Walk Like a Man

My father was the first person to figure out that I was gay.

Even when I was unaware of it myself, he sussed it out, he saw the signs: the first indications of a limp wrist, the hint of a sway in my hips.

He saw me replace the tacky floral print wallpaper in my sister’s discarded Barbie Dream House by gluing pages cut out from a House & Garden magazine. He became suspicious when I evicted Barbie, moved in Ken and GI Joe, and installed a tiny home gym made from matchboxes. But it was the house's avant-garde art pieces I fashioned from Play-Doh that confirmed his suspicions. That and the cotton swab topiary.

I was only about eleven or twelve, an age where you’re old enough to know about sex, but young enough to not know what sex meant. I don’t know about you, but I was fifteen when the idea of sex clicked—understandable, considering the bulb in my head was not going to light up in comprehension by rubbing two electric plugs together.

I was hungry and looking for a snack. My father was in the living room watching TV. As I walked past him on my way to the kitchen, I heard him give a loud, disgusted "tsk!"

I stopped. Usually, I only heard this sound when he was losing at playing mahjong with his buddies.

"Hay, naku!" he said. These are the Tagalog words indicating exasperation.

He got up from the couch and stood beside me. "Walk like a man, son," he said firmly in Chinese. He pulled my shoulders back and pushed out my chest. I felt like I was about to do the chicken dance.

"Strong," he said, puffing out his chest. "Purposeful," shoulders back. Then he walked, like John Wayne challenged to a gunfight.

I tried to imitate him. "No, no, no!" he interrupted, "Don’t waddle like a duck!"

"Determined!" He cried. He demonstrated again.

I tried it. But even before I completed my walk, I could see from his expression that I wasn’t cutting it.

"Tsk!" he went, shaking his head, "Tsk!" Then he lost interest and turned back to his TV program.

Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore. My father’s casual indifference sucked the hunger from my stomach leaving a cold, dead void. Sometimes parents are cruel in their impatience, their disregard. Sometimes a child just wants to please, to be worthy in his father’s eyes, to do something right for once.

I took myself back to my bedroom and shut the door. I took three bath towels and laid them end to end on the floor up to my mirrored closet door. I squared my scrawny shoulders and looked into the mirror in front of me as I practiced walking on my little terrycloth runway.

More Blake Carrington, less Alexis Colby! I coached myself. Purposeful! But not as if to get Krystle into a catfight! Strength comes from within! Not from oversized shoulder pads! I kept practicing...


Two weeks ago, I attended my graduation ceremony. I am now officially an MBA. My brother Peter is the only member of my family who was able to attend my graduation. I would have liked for the rest of my family to have been there. I would have liked for them to see me in the black cap and long, flowing gown which was perfect for my Stevie Nicks twirling gypsy impression.

As I stood on stage, the tassel from my cap touching my left brow, among the other solemn graduates, waiting for my name to be called, I thought about all the opportunities I have had in my life to get my name legally changed to "Derek" or "Lance." It would have sounded more glamorous than "Paul" over the speakers.

I thought about my father and the bare handful of life lessons he taught me. I thought about that day that he tried to teach me how to walk like a man.

It would be a few years before I successfully learned to walk like my father. I didn’t understand it right away—"walking like a man" was not the combination of stance, posture, cadence. It is a state of mind. It is to walk with strength, purpose and determination.

As I thought of him sitting on that couch, watching TV, a million years ago, I heard my name being announced on the speaker in the auditorium.

I walked, across the stage, just like he taught me.

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Photos from my graduation: 1 2

Cute little Asian boy and his chicken, dancing
The Ultimate Dynasty Fan Site
Stand back! It's Stevie Nicks!

Walk Like A Man: What happened when I crossed the gender barrier

Walk like a HUMAN: The National AIDS Walk Directory

Never Lose Hope

(continued)
Part One: Shirts vs Skins
Part Two: The Model Minority

Note: If you don't wanna to hear a faggot rant, then please go away.
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...and puh-leez, I’m sick of hearing the "you can choose not to be gay" bullshit. If I can choose to be straight, then you can choose to be gay. So go ahead and prove to me first that you can be gay before you expect me to go and do any carpet munching.

