Jojo said that it never feels suicidal because it's always too curious about what Boy George is going to do next.  I think about that all the time, how someone could be so creative and interested in life.  Jojo came out with its cancer diagnosis about six months ago and was fighting to survive as much as possible.  That's what makes Jojo's passing all the more devastating to me.

3/16/23

Let's Go Brandon

The producers of the television show Jeopardy! decided to host a bizarre 3-week tournament that ended today anti-climatically.  I feel very let-down about the whole thing, which is how I'll feel 26 days from now if Chicago fails to elect Brandon Johnson as the next mayor of the city.  Lori Lightfoot is on her way out, and will probably be best remembered for 2020 pandemic memes.  Besides Brandon, the other candidate to replace Lori is some d.i.n.o. who has nothing to offer the black community other than casting all-black extras in all his commercials.  I work in the city but don't technically live there, so I'm not voting in this election for Chicago mayor.  I do spend a lot of time there, but what right to an opinion do I have?  It's not like expectations are great either way.  I've been reflecting on a recent social media post by Marianne Williamson:  "The task of our generation is to hold within ourselves the juxtaposition of a tragic realization that we are living in an age of profound decline, and a simultaneous joyful realization that within us there is a capacity to repair and begin again."  I'm very in touch with the tragic realization about profound decline, so all I have to do is get more in tune to the joyful realization about the capacity for new beginnings.  If making the world a better place is a real thing that can actually happen, Brandon Johnson is the only choice for Chicago mayor.

3/9/23

Me Being Me, But With Exercising

This week I shaved my head and started exercising again.  I'm all like, "Hey it's March 1st so now I'm suddenly going to start being productive and making something out of my life!"  Lol.  I was also inspired by the television show Physical 100 which is about physically fit Korean athletes doing sports.  I re-joined the gym near where I live after spending the past couple years blissfully not exercising.  It's very straight and exurban, but it's one of those places with group sessions at scheduled times which works for me because I bought a certain number of sessions during the month so I'll definitely show up to everything I paid for.  When I first walked in on Wednesday, a Troye Sivan song was playing.  This morning, a total Club Ibiza banger came on and I couldn't help but break out in song and dance.  In my mind, how could anyone with a fully-functioning sense of hearing not break out dancing too?  That's just me being me and I wouldn't change how I am even if I could.  I had no idea what was going on this morning, though.  People seemed super serious.  I'll arrive on time and do my best during the hour, but for me just showing up is good enough.  I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm but I don't like people cheering me on because I don't want anyone watching me exercise.  Plus, whenever someone tells me I did well, I think to myself "yeah, for pudgy middle-aged faggot."

3/3/23

Life's Troublesome Way

Today is one month since my mom died.  That surreal week in Oklahoma with my family grows continuously more distant.  I quote it all the time, but the death of one is a tragedy; the deaths of millions is just a statistic.  Everyone dies and with so many humans on the planet, I continually hear about people dying.  It's easy for me to forget what it is to be a unique individual born into this life then cease to be.  How living life everyday is an expression of universal love.  We take so much for granted.  There've been people in Afghanistan and Ukraine freezing to literal death in this winter weather, particularly the young and elderly.  There but for the grace of God go we all.  Electricity at my house was out 27 hours this week.  I arrived home Wednesday evening to full residential blocks of darkness and was like, "I guess we won't watch the new Masked Singer episode tonight after all."  The local newspaper's top headline Thursday morning said 88,000 people were without electricity and some weren't expected to be re-connected until Saturday.  It was 44 degrees fahrenheit inside the house according to my thermostat which is totally fine for me, but lots of neighbors were getting worried.  That's understandable.  It's easy to catastrophize and panic like it's some sign of worse suffering yet to come.  But I was back to my regular first-world problems of whether the wine sale was a 50% discount or 15% soon enough.

2/25/23

I'm A Granduncle

When I woke up yesterday, I had a couple text messages from my brother saying he'd become a grandparent overnight.  The baby was born at a quarter to midnight eastern standard time weighing 7 pounds 11 ounces, which is a healthy weight for a newborn human according to Google.  People say "congratulations" a lot in reference to births, but I just say "I'm happy for you."  The baby's father made me an uncle when I was 11, and now I'm a first-time granduncle at the age of 44.  Obviously, I'm thinking a lot about my mom who died 3 weeks before officially becoming a great-grandparent.  Every time my brother or sister-in-law texts me a photo, I have to turn on my data to download it which I won't usually do but I'm making exceptions.  In all the photos I've seen, the baby is wearing a knit cap of pink and blue stripes which seems progressive considering lots of babies immediately get dressed entirely in either flowery pink stuff or blue sports jerseys.  My nephew and niece-in-law named the baby after the title character of a sci-fi novel which is apropos.  Joel Kim's stand-up comedy bit is perfect:  "Deciding to have kids right now is like being at a party that's dying down, but then someone texts you like, 'Hey, is the party still going on?  Should I even come?'  And you're all, 'Yeah girl, hop in that Uber!  There might still be some ice by the time you get here.'"

2/18/23

Finish The Job

I don't give a shit about the so-called "Chinese spy balloon."  Sure, there's the unusual excitement of something so large flying at such a high altitude but it didn't cause the Ohio toxic chemical train derailment.  What did cause the Ohio toxic chemical train derailment was the 45th P.O.T.U.S. canceling safety guidelines that'd been put in place by the 44th P.O.T.U.S.  But so few people ever discuss the real issue.  The 46th P.O.T.U.S. delivered a whole State Of The Union Address on Tuesday and out of the many important issues discussed, the safety of trains carrying toxic chemicals was not among them.  There's a transcript on whitehouse.gov of the speech "as prepared" which differs from what was actually delivered in numerous places.  Lol.  There were several great parts in this S.O.T.U. but one of the moments I did cringe was when he talked about being pro-union.  Because another factor possibly contributing to the Ohio toxic chemical train derailment happened a couple months ago when our current P.O.T.U.S. signed legislation blocking a strike of railroad workers and imposing a contract against the will of their union.  Allegedly the contract included "a substantial raise" but what the union wanted was paid sick days.  Out of all the public discourse about it, why was no one trying to explain why railroad workers can't get paid sick leave like lots of other comparable jobs get?  That's what I mean about discussing the real issue.  I do still idolize Joe Biden though, despite numerous imperfections.

2/12/23

Coming Up On A Very Special Episode Of No Gorge

"Life.  It's a thing that's happening and here I am experiencing it."  That's the bio on my porn Twitter account.  I always write the most profound introductions on social media profiles.  People refer to porn Twitters as "alt accounts" but to me it's the main use of Twitter and my alt is when I'm looking at other stuff on there which isn't porn.  Today people are talking about last night's Grammy awards episode, including the performance of "Unholy" by Kim Petras and Sam Smith.  I like the song, but I've mentioned how my relationship with it has always been complicated.  Anywhoozle, there's some twisted gratification I feel when reading strangers' internet comments about how some satanic cabal is secretly in charge of world events.  People want to denounce any personal culpability for making the world the way it is.  Especially politicians trying to harness mass zeitgeist for their own personal gain.  I've blocked all those politicians on Twitter, but it happens over and over that some wannabe demagogue is trying to tap into and/or whip up some public outrage to direct against something they call evil because it's so much easier than addressing the real challenges that the world is actually facing.  Namely, just this week there's been news about police killings, clean water shortages, and there's a breaking story about a major earthquake today along the Turkey / Syria border with > 10,000 deaths expected and > 1,000,000 people projected to be displaced.  I mean, fight the real enemy.

2/6/23

Rest In Peace Mom

My mother took her final breath on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, at 10:53 p.m. central standard time.  I was in the room with her when it happened.  Everyone was kissing her forehead and telling her that we loved her.  The death certificate says January 26 because it took > an hour for the nurse and mortician to get there, but January 26 also happens to be the date when her father passed away 28 years earlier.  It was around 1:00 a.m. when they wheeled her body out of the house.  Then when everything was announced the following morning, the public outpouring of love and support was tremendous.  It means a lot.  Her body was embalmed pretty much immediately, and everything was completely in line to the traditions I'd grown up with when the previous generation passed:  visitation, funeral, police-escorted procession from the church building to the cemetery, etc.  All of it went smoothly.  People cooked delicious food for us and some traveled hundreds of miles to be there, which again, means a lot.  I left the day after the funeral and drove 15 hours.  Then Monday morning I arrived back in the office as if nothing had ever happened.  Well, that's it.  Another person's life completed.  She survived a total of 30,872 days on this planet.  I have so many feelings.  There were lots of things that my mom and I didn't like about each other, but it doesn't matter when viewed on the grand scale of life and death.  

1/31/23

Death-Watch For Mom

I'm back in Oklahoma, staying at the house where I grew up.  I'm here this week with my sister-in-law, brothers, dad, various extended family members who visit daily, and my mom who appears to be in some unwakeable sleep.  I've spent hours and hours sitting beside her and holding her hand in silence.  I've also spent hours and hours sitting beside her bed singing church songs at her.  We've been gently moving around her limbs and joints which are otherwise unmoved and she seemed to enjoy that.  We've been rubbing lotion on her skin and putting damp washcloths on her face and keeping her mouth moistened with little sponges on lollipop sticks.  The past couple days, a nurse has come to visit and tell us increasingly gruesome details about her condition.  Today at noon, the nurse said my mom will probably pass away within 24 hours.  We're all going to be traumatized from this.  Over the past several days, we've all questioned whether it had to be this way.  This final week of my mom's life looks like a horror show, but so did the preceding 3 years of her being bed-ridden.  I was just here three months ago for a visit and in October, my mom looked out the window and said she saw kids running down the hill.  I didn't see them, but I was the only one who wasn't going to tell her nobody was there.  I was all like, "Wow they're really going fast, aren't they?"  

1/24/23

Dad Called About Mom

On Saturday, I was loading laundry into the washing machine when I got a call from my dad that my mom was back in the hospital.  Discussions were underway for her to be transported to a bigger city to undergo a procedure for some kind of digestive problem.  There was also a report that she'd pulled out her i.v. needle and drainage tube multiple times and that a nurse had said they'd tie her hands down if she continued to remove the tubes.  My dad told me that he'd said no, absolutely no one would be allowed to tie her hands down.  At the time I approved of that decision because it seemed like my mom deserves some agency.  Otoh, why bother going to the hospital then not allowing the doctors to do their job?  So, last night I was driving north on Kimball Avenue when I decided to pull over and respond to some messages and happened to receive another phone call from my dad.  The words "infection" and "hospice" were used.  He told me that my mom is not conscious.  He said her death might happen "in one week or one minute."  So, now I believe that my mom is actually close to death for real this time.  I told my work that I'll need some unplanned time off soon.  And today I'm getting the oil changed on my car in preparation for making the long drive again, heading out possibly as soon as tomorrow.  It feels weird.

1/18/23

This Generation's Betty Boop

There's a cartoon character named Gudetama which I've appreciated for years.  It's the Mickey Mouse / Bugs Bunny / Charlie Brown of gen z.  There's always lots of Gudetama-branded merchandise in the Japanese stores and one year I signed a petition to bring a Gudetama balloon to the Thanksgiving parade.  It captures the current moment zeitgeist with understated humor.  There are like 800 one-minute episodes on the Gudetama Youtube channel which I watch 25 at a time.  There's also a 10-episode "live-action" series that premiered on Netflix a month ago.  Altogether, those episodes are < 2 hours so I wish it were all one feature-length movie.  The whole concept is it's a raw egg dealing with numerous mental health issues which is everyone's untold story right now.  Regardless of whatever anyone happens to be talking about on the surface, the real conversation is continually "How are we dealing with our various mental health issues right now?"  For years, I've considered myself to be in recovery from depression like how alcoholics are always in recovery from alcohol for their entire lives.  Lately, everything everywhere that I look at is awful and I hate it.  Part of me understands the world isn't really that bad and I just need to let go of my conceptions and readjust my worldview, because walking around with some huge grudge on my shoulder and hating everything is not how I want to be.  I wish I were more excited and engaged with life, but instead  . . .  Gudetama.

1/12/23

This Is What Democracy Looks Like, Apparently

Today was the third day of the new U.S.H.O.R. session, but I don't want to waste energy thinking about it  . . .  proceeds to anyway.  According to the speaker-choosing rules, they still haven't chosen a speaker.  Also according to the rules, they can't do anything else until one is chosen.  I hope they do what the Wisconsin state legislature did in 2011 to force through their union-busting bill and just change the rules then move on.  I heard an interview with one representative who said, "If you ask Americans whether they're happy with the way things are done in Congress, they'll say 'no.'"  So apparently they're trying to drain the swamp that is our lives and maybe the American people just prefer no Congress.  It's not about anything deeper than splitting the nation.  All those mundane governmental aspects flowed so smoothly for so long that most don't pay any attention to them.  Except now, there's enough deciding that our national government isn't worth having anymore so these mundane things are getting picked apart.  Extremists are trying to set Congress up for government shutdowns and payment defaulting later this year.  Yet I don't hear much discussion about that.  Instead, the general public prefers pretending like it's something personal about the candidate who stepped forward.  Greta Thunberg's social media post last week that provoked a fugitive into getting arrested was a fluke.  Building public pressure via humiliation is not a real political strategy, especially for Republican members of the U.S.H.O.R. who are notoriously shameless.

1/5/23

2022:  Don't Get Used To This War

I'd like to do a year-in-review, but I don't think 2022 will be highly remembered in the grand scheme.  Who cares that the price of gasoline rose to $5.00 per gallon for a while or that my commuter train discontinued paper ticketing?  So some people tried to demonstrate for freedom but got mowed down by their governments' oppressive regimes.  Even the Russia / Ukraine war, will it even be more than some incidental footnote?  The S.C.O.T.U.S. overturning Roe Vs. Wade will probably have impact for at least a generation.  Even when I agree with people discussing how horrible all the injustices are in the world, I still don't really want to hear about it.  My new year resolution is to focus more on things which I enjoy and are immediately under my control.  Except sometimes I'm just like, "Bring on the fascism  . . .  w00t!"  Hey, maybe that could be my slogan for the year 2022.  I texted my b.f.f. "2023 will be the year all our dreams come true."  But lately a lot of my actual sleeping dreams have been apocalyptic nuclear bomb scenarios.  I was recently listening to a podcast answering listener questions, one of which was if you could go back and experience a year in your life timequake-style - not being able to change anything but just experience it all again - which year would you choose?  For me, 2003 and 2013 would both be on my top five list.  So maybe that's a good sign for 2023.

12/30/22

My Own Private Illinois

This week I worked 4 days and now have 4 days off.  Then I go into work 3 days, then off 4 more days before going back to work 4 days, thereafter returning to normal.  It's a concerning  setup for my mental health, but I'm fortunate that my first extended days off coincided with an arctic blast.  It seems people are throwing themselves in front of trains at a pointedly increased rate.  Monday was the third time in a week I experienced a > 60-minute delay on the commuter train.  On Tuesday, I was in the office with someone whom I knew likes a local franchise of a major league sports team.  So I asked him if they won their most recent game, but they didn't.  So another co-worker jumped in and said, "Way to make people feel bad!"  Then I responded, "Hey I was being relatable by mentioning a sport."  Why do I bother?  There are reports about that particular local team trying to play sports outdoors right now in subzero weather.  Ugh.  I enjoyed our office holiday party which included my rendition of the Hanukkah song by Six13 performed to the karaoke track of "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift.  I love karaoke and if I would've known it was happening, I would've prepared a number with costume changes and choreography.  Music makes life good, so I thought there'd be long lines to sing but I'm obviously living in some far-removed reality because my co-workers were highly opposed.

12/24/22

The Bullshit Human Predicament

I try to express anger at specific things in life.  Otherwise I go around depressed and filled with generalized hatred toward the world at large.  It's difficult because sometimes it seems like the whole world is rotten and everything about the human condition is bullshit.  Also, I ask myself what right do I have to my own feelings of anger?  Like the government of Iran, I've never been there and don't even know a single name of anyone in it.  I do know the names of people in the U.S. government who are similarly controlling bad-faith actors.  It seems quixotic, but this week people have been attempting to make trend the names of Iranian citizens sentenced to death for protesting.  The idea being that if Iran knows the world is watching them, they'll ease off.  But alas, the world really isn't focused on them.  The loss of freedom that's happened in Iran over the past 50 years could happen anywhere.  It absolutely could happen here in the U.S.  This morning I read a post on the social media site Nextdoor in which someone complained that their gas bill for the month was > $330 and said, "How do they expect senior citizens on a fixed income to be able to afford that?"  I definitely sympathize because winter is the main hazard of living where we live, but how does someone get to the age of senior citizen still believing there's some "they" out there giving any thought to our survival?

