Best Beths

I've been very inspired by Beth ever since I had "remixed" Stolen Car. I had bought all of her CDs and decided that if anybody was ripe for a remix, it was her.

Beth's songs are quiet and never over-produced, they lend themselves to my idea of lazy mixing and production, which is basically to add beats and atmosphere and possibly speeding it up to 30%. Many people describe her music as a fusion between trip-hop and folk. I took many of these quieter songs and made them more upbeat--pop, if you will. If you like Everything But The Girl, Fiona Apple or Cat Power, you probably will like her too.

Yes, yes, I should probably stick to writing my stupid little blog posts, but ya know, I follow my Muse wherever she takes me even though one time, she led me to a sex party where people shit on each other. I made her promise to not ever do that to me again without telling me. I would've taken some Metamucil before going.

I put the mixes up at BestSharing.* When you click on the images below, it should take you the BestSharing site and you can DL them there. They will be there for a limited time, so get them quickly.




But listen, if you want a bona fide CD of these DJ Evil Twin mixes, I'll send them to you. I only have 5 of these CDs to give. The CD contains these 11 mixes as well as 8 other great songs.

I want people to listen to the damn thing and short of selling the thing on eBay, nobody will. All you have to do if you're interested in it is to send me your address so I can mail it to you. You MUST have a blog. Yes, this could be my way of showing up unannounced on your doorstep, but if you've read my blog, you know that this will never happen because I am waaay normal and not crazy at all. Seriously though, if you're worried about that, send me your work address, I would NEVER dream of showing up there. TRUST ME.



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*If you are using Firefox, the song downloads, but may need to be renamed to a .mp3 extension.

Today I am Happy

Today, I'm in the midst my third decade and I have all my teeth. When I laugh, the lines on my face add character and that character is not Elmer Fudd. I have an ass that gravity has not pulled below the back of my knees. Half a breath is all it takes to hold in my stomach. And though my hair is slowly eroding, I can still use my muscular chest to distract you.

Today, I have a job that I do well and I don't hate. Sometimes, there are people who make it unpleasant, but by and large, that is infrequent and quickly over. We have casual Fridays which can sometimes stretch to casual Mondays and Tuesdays. This saves me a lot of money on dry cleaning, which is my third largest expenditure, behind the rent and the credit card payments for the trip to Italy ten years ago. When I get home from work, I can forget totally about it.

Today I still have both my parents, who are elderly but young enough to fret about being called "seniors." When I call them, they are healthy enough to complain of their various little ailments, which I commiserate with them about. They have not resigned themselves to the inevitable decline, but still harbor hope, which is evidenced by their efforts to marry me off to an unsuspecting young woman at their church.

I want to describe to you this day so that you will remember. I am sitting in a Starbucks, waiting for my best friends Joe, Matt and Annie. It is a sunny day; the sidewalk is white from the glare of sun, reflecting into the cafe. A pretty girl is standing outside, in a denim skirt and a jaunty ponytail, her hand covered in a plastic bag, waiting patiently for her pug to finish taking a crap so she can pick it up. I am enjoying a piping hot cup of Calm, a chamomile tea, which my boyfriend Brian has bought me. I blow into the cup to cool it off.

Today I am in love.

Today, I am writing this post, which my friends around the world will have read. I will read their comments with excitement, I respond with enthusiasm.

Today I am alive, right now, key by key, letter by letter. These are my marks in the world. This is my pee in the alley behind the dumpster, my scrawl in a bathroom stall: FOR A GOOD TIME CALL PAUL AT 773.555.1212.

You, who are me tomorrow, a week or twenty years from now--I don't know where you are, whether you're lonely, unemployed or sick in bed, a tumor growing inside of you--there were days when you were happy, this being one of them.

Remember that there was a day like today.

America's Report Card

When John McNally, wrote to me several months ago that he was going to give me a copy of his new book America's Report Card, I ignored it as if it were a venereal disease: it's not real until the scabs appeared. I didn't think he was actually going to send me the book.

As you long time readers know, I don't write very good reviews. I tell people that I like it or I hate it, period. I'm not one for unearthing the hidden meaning of art or delving into the mind of the artist. That's for people who have a spatula instead of a personality.

However, what I am good at is the celebrity interview. I've done so, so many. This time I tried to get John to reveal more intimate facts about himself. Even if you've never read anything John McNally has written, you'll laugh (or cry) at his responses to my irreverent questions.