And none of that girls-gone-wild, girl-on-girl kissing for TV crap. If that’s what you think homosexuality is, then you’re just embarrassing heterosexuals everywhere.

I want you not only to have some I-love-fucking-this-person-of-my-same-sex-blow-my-mind-orgasm experience, I want you to fall in love with that person as well.

If you can do that, write me an e-mail and I’ll personally fly to wherever you are and kiss your feet. I will declare you Mr. or Ms. Heterosexual Who Can Be Homosexual At Will and give you a crown, a sash and a tacky plastic scepter. I will be the first to admit to you, yes I was wrong, you were right, and follow your lead to whatever fashion disaster you direct me to.

But you can’t do that can you? Because if you can, then you are saying you have control who you can fall in love with. You are saying that you can create physical and sexual attraction, intimacy, affection, devotion to somebody on demand. To me, that is perverted.

My friend Johnny* told me that he hates being gay. He came to me once in utter despair. He told me bitterly how hard it was to find somebody to love and love him back. He has all this love to give and nobody to give it to.

I don’t think he means that he wants to be straight. I don’t think he means that he would be happier if he could have relationships with women. I think he is frustrated at how hard it is to find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Even more so when Metrosexuals are fucking up your gay-dar.

Well, Johnny, I am telling you right now, just as you want to love and be in love with someone, some gay guy somewhere is also hoping for the same thing. You just have to keep looking and never lose hope. Because, just as I found Brian so unexpectedly, someone could walk into your life today.

I know that these words are no consolation for those times when you woke up in the morning, racked with loneliness. But you have to persevere. You have to make yourself ready for that opportunity. It means that you've gotta clean house if you want somebody to move in, get a cleaning lady if you have to.

Isn’t that all one could hope for? To find somebody to love and be loved in return?

I cannot choose who I love. I bet neither can you.

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*not his real name

You gotta see this, seriously: Linda Clement's "What You Don't Know Might Not Be So"
Take my poll: How Long Do You Think You Can Act Gay?
How to Save the Straight Marriage
Canadians concerned that Marriage Rights may be yanked
ESPN's top Metrosexual Men in Sports

The Model Minority

Continued from Shirts vs Skins

For those of you who happen to be here at this site for the first time, I guess you should know that not only am I an Asian but I am also a gay man. So, I can speak of my experiences being a minority in two distinct categories—three, if you include "comic book collector."

A lot of people think that Asians are the "model minority," which when I was younger excited me, because I thought this meant that I would have a career in haute couture. I practiced walking down the runway endlessly in my bedroom. Imagine my horror when I found out this really meant that I was expected to be a pocket protector-wearing math nerd, or a metal-mouth band geek. I was mortified.

The main difference I think is that when people look at me, they see an Asian, not a homosexual. Of course, this is until they hear about the way I idolize Sarah Jessica Parker, and then the jig is up. I mean the woman is a goddess—she made it ok for grown women to wear tutus on the streets of Manhattan.

I have been lucky I guess. I have no telling mannerisms that I am a gay. Despite my literary flourishes in this blog, I am sad to say that I am just a "regular guy". I do not have a high pitch voice. I do not have excessive hand gestures. I do not have frosted hair.

Others are not so lucky. When some gay men talk, a pair of capri pants falls out of their mouths. When they shit, a pair of capri pants falls out of their asses. This is the reason the hideous fashion statement that is men's capri pants won't go away.

Some people think that if we do not act stereotypically gay, then we would not be subject to all the discrimination that we claim we face. Some people say "why do gay people have to shove their gayness in my face all the time?" Some people think that if we turn off the switch, if we don’t talk about who we are, we would all be accepted into society and everybody would live happily ever after.