12/18/22

Living And Surviving

I began redecorating my home office.  I got really productive one day and haven't been back in almost two weeks.  Instead of finishing that up this weekend, I decided to go out and party.  If I get sick and die because I stayed up all night dancing at Nocturna, it'd totally be worth it.  Right now I'm reading My Love Is A Beast by Alexander Cheves and one sentence that I keep thinking about is, "The point of life is to live, not to survive."  I love the book, but that's easy to say for someone getting double-fisted in their 20s.  In connection with that sentiment, I've also been thinking about a recent culture shock of a news story from China.  Unlike the U.S., the nation of China has strict no-coronavirus policies and are still doing lockdowns, etc.  A couple weeks ago, a fire in a tall apartment building killed 10 people because the fire department wouldn't put it out due to coronavirus remediation measures.  The event has since set off mass protests which is rare in China.  Wow, that whole thing demonstrates some radically different philosophy than I'm accustomed to.  It's the nation with the planet's biggest population so their focus on group over individual has always fascinated and scared me.  What does individuality even mean in world that densely populated?  Meanwhile back in the U.S.A., I'm still wearing face-coverings on public transit and in elevators which isn't very much but I'm one of the few even doing that.

12/11/22

Twitter Still Exists, Technically

Twitter is still a thing - now with more hate speech - and my favorite political science professor from college followed me on it this week.  He's my favorite non-porn Twitter and I wish we were close personal friends, but I'm also mortified by the idea he might actually remember me.  Wtf did 20 year-old me know about politics?  I'm now the age he was when I took his course, and at this age I'm much more interested by the stuff we discussed in class.  Maybe it's the times though, because back then we just had the Bill Clinton impeachment.  Now the U.S. is convicting people of felony sedition for the first time since 1954.  Btw, I want to go on record supporting harsh sentencing for participants in the 1/6/21 capitol riot.  This political science professor has a son who also happens to be a political science professor.  The son was a guest on The Dr. Phil Show this past Tuesday because he'd written a piece about immigration policy and its impact on expectant mothers.  The episode had some fascists spouting outlandish vitriol far worse than the artist formerly known as Kanye saying Adolf Hitler wasn't all bad.  Ugh.  One of the first "Dr. Phil" search engine hits is still "bumfights."  Just like the authors of the second amendment didn't fathom machine guns and nuclear bombs, those authors wrote the first amendment not fathoming the internet's continuous barrage of messaging in everyone's daily lives and bullshit-spouting robots claiming free speech.

12/5/22

The 2022 Soccer World Championship

The world championship of soccer is happening in the nation of Qatar, which is not difficult to pronounce.  It's been > 10 years since Qatar was contracted to be the host site by the organization that does world sports championshits  . . .  typo and it stays.  In that time, there's been > 10,000 migrant worker deaths in Qatar.  Not all those are related to building these seven new stadiums for this event, but national officials did make a statement that "between 400 and 500" workers died while constructing them specifically.  That's crazy by itself, but the true number is obviously much higher than any government is willing to admit.  I hate to be a downer on things people enjoy, but how can everyone just put all those human lives lost out of their minds and watch soccer?  Personally, I don't love soccer so to me it feels very "other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"  I follow RyuTricks on Instagram and I'm happy for him.  Imagining anything comparable involving my own interests:  drag shows, horror movies, dance pop, pornography.  Okay, if 400+ people had to die so that I could masturbate then so be it.  Saying that makes me sound like a psychotic serial killer, but that's how all these care-free people watching soccer seem like to me.  There've been reports for years about the awful slavery conditions workers have dealt with so there could be a soccer tournament.  What even is this current real life dystopia we're living in?

11/29/22

Busy Week For Gay News & Gun Deaths

Grindr is now a publicly-traded corporation on the New York Stock Exchange.  I've rarely used it, but Grindr is a pretty important part of the gay community.  Last year I was standing behind a seated man who seemed typical heterosexual husband / father surrounded by a woman and children but then I noticed Grindr on the smartphone he was using.  Incidentally, I'm still conflicted about that Kim Petras / Sam Smith song "Unholy."  Also, Shangela placed fourth on Dancing With The Stars 31!  Xoxo.  However it seems like the more some people accept gays, the more other people hate us.  Because the most high-profile gay news this week was that five people were murdered at a lgbtq+ nightclub in Colorado by a gunman who hates queer people.  Overall, I think humanity's arc is moving towards acceptance even though sometimes it doesn't seem that way.  A couple days after the Q Nightclub shooting, five people were murdered at a Walmart in Virginia by a gunman who hated his co-workers.  That guy also killed himself, so he apparently hated himself too.  Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are still averaging 300 everyday but the nation's general public decided months ago that's an acceptable number weighed against the burden of remediation measures.  Likewise, gun owners believe remediation measures for gun deaths such as 1.)  passing proficiency exams before obtaining a license and 2.)  carrying gun liability insurance are too much of a burden for them.  I'm still fighting gun nuts over that one, though.

11/23/22

8 Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong

The human population on the planet reached 8,000,000,000 this week.  There were predictions it'd reach that number back in June, so I wonder what impact pandemic deaths had on slowing it down.  Regardless of any specific benchmark, everything about being a human today means something different than it did before the industrial revolution.  Right now is the end times.  The end is the beginning is the end.  The annual U.N. climate summit is currently being held in Egypt and most of the news about it concerns a "people's fund" of climate reparations to the global south.  If the way the world worked were justice, it seems obvious that'd be an absolute requirement of the U.S. and other rich nations.  But the way the world actually works is so different than that, the concept of it makes me laugh a little.  Sigh.  A human population of this size wouldn't exist without things like burning fossil fuels and industrialized farming.  I don't advocate for eugenics.  What I do advocate for is all women being in full control of choosing whether, when, where, and how they bear children.  In the past couple months, Iran has murdered hundreds of its citizens who were protesting for the empowerment of women.  Complete bodily autonomy is an important part of the solution to our unsustainable current situation so that maybe the human population can return to a number that's not cataclysmic without any further apocalyptic events other than those already underway.  Hope does exist, but it's frail.

11/16/22

The 2022 U.S. General Election

This week was an important election in the U.S.  The past couple days I've enjoyed searching "election results" and insert name of state.  Like the old person that I am, I prefer to go vote i.r.l. on the actual day.  On my ballot were 14 contested races, 2 judicial retentions, and 1 state-wide question.  There were also 2 uncontested races but I made sure to fill in those circles anyway.  I usually can't be bothered to fill in uncontested races but then the scanner always says my ballot is incomplete because of it.  Another annoying thing is that every time I've voted outside the city of Chicago, the election judges always question my signature so I have to show i.d.  I worked as an election judge in Chicago and during our training they told us that we are not handwriting experts, but apparently everyone in the suburbs thinks they are.  Something else a little different about voting in the suburbs is that they give out "I voted" stickers, whereas in the city they give a paper ballot receipt which is cheaper for the board of elections to print en masse than stickers.  Anywhoozle, most everyone I voted for ended up winning their races which was kind of surprising.  There's been some re-districting and I really thought the Republican U.S.H.O.R. candidate would win, but no.  My current U.S. Congressional Representative is Lauren Underwood and now my U.S. Representative-elect is Bill Foster.  The red wave turned out to be a small ripple.

11/10/22

Touché, Racism

Gay nightlife in the city of Chicago is an ever-changing landscape.  One gay bar where I spent a lot of time closed last weekend which was especially sad because of the unexpectedness, posters for future events still decorating the walls.  But Sunday night there was lit.  For me, the highlight was when the d.j. played "About Damn Time" and the dancefloor was so crowded and joyous.  Then Tuesday I was driving around the city considering another gay bar's special event, but decided against it since I'd gone out so much over the weekend.  I'm glad I made that choice because it turned out some scandalous infamy went down and I'm not sure what I would've done if I'd been in attendance.  This nightclub - which refers to itself as "Chicago's only leather bar" - was celebrating its 45th anniversary, advertising "Las Vegas performers" and a free buffet.  However, one puppeteer / comedian did a set of material so racist cringe that I don't know where he'd ever perform other than KKK conventions.  It's a lot to process, and since then there's been non-stop discussion about it both on the internet and in-person.  The gay bar where this happened is the main gay bar I go to, so I don't know what I'll do in the future when I want to go into the city and patronize a gay bar.  I might quit going there, but I won't get pressured into some de facto boycott.  Further information and reflection is required.

11/4/22

Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too

I've become heavily into Megan Thee Stallion and her new album Traumazine this week.  Her recent SNL appearance was iconic, and in the opening monologue she mentioned her website badbitcheshavebaddaystoo.com which is a well-organized archive of mental health resources with an emphasis on people of color and the lgbtq community.  There's a lyric from her song "Anxiety" on the page:  "Some days I just hate everybody."  I feel that a lot.  I hate everybody but simultaneously hate feeling that way.  There's a developing news story that in the middle of the night, someone broke into Nancy Pelosi's California home and violently assaulted her 82 year-old husband Paul in what might've been an assassination attempt bringing our country one step closer to civil war.  Our former P.O.T.U.S. has been continually touring around the nation holding sparsely-attended propaganda rallies spouting fascist rhetoric for media attention.  It's such a small culty minority of people, but their influence is big enough to stir up some crazy bullshit problems.  The Pelosi attacker and whoever vandalized the cafe hosting a drag show a couple months ago are just two prominent examples.  Also, today I saw a commercial on social media advertising the Jeopardy! tournament of champions and 75% of those internet comments was flagrant transphobia directed at Amy Schneider.  Humanity is in this weird precarious position and I'm not feeling hopeful.  And Leslie Jordan died suddenly this week too!  Sigh.  It's Halloween weekend so I plan on going out and partying hard.  I really need it.

10/28/22

Bye Felicihoma

A few days ago, my dad and I were in his shop and he got out some kind of board which I helped cut up on his table saw.  Then he used his electric sander on it and there was so much dust flying around from all the power tools.  I knew I was inhaling this sawdust but wasn't too concerned because it felt like we were making a happy memory.  Until the dust had barely settled and he told me it was asbestos.  Holy fuck.  The only time asbestos is actually dangerous is when it's dust in the air being inhaled.  I told him, "I know you're planning on dying within the next couple years but I'd maybe sort of thought I'd live a little while longer than that."  I came here with the idea that it might be the last time I ever see my parents alive and therefore wanting it to be spiritual and profound, but instead this visit is literally giving me cancer.  Well, I guess you can't just force something to be meaningful.  Visiting my parents seems like visiting another planet.  I don't specifically want them to die or anything, but I'll feel so relieved not to have any mental pressure to call or visit them.  And I will be so happy when years pass by without me ever setting foot inside the state of Oklahoma.  I'm not thrilled about this place being part of my narrative, but hey, everybody has to come from somewhere.

10/22/22

Just Stop

There's an organization in the U.K. called Just Stop Oil that's done several high-profile actions this week in resistance to climate change.  Every article about them mentions how they're "Gen Z" meaning born between the years 2000 and 2020.  Apparently, journalists feel compelled to mention it's mostly that age bracket thinking in terms of climate crisis, catastrophe, emergency.  And the name of the group -- only people that young would even believe it were possible to just stop oil.  These actions have marked a shift by being more confrontational than Greenpeace.  Masses of people willing to give up their lives for a cause is the only thing that'll result in real change.  I mean, yay for young people believing in things.  If the world built by all our preceding generations isn't working for them, good luck tearing it down and building something that does.  Incidentally I heard about these actions immediately after driving my car for 16 hours.  Every time I make the drive to visit my family I think about how much fossil fuel I'm consuming.  989 miles one-way is 1978 miles round-trip, divided by 36.18 miles per gallon = 54.67 total gallons of unleaded gasoline burned and released into the planet's atmosphere with each visit.  It seems kind of staggering to me but lots of people do a lot more traveling than I do.  Everyone needs to add up their fossil fuel usage like that so we can have the information to ask ourselves what we're really doing here.

10/16/22

Embracing The Non-Binary Robot Part Of Myself

I'm doing better this year spreading around my days off work.  If it were up to me, I'd never have > 1 day off at a time and I'd never work > 2 days consecutively.  There are so many things in the universe I could be giving time and energy, but I prefer wasting my life on the most ridiculous parts of the internet like Madonna's Tiktok.  Although, bravo to anyone capable of harnessing the ridiculousness of modern life for their own benefit.  I did indulge in random comment section arguments when Madonna's newest music video came out.  Everyone in the modern world is internet-addicted to some degree.  Another internet thing I've been engaging with today instead of doing anything that actually edifies me personally is a 21 year-old woman on Twitter who took hormone replacement therapy for five years, identifying as f.t.m. before de-transitioning.  She believes her teenage gender dysphoria diagnosis was incorrect because transitioning had no impact on her depression.  But everyone in the modern world is also depressed to some degree, because people are still mainly hunter-gatherers living in a world with little use for hunting-gathering.  The world we're building is designed for computers and robots with humans as an afterthought.  Basically everyone is gender non-binary now too just by spending our whole lives in a world with no gender roles.  Our depression sucks, but we're going to enjoy whatever we can of the modern world for as long as possible because what other option is there?

10/10/22

Worst Of Times, Best Of Times

Coming home from work on Friday, I met my bf at the train station and we went directly to our local exurban movie theater where we saw Bros opening day.  I enjoyed it, and laughed much louder than anyone else there.  Today there's been discussion that people are disappointed how the movie Bros has made < $5,000,000 so far.  As with our two other trips to movie theaters in the past year, there were < 10 people in the audience.  It was $26 for two tickets, but every seat was an adjustable electric recliner.  Also, I hadn't eaten all day so I ordered nachos which was a 1-oz. bag of chips with a tablespoon of liquid "cheese" product for $7.99.  That same day a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a school in Kabul killing > 50 people, mostly young girls.  I've been thinking about the uprising in Iran every single day for two weeks, and now a similar uprising might be coming in Afghanistan which is even scarier.  Going out to see this movie I'd been excited about for so long while simultaneously authoritarian regimes are murdering their citizens is like the whole "it's the best of times, it's the worst of times" scenario.  Worst of times:  this year's hurricane season re-shaping human habitation in the state of Florida.  Best of times:  so many iconic moments at Paris Fashion Week.  As a white person, I'd like to say thank you Kanye for the support  . . .  but we already knew white lives matter.

10/3/22

The Ziggy Leroy Calendar

Today is the birthday of an ex-bf.  I was romantically involved at various points with two gentlemen born sixth months apart in the same year.  One of their birthdays was 3/27 and the other's 9/27.  Since 3 x 9 = 27 these guys will forever be linked in my mind.  I don't remember who belonged with which but at least I remember something about them.  Sort of.  Nerdy doesn't begin to describe my relationship with numbers and numerology.  When I was very young, pre-computer, I composed my own calendar system and named the days of the week after sitcom characters whose shows aired on those days.  But I decided there'd only be 6 days in a week, already complicating the television programming schedules.  Now that I've used spreadsheets basically everyday for decades, my own Ziggy Leroy calendar is much more sophisticated.  Seriously though, why are we all still using the calendar dictated by Julius Caesar 2068 years ago pretty much exclusively?  Happy Jewish New Year, btw!  On my Z.L. calendar, the year is currently 0077 and today is 10/7.  I don't actually use the Z.L. calendar for anything, but I'm highly tempted.  Sometimes there are people who completely do their own thing that's so outside anyone else's expectations and, consequently, look completely ridiculous.  Specifically, Madonna's last live stage show.  I don't want to be as garbage as the Madame X tour, so for now I'll continue using the same calendar generally accepted as standard by the rest of the world.  

00771007

Chromatica Is About Healing.  Chromatica Will Never Be Over.