No Milk: When you said that you were going to send me a copy of your new book after it was published, I thought you were full of shit. I was going to send you a laxative, but I didn't know your address. But the book actually appeared on my doorstep.

I was in the middle of reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. Invisible Monsters was my bathroom read, I need literature to help pass the time while I take my long craps. Your book was going to be the book I read in the car while I was stuck in traffic, propped against the steering wheel. I almost got into an accident because I so absorbed in it, it blew away both other books. I even took an extra long crap so I can finish the last chapter. You must be proud of this novel. But if you had to save only one of your books from a burning house, which one would you save?

John McNally: If you mean which of the books I’ve written I would save, I would probably say none. I tend to hate everything I’ve written by the time it’s published. Instead, I would save Richard Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road. But if I could replace the medium, I would actually save all of the seasons of Deadwood on DVD. I’m writing an essay for a magazine about why Deadwood is the best mass entertainment since Dickens. So, there you have it. I’d run into the burning house, run past my own books, and snag all of Deadwood. I should say here that the mobile home my family lived in when I was three years old burned down in the middle of the night, and while I was watching from inside the trailer next door, I saw what my father threw out the front door as the highest priorities to save: a rug cleaner; an answering machine (this was a Code-a-Phone, circa 1968), and a birdcage with our pet bird inside. And that was pretty much all we ended up with. My pet turtle, which I had bought the week before at Goldblatt’s, perished.

NM: I must admit I had some trepidation when I heard your book was going to be called America's Report Card, I have such an aversion to politically themed books. I hate things that tax my wallet, and I hate books that tax my intellect. Interestingly, your book drew me into the characters and their lives while implanting me with political rhetoric. What came first, the chicken or the politics?

JM: The chicken. The book began as an essay about my crappy job of scoring standardized tests, and how corrupt I thought the whole enterprise was. The essay didn’t work, so several years later I pulled out my shoebox full of notes and tried writing it as a novel. The novel didn’t work, either. But then came Election Year 2004. I was growing more and more pissed off every time I saw Bush on TV, and so I went back and wondered what it would be like to try writing the novel in the very moment that I was living, letting whatever was on the news filter into the story and letting my own anger fuel the writing of the book. Once I figured out that I would end the book on Election Day, I had a structure for the book, and the rest of the elements all fell into place. The last thing I wanted to do was write a politically-themed book, but I managed to find a roundabout way to write one.

NM: You mention Duke’s Italian Beef in this novel, as you did in The Book of Ralph. Let me tell you, the Italian Beef sandwich is probably the one food that exemplifies Chicago for me, more than the Deep Dish Pizza or the Chicago-style Hot Dog. There should be a fanfare of trumpets or a chorus of angels whenever it is served.

I'm from the Philippines and closest we have to something as iconic as an Italian Beef sandwich is balut, which is boiled duck embryo, still in its shell. There is no fanfare or chorus when you eat it, just the imaginary high-pitched scream/quack of a tiny, featherless duckling stewed in its own amniotic fluid.

This is the way I like my Italian Beef: on a warm, flaky bun with hot peppers and a side of the "juice" or gravy, which I will dip my sandwich in before each bite. Sometimes, in my haste, parts of the waxy paper they use to wrap the sandwich end up in my mouth. I will also throw a few fries at a time in the gravy to soak and cram into my mouth before they get soggy. I arm myself with a three-inch stack of napkins to deal with the inevitable mess of eating this delicious meal. Why does Duke's have such a hold on you? And have you ever had balut?

JM: I have never had balut, but I'm game for anything stewed in its own amniotic fluid. Sounds wonderful. As for Duke's, it's the beef sandwich place of my youth, so it's not just tasty Italian beef that lures me in, it's the nostalgia I have for the building itself, it's the melancholy that overcomes me when I step inside. I weep each time I visit Duke's. It's that frickin' emotional for me.

You and I both know that when you order food outside of Chicago that bills itself "Chicago style" that it isn't really "Chicago style." It's just crappy food with some marketing savvy slapped on it. I got married in Iowa City, where their idea of an Italian sausage sandwich is to grill the sausage like a hamburger patty and serve it on a bun. What the fuck is that? The day after my wife and I got hitched, we threw a party, and so I had a friend from Chicago cater Italian beef and Italian sausage. There are several photos of me explaining the proper way to eat the sandwiches. Our guests were virgins when it came to this shit. They were trying not to get the bun wet with beef sandwich juice. My mother-in-law actually wanted to toast her bun in our oven because she mistook the bun’s durability for it being stale. I almost kicked her out of the house. What these people didn’t understand is that a good Italian beef sandwich is messy. They were acting like I was serving deli sandwiches.