Well, honey, let me ‘splain something to you. Even though I am not your average flaming homosexual, I do not "act" straight. I don’t turn anything on or off, except my penis pump. If you cannot tell that I am a card-carrying faggot, it is not because I have misled you by subduing my instincts to swish.

And for my other gay brethren who may lisp, sashay, wear flannel or think of Home Depot as their second home, I would say, by and large, they are not acting either. They may take it up a notch for special occasions like an awards show or a really, really good sale, but I would say generally, this is the way they are.

So if you want the more stereotypical of us to turn this "off," you’re asking us to be someone else. Now you’re asking us to "act."

It is too hard to act anything for more than 5 minutes. Y’all should know that, after all, you weren’t really enjoying giving oral sex to your lover last night. You just pretty much moaned and mmmmm’d your way through it, hoping they would just cum already.

Even Disney theme park castmembers only have to act for 30 minutes at a time. We are supposed to act like somebody else 24-7. We're supposed to wear shirts with an ungodly percentage of polyester; use non-salon approved products to wash our hair; wear our underwear until it disintegrates.

You think this should be so easy, but you do not understand its ramifications.

To let you understand the magnitude of this, not only can you not try on that pair of Manolo Blahniks for kicks, it also means that if somebody asked you to bring your significant other to a function, you have to say no. It means that if somebody asked you why you are crying, you can’t tell them that your girlfriend is sick and in the hospital. It means that when you have children, one of you will have to sit out their school play. It means when other people have pictures of their families, their loved ones, their friends at their desk, all you can put up on yours is the picture of your dog Rusty.

It means that when you want to hug or kiss or hold the person you love’s hand, all you can do is look at them in the eye and hope that they know what you feel.

Next: The Rant

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Shirts vs Skins

Once, at a gay bar, a drunk guy stumbled his way towards me, reeking of a mixture of sweat, CK One and alcohol. If it was closing time, I might be willing to ignore this combination of odors, but at 12:30a.m., I didn’t want to seem too desperate. There’s time enough for that later.

"Where are you from?" he slurred.
"I’m from Chicago," I tentatively replied, not sure why he was talking to me.
"No, no! I meant, you’re Asian, right, so like where are you from?"
I looked at him blankly.
"C’mon, say sumthin’ in your native tongue," he cajoled.
"Cun-nee-leeng-gus," I said.
"Cun-nee-leeng-gus," he repeated. "What does that mean?"
"It means 'I love my mother' in my language," I replied.
"Wow, can you write that down so I can tell my mother later?" He said. "Write down your phone number too."
"My pleasure," I grabbed a napkin and wrote down the syllables and the number to my favorite Chinese take-out.

I was really surprised by this guy’s question. I mean, I made sure to park my rickshaw where you couldn’t see it.

I also have a typical Midwestern accent, so your only tip-off that I was not born in the good ole U. S. of A. would have been that I, like Avril Lavigne, have a tendency to pronounce David Bowie’s last name "Ba-wee" instead of "Bo-wee."

Normally, I would find this only mildly annoying. I would just say I’m Chinese-Filipino and be done with it. Maybe it was the Attitude I was getting from the royal queen bitches parading at the bar that night that put me on edge, making me unforthcoming to this drunk.

I found it offensive that he assumed that despite my Aberzombified attire, I was anything but a corn-fed Midwesterner—you can check my toilet, I’ve got the corn kernel encrusted poop to prove it. I even use an extra-strong deodorant to get rid of that fresh-of-the-boat odor.

Being treated like a "skin" or racial stereotype is a universal experience: Latinos, blacks, white people from Canada—we’ve all experienced it. We cannot control what assumptions, prejudices, stereotypes, people put upon us. It’s a part of human nature, like a short-cut to getting to know someone. I mean, I do it all the time when I meet new people: if you talk to me, I assume that you want to go to bed with me.