Due to a computer glitch, it's been a while since I've listened to the news.  Twitter has basically been my only news source this past week.  I've heard a lot about things like the end of the Chromatica Ball - sigh - but another news story I've been informed of exclusively via viral videos is a popular uprising in Iran.  I'm not very knowledgeable about "the middle east" but what's going on right now seems really important.  It was sparked by the police killing of a 22 year-old woman named Mahsa Amini on Friday in Tehran.  In the nation of Iran, women and not men are legally required to wear head scarves in public which is enforced by the officially state-sanctioned morality police.  In the year 2022.  I'd like to say that all police anywhere are morality police, but last week they murdered a woman who was actually wearing a head scarf but someone still didn't like it so  . . .  murder.  And there are reports that 6 to 8 more women have been murdered by police since then.  It seems like something that'd get me so enraged as to go flip over some police cars which is what crowds of Iranians have actually been doing according to video clips I've watched on the internet.  The courage it must take to stand up and assert yourself against such a tyrannical dictatorship is awe-inspiring.  Might makes right, but is it power to the people or power to the greedy old pigs running everything?

9/21/22

We Have Control Over 3% Of Our Life

During the last week of 2021, the website Goodreads pointed out that I'd only read one book the entire year.  I felt very attacked so I hurriedly completed a second book.  Then I set a goal to read at least 5 books in the year 2022.  I accomplished that benchmark today during my morning commute when I finished reading The Invisible Storm, a new memoir by Jason Kander.  I checked it out from my local library on Saturday and the librarian had to retrieve it from the back because it'd just been checked in the day before, apparently very in-demand.  I started following Jason Kander in 2016 when I briefly considered moving to Saint Louis.  He's a political figure in Missouri who also served the U.S. military in Afghanistan.  I was kind of familiar with his story from Twitter, but this book gives an insightful portrait into the current U.S. mindset.  It could be seen as an indictment of the way things are, but then again we just are who we are.  One prevalent theme on my mind recently in regards to life in general but especially politics is "why bother?"  It seems like nobody can actually do anything about anything.  Well there's voting, obviously, but it seems like the only thing anyone can do is speak up and say what we believe even if barely anyone ever hears what we're saying.  I agree with the Kanders' whole "3%" concept because things individuals do have control over seem so miniscule.  

9/15/22

A Total Experience!  Why Settle For Anything Less?

I started following Owen Keehnen on Instagram a while ago.  He's someone who's been involved in Chicago's gay community for decades, and on his social media he shares vintage old stuff related to its history.  I love seeing his collections and writings because I've been involved in Chicago's gay community since 1999.  This week I had a phone conversation with him and he interviewed me for a project he's working on about Manscountry which was an establishment that I frequented over a span of nearly 15 years.  Sometimes I feel nostalgic for those old places and the experiences that do not exist anymore in any form.  It's good that I got the opportunities to have those great experiences even though I miss them, better than never having those experiences in the first place.  Owen said something during our call about how all this history is disappearing, and I downplayed that idea.  I didn't say this to him, but I was thinking who even cares about the history of Manscountry.  And then I realized, oh yeah, I do.  Incidentally, the queen of England died today from old age and all the media outlets are trying really hard to convince me to give a shit about some family who's only famous thanks to centuries of brutal enslavement.  The U.K. is such a relatively small nation using up such a large portion of the planet's resources.  I'm not interested in them.  I'd rather hear about the history of Manscountry and stuff like that.

9/8/22

This Is A Story About Control, My Control

There's a lot going on.  This week the governor of Texas started sending buses full of undocumented migrants to Chicago amongst other cities which is a welcome policy improvement over the usual concentration camps.  Also, there's a lack of running water in the city of Jackson, Mississippi due to flooding.  The mayor is highly diplomatic in every interview.  That's a story deserving of attention, however I'm tempted to just put it out of my mind since there's nothing I can really do about it.  Brittney Griner is an American professional athlete who's been imprisoned in Russia > 6 months which is a terrible injustice but I conscientiously decided to stop thinking about her for the same reason.  I spent nearly half my life in the state of Oklahoma, yet it seems like there's nothing I can do about the Richard Glossip case.  So if I can't do anything about that, what good is it to ruminate over injustices happening all the way on the other side of the planet from me?  Personally, my relationship with my bf took a turn this week.  I don't know what happens next in our storyline so I'm not sure whether it'll be a pivotal plot point or just some weird anecdote.  In May I said there was another coronavirus surge but looking back at the chart it was just a blip in retrospect.  Our relationship is something I do have some degree of control over, but sometimes it seems like barely even at that.  

9/2/22

Forgive Us Our Debts As We Forgive Our Debtors

On Wednesday it was announced that federally-guaranteed student loans would be erased in the amount of $10,000 or in some cases up to $20,000, and that repayments which had been on pause for > two years now will begin again January 1.  Some restrictions apply.  It's so nice having a level-headed, clearly laid-out presentation like the fact sheet on the White House website.  The first mention I ever heard about student loan forgiveness was Elizabeth Warren during the 2020 primary elections and, as with many new ideas, it was kind of mind-blowing.  The plan announced this week is an easy introduction, the best few hundred billion dollars the U.S. has spent all year.  Back when I did people's taxes I saw some crazy student loan balances that were so eye-popping I got anxiety even sitting next to a person who was that indebted.  I always wanted to maintain a professional demeanor, but sometimes my jaw dropped uncontrollably open in horror at seeing some of those numbers.  Likewise, after this plan was announced a couple people I know spoke up about how it impacts them and I was all like, "You graduated in 2004 and still have > $10,000 in student loan debt?!"  I was one of millions of American teenagers forced into making some tough decisions, but I was fortunate.  In the decades since, the decisions facing 18 year-olds have only gotten tougher.  The whole system is flawed, and this is a much-needed wakeup call in starting to address it.

8/27/22

Rudely Accosted By Reality

Today I was walking around downtown Chicago and saw several military jets screaming across the sky overhead.  It's this annual event when, just for fun, Chicago likes to pretend we're getting bombed.  Then I caught the 6 bus to the Museum Of Science And Industry where I spent barely 3 hours and paid $30.95 to get in and see the Nathan Sawaya art exhibit which was after I got a $5 discount by telling the front desk I'm still a Chicago resident.  I was planning on going to the renaissance faire tomorrow with some friends, but I'm now being rudely accosted with the reality that it'll be another $30 admission plus $10 parking.  Between now and Friday, my only cash flow is basically just the cash that's already in my wallet.  I didn't go see Lady Gaga this week because of money concerns and probably won't see Lil Nas X in a couple weeks for the same reason.  Sigh.  Anywhoozle, I love museums but it's a mystery how I was there for such a short time yet felt so drained and my feet hurt so badly.  They have lots of cool stuff at M.S.I. but the biggest scientific thing I learned about is exactly how rapidly the planet's ice-caps are melting, which is really alarming.  I read a report about how this summer, 50 U.S. counties reached 125 degrees fahrenheit and the projection is that in 30 years 1000 counties - one-third of the U.S. - will get that hot.

8/20/22

K, E, Y  . . .  Why?  Because I Like You

I'm in a complex emotional state right now.  Although, I'm pretty much always moody so what's new?  It's not exactly end-of-vacation depression.  There was a year when my experience with end-of-vacation depression was so icky that I ended up visiting the national suicide prevention website and chatting with a counselor.  I'm happy to be home and excited to go into the office tomorrow, but the past week was a lot.  People will inevitably ask how my vacation was because they think it's polite or something and I'll say it was "fine."  There were good parts and there was disappointment.  Just like life!  Maybe it's the curse of Instagram catching up with me because I probably wouldn't feel so disappointed if I weren't comparing my vacation to the ones I see on social media.  Sigh.  Deep down, I know that stuff on social media isn't reality.  Plus, what the algorithms show me from what people post on the internet is also through my own filters, interpretations, projections, insecurities, etc. of an already-skewed version of reality.  When I feel bad about myself, I look for reasons to support feeling bad about myself and comparing my life to perceptions of others fulfills the task.  Now that I'm back, I've begun making my own social media posts about this vacation and it's my sincere wish that none of the stuff I share will be that for anyone else.  Incidentally, we haven't seen any mice in the house since we've been back.  So there's that.

8/14/22

Vacation Week 2022

My bf and I are traveling this week on vacation.  He and I and another friend left Massachusetts today, drove through Rhode Island and Connecticut - three states I just set foot in for the first time ever in my life, and are now in The Hamptons.  There's a lot going on, but I particularly loved the ferry ride across Long Island Sound.  There's something very alluring about the ocean.  I'm such a middle of the continent type of person, so the ocean and I could never be true b.f.f.s but maybe we could be part-time lovers.  This morning right after we got on the road we happened to listen to "Xanadu."  Then this afternoon my bf handed his smartphone to me in the back seat showing a headline announcing the death of Olivia Newton-John.  That elicited an audible gasp from me, but we'd just driven by a literal car fire on the side of L.I.E. so I was already kind of shook.  Like I said, a lot's been going on.  Also, I just heard a breaking news story that the F.B.I. spent hours today searching the Florida home of our former P.O.T.U.S.  I won't jump to conclusions so we'll see what that's about, but every August I take one week off work to go out into the world and experience something different than my everyday life and I don't want to see any fucking H&M!  Um, I mean, I don't want to see any news stories during my vacation!

8/8/22

M, I, C  . . .  See You Real Soon

This morning I saw a mouse in my kitchen.  My bf spotted it weeks ago but until today, part of me could pretend it wasn't real.  I was standing at the stove stirring my oatmeal, and this mouse peeked its head around the corner of the cabinet a couple times.  We'll clean the cabinets tonight, but other than that I'm not sure what to do about it.  I don't necessarily want to go about killing or maiming mice, but I don't want them living in my house either.  We're going on vacation next week so they might take over the whole place while we're gone.  Also, I need to mow my lawn sometime before leaving because it's grown very high right now.  However, mowing the lawn is so traumatic to all the ecosystems making their homes there.  So I like to only mow small sections at a time.  Lush biodiverse areas are so much more beautiful than mowed-down monocultures.  People are so quick to kill mice, kill bugs, kill weeds, kill kill kill, then wonder why the planet is dying.  Anywhoozle, this bland domesticity is my life.  Over the weekend I watched some of the live Lollapalooza broadcast and happened to catch most of Maneskin's set.  They're the band that won Eurovision last year, and I recognized several of their songs from the radio.  I guess it's kind of nice how the trope of young virile rock and roll stars is still not completely dead even in the year 2022.

8/2/22

The Tragedy Of Exurban Drag

Friday evening I attended the premiere of Kramer Project at Center On Halsted in which Jeff award-winning local legend David Zak adapted Larry Kramer's November 2004 speech / essay / screed "The Tragedy Of Today's Gays" into a 70-minute 7-actor theatrical experience.  I was excited about it because I've always had a complex relationship with "The Tragedy Of Today's Gays."  But when leaving C.O.H. that night, I felt super inspired to be politically active.  For at least an hour.  The following morning there was a high-profile anti-gay hate crime in my own exurban community.  A cafe planned to host a Saturday evening drag dinner but it got canceled after someone shot out its windows and spray-painted "fags rape kids" amongst other nonsense.  A 24 year-old white man was arrested and charged with two felonies in connection with the vandalism.  Looking at his mugshot though, if dude were actually so bothered about drag performers subverting gender norms then he really needs to get a haircut.  Before the attack actually happened, there'd been threats made so this is something ongoing the community has been discussing for a while now.  And according to internet comments, lots of local residents have some strange fringe perspectives about drag.  If people truly believe the stuff written on the restaurant's brick walls, then of course some windows will inevitably get busted.  Because believing in absurdities leads to committing atrocities.  The notion that queer people molest children at a higher rate than straight people is one absurd example.

7/26/22

Happy 84th Birthday, Mom!

My mom's birthday was a couple days ago, so we had an hour-long phone conversation.  She pretty much did all the talking though, telling me lots of bonkers stories.  Over the weekend, she was admitted to her local hospital for a couple days.  She said it was the second time in her life she feared she might actually die.  I was like, "Since you believe in God so much, what's there to be afraid of?"  I'm basically the Church Of Euthanasia:  "Save the planet!  Kill yourself."  But seriously, good luck to all the suicidal Americans out there calling the new 988 national suicide prevention hotline.  Xoxo.  When we're talking, my mom loves blurting out statements she knows I disagree with, stuff about "killing babies" etc.  That sucks, but I laugh because I profoundly relate to the compulsion of making social situations uncomfortable by saying things we aren't supposed to say.  The other day someone shared a chart showing how life expectancies in the U.S. are declining compared to other countries and captioned it, "What would you do with an extra 2-5 years in this world?"  The answer, obviously, is not a goddamn thing.  Both my parents have now outlived both their parents, due to extreme medical industry interventions.  Meanwhile, lots of places where white people live are literally on fire right now.  It's the hottest summer on record and the coolest summer we'll ever get for the rest of our lives.  But hey, the weather in Chicago today is beautiful.  

7/20/22

Rainbows And Sunbeams From Heaven

A lot of people have been talking about photos from N.A.S.A.'s deep-space telescope.  I don't remember the name of the telescope, but I do remember it's named after some anti-gay mccarthyist-era head of N.A.S.A.  The headline in U.S.A. Today said "Dazzling."  Well, I don't feel dazzled about it.  I understand that it's a breakthrough in space exploration but I don't understand why that's a topic people find so interesting.  Everyone I've seen talk about it is just projecting their own bullshit onto it.  Like, theistic people say it's showing the grandeur and awe of their creator and atheistic people say it's evidence that the universe is chaotic and hostile to life.  I mean, both of those are obviously perspectives of someone who's never witnessed the big bang while on psychedelics.  Lots of people's reactions are "My head is spinning," which just means they haven't thought about it for very long.  Over the past couple weeks, I've been feeling depressed.  It came on right after my birthday.  Then Sunday there was a huge rainbow fully visible in my backyard, complete from one end to the other.  It was a double-rainbow, even.  I was like, "Wow!  This neighborhood must be having so much gay sex!"  But standing barefoot in my grass basking in that huge rainbow, I wanted to take it as a sign of hope.  And ever since then I haven't felt quite as depressed.  I think that's really what all these other people are doing when they talk about space.

7/14/22

Our Uniquely American Plague

On Monday 7 people were killed at a parade < 30 miles from me, allegedly by a 21 year-old white man named Awake The Rapper.  My first thought when I heard there was a mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois was, "At least it wasn't in a poor community this time."  My second thought was wishing I would've been there.  Most people in this country probably have fantasies about 1.)  winning the lottery and 2.)  being in an active shooter situation.  In my imaginary scenario, I stand facing the shooter and assume a Jesus Christ pose.  There were videos of crowds running away from the gunman, but I'd be more likely to run toward the bullets with my arms outstretched yelling, "Here I am!  I'm ready!"  There were so many July 4th celebrations and whatnot but I didn't go to any of them.  I could hear marching bands from my bedroom but couldn't pull myself off the couch to walk to the corner and see them.  Maybe it's all the idiocracy going on recently or maybe my depression is unrelated, but I was in no mood to celebrate the U.S.  Though regardless of national pride, I really don't understand this holiday.  So many loud explosions on residential streets, and we somehow just accept it as normal.  There's a story today saying > a ton of litter got left behind at Lake Tahoe after the weekend partying there.  Well I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and felt fabulous, gunshot victims notwithstanding.  Xoxo.

7/7/22

Release Your Wiggle

This week was primary elections in the state of Illinois.  No system is perfect but for primaries, Illinoisans go into the polling place and tell the election judge which ballot we want to vote on.  This week I chose to vote the Republican ballot, a decision I made for several reasons.  Although, researching the Republicans in these 8 contested races was so goddamn depressing.  The night before the election, one of the candidates for county chairperson held an open forum on the internet.  I was like, "Yes I have a question.  Why are there so many absolute clowns on this Republican ballot?  Also, why does every Republican with any functioning brain cells get labeled a 'r.i.n.o.'?"  Commentators say this is the time when candidates "appeal to their base" which in the case of 2022 Republicans apparently means spouting the craziest nonsense that can still be formed into words.  G.O.P. stands for "grift, obstruct, plunder" and "gaslight, obfuscate, project" because they know that sowing chaos is the only way they can win.  Last week I discussed S.C.O.T.U.S. rulings and the 1/6/21 Capitol riot congressional hearings, and there were disgraceful new developments with both of those this week.  But then, like a ray of light from heaven, Beyonce and Big Freedia released a new song entitled "Break My Soul" which is an instant classic and the perfect anthem for this moment we're living in.  It helped me realize how all this bullshit idiocracy happening everywhere around me will not break my soul!