NM: I am a very important blogger, my blog is read by my twin brother, my boyfriend and his mother. They can mean the difference between the discount bin and a runaway hit novel, which believe it or not, is a very slim divide, especially for my boyfriend's mother; she's never paid full price for a book ever. This past 4th of July, after dinner, she took our styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery, rinsed them and put them back in the cupboard. How does it feel to be in the presence of blog royalty?

JM: I am humbled, sir. I quake even as I type this.


CONTINUED: "The angrier the context in which I say Ann Coulter's name, the rauchier things get."




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Read my other celebrity interview with John McNally. This is his website and blog

What's in Paul's fridge?

Paul Pellerito, the awesome blogger from In My Own Words created this graphic and hosts all of my alter-ego DJ Evil Twin's remixes. Please show him some love.

Technorati Tags: Humor Gay Queer mp3 Music Remix

No Ordinary Love

No Ordinary Love
(DJ Evil Twin Soulful Remix)
Sade
DL here
If link is broken, e-mail me.

Other Sade / DJ Evil Twin Mixes:


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Recommended Sade CDs:

Lonely in The Crowd

Our group stood close, although there was no need--my friend Jeff's animated voice carried through the noisy, crowded bar. Ken, his boyfriend of three weeks, stood quietly at the edges, an Amstel light sweating in his hand. Noticing my gaze, he shifted his weight, leaning into the group. He nodded at something Jeff said, forcing out a chuckle, his face wide.

I felt sorry for Ken. Hanging out with the new boyfriend's crowd can be very stressful. I've been that guy. Sometimes, I am still that guy. Whenever we go to a function with friends of my boyfriend who I am not familiar with, I am back to that first time I hung out with his friends, trying to fit in.

If you're lucky, there's a person in the group that you have a connection with, maybe someone who shares your interest in chemistry, small animals or taxidermy. Or maybe one of them is someone you've slept with before, but who's forgotten who you are. You quickly switch to a Chicago southside accent. Ya hope dis will trow him aff.

The good news is that by nature, gay people are gregarious and can talk about almost any subject under the sun, probably because until we were old enough to go to gay bars, we didn't go out much. We watched a lot of TV and read a lot of magazines.

For any gay kid growing up, developing this talent for witty conversation is like a defense mechanism of sorts, especially for me. In high school, I thought that if I can make interesting conversation, then maybe the other guys wouldn't notice that fact that I am a complete and total flamer. Maybe my knowledge of music, art and fashion can fool them into thinking I am straight.

However, the problem is that if your friend brings the guy he's gone out on two dates in, you don't know how much effort you should take. The guy may not be around next week. It would be a terrible waste of an amusing anecdote.

With a stranger, conversation goes in fits of starts and stops; you try on topics like a pile of clothes in a tiny store dressing room, quickly discarding those that make your ass look flat. Even if you find a topic that fits, you're limited to talking in the past and present tense; you can't really talk about going to see The Devil Wears Prada this weekend because you don't know if your friend's made other plans with some other trick. You don't want to mention the trip to Great America next month, because that's almost an invitation.

When I meet a guy, wanting to get to know him is like the most exciting thing. I want to know what makes him tick, what his friends are like, when I can move into his fabulous loft. And I want the guy to meet my friends, my family, my shrink. If the friends like me, then I'm in. But if they don't, a casual negative comment from them could mean that I'm back online, back to pretending to be twenty-three old with a swimmer's build.

I've learned the hard way that the friends (yours and his) can end things prematurely. Better to get to know your guy first, take things slowly, before trying to merge with the Borg. That way, at least your guy's not getting to know you at the same time as his friends; you're not trying to please everybody, be everything to everyone. That's hard.

Once, I was with a group where I alternately had to be a sports nut, a political activist and an art snob. That was at a bathhouse. By the way, can I say that we gay people are getting fucking out of control with our fetishes? Doesn't anybody get off without having it to be some fucking production? Just once, I would like to get a blowjob without having to pretend to be a cop.

Ken had finished his Amstel and was halfway into a Long Island Icea Tea. He was looser, louder, spit occasionally flying out, the alcohol talking. He was really trying hard to fit in. I can tell he really liked my friend Jeff. That makes it harder, right? You know what I mean.