There are certain things that you can do to control people’s impression of you: your job, your car, the smell of your feet. When people look at me, they see that I wear designer labels, fancy watches and Italian shoes, and they conclude that I have maxed out my credit cards. For me, it’s really important that people don’t think I’m boring. I think it’s much, much more interesting to be superficial.

But there are certain impressions that I cannot control. That is, despite what logo shirt I wear, it is the color of my skin, the shape of my eyes, that registers in the back of your brain.

(Continued)

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*I realize of course that cunnilingus is not spelled like it is above. Don't shoot me. :)

The Gay Experience

These days, the fabulousness of the gays is hard to contain. At no other time in the history of humanity have gay rights been the focus of so much attention in the media.

You’d think this would happen sooner, given the popularity of musical theatre.

There has been so much accomplishment in terms of achieving equality for gay people around the world. Gay people can now be free of discrimination, free of prejudice in hair salons around the country. People are finally understanding the fear, the terror we face when confronted with enlarged pores.

Many gay people compare this fight for equal rights and non-discrimination to that of African-Americans. However, members of the African-American community have not taken this comparison kindly. In this very site, someone said that "the experience is not the same". I take this to mean that the discrimination that gays face is not the same as that of African-Americans primarily (as it was claimed) because gay people can "choose" not to be gay.

I don't know what it is like to be black in America.

However, these things I do know:

• A seven year-old boy was scolded and forced to write "I will not use the word gay in school again" after he told his classmates he had two mothers because they are gay.



• Gwen Araujo, a transgendered 17 year-old girl, was killed by two men after they discovered that Gwen was not biologically female.



• Theron McGriff was told by an Idaho court that he cannot see his own kids unless his male lover was not present in his own house.



• A Chicago high school kid was kicked out of his home by his own father after telling his father that he was gay. Hear his story in his own words.



• Gay, lesbian and bisexual youth make up 20-40% of homeless youth in urban areas.



• 22.2% of gay youth skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe en route to or at school.



• In 36 states, it is legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation. In 46 states, it is legal to do so based on gender identity.



• By 2003, nearly 9,000 men and women in the Armed Forces were discharged because they were gay.



• In 1998, when Matthew Shephard confided to two men that he was gay, they deceived him into leaving with them in their car. He was robbed, brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead. He died several days later.

If it were a choice, I think all these hundreds and thousands of people would have chosen not to suffer, face hardship, lose friends and family, their jobs and their lives.

I would never presume to understand the struggles of African-Americans. Gay people are not saying that being gay is the same as being African-American (unless of course, you are gay and African-American). I don't have to learn the Snoop Doggy Dizzle to be cool. But I know that I only have admiration for their achievements.

If we compare ourselves with African-Americans, it's only because we've seen what they have achieved and that's what we want for ourselves.

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Some interesting discussions going on in my LiveJournal mirror.

Also, I highly recommend you listen to this Chicago teen's story from NPR. I found it very moving and distressing at the same time. I think it is worth 5 minutes of your time (requires Real media player - download the free version).

My Project

In case you haven't noticed, I started a project (see sidebar) where I will be quoting from various blogs that I encounter. I hope to share with you these voices from my community. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Come Together

Warning: some links are not work-friendly—you may want to wait until you get home.

Last weekend, my friend Han and I decided to check out International Mr. Leather (IML). Hundreds of big, burly men from all over the world descend into Chicago for this notorious event.

It would not be unusual to see a group of men seeing the sights, shopping, in full leather regalia: motorcycle jackets, leather straps, maybe some ass-less pants. The reaction of other tourists to the latter always makes me smile: incredulity, laughter, disgust—it is pretty much the same reaction I have to the tourists’ outfits.

Unfortunately, the biggest threat to gay civilization occurred that weekend: It rained.

Due to some ditziness on our part, we did not look up the exact venue thinking that we would just follow the trail of leather-clad men. However, with the rain pouring down, there was nary a mary to follow. I had to call my brother Peter, who fortunately was also planning to attend the event and got directions.