7/1/22

Freedom Isn't Free Or Even Real

I've been in a bad mood for the past couple days since getting a parking ticket.  I hate to squander the happiest time of the year with angstyness.  I planned to complain about the ridiculous parking ordinance on Nextdoor, but then the S.C.O.T.U.S. opinion overturning Roe Vs. Wade became official so everyone's indignancies need to be focused on that for a couple news cycles.  Today is the first day I've ever woken up in a nation where terminating a pregnancy isn't technically a guaranteed right everywhere.  Though, one of the points I make in my screed against my municipality's ordinances also applies to the abortion ruling:  "I thought the whole point of the U.S. is that we're trying to pretend as if the concept of freedom isn't all an illusion."  However, I'm not really too mad at the S.C.O.T.U.S.  I am mad at the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, et al.  Some people have to actually live in those places and I used to be one of them.  Also, last time I visited New Orleans it's possible I might've gotten a woman pregnant.  It really is a magical city.  Anywhoozle, before my mood swing I was feeling particularly inspired by patriot hero mother-daughter duo Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman who were catapulted into the national spotlight Tuesday during the congressional hearings about the 1/6/21 riot at the U.S. Capitol building.  They embody the type of encouragement we need to continue standing up and fighting for our rights.

6/25/22

You Want To Hear About My Deal With Kate

Currently sitting at the number 4 ranking on this week's Billboard Hot 100 singles chart is "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush, the opening track of her seminal 1985 album Hounds Of Love.  She's a beloved icon and legend, but this is the first time Kate Bush has ever had a top ten hit in the U.S. and it's not a remake, remix, or remaster.  I love this bizarre / magical occurrence.  It got played multiple times at the gay pride event I went to last week, and again at the huge gay pride yesterday in Chicago.  There were some very young people, definitely born decades after 1985, singing along with every word.  Kate Bush was always my oldest brother's number one favorite, so I'm incredibly fortunate to have been the only 7 year-old in the entire Great Plains region who even knew who Kate Bush was.  I do actually remember listening to this song in the 1980s.  I was afraid of everything as a young child which was largely due to the satanic panic of the period, so "R.U.T.H." seemed scary to me and somehow anti-religious with its flippant references to God.  Then in the 1990s, I started to appreciate the song when I stopped being so afraid of everything.  Nostalgia can be tricky - I threw major shade at people who were talking about a New Kids On The Block arena show they went to Friday - but I fully approve of the popular Kate Bush resurgence.

6/19/22

Conspiracy To Riot

A lot has been happening in my life this week.  One of those things was when I marched in a lgbtia+ pride parade this morning in the relatively small town of Woodstock, Illinois.  The parade started at 11:00a and then various fun activities were going on throughout the day in the historic town square.  An estimated 4,000 people were in attendance.  I had such a great time doing so much stuff that it feels strange right now hearing a breaking news story in which 31 young white men from all over the U.S. have been arrested in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho for misdemeanor "conspiracy to riot" at a gay pride event.  The population of Coeur D'Alene is basically double the population of Woodstock, and their "Pride In The Park" sounds basically identical to the event I participated in today.  This story is fascinating to me for lots of reasons.  What were they going to do with riot gear and one smoke grenade?  So they were planning to disrupt the event somehow, but not with any gun violence just regular old-fashioned hand-to-hand physical combative violence?  That almost seems quaint.  This wasn't just one lone gunman.  How did it come to be organized that 31 people from all over would converge in a rental truck in Idaho?  There's video of them being arrested, hand-cuffed, masks covering their whole heads, getting grass stains all over the knees of their khakis.  One has on a shirt that says "Reclaim America."  Yeah, good luck with that.

6/12/22

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

For as long as I can remember, my favorite month of the year has always been June.  The weather is great and I feel happy just being alive.  But something about it has changed.  June is now called "Pride Month" which is becoming some type of statement in the U.S. culture war, and I'm not completely onboard with that.  Yesterday a neighbor across from my back yard had an American flag out, but today they're flying the 6-color rainbow flag in its place.  It's possible they're somewhere on the lgbtqia+ spectrum, but I doubt it.  Gay Pride used to be one day celebrated by actual gay people, but now it's a month-long celebration that more and more str8 ppl are joining in on.  Being a real-life queer individual myself, the first half of my life was spent maintaining low visibility as a vital survival mechanism.  So that younger part of me will probably always be living deep inside.  Also, I'm not one for parroting religious tenets but pride is literally one of the seven deadly sins.  That wasn't such a big deal when gay pride was a smaller event, but context gets abandoned when things go mass mainstream.  This weekend I told my bf about a restaurant in our neighborhood putting guacamole on a b.l.t. and calling it "the lgbt sandwich," to which he replied, "That's low-effort."  It was maybe sort of cute a few years ago when I first heard it, but all the rainbow capitalism is getting obnoxious.

6/6/22

A Random Incident Threatens To Up-End My Life

Friday evening before 5:00, a big black pickup truck drove through my bf's sister's house into the back yard.  At first we heard the driver suffered a stroke behind the wheel but now they don't want to say "stroke," just that it's a "medical condition" and under investigation.  At the time, she and her bf were both in the downstairs area of the split-level house.  If either of them had been in the living room or kitchen when it happened, they probably would've been killed.  It's difficult for me not to imagine those alternate scenarios.  My bf and his sister are very close so if she would've been killed this way days before his 40th birthday, that scar would be deep.  Also if her bf were suddenly killed, what would happen to her?  She lost her job literally the day before.  There were snippets about this on all the local news channels.  The two of them were traumatized and didn't want to do television interviews, but I was like, "Dude get out there and give them a viral moment that you can monetize on the inevitable Gofundme."  My bf did start a Gofundme for them despite none of us knowing anything about how to do any of it.  I can't get over the aerial footage of this house I visited several times busted open, wreckage strewn all over the spot where I sat enjoying delicious pad thai and wine.  The table I sat at forlornly knocked over in the grass.

5/31/22

Pro-Gun, Pro-Life, Pro-Meh

Ten days after an 18 year-old man went on a spree-killing with a machine gun in Buffalo, New York, another 18 year-old man went on a spree-killing with a machine gun in some rural Texas town.  I feel very meh about it, but some people are speaking out so passionately that I ask myself why am I meh?  The death of one is a tragedy but the deaths of millions is just a statistic.  The U.S. is having another coronavirus surge but this time no one is really even pretending to do anything about it.  I'm hoping to go to an in person Tori Amos concert tonight and the venue says it's requiring both proof of vaccine and face-coverings.  We'll see if that's the actual practice though.  In April 2020, there was a photo going around of someone protesting shutdowns holding a sign that read, "Sacrifice the old and weak," and people were so galvanized against that, but didn't we understand eventually that's what always inevitably happens anyway?  Interpersonal human relationships are not uncomplicated.  I see lots of parallels between A.I.D.S. in the 1980s and coronavirus in the 2020s, and I do get stirred up about the A.I.D.S. epidemic.  By the time my brother contracted H.I.V. in the mid-1980s in the state of Oklahoma, there could've been widespread information freely available.  But there wasn't and the reason was bigotry.  In 40 years when we look back, what widespread beliefs are we holding now that'll be seen as hateful in retrospect?

5/25/22

Mass Media, Mass Shootings, Mass Extinction

On Saturday, an 18 year-old New Yorker who was of course a white man traveled to the city of Buffalo and murdered ten people at a supermarket.  He intentionally set out to murder black people, and even wrote a manifesto about it.  Some people are commenting how the manifesto relies heavily on rhetoric espoused by certain mass media outlets, but I'm not one who's quick to blame the media for an individual's actions like this.  He's a stupid person who did a stupid thing for stupid reasons.  Obviously the mass media he consumed was stupid too.  Sometimes people say we can never act like mass shootings are normal, but how could we not?  The machine gun used by this spree-killer was purchased legally and the fact that he watched Youtube tutorials to make modifications to it that are technically illegal in his state is irrelevant.  This is the U.S.A. where there's no such thing as a restrictive gun law.  "No way to prevent this," says only nation where this regularly happens.  I, like the majority of Americans, believe that gun owners need to 1.)  pass proficiency exams before obtaining a license and 2.)  carry gun liability insurance.  One generally-accepted definition of "mass shooting" is any incident in which a minimum of four people are injured by gun-fire.  But some people don't like that definition because it includes too many gang-related shootings.  People attempting to up the body count in the redefinition of "mass shooting" is so dystopian it's almost hilarious.  

5/18/22

Laborers Built Our World

There's a mining tragedy happening right now in Burkina Faso.  Every story about it is quick to point out how the mine in this African nation is owned by a Canadian company.  Maybe that's to highlight the reality of world economics, but it's more likely a signifier that it's okay for people outside Africa to care about this story because it's tangentially Canadian.  It might be different in other places, but it's shocking how little press coverage gets devoted to the planet's biggest continents.  These eight men have been trapped 3 weeks and some stories say they're losing hope of rescue but other stories say families are still hopeful.  The whole mining industry makes the modern world possible while simultaneously being so thoroughly horrific that I can't help but feel fascination everytime a story like this comes out, which is semi-regularly.  I don't personally work in a literal mine so I have psychological distance.  The claustrophobia!  There's cognitive dissonance between people going about their daily lives relying on manufactured products and the industries bringing those products to marketplace, and corporations want to keep it that way.  People died for our smartphones and we're fine with that.  All lives don't matter.  Corporations rule the world and the humans who work for them are expendable.  I'm watching a docu-series about Andy Warhol so I've been thinking about an exhibition I saw years ago at the M.C.A. titled "Stars!  Deaths!  Disasters!"  Those pieces capture something about how I feel:  both bystander and accomplice.

5/12/22

Abortion Schmabortion

Lots of things happened this past week.  There was the White House Correspondents Dinner and the departure of superstar press secretary Jen Psaki for the arrival of hopefully-future-superstar Karine Jean-Pierre.  Naomi Judd died, May Day, the Met Gala, the suspiciously low-key announcement of the U.S. death-toll from Coronavirus officially surpassing the 1,000,000 mark.  However, the biggest story is the publication of a leaked first draft S.C.O.T.U.S. opinion overturning Roe Vs. Wade which the chief justice confirmed to be authentic.  It's the first time a draft has ever been leaked from the S.C.O.T.U.S. but this is really big.  Whoever leaked it is a whistle-blower and did the right thing.  The official opinion will come out sometime in the next two months.  Currently, twelve states - including Missouri - have laws to immediately ban abortion once it's released while seventeen states - including Illinois - have laws explicitly protecting the right to abortion.  Soon it'll be illegal to get an abortion in Saint Louis, but across the river in East Saint Louis it's a protected right.  Most places aren't that dichotomous, though.  Geographically, Texas is huge.  Millions of people there will have to travel 1,000+ miles to obtain safe legal comprehensive healthcare which isn't feasible for a large percentage.  In September I discussed how the precedent of the Roe Vs. Wade case was basically already overturned because of Texas aspiring to be the Taliban, but now we're weeks away from it being offically offical.  So what's anyone going to do about it?

5/6/22

Defame The Famous

In October 2020, I did jury duty.  I went into it so excited about fulfilling my civic obligation to help the community.  A woman who lives near me took prescription painkillers with some cans of beer, then drove to a store where I frequent, and crashed her car into a tree.  She was charged with driving under the influence but she claimed enough time had passed so her tree accident was just normal reckless driving instead of impaired reckless driving.  We the jury were all like, "Lol no."  I totally liked her though and wanted to be friends with both her and her attorney.  We live close enough that we could walk to each other's houses without involving automobiles at all.  I took two days off work for that and every single thing about the entire experience was shitty and a huge bummer.  Incidentally, one of my fellow jurors was the sister of talk-show host Steve Wilkos.  Anywhoozle, there are two high-profile celebrity defamation jury trials happening right now and every time I hear about one of them, I fly into a rage.  How fucking dare famous people utilize the court system and commandeer the lives of all those private citizens to litigate defamation!?  These cases have gone on for weeks!  Before these jury trials, I used to be a fan of both Blac Chyna and Johnny Depp.  Fuck them both!  The jury members are showing amazing restraint by not burning their courthouses to the ground and disemboweling those plaintiffs.

4/29/22

Ruview Of RPDRUS14

The finale of RPDRUS14 was yesterday and I really enjoyed it.  Willow Pill was crowned the winner and I think her performances in the finale episode were pretty iconic.  First was "I Hate People" of course, but also the final Abba / Cher lipsync.  Willow came out wearing a comically oversized "men's" suit which, I just found out, was constructed by my Chicago friend Jforpay.  She stripped off the full body-sized jacket then the full body-sized pant.  Everything she did is very fun and stupid, with subtle barbed commentary about shedding ill-fitting gender norms.  That's exactly what drag is supposed to be, so well done.  This season, 14 new rugirls gave > 300 drag looks in 36 categories over 16 weekly episodes which is a lot.  For me, the highlights were the Daytona Winds episode with Camden's tribute to Freddie Mercury and the lipsync smackdown episode.  Oh and the rusical episode, Moulin Ru, was really great too.  Also, just the sound of Kerri yelling "A dragonfly!?" still makes me break out with laughter every time.  Rupauls Drag Race continues to be an important cultural touchstone.  I've been watching RPDR since the beginning and I'm still watching even though I don't enjoy it as much as I did years ago.  But things always change and go through peaks and valleys.  It's a big investment sitting through 16 mostly 2-hour episodes.  The 16,000th day of my life was this week and at my age I'm wanting to invest in more tangible things.

4/23/22

Good Vibes Only Easter!

Friday morning there was a meme I enjoyed of the crucifixes from the familiar Calvary scene spelling out the letter Ts in the word "titties."  So I shared that meme and wished everyone a happy Good Friday but someone got mad about it and said, "it feels purposefully cruel and I choose to surround myself with love whenever possible."  First of all, I'm pretty sure the crucifixion scene is from a movie.  If it were a photo of people actually getting crucified, then I'd agree it's intentionally cruel.  The whole image of a crucifix is meaningful to me as a symbol of two things intersecting - heaven and earth, body and soul, etc. - which is especially profound when someone dies at that intersection.  More importantly, there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about "good vibes only" people.  Lots of things about the world today seem hugely fucked up so when people say "good vibes only" it's like they're intentionally not taking a hard look at it.  Life is about an intersection of things as symbolized by the cross, not just one thing only.  That's one of the crosses I bear along with most of my fellow humans:  a struggle between the part of me who stays blissed-out in light and love and the part of me who sees the importance in facing darkness.  Then again, maybe this didactic point of view is too binary and unhelpful.  Practically speaking, what is anyone actually going to do about anything?

4/17/22

Nashville's A Party

Right now I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.  The C.M.T. Awards are on my hotel room television which is < a mile from where it's actually happening.  Additionally, there are performances broadcast from several locations around the downtown area that I became well-acquainted with yesterday.  There's a place in Nashville called "the strip" and Broadway Street between 4th & 5th Avenues was closed but now I'm seeing it on television.  Naomi Judd is wearing a serious hairpiece that'd make most drag queens jealous.  Also, Monica - Miss Thang from the 1990s - performed at this country music awards show.  Good for her reaching new audiences.  I take work conferences very seriously, like, my organization sent me here to promote our brand and build our team, not to booze and carouse.  Before coming here I literally had the thought, "I don't care about any of Nashville's cultural offerings."  The thing I was most excited about was having my own hotel room.  It's a nice room, however I never predicted the tens of thousands of people out in the streets partying.  Holy shit!  It was pretty much the world's biggest bachelorette party with no strippers.  After my bf dropped me off at the Chicago airport yesterday morning and before I'd even gotten to security, I realized I'd left my cellphone in his car.  So, much like the revolution, all the overwhelming elegance of this trip will not be Instagrammed.  I'm now one of those people who gets motion sickness on airplanes too, apparently.

4/11/22

Reality Is A Construct

What is time?  And, really, what are the other 9 dimensions of reality?  What is reality?  Being in my 40s and listing the U.S.A. as my permanent address for that entire time, my whole life has been spent observing something called "Daylight Savings Time" but it's actually a pretty recent invention, historically speaking.  It's a quirky thing about the U.S. that I'm ready to let fade into the quirky things history books.  All my life I've been opposed to D.S.T. and in support of same time all year, s.t.a.y.  There are lots of things about the way humans have decided to measure and enumerate reality that don't make sense to me:  the international date line, the prime meridian and longitude in general, etc.  Recently, the U.S. Senator from Florida Marco Rubio introduced a bill to eradicate our nation's nasty little habit of changing the clocks back and forth an hour every year.  It passed the U.S. Senate!  But I read it's likely to have a tougher time passing the U.S.H.O.R.  I'd like to go on record as fully supporting this bill.  I mean, we're basically at the point of our human existence when computers on spaceships determine our location in time and space for us.  Like how you can't just say the name of a color anymore without providing exact xy coordinates on the chromacity scale.  Well, Marco Rubio's bill is a good first step in undermining our current reality so we can make room for the new cosmic unfolding.

