Do-over

I know I should be spending some time writing a new post or maybe pick my nose, but I opted instead to re-edit an old "mix" I did of the Janet's "That's The Way Love Goes" with Nsync's live performance of it from MTV's ICON. There is no reason for this re-edit save for the fact that the original version of the mix I did was the first time I ever used the Acid DJ software years ago. I've meant to re-visit that because I've always felt that I could do better. There are very few do-overs in life, but I thought this mix, and quite possibly my Bjork swan dress halloween costume, deserved one.


That's The Way Love Goes (DJ Evil Twin 2005 Remix)
Janet vs *Nsync
DL here (right click, save as)

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More DJ Evil Twin, including the original mix of TTWLG

Thanks to Paul Pellerito from Thoughts to Fill an Empty Room for hosting.

Morning Routine

Every morning, before I go to work, I go through the contents of the refrigerator to see what I can scrounge up to take to work for lunch. I'm leftover kinda guy, which means every little thing from dinner the previous night is saved up for future meals. A slice of meatloaf, two broccoli florets or my boyfriend's past infidelities; nothing is too trivial to be brought up again, rehashed and reheated. Sometimes this results in odd combinations: sardines and mashed potatoes; hamburger patties and rice; chocolate syrup and pubic lice--I knew that the chocolate syrup was too gritty when I was going down on my boyfriend's cock. This morning's lunch is bits of roast chicken and the last slice of bologna slapped between mayo-slathered multi-grain bread. I put the sandwich in a grocery bag, which I save and re-use (Save-The-Earth and all the crap).

Every morning, my cats make an enormous ruckus digging a hole to China via the litter box or trying to cover up their poop, I don't know. They are usually not very successful, because the litter ends up everywhere around the litter box and not on the poop. The poop sits right in the middle of the box, like a jewel surrounded by hardened clumps of pee. Sometimes I imagine that in an aeon, all the pet shit buried in landfills around the world will transmute into semi-precious stones. It amuses me to think that one morning, long ago, some brontosaurus took a huge dump in a hole, and millions of years later, it's now sitting on Jessica Simpson's finger. I think about these things as I hold my breath trying to shovel the cat poop into another grocery bag.

Every morning, I linger too long in front of the TV. I keep thinking that in five minutes I will get up and brush my teeth. Five minutes later, I think that I have another ten minutes before I absolutely have to leave the house in order to make it to work on time. I think about this as I fantasize about local WGN weatherman Paul Konrad, naked under his raincoat. I wonder if anybody else has fantasies about naked weathermen, besides my mother who used to masturbate to the nine p.m. newscast? Of course, she doesn't do that anymore; she masturbates to TRL now.

This morning, I realize that I will be late yet again. In a rush, I grabbed my lunch bag and the bag of cat poop, throwing one down the garbage chute on my way to the elevator and to my car. When I get to work, I drop off the other bag in the breakroom refrigerator before I settle in to work.

At lunch time today, I realized my error when I opened the plastic bag. Guess which bag I brought to work?

Tales of Gay Shopping

Have we come to a point in American society that when two men are shopping together that we assume that they are gay? Do straight men even shop, let alone together? Would they call up a buddy and say, "Hey man, let’s get some brewskis, some chips and dip, and then to Bed Bath and Beyond and pick out a nice bowl and condiment dish to put them in."

And I am not talking about going to Best Buy to look at big screen TVs. That’s not shopping; that’s just getting an accessory for one’s porno collection.

Shopping is an activity that is more nuanced, more sophisticated; it is what separates man from an ape with a credit card. It’s looking at all the things that one can’t afford and then going home to bitch at your boyfriend or partner for not making more money to keep us comfortable. Shopping builds our dreams, our fantasies and our enormous tolerance for personal debt. It is one of the foundations of modern society, along with backstabbing and stealing office supplies.

My boyfriend Brian and I were at Target last Sunday to stock up on our household necessities. This is the kind of shopping Brian and I don't really enjoy. It's hard to get excited about toilet paper unless you live in the jungle or with someone who has chronic diarrhea.