I knew we were close when I caught a whiff of the heavy, thick, manly scent of...Chanel No. 5?!? I wonder why I am surprised.

Han and I were the only ones I could see in civilian clothes. I really felt out of place in my sneakers and t-shirt. We didn’t fit in, much like the guy with the man-boobs squeezed into a tight rubber tank top. But then I thought--waitaminute--I'm not the one with my hairy ass in full moon.

By then, I really needed to pee. I got in line for the restroom right behind a couple of guys with shaved heads and full beards. After several minutes of waiting, I wondered aloud why we hadn’t moved. The guy in front of me turned around and said, "This is the line for men who want to get peed on." And then he winked at me and said, "I’d be happy to relieve you right now..." I stammered an excuse and went in.

Inside, there was heavy cruising going on, men eyeing each other, exchanging meaningful looks. As I am already "taken", I ignored it and picked a urinal and started to pee. Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens, the relaxation of my bladder caused me to fart.

I forgot that farting is like a mating call among these folk. I am suddenly surrounded by amorous men, sniffing appreciatively.

"Smells like a spinach omelet, and um, maybe with a side of bacon," says one. I didn’t know whether to blush or give him a prize—that’s what I had for brunch. I settled for a polite nod and high-tailed it outta there.

While IML is ostensibly a convention for SM and bondage enthusiasts to get together, share ideas and techniques, in its heart, it is a beauty contest celebrating the hyper-masculine ideal. I don’t think anybody can deny there is a lot of irony and dry cleaning going on here.

The competition is fierce as contestants from around the world model their original leather creations, strutting and posing onstage. Contestants are judged rigorously and scored on their looks and their "leather presence." In between events, personal assistants help touch up hair and wipe off excess sweat; perhaps a mustachioed "seamstress" waits in the wings armed with a sewing kit or bolt cutter ready to make last minute adjustments.

And although I didn’t see the actual competition, it’s not hard to imagine the last two finalists standing next to each other, hands clasped, waiting tensely to hear the final tally. It’s not hard to imagine the runners-up crowding around the winner as the leather sash is bestowed upon the new reigning International Mr. Leather.

It’s not hard to imagine how through this event, these men have come together as a community.

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Wanna play the Urinal Game?

Of Love and Perversion

For the gay community in Chicago, Memorial Day weekend marks the annual International Mr. Leather (IML) competition. For the uninitiated, "leather" refers to a subculture that celebrates hyper-masculinity, sadomasochism, bondage and some really bad pleather.

Let’s get this straight, so to speak, sadomasochism or SM, was not invented by the gays. This subculture of inflicting pain on someone you love has been around since the dawn of history. I can give you example upon example: the Marquis de Sade, Whitney and Bobby, God and almost everybody in the Old Testament.

Ok, domestic violence is not the same as SM, where the participants must be sane and consensual. Whitney would probably realize that she is not in an SM relationship if she stopped snorting cocaine for 10 minutes.

Gay people are used to pain. It is inflicted on us by those who love us; we inflict it on ourselves. No wonder we’re fucked-up. It is not a stretch for someone who has been bombarded with pain to confuse that emotion with love. I have read many a blog where gay men despair of ever finding love. We have become so used to people telling us they love us, all the while inflicting pain that we have difficulty dissociating one from the other.

When society tells you that your love is a perversion, that you have to hide it, keep it in the closet, never celebrate your love, then how can this make you happy? If we subscribe to these rules, then homosexuals are doomed to be unhappy from the start.

Let me put it this way, if African Americans accepted their station in life, slavery would still be in effect; we would be wearing our pants around our waists instead of our hips; Eddie Murphy would not be an Ass in the movies.

When the people who are anti-gay cite the perversion of homosexuals, they often point to transvestites and leatherfolk. What they fail to say is that the overwhelming majority of these people are heterosexual. Yes, this means that there are men who love having sex with their wives all the while thinking about wearing their lacy, pink panties. Are these men perverted? Only if the panties are cheap Agent Provocateur imitations.