4/4/22

Sometimes Men Hit Each Other And It's N.B.D.

Yesterday I woke up, probably like most Americans, to news that Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock on the Oscar Awards live broadcast.  If most Americans are like me, our first thought was, "The Oscar Awards are still a thing that happens?  Good for them."  Why can't this year's Oscar Awards just be forgotten by history like all the others?  I'm so annoyed but still want to discuss this because it's juicy and even my parents are talking about it.  These two celebrities are both people I've seen in person, so once again, I'm sure this is somehow my fault and everything is about me.  Chris Rock made a comment about Jada Pinkett-Smith starring in G.I. Jane 2 because she has alopecia and wasn't wearing a wig, so Will Smith walked up to him, slapped him, and said "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth."  As if.  Chris Rock will be talking about this in his stand-up act until the day he dies.  This is gold for him.  I've already seen articles about ticket prices sky-rocketing for his comedy tour.  Lots of people are assigning meaning to this otherwise random anecdote:  chivalry, toxic masculinity, the normalization of violence in our culture, black-on-black crime, etc.  I've also seen comparisons to Sacheen Littlefeather and John Wayne at the 1973 Oscar Awards.  Please stop.  Some say the joke wasn't funny, but it's not even a joke.  Jada Pinkett-Smith starring in a remake of G.I. Jane 25 years later is a billion-dollar idea.

3/29/22

Disingenuous Conservatives Get Away Dictating Public Discourse

Nextdoor is a social media platform which is supposedly for people who physically live near each other.  It's Twitter for old people and the thing I love most about Nextdoor is how it birthed one of the funniest Twitters, BestOfNextdoor.  A month ago, someone who allegedly lives < 10 miles from me made a Nextdoor post stating their concerns about the world which were:  crime out of control, gasoline priced at $5.00 per gallon, and transgender women in women's sports.  I responded, "Hmm, well that's a collection of words that exist on the internet."  It seemed weird that out of everything going on, these things were what someone would be getting upset about.  But maybe they were just ahead of the trends.  Because at first I was like "What crime out of control?"  Then in the past month I've heard several stories about catalytic converter theft, which is obviously what they meant.  Also in the past month, gasoline prices have risen to almost $5.00 per gallon and lots of disingenuous billionaires are trying really hard to get the American public to blame the U.S. government for that instead of oil companies.  Also, Lia Thomas is a competitive swimmer who recently won some apparently important college swimming tournament in the women's division.  Well that stirred up some shit from people saying only women who are a.f.a.b. should be allowed to participate in women's competitive sports.  Ugh, fuck sports.  The world is so competitive that it takes the joy out of everything.

3/23/22

My Love Is Like A River

Last weekend the city of Chicago released boatloads of chemicals into the Chicago River to make it a disgusting bright green color while crowds stood around cheering.  Ever since I came to Chicago, this has always been a huge event so I'm sure the streets were packed even though it was cold as fuck on Saturday.  There are places in the suburbs where they do the same thing with their own local bodies of water.  And if something is so popular then it must be inherently virtuous, right?  I can see several spots of the river when I'm sitting at my desk in the office, so all week I've been watching as it gradually fades back to its regular shade of drab green.  I'm so fucking moody today.  But if the city can decide to engineer the Chicago River to flow in the opposite direction then turn it bright neon one week out of the year, then I can pull myself up from whatever emotional hole I'm stuck in.  It was six years ago today when my bf and I saw each other for the first time.  Immediately when I woke up this morning, he said "happy anniversary" to me and I've been mad about it ever since.  Because generally when people say "happy anniversary" they're talking about the anniversary of a wedding which is something we have not had nor even discussed in a while.  So it feels like some loser consolation prize that I'd prefer not to acknowledge.

3/17/22

I'd Like To Keep It On

The first time I heard "social-distancing" was 3/10/20 from a group email originated by someone who'd recently been fired from his job.  He just started a new job which might be a sign for optimism.  As of this month, the city of Chicago and state of Illinois discontinued all coronavirus mitigation measures.  There's still a face-covering requirement on the train, but even my office has dropped it.  Obviously, another surge is scheduled by the end of next month.  Dua Lipa performed in Chicago last night at the Bulls-Blackhawks arena, but I'm not ready for that big of a crowd in an enclosed space.  I'm out of step with everyone though, because two years ago I wasn't in favor of any coronavirus mitigation measures and if I died oh well.  There was a certain chic to people who died from coronavirus in 2020 but there's none of that with the people dying from it in 2022.  I missed going with the cool people, so I'll be upset if I go from it now.  And I'm never upset about the idea of dying in general - I seriously thought I heard a gunshot last night and didn't flinch - but not like that.  Before 2020, it was unimaginable to go over a year with no fevers, no sore throats, no congestion, etc.  Now I've stayed healthy for so long.  I didn't want the coronavirus mitigation measures when they started, but now that they're stopping I'm not so eager to give them up.

3/10/22

The 2022 Russia / Ukraine War, Week One

Russia has been invading Ukraine for > a week now.  I remember 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U.S. immediately sprang into action, but I guess we can't handle Russia like Iraq.  It does seem kind of weird though how the U.S. military isn't getting directly involved in it at all.  I thought getting in the middle of other nations' wars was like my country's favorite thing.  I broke out laughing this week when I heard the Russian leader say he put their nuclear arms on high alert because it's so blatant how he's trying to scare everyone.  Many things can be said about the Russian leader:  that he has a long history of acting ridiculous and being over-the-top, how he's such a karen and makes me ashamed of being white, etc.  Meanwhile, the Ukranian leader is super hot and basically everyone in the world right now wants to have sex with him.  I've been listening to the news more frequently lately because of this whole situation and sometimes there are reports about Russia saying that they'll participate in cease-fire talks or allow peaceful pathways for civilians to evacuate but no one actually believes they're serious about any of it.  The big news this morning was that Russia has overtaken control of Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear power plant.  As a casual media observer, it seems like a foregone conclusion:  Russia has won, the occupation is complete, and Ukraine is no longer an independent nation.  But what do I know?  

3/4/22

Good Luck With Confirmation, Ketanji Brown-Jackson!

One of my best friends turned 51 this past week and this morning was her third annual internet birthday party.  She had an in-person birthday party last weekend, but I appreciate the continuation of this internet gathering tradition which had people calling in from Singapore, Holland, N.Y.C., Chicago, Massachusetts, Virginia, the Pacific Northwest, etc.  Yesterday our current P.O.T.U.S. nominated Ketanji Brown-Jackson for the Supreme Court and I learned that as a college freshman, Ketanji lived with my friend and two of her friends who were on the internet birthday meeting.  They discussed how passionate and driven she was with her schoolwork, and if they would've had her work ethic maybe they'd be doing something S.C.O.T.U.S. level big by now.  Also, there was one quirky thing about the new Supreme Court nominee they mentioned which was that sometimes when she was stressed about something, she'd sit on the floor and throw pennies against the opposite wall as hard as she could.  Her actual roommate said she'd forgotten about the pennies.  I kind of like that.  There are much worse ways of dealing with stress.  Something that's sort of stressful which I don't know how to deal with is Russia's invasion of Ukraine, so maybe I'll try sitting on the floor and throwing pennies at the wall whenever I think about it because I don't know what else there is to be done.  I haven't mentioned anything political lately because what do any of my opinions related to world politics even matter?  

2/26/22

Ten Years Ago Nostalgia:  Sharon Needles

I've been feeling lots of things while looking at photos I took 2/19/12 which was the first time Sharon Needles ever performed in Chicago.  One is panic attacks due to hundreds of people in a small room all pressed up against each other sharing unfiltered breathing air.  Today I went to Joong Boo and felt claustrophobic because of how crowded it was in all those narrow aisles.  They had a deep tub of barely-alive crabs piled on top of each other which was what the whole place seemed like to me.  My mother had late-in-life onset claustrophobia and I'm afraid it's happening to me.  Another thing I felt looking at these photos is nostalgia for being younger.  Spin Nightclub is long gone, along with their midnight drag shows and me living in the city.  I went to a somewhat upscale restaurant tonight at Fullerton & Kimball and at our neighboring table was a large group of young fabulous queers of various genders and ethnicities dressed to impress and I felt happy seeing them out because that was me once upon a time.  Although in my early 20s, that area around Fullerton & Kimball was to be avoided at all costs.  I still love Sharon Needles regardless of how she's been labeled "problematic" at various times for various reasons over the past decade.  That night, she spent 20 minutes onstage in a coffin before emerging to start the show doing "I Will Always Love You" the week after Whitney Houston died.

2/19/22

All You Need Is, Um  . . .  Love?

A couple weeks ago, this year's Gay V.N. award show was broadcast live on Chaturbate.  I watched some of it, but it started at 10:00p on a week-day.  Joel Someone, whom I totally idolize, won an award for best bi sex scene.  Also, Rhea Litre who's one of my top-tier favorite drag queens was a presenter.  Basically all the people I consider to be huge celebrities were at this award show instead of the Grammys or Oscars or whatever.  So I've been thinking about what that means and grappling with my relationship to pornography just like everyone else in modern society.  I don't believe the fact that I watch as much pornography as I do means that I don't love my bf.  It's just easier to have a sexual relationship with myself and videos-on-demand than it is to have a sexual relationship with another person which requires aligning whole planetary orbits.  I've managed to stay monogamous with my bf for, wow, like so long that I don't even want to think about how long it's been.  I thought the whole point of being in a relationship is to satisfy certain basic needs so that people can accomplish other things in life instead of constantly wasting so much time going out and looking for sex.  I mean, among other things of course.  Tomorrow is Valentines and I'm really excited about it, but mostly just because there's a new person starting at work and we really need another worker in the office.

2/13/22

Keep On Rocking In The Free World Or Whatever

Spotify is a thing on the internet that I use sometimes to listen to music and occasionally other audio-only content, i.e. drag podcasts, even though it's always had controversy about its business arrangements with artists.  There's a different Spotify controversy now because it produces a talk-show which some people claim is dangerous, but to me that bar for "dangerous" seems way low considering just last year a P.O.T.U.S. literally attempted a coup.  One source claimed this talk-show has 190,000,000 listeners which is obviously inflated.  Good for them if it's 0.01% of that.  Critics say the show spreads coronavirus misinformation, but if that were true there'd be clips readily available and I've yet to hear receipts.  The only thing I've heard is the host saying young and healthy people probably don't need to get vaccines which isn't a great perspective but not worthy of such hullabaloo.  I read a report today that appeared to be from a credible source saying 60,000 people in the U.S.A. died from coronavirus during January 2022 bringing the total number of U.S. Americans who've died from coronavirus to 900,000.  This pandemic is basically 23 months old and 60,000 > 900,000 divided by 23 but I guess that makes sense because lots of people were taking bigger coronavirus risks during Christmas & New Years.  Not me.  I fantasized about dying in my sleep at midnight on new years and then having my beneficiaries sue each other over whether my 2021 or 2022 open enrollment selections were valid.

2/7/22

Machines Have Taken Over

It's February 1, so as of today another bill goes up which is my expense of commuting on public transit.  The commuter train is a glorious wonder that's far nicer than entitled suburban people deserve.  I've built my whole lifestyle of the past several years around it.  Sure there are frequent delays, but that's to be expected considering the low fares we pay.  I've anticipated fares going up, but not like this bullshit.  On Thursday, I was informed they're raising fares for people who pay cash to a human.  If you use a credit card to pay a machine, the price of the fare remains the same.  That's fucked.  Now you can't even ride the commuter train without 1.)  a smartphone, 2.)  a subscription to a data plan, 3.)  a special computer program installed on the smartphone, and 4.)  a credit card.  I got rid of my smartphone > 2 years ago but for the past year I've been using a $42.59 smartphone that my bf bought for me from Target.  I still don't subscribe to a data plan, but now that they're increasing my commuting expense by 71% I guess I'll be giving extra dollars to the telecoms instead of to public transit.  There are often times when I don't even carry my cellphone with me for days and days, so I don't like the way it's becoming a governmental mandate not to leave it at home.  You aren't part of human society anymore unless you have a smartphone.  

2/1/22

Get Onboard With Faux-Meat, Fast Food Chains!

There have been various years of my life when I was strictly vegetarian.  I don't currently call myself vegetarian even though I am most days.  I eat dead animal flesh like twice or at most 3 times per week and don't feel too bothered about it.  Social media loves showing me items related to vegetarianism and I'm usually really into it, but there's a certain discussion recently that I get angry about.  Most vegetarians are cool people, but there's always some indignant outrage kill-joys who confirm stereotypes.  Kentucky Fried Chicken is now serving a faux-meat option.  I definitely want some, and I'd think vegetarians would be happy about it since this could be considered a sign of overall social progress in our direction.  Some vegetarians are not happy about it though because the faux-meat option is fried in the same oil as all the other meat options.  Kudos to K.F.C. for being so transparent about that fact.  There was an infamous law-suit 20 years ago of vegetarians versus McDonalds over this exact issue.  I'm still mad about that one because the McVegetarian was the most delicious McDonalds item ever.  Dunkin Donuts also had faux-meat options which I enjoyed but then got discontinued.  Burger King's faux-meat and Subway's veggie-max patties have been a long-term staple in my fast food repertoire.  I've seen some people who enjoyed K.F.C.'s faux-meat and some who didn't, so it's just like every other menu item.  Either way, I don't believe the all-or-nothing mindset is particularly helpful.

1/25/22

Everything Revolves Around Me

One of the first apartment buildings where I lived in the city of Chicago had a historical marker in front saying that some famous, um, scientist or architect or something had lived there at some point.  I was so into that.  His name was Buckminster Fuller and the U.S.P.S. came out with a commemorative stamp honoring him while I was living there so I felt real special living in a building where he'd lived while using postage stamps with his face on them to send letters to people who didn't live someplace special like I did.  That's how I get, being in close proximity to any particular point of interest.  Two examples of recent national news stories that I've been in close proximity with:  1.)  In my neighborhood, a woman beat her 5 year-old son to death a couple years ago; 2.)  The third-place finisher on last year's season of American Idol also lived a mile from me.  Last week I heard of a news story from the next town over by where I live and I'm really into it because I'm familiar with all the buildings where everyone worked.  A local optometrist killed his wife, then eight years later killed his girlfriend before dying from coronavirus last month.  Both women were also medical professionals which makes it all the more interesting.  I have some grotesque fascination with the whole true-crime sub-genre of husbands who murder their wives even though they seemed like the perfect couple to the outside world.  

1/19/22

The Violence Of Winter

I'm well into week 2 of wearing long underwear everyday.  Overall, I do believe that my decision to live in northern Illinois is a good one in spite of the month of January.  I have the good sense to acknowledge that my experience is different than people who live in other parts of the world and also people in different economic situations.  However, some people don't have that good sense so sometimes I somehow find myself yelling at the woman behind me in the supermarket line.  Last week someone else said to me that he loves snow and wished it would've snowed more, even if that meant colder temperatures.  Oooo bitch, lightning bolts shot through my body hearing him say that and before I even knew what was happening I was suddenly yelling at him too.  Then he told me I was "yucking his yum" which is a very Chicagoan expression.  And I was like, "So you love death, how goth of you."  I'm aware that neither of those people control the weather, but it's reminiscent of the movie Parasite when the rich people say how much they love the rain and it's so refreshing, meanwhile the apartment where their staff lives is getting completely flooded.  No one who has to go out and walk a mile in it everyday just to survive says that they love snow.  Anyone who says they love winter in Chicago is saying that because they don't actually have to be outdoors for too long.