You remember how it feels like to be the only gay person you know in high school. You remember being in a crowd of people all having fun, connecting.

You remember being lonely in the crowd.


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You don't have to be lonely if you're on the mailing list. Join now!

The Devil Wears Prada was an amusing frothy fun summer movie! Here's a song from the movie that I tweaked:

Mocean Worker - Très Très Chic (DJ Evil Twin Ecstacy Mix)

Technorati Tags: Humor Gay Queer Remix

I'm Gay! I'm Gay!

(c) Copyright 2005, The New Yorker

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Ok, so I know that for my friends in areas where salmon aren't native to, this cartoon probably makes no sense at all. So: why do salmon swim upstream?

Shame

The last day of my visit to the Philippines, while I was writing a blog post in my old bedroom, my father came in and sat down. Believe me when I say that this is really a very unusual thing for him to do. In all the fifty years of my youth, my father has never, ever come to sit down in my room.

He sat there in silence, making me very nervous. Usually, he is chewing the scenery, ranting about my report card, my clothes or my excessively bouncy hair.

After a minute of this, I was freaking out. My heart started to beat faster and my stomach felt like Shiloh Jolie-Pitt (then unbeknownst to us, three months in-utero) had mysteriously teleported into my stomach and was doing hurdles. I thought my father was going to tell me something serious and grave, like they found a lump in George Bush's elbow and that it was his brain.

Finally, he spoke up. "You don't need to say anything," he said, holding up his hand to emphasize this point. "Let me speak."

He said this in Chinese, so I'm translating for you poor uneducated, monolingual folks.

I nodded silently, biting my lip from asking an instinctive why.

"I have never shamed your grandfather, or your ancestors or our family name," he said quietly.

If you say our family name out loud, it sounds like the English word for "testicles," which is not really that embarrassing. I think it would be more embarrassing if it sounded like the word "balls."

He continued, "When you get back to Chicago, do not embarrass them. Do not embarrass us."

My head nodded on its own accord. I was unable to speak, maybe because he still holding his hand up. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to say anything.


Back here in Chicago, I thought about those words to me. Obviously, my father wasn't talking about my shoes--they were really quite fab--so I had to assume he meant my comic book collection. Or my homosexuality.

He also mentioned that he himself has never done anything to embarrass our family, though I beg to differ, he mortified me whenever he walked into the room in just his threadbare boxer shorts when my friends came over. I think he meant our family name, which hardly smelled like roses, but more (appropriately) like wet balls.

My father has been in an unhappy marriage for over twenty years. Ok, I don't really know how unhappy he is. He belongs to another generation of Asians where "being in love" is not what defines a marriage. Honor and respect, maybe--possibly status. Personally, I defined his marriage as unhappy because he doesn't have a giant flat screen plasma TV.

Sometimes it's hard tell if your man is really happy in your relationship and sometimes, the only way you can truly know is if you dig deep down and see if you can find the receipt to that flat screen TV. Brian and I don't have a flat screen TV and I am frantically saving up for one to save my relationship.

I suppose he could've separated from my mother, try his luck with someone else who could stand his killer rotten broccoli farts. But my father doesn't believe in divorce, not because it is not legal in the Philippines, but because it would be shameful and a blight on our family name. I think that even if he was in the most terrible of marriages, he would never even consider it. "Divorce" was not in his vocabulary; I hoped that "arsenic" wasn’t either.

In my father's tradition, having a mistress is not exactly shameful. In fact, in some circles, it's very acceptable to have a mistress. As long as the wife is in charge of the money and the home, most wives are quite happy to have somebody else have to deal with their husbands' oral spelunking and desire to wear panties. A prostitute is just something you pay for with the change in your pocket and hope your dick doesn't fall off three months later.

When I was thirteen, I think he had a mistress. I couldn't prove it though. At that age, I was more interested in the lifeguard in the local pool to care about him. Isn't that weird? My parents' life was falling apart and all I cared about was my dick.

I guess my father and I weren't so different after all.

I am not sure why he felt the need to invoke our ancestors, our family name that last day. As far as I knew, he didn't chew peyote. Maybe he realized that homosexuality was never going to be exorcised from my soul, no monsignor will drive it out of me.

I will not be ashamed of being gay. I will projectile-vomit gourmet pea soup at you rather than be ashamed. I have twenty pairs of shoes that say I have nothing to be embarrassed about.