If you ask me, the only thing the homosexuals are guilty of is that we have a tendency to put sequins on everything and we love parades. If people were going to hate us for being ourselves, then by God, we will look good while we’re at it. The sewing machine is mightier than the sword.

If we really want to talk about perversion, then let’s talk about the torture of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the majority of whom are civilian detainees. Let’s talk about how the military forced them to perform homosexual acts on each other. Let’s be clear here, the perversion is not the acts themselves, but the systematic, willful humiliation and degradation the prisoners were subjected to.

Before you say that homosexuals are perverted, let the first man in Abu Ghraib cast the first stone.

NEXT: My friend Han and I visit the IML festivities

Milkshake

A Sense of Impending Doom

Do you sometimes get a sense of dread, or of some impending doom?

You’re minding your own business, following the pheromones back home, carrying your crust of bread--enough food for a month--when you feel a sudden heat, like sunstroke. When you look up, you see the sky has darkened and a white-hot spot of light is trained on you by a gigantic eight year-old wielding a magnifying glass. You scramble away only to find that there is no escaping the heat, the spot follows you wherever you go. Then the hard shell that covers your body starts turning bright red, the grey flesh inside turning succulently white, and the last thing you think of as your consciousness ebbs is that some garlic butter would be nice right about now.

I am having one of those feelings. And it’s not because I may have had some bad Mexican food.

I am a worrier. I worry about doorknobs being contaminated by bacteria. I worry about my hair falling out from showering with hot water. I worry that Christina Aguilera will get herpes because she’s being so Dirrty. I think she should bathe or at the very least, douche.

I worry about Michael Jackson. I worry that while he was having his chin and his nose done, he forgot that he was supposed to look like Liz Taylor instead of the cast of Planet of the Apes.

I worry about Courtney Love, but I can’t keep up with the amount of trouble she’s getting into. There is only a level of worry that you can deal with and when that line is crossed, you become numb and then you just become resigned to your fate. You want to let the undertow carry you away and you hope that you are swept to shore at some point. You only hope that somebody takes care of Frances Bean.

I worry about my job where I am only a temp, a contract worker, not an employee. I am a prostitute, not wife. Even though it’s not a permanent position, sometimes, it feels like one. For a while, the routine made me forget my worries, it lulled me into complacency. But now it has come back full force.

I worry that I will never be able to feel secure ever again.

To all my friends at the Rice Bowl Journals, please help me out by bookmarking me!

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Thanks to Bri at the Daydreamer's Lounge for designing this cool button!

A Fastidious Bird

Previously: Dropping The Kids Off at the Pool
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I don’t like using public restrooms. But since I spend forty hours a week of my life at the office, and I drink lots of coffee, it is very likely that I would have to use the office restrooms. Luckily, I have worked for mid-to-large size companies for all of my career, where professional maintenance people clean the restrooms two to three times a day. I think I would quit if I ever worked for a company where restrooms are not sanitized regularly. I’m a professional, why shouldn’t my ass sit on a professionally cleaned toilet seat?

And please, nothing, NOTHING, short of a divine order from the holy Madonna Louise Ciccone will make me use a port-a-potty. I would rather crap in my pants; I pray this would never happen on a day I am wearing a thong.

In the public restrooms out in the wild, concrete jungle, I do all sorts of things that I don’t do at home. I’m a fastidious bird, inspecting every toilet seat in the restroom before I make a choice on which one to use. Then, I carefully wipe the seat down before I start building my nest of toilet paper. I systematically lay two-feet strips of toilet paper across the seat so as to cover every inch of its surface. Only then am I ready to sit and lay my "eggs."