1/13/22

2021:  More Contagious, Less Lethal

I don't know much about coronavirus, pandemics, epidemics, or science in general.  That's okay because I'm many things, but I've never claimed to be a virologist.  Over the summer there was a variant of coronavirus going around and this past month there's been a different variant.  I know people who got sick after pretending like coronavirus wasn't real because they didn't comprehend variants.  I don't understand the concept of variants either, but so far I've decided it's not anything I need to look into.  What I do know is that everyday Monday through Friday, I leave my home and travel on public transit to an office in the center of a major metropolitan area and there's a certain level of risk that inherently goes along with that.  I'm aware of the risk and choose to accept it and handle it with the appropriate level of seriousness.  The year is 2022 and I've somehow managed to stay very healthy for a very long time now.  Lately, there are only two people whom I've been within 10 feet of without some barrier or wearing a face-covering.  Life is just different now, and I'm accepting it and thriving in this new environment more and more all the time.  I had a conversation with someone who said it's just the overall natural course of viruses to become more contagious and less lethal.  He wasn't a scientist but that seems logical.  It also seems like a perfect tag-line for the calendar year that just ended.

1/7/22

Betty White Died Today, OMG

It's new year eve - or as I like to call it, my half-birthday - and holy fuckballs, Betty White died today!  Betty!  Motherfucking!  White!  I'm crying real tears.  Apparently she died around noon.  On new year eve!  Her 100th birthday is two weeks from now and People magazine already put out their cover story about it.  So that's kind of awkward.  But she was born before Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.  Before Anne Frank.  Before any of the other Golden Girls, and the only one of them who was child-free.  I have so many feelings about this.  The only other person I can think of who's so universally beloved is Dolly Parton.  Just recently, I watched a documentary that was streaming on Netflix titled Betty White, The First Lady Of Television so I'm aware that she did other things, but The Golden Girls is such a ground-breaking classic and inspiration for so many reasons.  When I was a child, I watched the entire NBC line-up of Saturday evening sitcoms.  It's solid in my memory:  The Facts Of Life or 227 at 7:00, 227 or Amen at 7:30, Golden Girls at 8:00, and Amen or Empty Nest at 8:30 which was just how broadcast television worked back then.  I own several seasons of Golden Girls on DVD and have seen every episode multiple times.  I've even made plans to attend a convention for fans of the show that's happening in a few months.  I'd hoped she'd make an appearance.

12/31/21

Colonoscopy Christmas

I just noticed how that last post was the second in < a month that I ended with "Sigh" as a 1-word sentence.  I'm so wistful!  I've been thinking a lot lately about idealizing the past and realizing that right now is as good as life will ever get so we all have to enjoy the present moment as much as possible.  Years from now I'll probably say to my bf, "Hey remember that first year after you graduated school and moved in with me and were looking for a job?  Those were the good old days."  I have a colonoscopy scheduled for the day after tomorrow, so no Christmas chestnuts this year for me.  I dread tomorrow's preparation, but I'll just keep telling myself, "Hey, today is the good old days!"  Coincidentally, I just talked to someone this week whose daughter has late-stage colon cancer so they were putting her in a wheelchair and going to a big-box store that had a large Christmas display because it was joyful and festive.  I started crying when she told me the details about how her daughter can't eat or walk because I witnessed those things when my brother died from colon cancer.  He was 16 years older than me when he died 12 years ago, so if I live four more years I will have out-lived him.  Precisely, Christmas day 2025 will be when the number of days I've lived will have surpassed the number of days he was alive.  Sigh.

12/25/21

Team Hoso!

Yesterday I went to Dim Sum & Drag and met Hoso Terra Toma.  When I say "met Hoso," of course what I mean is we talked for maybe 30 seconds and got two photos together.  Hoso said she likes my eyeglasses and also told me, "You're really serving it today."  Gag, that's one of the biggest compliments I will ever receive in my entire life.  Dim Sum & Drag is a drag brunch with an all-Asian cast which is great for me because I love nightlife but hate actually being awake at night.  I paid $44.06 for the meal & show plus tips then another $12.24 for the meet & greet with Hoso, and it was worth it.  The dumplings were delicious.  The performers slayed.  I'll refrain from any searing commentary on the current state of Chicago's drag scene, but I had a great time.  Anywhoozle, I'm pretty sure Hoso will be on my television screen tomorrow night crowned the winner of Dragula 4.  Is there really any other option?  I mean, come on:  other mother, the cactus, the moth, the demon, the multi-faced swordsman, even her red-faced ghostship glamour was iconic.  Give her that skull-crown already!  My personal rankings are 1.)  Hoso, 2.)  Saint, 3.)  Sigourney, 4.)  Dahli.  There's been so much discussion about Sigourney as an a.f.a.b. drag queen but not a lot about Dahli being an a.m.a.b. drag king.  Dragula has been a wild fucking ride these past two months and soon it'll all be over.  Sigh.

12/19/21

Struggling With Life?

It's December which is the time when people look back at the year and do recaps of it.  Right now I'm not feeling it though.  Some years, I'm really good at planning all my p.t.o. and spreading out my days off evenly.  This was not one of those years.  I took several days off work this week which was sub-optimal and occasionally ridiculous.  Originally, I'd considered visiting family but didn't because I have concerns about my automobile and my house and other material possessions.  It seems like all of a sudden all the bills have drastically gone up and we're all stretched thinner than we'd like.  So I'm holding steady and remaining calm just like everyone else who's trying not to panic yet.  I spent my days off not eating any solid food for six days and just trying to relax and have fun without going anywhere or spending any money of course.  There was a lot of pondering life while washing laundry.  For example, do I want to embrace a non-binary gender identity?  Using pluralistic "they/them/theirs" pronouns wouldn't be an inaccurate representation of the multitudinous entity that is myself.  I went into the central office Friday, and there's an advertisement on a bus shelter outside the building for coffee-flavored Coca-Cola.  Lol.  Before that advertisement, there was one that said "Struggling with life?  Text 21221 for solutions."  It seems like one of those things where you text that number then suddenly wake up without a kidney.  Or playing Squid Game.

12/12/21

Playing The Game Like Sigourney

A couple weeks ago I said that when people discuss world events, it becomes its own secondary marketplace for theatre dramatica.  That's true for the American legal system, and even truer for my own personal niche interest:  drag reality competition serieses.  This week, Queen Of The Universe 1 premiered and the Rupauls Drag Race U.S. 14 cast was announced.  Those two events gave "the fandom" lots to discuss, and obviously we're all working through some stuff.  However, I'd like to get back to the Dragula 4 discussions that died down a little once other issues arose to replace them.  This season of Dragula has seen epithets and death threats directed at the cast like never before.  First of all, it's repetitive to send death threats when everyone already gets murdered as part of the show's plot.  Also nazis are now a contingency of the fandom, so congrats to them on crossing over I guess.  It's a sign of gaining popularity, but none of these drag shows were ever intended for such mass audiences.  A lot of the discussion has been about Sigourney Beaver versus everyone else, which has similar themes to the discussion about RPDRUS14 casting its first het-cis man.  I've noticed Sigourney responding to backlash differently than I'd expect a drag queen to respond, but then I take into account that she's a.f.a.b. and how Sarah Silverman talks about performers who are men not worrying about walking to their cars after a gig like performers who are women do.

12/6/21

Two Great Men Died This Past Week

I felt sad when I heard that Stephen Sondheim died on the day after Thanksgiving.  Then a couple days later Virgil Abloh died, a shocking announcement which came out of nowhere.  I'm sad about them both, but the death of a 91 year-old is as surprising as a cumshot from a man yelling "I'm cumming!"  Otoh, Virgil was 41 which is two years and three months younger than I am.  It's a big loss for Chicago.  Apparently he'd been privately fighting a rare, aggressive cancer called cardiac angiosarcoma for the past two years.  So last year when people were getting upset with him over his comments about looting, he basically already knew he'd die soon.  We all just saw him a couple months ago at the Met Gala looking fabulous.  Then again, he was pretty covered up wearing a furry hat and oversized sunglasses.  I even watched a behind-the-scenes video of him in the white suit while it got air-brushed with "Modernism" and he still seemed healthy.  Personally, if I were diagnosed with cancer I probably wouldn't tell anyone either.  I'd go to California and take up heroin.  That's just me and largely due to the fact that I've never been invited to the Met Gala.  In Virgil's position, I would've gone wearing dramatic tatters, spitting blood, with gaunt, oozing makeup and a neon "I'M DYING" sign then been like "Sorry not sorry for taking all the attention off Lil Nas X, but I'll be dead 76 days from now."  

11/30/21

Society's Horrific Quirks

People sometimes say, "Human beings are fallible."  I think it's more accurate that humans are all "quirky."  Though, some of those quirks are horrific.  For example, jury verdicts came out this week in two separate high-profile murder cases.  Friday, I was working from home when there was a breaking news story about one from an incident that happened last year near where I live.  They'd been deliberating for several days so I thought it'd probably be a mistrial, but no.  Then another layer is that all world events become spectator sports on their own level with everyone expressing their own opinions which is all just more humans being quirky.  I was on a jury last year in the county next to the one where this person on trial lived with his mom, so I absolutely can not with anyone talking shit about jury members.  They have their own p.t.s.d. from this experience.  And of course the P.O.T.U.S. is defending the system because what other option is there?  Anywhoozle, I was surprised that this one incident is so divisive.  I don't understand why my country has decided that some 17 year-old boy's right to carry a machine gun wherever he wants supersedes everyone else's rights to do anything.  Then again, I wasn't there.  Just like the majority of the world expressing their opinions.  Actually when that happened last year, I was on summer vacation with my bf, running around naked in a state park, blissfully not looking at any internet.  Sigh.

11/24/21

Another Mother's Breaking Heart Taking Over

A couple weeks ago I wrote about oldies acts coming out with new music then that same day 10 people were killed plus > 100 others injured at a concert festival in Houston.  It's weird how the performer whom all these people died to see is someone I'd never heard of.  I wouldn't go so far as to say listening to oldies instead of current music saves lives, but no one got trampled to death when Foo Fighters played Lollapalooza.  Drake was there too and I only know about him via proximity to Rihanna.  One day a co-worker asked me, "You're younger than I am, can you explain what happened at that festival in Texas?  When I heard about it, I thought there must've been a shooting, but how'd all those people die if there weren't guns or bombs or nothing?"  But I just broke out singing, "And their bombs and their guns and their guns and their bombs, in your head they're still fighting.  IN YOUR HEEEEEEEAD  . . ."  Because oldies are always the answer.  The most recent episode of Dlisted podcast starts with a good recap of events, and the whole situation seems so icky to me.  People were saying, "Don't blame the artist."  But who else was in charge?  Also, a Kardashian was involved.  The whole incident seems intentional and makes me want to retreat from popular celebrity culture.  Fuck the fetishizing of wealth and fame.  I might not even go see the new Gaga movie.

11/17/21

The Annual U.N. Climate Change Conference Is Happening

The United Nations has been holding a conference about climate change for > a week now.  It's in Glasgow but apparently Lawrence Chaney is in L.A. filming so it isn't affecting her.  First of all, I love Greta Thunberg.  Lots of people felt the way she's feeling when we were her age.  Here we are born on this planet as innocents, and when we come of age it's hard to accept that things are the way they are.  So we try to change what we can to align with our values of how we think the world ought to be.  Then eventually we realize that things are the way they are for a reason and our options for change are limited.  The world is what it is because certain values have been prioritized over others which is difficult for young people to accept.  Some don't like the phrase "it is what it is" because of the connotation that things can't be changed.  But people can debate the shoulds and shouldn'ts of any situation endlessly without ever changing any facts of the matter.  What would a human population of this size living in sustainable harmony with the Earth even look like?  If it weren't for Thunberg, I wouldn't have even heard about this year's U.N. Climate Change Conference because more and more people are coming to accept the inevitable.  Humanity has made our choice:  modern civilization for however long it lasts over the long-term viability of organic life on this planet.

11/11/21

Voyage Ocean To Ocean

When I was growing up, it was standard that new music would be released on Tuesdays.  Then for a while, it was no particular day of the week.  Now it seems like everyone is back to a standard which is Fridays.  Today, the legendary 1970s band Abba releases a new album for the first time in 40 years titled Voyage.  It could be an epic triumph or probably a forgotten anomaly as coda to their career.  Either way, it's an inspiration to just do whatever you want.  Tori Amos is another oldies act that released a new album last week.  I haven't listened to it yet because it didn't download when I tried to purchase it from Amazon.  Of course they still charged me for it even though the download didn't work.  I decided to give it some time so maybe it'd work later - because that's happened before - but it's still a no, so I'll dispute the charge today and hopefully that works.  Ugh, this is the state of things today.  I could just stream it like a normal person who listens to it with ads, but this is Tori Amos.  There are some songs that I want to buy and own and listen to without connecting to the internet.  Her new album is titled Ocean To Ocean and it's possible that it could be completely trite but Tori Amos has earned the sacred honor of my all-time favorite rock star which will never be stripped from her.  

11/5/21

Suicide Is Meh

I just found out that a friend of a friend killed herself last week.  Suicide is something that's constantly looming somewhere on the periphery of my life.  Maybe it isn't such a prevalent issue for some people, but for me it shows up in lots of ways.  I've known people who've actually killed themselves and people who've contemplated and/or attempted it.  Not just philosophically though, but for me personally it's a consideration I think about on a regular basis.  I reached out to my friend who's grieving to make myself available for conversations or whatever, but so far it's pretty much just been Facebook-reacting to posts so she knows I care.  Honestly, I'm afraid of having an actual conversation with a person grieving the loss of someone via suicide because it makes sense to me so I don't really consider it a bad thing.  Usually when someone succeeds doing something they want to do, I congratulate them.  But suicide is different according to the theory that if someone wants to die, then by definition that person is mentally unwell.  According to that standard, life naturally wants to continue and grow and there's no such thing as a thanatos.  There's no creation without destruction and, imho, suicide is just one more natural normal manifestation of death drive which is inseparable from life force.  Sometimes I try expressing that to people and they respond that suicide is selfish, but framing matters of life and death in those terms is way too small.

10/29/21

Predator & Prey

This week, Youtube recommended a channel to me:  Mrluckyfrogs.  It's kind of horrific.  Mrluckyfrogs was posting intricate arts & crafts tutorials which got like 300-400 views per video.  Then they acquired a pet, so they said goodbye origami and are now getting 8,000,000 views per video of their bullfrog eating.  In a forest or swamp, these snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, etc. would at least stand some chance against this big fat fucking frog.  But in this tiny enclosed glass room, it's a horror show.  The titles are like, "Wow!!  Asian Bullfrog Eating By Big Snake!  Warning Live Feeding."  And the footage is accompanied with wacky background music and sound effects.  They even do slow-motion instant-replays of the action shots.  Completely amped up for maximum grotesqueness.  I was most touched by the tarantula who acted so brave, facing the frog and standing up on its back legs, stretching its whole body out to look as big as it possibly could.  And then it got eaten.  Because valor only goes so far in life.  Sometimes we're all predators and sometimes we're all prey.  Maybe I'm just going through a period of feeling victim-y, but lately I've been relating more to prey.  I had an appointment this week with a doctor who'd been randomly assigned to me by my insurance company.  I liked her and the nurse, but the whole red-tape experience was a bitch and answering questions about my mental health and family history got me questioning what am I even doing here?  

10/23/21

Life Without Context

Yesterday I went to the Artitute's exhibition of Barbara Kruger, whom I've been a big fan of for decades.  I really enjoyed it.  Barbara Kruger the artist could not have existed before now.  That's maybe more or less true about everything, but it's very true for her work which, to me, is about the bombardment of messaging which defines our sense of self and living in society when interacting with mass media is mandatory.  Before I left for the museum yesterday morning, I had an experience related to those themes.  There's an Instagram account I follow that posts found items as comedy.  This account is continually getting reprimanded by Instagram constantly threatening them with deletion.  Well, it posted a video of what - at face value - would be a dangerous prank.  The actual clip might've been created by highly-trained professionals performing a well-controlled stunt, or it could've been 100% manufactured by visual effects.  I don't know and neither does whoever posted it.  Because so much of everything in the world today exists void of context.  People make snap reactions to things based solely on surface presentation.  I commented, "Maybe this account deserves to get deleted after all."  Someone replied, "Okay boomer."  To that I responded, "No problem, anonymous burner account."  Then there was another reply, "Oh look someone with no sense of humor."  Well the joke's on them because I think it's hilarious humanity is killing ourselves.  Lol.  It's as if Barbara Kruger personally sent bots to troll me.