We have very different approaches to get this task done quickly. Brian goes through our pantry and supply closet and diligently takes inventory of our needs. I don't bother with lists; I just start at one end of the store and rush through every aisle grabbing everything that catches my eye. This usually only takes me 15 minutes, less time than arguing with my mother on the phone about why I can't go to church to meet a girl to marry, well, because I am Agnostic and our god frowns on meeting in churches--there's too much gossiping and backbiting going on in there.

At Target, we decided to stop by the furniture department. While we were checking out computer desks, a guy came up to us and asked for help. He had on black vintage plastic frames and a black bomber jacket. I thought he needed help with picking out a shag rug to match his outfit, but it turns out he was a reporter for The New York Times.

He wanted to interview a gay couple about what we thought about the new Thomas O'Brien designer furniture that Target was featuring. I checked to make sure that I wasn't wearing my t-shirt that says "I AM NOT GAY, I JUST USE FOUNDATION TO EVEN OUT MY SKIN TONE." I decided not to make it an issue as long as he mentions my blog.

To be honest, I was very disappointed with the interview. I thought it would be more in-depth, you know, like the effect on society of the proliferation of wood veneer furniture. But it was more like, which pieces did we like, which ones would we buy and why we weren't lugging something home with us. I think he was confusing his homosexuals; we explained that we don't have a flatbed truck and we don't date strippers--we weren't lesbians, no?

He told us that that the article would come out in the Home & Garden section of the NYT this Thursday. I am kinda excited/scared. Looking back, I regretted giving using our real names. I think that "Beau" and "Chip" would've made us sound more sophisticated, don't you?

Following The Forearm

You know how there are certain things about a person that immediately draws your attention, that turns you on, like his dimples, or his broad shoulders or the big, fat bulge of his wallet? For me, it's a man's arms. Nothing turns me on more than a man with muscular biceps and sinewy forearms. It makes me think of all the things he can do with the unassembled cabinets that need to be hung in my kitchen.

This fascination with men's arms has gotten me into trouble more times than I can count. I remember once at the gym, this massive, muscular guy with no neck, who was bench pressing eight 45 lb plates, asked me for help. For the next seven minutes, I helped him calculate the total weight of the eight plates. In my defense, I was so mesmerized by how close I was standing to the guy to think about using my cellphone's calculator that I had in my gym shorts.

I feel the way about biceps the way straight men feel about boobs except that I can masturbate to my own biceps. But I like to masturbate to someone else's because it's not that easy to sneak out of your own bicep after you get off. I could also probably try to give myself a blowjob. I think I am limber enough, but I have a moral aversion to eating my own meat and swallowing my own jizz. I mean, I dunno, isn't that cannibalism?

Then there's the highway, a veritable minefield of danger. Construction crews can be very very distracting, especially in the summer where they are working shirtless, all rough and sweaty. I feel like stopping and asking if they were doing anything after their shift. Those kitchen cabinets are not gonna install themselves.

And there are those times when you see a beefy, bronzed forearm hanging out of a car window and you want to get a glimpse of its owner. You drive in breakneck speed to catch up. Once, I missed my exit and had to drive back another thirty minutes, all just to see if the guy attached to the arm is attractive. He was. I just wished he wasn't also an undercover cop. The tailgating ticket wasn't so attractive.

And have you ever had a maddening flirtation where you inch up slowly to a car in heavy traffic, trying to catch the eye of the cute guy in the next car and he looks at you and he drives away? It's sooo frustrating. I just wish these guys wouldn't be so coy.

Who am I kidding? I don't need to see a guy's forearm to start following them on the highway. I'd do it even if all you had was a bumper sticker that says "I HAVE A BIG COCK."

Ahh, those bumper stickers. I remember how exciting it was when I first came out of the closet in the nineties with all the gays being all proud and shit. Everybody had some kind of symbol on their car to proclaim their gayness. There was the rainbow flag, the pink triangle, the Mazda Miata emblem. Nowadays, gay guys aren't as proud anymore. We're just very, very smug. And we're also harder to find on the road. We've diversified. We drive big, powerful, gas-guzzling SUVs in a very subtle shade of powder blue.

So guys, make sure to hang your buffed up forearms out the window. In the meantime, I'll be trying to catch up with that 23 inch bicep I spied three lanes over on the I-90.