I am always amazed at people who can walk in a stall, pull down their pants, do their business and walk out in two minutes flat, like it’s a competition. Men are so weirdly competitive. We can make a contest out of anything. Peeing contests, farting contests, masturbating contests. Name a bodily function, some 17 year-old is out there challenging his buds:

"I betcha I can out-shit you"
"No way, man"
"ok--GO!"
Pffffffffftt-prrt-splat-pfft-PRRRRRTT-plop-pow-kachow!
"I win, sucka, woo-hoo! Check it out man, it stinks worse than yours!"
"Yeah dude, that is huuugge!"
(high fives all around)

And then there are those who have to greet everybody on their way to the restroom. You’d think they were Belle in the opening sequence of Beauty and The Beast:

"Bonjour!"
"Good day!"
"I’m on my way, monsieur!"
"Where to, Belle?"
"To the restroom!"
"Très merveilleux, Belle, have a good time!"
(music swells)
"There must be more than this pro-veen-cial liiiiiiife!"

I’m more like a secret agent or Anne Frank hiding from the Nazis. I skulk silently towards the restroom, stopping at the copy room to throw people off. I keep my head down, trying not to make eye contact when I am in there. It really makes me uncomfortable when people try to make conversation with me, as if we were at a gentleman’s club, smoking cigars.

The worst are the ones who decide to chat when they are in the next stall, as if you were a priest in a confessional. I want to say, "Listen buddy, when my pants are around my ankles, the only thing your mouth better be doing is sucking my dick."

Nobody is more considerate than me. I never pee without raising the seat. I always check afterwards to flush down any "left-overs." After I have had Indian food, I make like a space shuttle bay, forming a airtight seal with my thighs while I am seated to create a vacuum so that no odors escape, flushing it into outer space in-between "drops."

Why am I so hung up about this? Other men seem to be very nonchalant about the whole thing. I wish I could be like that. I think that sometimes, being "civilized," having "good etiquette" has made me too self-conscious, plagued with self-doubt.

And women, do they even take a crap?

Sometimes, I just want to let out a big, stinking log and just leave it there without flushing.

Dropping the Kids Off at the Pool

This post is exactly about what you think it’s going to be about. This is your only warning.

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I wish I was like some people who can go do their business in the toilet with efficiency. For me, it’s like negotiating a cease-fire between the Palestinians and the Israelites: it’s a long drawn-out process and just when you think it’s over, somebody drops another bomb.

Some people are like bowel movement Nazis, they really have their digestive systems whipped into shape. When they "drop their kids off at the pool", the "kids" obediently comply: one, plop! two, plop! three, plop! These people must eat a lot of whole wheat...stalks.

Why can’t I be like that? Mine are more like recalcitrant children:

"Get into the pool, dammit!"
"I don’t wanna! It’s cooooooooold!"
"Goddamn it, if you don’t get in, you’ll get a spanking!"
"Nooooo! Noooooooooo!"

It’s like they don’t like to be separated from me, their dad, who raised them from small little turds to nine-inch motherfuckers. Have I been remiss? Should I have been more strict about what they watch on TV? I should have banned them from watching Star Trek, they wouldn’t have turned out to be such Klingons*, hanging on to your ass hairs. It makes it such a mess to wipe off, coz it smears.

BM Nazis probably don’t even have to wipe their asses. That’s why I can never be a millionnaire, I’m spending all my money on fucking toilet paper. I have to use half a fucking roll coz the shit clings. A woman said in a newspaper article somewhere that she uses only a foot of toilet paper to wipe her ass. Yeah, I bet her husband also tells her he’s got "eight inches." She’s probably also one of those people who "lets the yellow mellow" and only "flushes down if it’s brown." I flush the toilet before I sit, after I clean the toilet seat, after I do my business and a last time just to make sure there’s no "residue" left in the bowl.

The way I see it, if God wanted us to conserve water, he would have made the color of shit clear instead of brown, he would not have invented explosive diarrhea. If he wanted us to save the rainforest, he would not have given us the intellect to invent the triple-ply, quilted, scented double roll. I mean, this is the reason I believe that God exists, that he had a higher purpose for man, because otherwise we would be wiping our asses with leaves, like monkeys.