10/17/21

Today Is Like A Holiday Or Something

The first time I heard about Coming Out Day was in college which was so long ago that I just round up and say that for as long as I can remember, October 11 has always been Coming Out Day.  Recently, there were some free stickers and I wanted to put a rainbow heart on my car but didn't because what if I break down then can't get anyone to help a faggot?  Yeah, I obviously don't deserve Coming Out Day.  This year, today is also an official federal holiday called Columbus Day - as in Christopher Columbus, the sailor from 15th-century Italy.  Christopher Columbus is famous because he's a het-cis white man and apparently nothing you do matters if you're not.  When I think of Christopher Columbus, I think of "This Land Is Your Land" the song by my fellow 20th-century Oklahoma-born artist Woody Guthrie.  Sometimes I sing that song but with my own version of the lyrics:  "This land was made for het-cis whites."  Similar to rounding up about Coming Out Day, people have been referring to today's federal holiday as Indigenous People Day for so long that it's just how I think of it now.  However, our current P.O.T.U.S. is the first to actually make a Presidential proclamation honoring Indigenous People Day.  When Juneteenth became an official federal holiday a few months ago was the first time I ever realized what all goes into it.  Either way, today is Monday and I'm not working so that's something.

10/11/21

Review Of Squid Game 1

I got home tonight and watched the last episode of Squid Game.  Then I watched fan videos.  That final plot twist, I did not see it coming.  I'd noticed something sketchy about clues that were pointed out by the fan videos, but was still shocked about it even with foreshadowing.  Last night I made the mistake of watching an episode right before going to sleep and had horrible dreams.  I watched all nine episodes - basically 9 hours - in seven days which is as close to "binge-viewing" as I get.  And obviously there's going to be a season 2 coming soon.  Because if Tiger King is getting a season 2, Squid Game definitely will.  It's been number 1 on U.S. Netflix for almost two weeks now.  Even though I've been really into it - maybe too into it - and it's the huge world-wide popular thing right now, it isn't without flaws.  So it's not like I think it'll go down in history as some classic piece of art.  It seems like my reactions aren't necessarily the same as the general public, or at least what they're willing to admit.  I don't sympathize with the main character, Number 456.  But I love feeling superior to him!  The cliff-hanger ending is stupid because he's stupid.  However, what kind of stories would we have in the world without human stupidity?  Otoh, my favorite characters are the fourteen who don't return for game two.  I want to know more about those geniuses.

10/4/21

We Envision Glittery Stardust

The Tony awards finally happened nearly a year and a half after nominations came out.  Jeremy O. Harris changed his display name on Twitter from "most Tony-nominated playwright" to "most Tony-snubbed playwright."  Also, Rupaul won his 11th Emmy award which broke the record of most Emmy wins by a person of color.  Incidentally, my Instagram account is now award-winning too.  Last week, my workplace had a team-building workshop.  I definitely wasn't enjoying it as much as everyone else seemed to be.  And judging from all the smiles in the group photo, they weren't lying.  Why do I not like things that other people like?  I was constantly repeating to myself, both silently and out loud, "I'm having fun; I'm feeling happy," etc.  But self-talk can only go so far.  I got particularly annoyed by a group activity in which we brain-stormed keywords to create value, mission, and vision statements.  My colleagues were imagining what it'd be like if there were no cap on effort and funds, then "limitless" came up.  Maybe I'm too philosophical, but it's like no one understood that having limits is the whole point of existing.  For our team's vision statement I wrote, "We envision unicorns and rainbows and stardust glitter sprinkles."  Eventually "limitless" was amended to "limitless innovation" because despite whatever physical limitations may be, our ideas have no bounds.  My "best Instagram of anyone in the office" award was bestowed during a "say nice things to co-workers" activity, beating at least five other Instagram accounts.

9/28/21

It Feels So Right

This year, there's a full moon on the autumn equinox so you'd think I'd be out dancing naked in the woods all night.  Instead, I fell asleep at 7:30p while listening to Teddy Margas on Instagram live.  Then this morning I saw how my local municipality wasted no time dragging out dead plants as seasonal decoration for the downtown neighborhood where I live.  They just wrap dead plants around lamp-posts and call it art.  Creepy yet fierce.  This past weekend was officially the last one of summer 2021 and a lot happened.  As soon as I woke up Friday morning, I bought the new album by Lil Nas X and watched the first episode of Chicago Party Aunt.  Friday night I went to the first-ever live performance of the band Man On Man.  It started after midnight and < 12 hours later they performed the noon slot at Riotfest.  I'm happy they played an extra show so I didn't have to go through the hassle of Riotfest to see them.  I got the chance to talk to Joey Holman after the set, and I talked with Roddy Bottum while he manned the merchandise booth.  I told him how 13 year-old me was scandalized by an MTV News report about him.  I wanted to hear graphic details about having sex with Courtney Love, but wasn't sloppy enough to ask.  Since then I've been going around telling people that I'm now close personal friends with the guy who played piano on "Epic."

9/22/21

Week In Review:  September 11-15, 2021

It's been a big week.  Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks in the U.S.  It's the first ever anniversary of the event when the U.S. has not been occupying Afghanistan.  Sunday was the MTV V.M.A.s.  My favorite music video of the year - "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" by Lil Nas X - won the top award.  Monday was the Met Gala, with the theme of "American Independence."  My top toot from it is Kim Kardashian in next-level Balenciaga which was inspired by Deven Green & Ridge Gallagher at Drag Con L.A. 2019.  Tuesday was the California gubernatorial election.  The more corporate interests try and attack Gavin Newsom, the stronger of a political force he becomes.  And then came Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's testicles.  Girl.  Nicki said she hasn't gotten a coronavirus vaccine yet because she's still busy researching it, but it does not take that long to read the page they give you outlining the risks.  If Nicki has one of the conditions identified as putting her in high risk, I wish she would just say she's at risk.  Because some people seem to think Google searches somehow equate to doing research.  I've been a fan of Nicki Minaj for years, but this looks like a full-scale breakdown.  None of those things really matter though, because my own personal highlight of the week was when I possibly sort of saved the life of a baby squirrel which was a very fatherly experience for me.

9/16/21

Respect For Our Current P.O.T.U.S.

I was writing about the Dragula 4 cast reveal tonight, but then saw on Twitter - which is pretty much my only news source - that our current P.O.T.U.S. announced a vaccine mandate today via executive order.  I was a little sick of discussing politics, but this is juicy.  And the whole cast of Dragula 4 look amazing so I'll leave it at that.  Wow, it seems like our current P.O.T.U.S. is really out there doing the stuff that needs to get done regardless of how unpopular it might be:  the Afghanistan withdrawal, some banking regulations that've come up recently, and now this.  He's similar to our 40th P.O.T.U.S. Ronald Reagan as far as they both began their presidential administrations around the exact same age.  But after Reagan who literally had dementia in office did so much damage to our nation, I'm skeptical.  Like, why are people in charge who'll hardly live long enough to see any repercussions from their actions?  Otoh, maybe our current P.O.T.U.S. is demonstrating how being elderly can be a good thing since it sure doesn't seem like he's too concerned about re-election and his own personal life after office.  If he has to be daddy the disciplinarian making spoiled bratty children take their medicine, he can step into that role.  A year ago, he demonstrated what a warrior is when he walked into debates opposite the unhinged shit-show that was our previous P.O.T.U.S.  I respect him for that because it's how a public servant acts.  

9/9/21

Texas Wishes It Were Part Of The Middle-East

In 1973, the S.C.O.T.U.S. issued a decision that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of its citizens to terminate their pregnancies without excessive government restriction.  It was called "Roe v. Wade" but almost 49 years later, that ruling was effectively reversed when the S.C.O.T.U.S. refused to hear a case challenging a state that passed a law defying it.  The state trying to overturn Roe v. Wade is, of course, Texas.  I was born & raised near the Texas border and there's always been a weird vibe about it.  #Texastaliban was trending on Twitter which brought backlash from people saying that hashtag promotes the idea of fundamentalist violence being inherently attributed to the Middle-East.  I got annoyed when I saw that because right now people are talking about the state of Texas perpetrating a macroagression and in the middle of that someone is speaking up talking about a possible microagression.  The downfall of nationally-protected abortion rights is the inevitable result of the U.S. Congress stealing the 2016 S.C.O.T.U.S. appointment and a reminder of how unethical the U.S. Congress has been in recent history.  Previous sessions of Congress were brazenly ruthless in their power-grabs so now that the balance of power has shifted, the current Congress needs to push through bigger, stronger, more sweeping changes.  It seems like that isn't getting done because Democrats are either no different than anyone else beholden to corporate interests or maybe Republicans just don't waste so much time distracted by every random thought that anyone has.

9/3/21

Thursday Was Pretty Major

I divide non-fiction I write into 3 categories:  personal, political, cultural.  Three major things happened Thursday which fit neatly into those categories.  Cultural:  Kanye West's event at Chicago Bears stadium is the most important art happening of our time.  Also this week, Kanye filed to shorten his legal name by 3 letters.  Ye's basically Michaelangelo with 4 fewer syllables in his name.  Political:  I got really sad about the suicide bombings in Afghanistan.  There were > 160 Afghani people murdered and 13 members of U.S. military.  The 160 victims could've been a much higher number and it'd still be inconsequential to U.S. politics since they weren't U.S. citizens, but the number of U.S. citizens killed could've been < half of 13 and it'd still be a major shitstorm.  Huge crowds are attempting to flee the country and it's an awful situation how those huge crowds couldn't have built a nation worth not fleeing from in 20 years.  Personal:  My aunt got so sick that she went to the hospital and was diagnosed with coronavirus.  Sometimes it seems like people love it when some loud-mouth who's anti-vaccination dies from coronavirus.  Yes my aunt is one of those loud-mouth anti-vaccination people who's inevitably sick with coronavirus, but to me she's so much more than that.  To anyone who casually glances over the story there might be a certain delight in it, but to the ones who are actually involved in those people's lives there's more to their stories than a single factoid.

8/28/21

One Golden Age Of Internet Porn Coming To An End

The website Onlyfans has announced that it will no longer host porn.  Apparently this is due to pressure from credit card companies.  Perhaps coincidentally related, X-Tube is another big internet porn site that's recently announced it's shutting down.  I have lots of feelings about this even though I'm not personally an Onlyfans subscriber.  Because it's sort of been revolutionary.  Sex drive is part of most humans' experience.  Then along came pornography which changed the perception of sex.  Then along came internet pornography which changed the perception of pornography.  Then along came Onlyfans which changed the perception of internet pornography.  Ten years ago, people could pay to watch me masturbate live on webcam so if I were ten years younger I'm sure I'd probably be producing porno films on Onlyfans right now.  I'm a human being who loves looking at the naked bodies of other humans.  To me, it seems like there's pretty much nothing more beautiful in the universe than watching naked adult people having sex with each other.  Consensually of course!  So even though I don't subscribe to Onlyfans, the stars of Onlyfans have penetrated other aspects of media.  For example, in my little world Joel Someone & The House Of Someone are bigger stars than just about anyone on primetime network television.  "Brazilian Horny Couple" Rafael & Mateus are right up there with the Bidens in my own personal pantheon of role models and influencers.  The scene that Haskell Holland and Valeria Atreides did is basically holy scripture.

8/21/21

Long Strange Journey This Week

Yesterday I attended my nephew's wedding - which was awesome - then spent most of today driving home.  I stopped in Uranus, Missouri where I met Kat, a goddess of a woman who performs sword-swallowing at their sideshow attraction.  The day before when I left my parents was Friday the 13th.  My dad said that for the first time ever, he thought it might be the last time we see each other.  However, my mom said the same thing three visits ago and she's still alive.  My response to him was that we both know we love each other and that's all anyone can do so it's enough.  My brother who died 12 years ago is buried in Tulsa and this was my third visit which averages out to once every four years.  So I sat on the grass and told him what important things happened since 2017 - including my conversation with our dad that morning and about our nephew's wedding as well as my own possible wedding plans next year.  The U.S. armed forces are in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan after almost 20 years there and it looks like that country's previous regime is swiftly returning to power, so when I was leaving my parents it felt very similar to that.  Like, I'm aware of how awful the situation I'm leaving behind is but there's just no other option.  Leaving is something that has to be done, both personally and in the realm of world politics.

8/15/21

My Parents Are Still Old & Decrepit

This week, I'm visiting my parents and staying at the house where I grew up.  The situation here right now is unspeakably horrific, and it's all been made possible by the extraordinary measures of modern science and technology.  My mom has not been able to walk in nearly two years and the philosophical question that I've been asking which no one else seems to be pondering is why.  Is the experience of living that my parents are having preferable over death?  No one wants to be in their position, but here they are in this really tough situation doing the best they can with it.  It's their right to do what they want to do and continue on in their existence of technically being alive.  Lots of people, including me, say that we'd never let it get to this point.  But it hasn't been us.  Me and all the other people who say that, we haven't actually had to make the choices they've made.  Less than six months after my mom stopped being able to walk, the coronavirus pandemic started happening so my experience with my parents' health has informed how I think about pandemic-related issues.  I personally got the vaccine and do wear face-coverings at public indoor places, but I'm not usually mad at people who choose not to do those things.  There are considerations to be made about how we want to live, not just one single statistical focus on whether a person is technically dead or not.

8/9/21

If Everything Could Ever Be This Real Forever

Lollapalooza happened in Chicago on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with > 100,000 people in attendance each day.  It might've been the largest festival on the planet in the year 2021.  It took weeks to set up for it, so I expect most of Grant Park to remain closed at least until the end of this week while they disassemble it.  Miley Cyrus performed the first night and Foo Fighters was the grand finale with "Everlong."  Swoon.  We watched the Foo Fighters's whole performance on television as it was broadcast live-ish with an approximately 10-minute delay.  I never realized what a trove of knowledge about that band lives in my brain rent-free until I sat on my couch with my bf enlightening him with it all.  Miley and Foo Fighters are both acts I enjoy, but they aren't buzz-worthy enough to go through the whole rigmarole of attending Lollapalooza in 2021.  I am hoping to see Man On Man at Riotfest next month though.  There's a lot of discussion about the possibility that this year's Lollapalooza might've been a coronavirus super-spreader event.  Like many of the things related to how people handle coronavirus, it's mystifying to me.  Market Days is still happening next weekend.  Big-league baseball is packing stadiums every single day.  Being amongst large crowds of people is just part of regular life, and at some point in the last few months it seems like people somehow decided it's okay to return to regular pre-2020 life, large crowds included.

8/3/21

Another Dead Body Found In My Neighborhood

Shortly after midnight on Saturday night / Sunday morning police were at my neighborhood train station, presumably because parking isn't allowed between midnight and 4:00 in most of the lot, and they found a 25 year-old woman in a car dead from a gunshot wound.  I live < a mile away and walk to the station nearly everyday.  At noon on Saturday, my bf and I went to the farmers market and I commented how surprised I was about so many cars parked there.  More than an actual weekday.  We might've walked past a dead person in one of those cars without even noticing.  The police press release says, "While we're still gathering evidence, we are sure there is no danger to the public as a result of this incident."  It really ought to say "reasonably certain" instead.  I'd like to know who the car and gun belonged to.  It was probably self-inflicted in her own car, but lots of internet commenters like the idea of a deranged killer on the loose.  Also, something eerie happened there yesterday morning.  I wanted to take photos of Queen Anne Lace growing on a patch of land they don't mow.  When I got out my smartphone and opened the camera, it was self-facing so obviously I snapped a quick selfie before pointing it the other direction.  That selfie came out really weird and I immediately had the feeling like there was some unusual aura around the place that it was picking up on.

7/27/21

There Are 11 Seasons Of Drag Competition Television Shows Coming Out

There's been a lot of discussion recently about the billionaire space race in which private corporations are now doing what the public agency did 60 years ago.  Idgaf about billionaires, but this does make me feel inspired to be selfish and focus on whatever petty shit I want to instead of caring about anyone else's needs.  If no one is stopping these assholes from doing what they want, why would anyone stop me from going after what I like?  And namely, the petty shit I care about is watching drag competition television shows.  I might not watch every single episode anymore, but following along with them is still my guilty pleasure.  There are 11 series of drag competition shows currently airing or in post-production:  1.) Drag Race Espana 1, 2.) Camp Wannakiki 3, 3.) Rupauls Drag Race All-Stars 6, 4.) Drag Race Holland 2, 5.) Rupauls Drag Race U.K. 3, 6.) Dragula 4, 7.) Drag Race Canada 2, 8.) Drag Race Italia 1, 9.) Rupauls Drag Race International All-Stars which I prefer to call RPDRAS7, 10.) Rupauls Drag Race U.S. 14, and 11.) Rupauls Drag Race All-Winners which I prefer to call RPDRAS8.  The first three - DREs1, Wannakiki 3, and RPDRAS6 - are currently airing.  People are loving this season of RPDRAS and it's getting lots of buzz/hype.  Every Thursday morning as soon as I wake up, I sit on the toilet and check whether the most recent episode of RPDRAS6 matches internet predictions.  And it nearly always does.