This Father's Day, there will be more loveless days in my parents' marriage than there were those filled with love. I guess it is my conceit to think that this constitutes an unhappy marriage. After all, he still has honor and the respect of his community.

I respect and love my father. Here in Chicago, ten thousand miles away, I can hold up my end of the bargain easily; he doesn't have to hear about my fabulously gay life. He won't hear about that, or much about anything else either.

No, that's not a shame.

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June is Gay Pride Month! Read other posts about it:

The Gay Experience - Gay rights are fabulous and hard to contain. Pride - A Gay Pride Cartoon.

Lucky - I was lucky to survive my tumultous teen years. Bill wasn't.

More about my father:

...and a Happy New Year - A son reaches out. Walk Like a Man - What? You mean not like a fashion model?!?

Stays Together - my father's dinnertime rules. Plus: an Amazing Race moment. The Long Way Home - My trip to the Philippines. Drama! Comedy! Diarrhea!

#1 Single

I got to spend some time with the #1 Single girl herself, Lisa Loeb, who came to the Greater Chicago Jewish Festival in Skokie to perform.

The festival was well attended with lots of booths, activities and food. I must admit, much as I was excited about trying some of the food served, I felt a little trepidation when I walked into the perimeters of the festival. Would people recognize that I wasn't Jewish? I was tempted to use the paper plate as a yarmulke except mine had some mustard left on it from my hotdog. I didn't want to have to wear a pickle to match my outfit.

The act before Lisa was Rabbi Joe Black, who had a rousing rendition of "Who Led The Jews Out" sung to the tune of "Who Let The Dogs Out." We were told to respond with "Moses, Moses, Moses" when he sang this line. It was pretty funny.

When Lisa stepped onstage at about 1:30 pm, I had already whipped myself into a frenzy. Another minute, soft peaks will form and I can be folded into a dessert base. I was just a little off to the side of the stage, within spitting distance, although she's probably too ladylike to spit at me. Maybe if I carried a sign that insulted her outfit, she would. But I loved her too much to hurt her feelings. Besides, that would be a lie. I loved her outfits.

Even though there were a lot of people around me, I felt like she and I had a connection, you know, singer and stalker-fan as one.

In between songs, she chatted to the audience about the fantastic Chicago food. She had spent some time a few years ago in Chicago when she was filming an episode of Cupid. It was at this point that she had turned her attention to me in the audience and we had a little conversation.

She was telling the audience that her mom tried to get her to date Jeremy Piven, the star of Cupid, and Lisa said "Jeremy? No, mom, Jeremy was nice, but not for me."

I yelled out, "Yes!" urging her to go out with Jeremy, who I think is quite hot.

Hearing my cry, Lisa turned to my general vicinity and shook her head and said, "Noooo, have you read Page Six?"

I nodded vigorously, thinking she must see me, I am the only Asian in the audience, and my hair was perfect.

"Well then," she said.

Then she went on to sing some of my favorite songs: "Truthfully," "Let's Forget About It," "I Do." Here are some pics:




During the concert, I ran into fellow blogger Rob from Welcome to the Bloghouse, who writes funny celebrity and entertainment commentary.


Here is a picture I took of some random gays in the audience. If this was you, I wasn't making fun of your outfit, or your hair. I only said that because it's my way of saying I want to fuck you. Call me?


There was also a truly bizarre fan in the audience who brought his cat Sheena to the concert. On a leash. Dressed like she was going to the Kentucky Derby. I think that people were either fascinated or repulsed by the cat, or maybe its owner, I don't know.


I just have only one thing to say: I think it was cruel to put this outfit on a cat and not have any matching booties.

UPDATE: Sheena plots her revenge! (thanks to the very wise Gurustu)

Love on an Empty Stomach

"Honey, did I tell you how much I love you," said my man as he is sopping up the last of the chicken stew with his biscuit.

Why is it that a full stomach lulls you into thinking you're falling in love? There is never a time that I feel more love for my boyfriend than after he's made dinner and I am sitting on the couch just basking in the warmth of the food percolating inside my distended belly.

I know that my boyfriend feels the same way when I cook because he looks at me with such loving eyes, the crumbs from the apple pie still clinging to the corners of his smile. I smile back. The morsel caught in his front teeth could quickly become the puck in an erotic game of tonsil hockey.