7/21/21

43

My 43rd birthday was a couple weeks ago.  It was fun for a Wednesday, the least sexiest day of the week for any celebration.  As I get older, I'm learning to accept the unsexy parts of life:  insurance, mortgage, parking tickets, skin tags, climate change, etc.  And 43 is the least sexiest number in the 40s.  My bf deleted his Facebook account as a birthday gift to himself.  For several years I've de-activated my Facebook accounts around my birthday specifically so I won't have to deal with Facebook birthday messages.  This year, I had the super-extra idea of de-activating my Facebook for 43 days, 6/9-7/21.  It's shameful, but I have four Facebook profiles:  one in my birthname, one in my current legal name, one for work, and one that I'll convert to a fan-page in case I ever become famous.  I saw a photo on Instagram paying tribute to Christina Death who died a few months ago.  She was a Chicago goth nightlife personality who also loved drag.  I'm Facebook friends with her on my birthname account, so I re-activated that one and posted a photo of us from > 10 years ago.  But when I re-activated, I saw that 43 - how fortuitous! - people wrote happy birthday on my Facebook wall.  Several people even sent me Facebook messages.  So basically, de-activating a Facebook profile means nothing.  But over the past month of never looking at Facebook, I've noticed some changes in myself and I kind of like it.  

7/15/21

Our Current P.O.T.U.S. Visited My Neighborhood

On Sunday I saw a local news story that our current P.O.T.U.S. was planning on visiting my small-town neighborhood which seemed random.  Then I did a little research and learned it's part of a thing he's doing to promote community colleges.  The Biden administration has been proposing that community colleges along with expanded pre-kindergarten schooling be made tuition-free.  I've already spent more time in school than I ever wanted, so I feel meh about that idea.  The presidential visit happened Wednesday as planned and there was no noticeable impact on my life, but now I wish I would've taken the day off work and walked over there.  I probably couldn't have gotten very close to any actual dignitaries, but this whole event was a super-rare occurrence.   Another reason I wish I would've gone over there is that the local newspaper did a totally shit job of covering it.  I was on the fence about subscribing but this coverage was rotted.  It devoted less space to the actual event than it did to people who showed up to protest.  Like, wtf are they "protesting"?  Nothing important obviously, because they were holding signs with the name of our current P.O.T.U.S.'s immediate predecessor.  Okay, so they feel like their freedoms are being infringed upon.  And the way they're choosing to assert their power - the best use of the limited time we have on Earth in this one incarnation - is holding up signs of the former P.O.T.U.S.'s name?  What an interesting choice.

7/9/21

Let Shacarri Run!

I don't care about sports, but I do know about some famous athletes who are actual stars instead of just sports stars.  One of whom I've been recently paying attention to is Shacarri Richardson.  My bf was the one who showed me videos of her sprinting - as in running - and she's so fabulous.  Yes girl, werk!  I don't usually feel that way while watching runners, but Shacarri is beautiful on so many levels.  I learned two things today:  1.)  the Olympics starts in four weeks, and 2.)  Shacarri is banned from it because she used marijuana.  MARIJUANA!  For fuck's sake.  I'm super angry about this right now because I didn't even know the Olympics were starting this month and yet I did know who Shacarri Richardson is.  In my mind there's a wall built up that the people who perform in the Olympics are not my type of people, but here's someone whom I'd be proud to be represented by and they're keeping my type of people out.  That's how I feel, and it looks like I'm not the only one because for hours I've been watching how many signatures the moveon.org petition is getting.  The petition states that marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug and continues:  "The imposition of a penalty against a world-class black, queer, woman athlete is powerfully and infuriatingly reminiscent of the way drug laws are regularly applied in the United States.  Recreational marijuana has been de-facto legal for upper-middle-class white people for years."

7/2/21

Free Britney!  Or Imprison Everyone.

Britney Spears spoke in court this week, making a highly-anticipated 23-minute statement about the conservatorship she's been under for 13 years.  The New York Times printed the transcript, except they wrote "[expletive]" whenever Britney said "fuck" which is disappointing.  As if it weren't news fit to print.  Britney said she wants her father imprisoned and she wants to sue her family and therapists.  I'd say her dad must've served some amazing cheese grits to everyone in court, but this isn't so surprising considering the way the whole system is set up.  First of all, the entire human race continually makes terrible decisions so I'm sure sentient robots are going to rise up any day now and put us all under conservatorship.  But until that happens, it doesn't make sense to single out Britney Spears.  Like it or not, she's had a special place in the cultural landscape for > two decades.  And she's in the same category as Michael Jackson, a.k.a. people who do have talent but aren't smart enough to handle the power that comes with their celebrity status.  Her statement this week was not the most coherent thing I've read, but I do hope she's freed from the conservatorship knowing full well that once it happens she's going to make decisions most of the world will consider to be bad and wrong.  I begrudgingly care about this story because several things about the situation are uniquely terrifying, considering the fraught relationship I personally have with my own family.

6/26/21

Juneteenth Is Now An Officially-Recognized Federal Holiday

On Thursday, our current P.O.T.U.S. signed a bill declaring Juneteenth to be the 12th officially-recognized federal holiday.  But this year it's on a Saturday, so it would've been observed on Friday and that gave everyone < 24 hours to get ready.  The 12 officially-recognized federal holidays are now:  New Years, M.L.K. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, July Fourth, Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  Inauguration Day is also an officially-recognized federal holiday but it only happens once every four years so that barely even counts.  I'm not a fan of holidays.  I hate how they all bunch up in certain areas of the calendar and leave a dearth of p.t.o. between Presidents and Memorial.  If it were up to me, holidays would all be pragmatically spread evenly throughout the year.  So if there are 11, then it'd be approximately one every 34.2 days.  So the June holiday would celebrate the end of slavery, gay pride, Puerto Rico, the summer solstice, fathers, flags, World War 2, bicycles, black music, and nudist gardening amongst lots of other stuff I'm sure.  It seems like the majority of people are happy to have another holiday, even people who deep down really wish they owned slaves.  Some people said this is just performative and other people said it only serves to divide us more, which is why my idea is the best.  In June we'd celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation and then 34.2 days later we'd celebrate the Declaration Of Independence.

6/20/21

We Are Who We Are, The U.S. Is What It Is

Joe Biden has been serving in the office of P.O.T.U.S. for 144 days which is nearly 5 months.  In all that time, it's been so nice not hearing from his immediate P.O.T.U.S. predecessor.  It's such a blessing and pleasure not to see that guy's face nor hear his voice nor read headlines about whatever he's doing.  I hope he's just chilling and not out there trying to do more dictator stuff.  But you know he probably is out there trying to do more dictator stuff.  It'd be nice to raise that bar, but in a lot of ways our nation just is what it is and which figurehead represents us is immaterial.  I think most people realize it's not as if one of them is evil and the other is moral.  We might not act like we know that sometimes, but we all get it deep down.  That's me being optimistic, btw.  This week our current V.P.O.T.U.S. was in Guatemala City, which I visited once and loved, telling potential refugees not to come to the U.S.  For progressive people it's disappointing, but I don't think there's really anything else she could've possibly said.  Because, as I mentioned, our nation just is what it is.  Still, it was > a year ago when I spent $36.56 on a "JOE 2020" t-shirt and I'd gladly do it again because the differences between him and his predecessor - as small as they might be in the grand scheme - still matter to me.

6/13/21

I Guess There's Technically Still A Pandemic, But No One Cares Anymore

Yesterday my bf and I went to Ikea.  I love looking at displays of interior decorating like how I love looking at photos of food.  Every single time I'm there, I fantasize about alternate versions of reality in which I'm much more fancy and upscale.  In reality I'm pretty practical and a lot poorer.  I was so into it that I signed up for the "family" club.  Anywhoozle, when we first went in everyone was 100% wearing face-coverings even though the sign at the door said they weren't required.  But as we got deeper into the store, there came times when the usage of face-coverings by the people around us - both shoppers and employees - dropped to as low as like 33%.  For Chicagolandia, that's something different from this past year.  And there were a lot of fucking people shopping at Ikea yesterday.  It was so retro to walk around in a crowd with our faces uncovered.  My bf kept his face-covering on the entire time, but I eventually took mine off.  Before last year no one hardly ever thought anything about sharing unfiltered breathing air with random strangers, but then it became so highly fraught and controversial.  A friend of mine talks about how vaccinated people can still spread coronavirus to others and how there's a highly-contagious variant in India and there's been two coronavirus outbreaks amongst vaccinated people in Singapore, one at a hospital where the staff was presumably wearing face-coverings.  Yeah, I can't even with that.

6/7/21

The 1921 Tulsa Massacre Was 100 Years Ago

The 1921 Tulsa Massacre was happening one hundred years ago today.  It's an inscrutable historic event because public awareness is so low - especially in Oklahoma! - and actual statistics are so murky.  Thirty-nine deaths were officially confirmed, but twenty years ago a state government commission put the fatalities anywhere between 75 to 300.  Why the wide range of gray area?  The first time I learned of it was from Democracy Now! commemorating the 90th anniversary.  Then in the past ten years, more and more people have heard about it for the very first time, particularly people like me who grew up in Oklahoma and took the required public school state history class that discussed pioneers, settlers, the trail of tears, etc.  I visited the Greenwood District Cultural Center in March 2015 and was like, um wow.  I'm sure they're doing the best they can with whatever resources they have but for such a major event, I expected something more.  It was maybe like 3% of the 1995 OKC Bombing Memorial.  The Greenwood Center had exhibits in restrooms, so I went into the women's restroom to view them which was fine since I was the only visitor on the premises, and saw a 6/14/1921 quote from Tulsa's mayor:  "It was the judgment of many wise heads in Tulsa that this was inevitable.  All regret the wrongs that fell upon good negroes.  However, it is true of any warfare that the fortunes of war fall upon the innocent with the guilty."

6/1/21

Abolition In The Bones Is Now Live

A friend of mine launched a website this week aimed at confronting white-supremacy.  Its title is Abolition In The Bones:  abolitioninthebones.com.  There was a launch party event where she got together a bunch of friends and we all googled it to boost the search engine rating.  I really do love the website.  I'd like to say how objectively great it is, but I can't be objective.  She's one of my best friends in the whole world and I'm very happy about her living out her mission in life.  Even though it seems like we've been drifting apart recently.  I really want this endeavor to be successful by capitalist standards, but other standards of success would be great as well.  There are several core concepts of Abolition In The Bones, one of which is that it's not good enough to just talk about issues.  In order to actually make changes in someone, there has to be something personally experiential inside the body besides just brain-only stimuli.  Another core concept is that it isn't the responsibility of targeted groups to explain systemic oppression.  For example, it isn't a woman's job to explain sexism to men; it's men's jobs to learn about sexism for themselves.  It isn't a black person's job to explain racism to white people; it's white people's jobs to learn about racism for themselves.  That'd be ideal, but it's not how things actually work.  So yay for people who are out there envisioning some kinder gentler version of the world.  

5/26/21

I'm Gonna Be On American Idol, Probably

I was off work yesterday because I got the coronavirus vaccine, which I don't even want to mention because I don't generally blab about my personal medical decisions.  But that's what I was doing.  And since I had the day off, I packed the most into it:  haircut, oil-change, zoo, lunch with friends, etc.  It just so happened that American Idol was filming in DTCL.  American Idol is a television show I've never watched but my mom does.  A 20 year-old woman named Grace Kinstler who lives a mile from me was chosen to be in the top 3 finale of season 19 to be broadcast on Sunday.  My bf & I got there at 4:30 and walked around for an hour before deciding to leave at 5:30, but while we were there we were part of filming.  They had the crowd chant "We love Grace!" and flew a camera overhead and told us to wave.  So I might be on national network television!  We were two of the very few people in the crowd wearing face-coverings.  There were loudspeakers playing fun party music and it was a large crowd of people dancing in the street and drinking fancy cocktails from the gay-owned lounge across the street.  The actual event started at 5:47, and I felt so happy hearing the crowd cheering as we drove away.  For a second, I even thought Grace might become more famous than that 5 year-old who was murdered in our neighborhood two years ago.

5/19/21

Some World Events Interest Me, Some Don't

Major world events are happening in South America and the Middle East.  The Israel / Palestine conflict is particularly fiery and bloody right now.  I'm just over the entire Israel / Palestine conflict.  I hope the U.S. doesn't get involved more than we already are.  In this instance, I'm in favor of letting it play out however it goes which includes cutting off U.S. aid to Israel.  Remaining neutral may only serve the oppressor, but why is it our job to judge every conflict?  Especially something like this which is the whole reason accountants invented write-offs.  Obviously that's a horrible opinion which I'll be apologizing for soon.  A world event that I do have time and bandwidth for is the popular uprisings in Colombia.  Seeing as how I myself am a member of the lower class, I'm on the side of other poor people.  Whichever side has drag performers doing fierce choreographed voguing routines in the faces of militarized riot police, that's the side I'm on.  I think of Bogota as a cool city with lots of artists, and this popular uprising looked like the fun place to be in the world based on the videos I saw of it on Twitter.  For the past several years now, there have been people in the U.S. trying to make some point about Venezuela which neighbors Colombia.  But the bottom line of any political world event is that everyone is going to go out and assert whatever power they're capable of asserting.  

5/13/21

Goodbye One Dynamic Duo, Hello Another

Last night I was lying in bed around 10:00p looking at social media when I saw a news story with an unfathomable headline:  "The Cock-Destroyers Have Parted Ways."  My reaction was exactly the same as all those gifs of Sarah Paulson from American Horror Story that people were sharing.  How could this be possible?  The Cock-Destroyers were the one good thing that ever happened in the U.K.  What even is the point of anything?  I feel numb.  However, I'm attempting to break through my numbness because first thing this morning I got the new self-titled debut album from Man On Man that just came out today.  Band members are boyfriends and tighty-whitey enthusiasts Joey Holman and Roddy Bottum.  Normalize tighty-whiteys!  I first heard about this new project a couple months ago, but when I saw the May 7 release date I knew there was a high likelihood I'd probably forget about them by now.  I did, but I'd followed Joey on Instagram so it reminded me.  Today is also Bandcamp day which is allegedly when the site gives all proceeds to artists without taking their percentage.  Bandcamp used to be my favorite source for purchasing music because they used to have customer service.  But now that they don't do that anymore, what's a customer's incentive for using Bandcamp over Amazon?  Luckily, this morning's Man On Man purchase went smoothly which was not my experience recently with Tuneyards's new release.  Customer service from a website selling stuff?  What a strange concept.

5/7/21

Camp Wannakiki Season 3 Is Happening, Probably

On April 1, Camp Wannakiki announced a new season which I obviously thought was a great April Fools joke.  But alas, my favorite holiday is basically non-ergo these days.  Wannakiki did a season 3 cast reveal on April 18.  I know a couple of the performers, but I'm most well-acquainted with America Powers.  I was actually live and in person at Berlin nightclub 10/24/16 when America won Crash Landing cycle 9.  And yes, I was in the majority of audience members who voted for her over Tenderoni which sparked the hashtag #justiceforTenderoni.  I remember both their performances very well and America's was better.  Tenderoni just won Alaska Thunderfuck's Drag Queen Of The Year Pageant Competition Award Contest Competition on March 7 so he's fine.  Anywhoozle, one of the Wannakiki 3 cast members is Lucy Cotoure from Saint Louis and the show's been inundated with angry social media comments because that performer had been accused of sexual assault.  Wannakiki issued a statement about it then renounced their statement < 24 hours later.  I'm actually surprised by all these comments, and the fact that there's > 100 of them.  I didn't realize that many people watched Wannakiki.  All publicity is good publicity though.  Imho, it'd be best for them to just go along with their little show as planned without reacting too much to the comments.  Wannakiki never had any right to make it to season 3 in the first place.  But seriously, I was raped by a Hamburger Mary employee once.

5/1/21