Sometimes, I wonder whether I should be examining these feelings more carefully, especially when the elevated levels of cholesterol are making me giddy. Can these feelings be real? Is he trying to make love to me or give me a heart attack? Should I be suspicious of the dessert?

Is that why our mating rituals revolve around food? A romantic dinner at a French bistro, an impromptu picnic at the beach, a pair of strawberry-flavored edible underwear? It's the classic bait-and-switch. Use the crème brulee to get the guy. Just make sure he's eating it out of your crotch.

I think it's awesome when a guy offers to make me dinner, although it puts me in a bit of a quandary on what to bring. If he makes La Poularde aux Truffes à la Vapeur, should I pair it with white wine or red wine flavored lube? I often get into these internal debates, oh what would Julia Child do in my situation? She probably doesn't even use lube. She probably uses clarified butter. With a pinch of meat tenderizer for flavor.

The food in our bellies brings our defenses down, our feelings of romance and satiation becoming hopelessly entwined. Is this love or indigestion? Even poet Pablo Neruda would be confused.


I knew that it was a matter of time before celebutante Nicole Ritchie and her fiance split up; they didn't look too happy being under a hundred pounds, together. Love isn't love if it's on an empty stomach.

You know what would make them happy? A weekend at this great all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that I know. In all the years I've been going there, I've never seen an unhappy couple or family. Everywhere you look, everybody's happily eating their egg rolls, steamed dumplings and hot and sour soups--or as I call them, the Three Happiness.

Hey, nobody reads my blog for advice, but heed this one. This one was handed down the ages, through the women of my family, from mother to daughter (and to me, because I was hiding behind my mother's bureau): if you want to keep your man, learn to cook. Your husband or boyfriend may fuck around, but they always come back home for dinner.

I'm Going To Tell You A Secret

"I got married for all the wrong reasons. When my husband didn't turn out to be everything I'd imagined he'd be, I wanted to end everything.

There's no such thing as the perfect soulmate. If you meet someone and you think they're perfect, you better run as fast as you can in the other direction. 'Cos your soulmate is the person that pushes all your buttons, pisses you off on a regular basis, and makes you face your shit.

It's not easy having a good marriage--but I don't want easy. Easy doesn't make you grow. Easy doesn't make you think. I thank God everyday that I am married to a man who makes me think. That's my definition of true love."

- Madonna, I'm Going To Tell You A Secret

Thanks Madge, but for me, I think that I thank God everyday that I am with a man who gets my cock hard as a rock.

But you know what I think true love is? My definition of true love is letting your loved one come first, and I mean this in the truest sense of the word "come," that is, he needs to shoot his load first.

I think that if you are always the first one to come in your relationship, you really are doing your partner a disservice. If your man is one who always has to gets his rocks off before you do, then I think you have a problem; there will be a day when you both will arrive at an impasse, when one of you will have to give way to the other, a life or death matter, like the decision of which of your mothers' Thanksgiving dinners to go to, and it will break you.

If I were to tell you what skill you need to have to have a successful relationship, I would tell you that it's not your financial acumen, nor your social causes, nor your ability to breathe through your nose while giving a blowjob--although that's also crucial--it's the ability give an orgasm, as well as have one.

It's nice to have a moral absolute, like a belief in an all-powerful deity, or in reincarnation, or in the gaudiness of the House of Versace, but most of us live in shades of gray which no amount of ammonia-free hair color is going to cover. If your position on anything is too rigid, then you've already lost, there's no way to come to an amicable agreement. Eventually, it's the little skirmishes which will lose your cause.

Like, everybody knows I am lactophobic, but if my boyfriend told me that he would like to go to dairy farm and milk cows, I'll go with him and attempt to yank teats, even if the last time I did that, Bernice, the girl I went to prom with, told me that was when she knew I was gay, because I didn't treat her bosoms with holy reverence like all the other guys did. It's true--I was more interested in why I couldn't hang pasties on myself. Why oh why was I born with a scrawny chest?

Listen, I fight with my boyfriend like everyone else, and sometimes, it feels like crap, even if it's only about what color to paint the bathroom. It feels like the War on Terror, where the real agenda is hidden.

Sometimes when we fight, the blood rushes to my forehead and gets trapped there, and I can't see two feet in front of my face. But later, after the fever is gone, I look back and see, why the hell did I make such a big deal about that? Sea foam green isn't too bad after all. So what if I have to buy new hand towels to match it? It's cheaper than all the Saturday nights I spent binge-drinking on Shirley Temples. Could've I avoided the whole fight if I only gave in a little?

This whole BS that Madonna is spouting of her supertight lil' ass, it's trite, but I think it's true. She could be right here, even though whenever I think of her these days, I think of a giant cameltoe.

I don't know if I believe in someone who is a perfect soulmate. Overcoming gay Asian stereotypes is hard, when you're dating, everybody has a pre-conceived notion of what we are like: docile, submissive, a doormat. I am sick of these guys who want me to lie on the floor with my mouth open and pretend to be a bearskin rug. Most of the time, I am happy if the guy calls me up and doesn't order Chinese take-out, although the tips aren't bad.

And I don’t know if there's such a thing as a happy relationship with no conflict. And there are times that I know that conflict is unavoidable. But I think if you let your guy come first, it can be resolved quicker, even if it’s because after coming, he’s just way to tired to argue.


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Asians are the Model Minority

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Some great Madonna CDs:

How Does It Work?

"Do you take your tampon out before you pee?" I asked my friend Annie during Sunday brunch with friends.

"Whaaa? Where did that come from," she asked, looking around at Brian and Joe. They both shrugged.

"I dunno," I said, "I was just thinking about cotton candy and the thought just popped into my head."

Actually, this is not a rare occurrence on my part. I have a very short attention span. One minute I am thinking one thing and the next minute, I am blowing my wad. My friends find this aspect of me annoying sometimes, especially when we are having a conversation and they suddenly feel an unexpected wetness coming from my direction.

I continued, "I mean, doesn't it get wet when you pee?" Apparently, neither Brian nor Joe knew the answer to this as well. We all looked at Annie, waiting.

Annie squinted at me, probably thinking I was crazy be asking this, but she relented. "It doesn't get wet. Most of the time you don't even know it's there," she said.

I nodded, comprehension slowly seeping in. Maybe it's like having sex with my ex-boyfriend. Half of the time, I didn't know it was in there either.

"How can that be?" I asked. "Is there a separate hole for peeing and another one for your period?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, why don't you go into the bathroom and then come back and tell us," I said.

"No way." She said firmly, but I wouldn't be surprised if she took a magnifier and investigated later. Annie is the type to try to get to the bottom of things.

I had other questions: "What does a tampon smell like? Does it come in other designs other than white? Pink? Does it come in other shapes? Like a cute little bunny, a kitty-cat or maybe, you know, like a finger."

Personally, I thought that a tampon shaped like a severed finger would be pretty cool, especially smeared with the blood and all, but Annie and the others shuddered (I was actually going to say "penis" but I thought a finger might be more marketable, you know, and it would be like a little secret, that women have).

One of the weird things about my being gay is that I have so little experience (or interest) in the inner workings of the opposite sex; I wouldn't know the difference between a clitoris and a carburetor, except that I can pronounce "carburetor" correctly. I never know whether to pronounce "clitoris" with a short "i" or a long one, or whether the accent is in the first syllable or second. I know I can look it up in the dictionary, but I figured I would never need to pronounce this word in the presence of another person. Would a straight man know? Is the clitoris on a woman like a button on a gameboy? I'm not sure...

"What's the plural for clitoris?" I asked Annie.

My change of topic didn't faze her, she was ready for me now. "Cliteri?" She attempted, "Cliterati? I've never had to think of the community of women in those terms, normally, I just call them 'my bitches.'"

"Since we're talking about women parts, my gynecologist told me something strange," said Annie. "He told me matter-of-factly, 'I don't know if anybody's told you this, but you have a, very, small, cervix.' Like, I don't know where that came from."

I'm not sure about male gynecologists, about their ability to treat their patients. If they can't personally know even the most basic of female experiences, you know, like spontaneous bitchiness, or that dark hole called PMS, well then, the guy might as well be a vet.

Guys make comparisons, who's bigger, better, faster--it's the high school gym locker room all over again, with guys all flicking each other's butts with towels, comparing dick sizes and making out in the steamroom--ok that last one's just wishful thinking. My own gym locker room experiences were basically non-existent, since I was afraid I would want to go in there and give everyone a makeover. High school boys are so clueless in personal grooming, with all those unruly pubes.

So, I don't think I'll ever understand what makes a woman work. But do you think they will buy a tampon shaped like a finger?

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Guest blog posts by my friends Annie and Joe

The answer to all your questions.

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