And God was on a roll (pardon the pun) when he created gay men. He created gay men to spread forth ass cleanliness. He created gay men so that we can teach straight people the intricacies of ass hygiene. Without gay men, straight men would not be enjoying a clean, refreshing anal sex-perience with their girlfriends. Who else would have thought of inventing the enema? I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you enjoy dirty, dirty anal sex, all the power to you. It just burns me up when people say that gay people are perverted after all we have done to help civilization. The real perverts are those who think that consensual sex between two adults is somehow bad, when the expression of love, the highest form of emotion, is questioned. If you think being gay or lesbian is about sex, then you really, really, really do not understand that it is all about designer fashion.

But shit, doesn’t it make you think? I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel where they said that schools of fish follow around hippopotamuses to feed on their shit. It’s like their main source of food. I mean, why do you think organic vegetables taste better? It’s not because they don’t use pesticides. It’s because of all the hippo-size shit they put in the soil so that your tomatoes come out red and juicy. Shit is part of the Circle of Life man, and sometimes, that’s all I can think about when I sit on the can...

Continued: A Fastidious Bird

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*Cling-On's, get it?

For your further enjoyment:
The Big Shit List
What Kind of Shit Are You? - The Shit Quiz
For those with an Iron Stomach: Rate My Poo

Won't You Come In?

"The story of our life is never an autobiography, it’s always a novel—that’s the first mistake people make. Our memories are just another artifice: go on, admit it." —Julian Barnes, "Love, etc."

So I admit it, Julian. It is not the complete, unvarnished truth; I've watched too many episodes of Trading Spaces for that. My truths have been varnished, painted, stripped, and painted over again. I am of the Hildi Santo-Tomas school of decorating: why use wallpaper when you can use hay?

I have art-directed the scenes of my life and then presented them for your perusal. I have filtered the lens, adjusted the shot and placed myself in a good light. Even when I am covered in dirt, I want for you to want to fuck my brains out. I want to fuck your brains out too, but maybe that would be too presumptuous. May I, please?

Brian asked me, "Why is it that the first thing you do whenever you get home is to check your blog?" I know the answer to this question even if I don't want to admit it: it is because each comment you put in my posts is like a stroke to my ego. And given enough strokes...ahhh, you know where this is leading to, but before I let your imagination finish the rest of this sentence, let me remind you of the length and girth of this beer can...

I hope I have not turned you off now, especially you straight male readers, all two of you. You know reading this won’t make you gay, just like having a finger up your ass won't make you gay. But I wouldn’t tell your buddies anyway, they might get the wrong idea. It'll be a secret between you and me. Like Vegas, what happens here, stays here, as long as your girlfriend or wife doesn't have my URL. But please make sure to clean under your fingernails.

I hope y'all won't think less of me for using the words "fuck," "stroke" and "ass." I'm just keepin' it real, n'est-ce pas? Plus, it really helps in getting hits from search engines. They are the literal counterpart of breasts unencumbered by bras: your eyes are drawn to the jiggling, like a worm on a hook. My mom always said, "Use your boobs to get him to the altar. Save your mind for when you are negotiating the divorce settlement." Wise words.

I have provided you with the flashing signs, the garish neon lights, the late night advertisements, all directed to my blogwhore-house.

Now, won’t you come in?

Steal These Buttons

Hey y'all. If you like my site, you can now link to me using some fun buttons that I made! Please save it to your own server, if you can.

Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it. :)

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Here's an 80x15 button maker.

All About My Mother (Compendium Edition)

Part 1: Where my mother becomes aware of my father's cheating. She schemes and plots and becomes a Master Spy.

Part 2: My mother continues her investigation into my father's affair, breaking all rules of privacy, all in a time before caller ID and *69.

Conclusion: A pair of sullen twins realize that they are gay and their mother (mostly) doesn't care.

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All About My Mother, Conclusion

CONTINUED FROM: Part 2.

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When I was fourteen, I went through what any teen who was questioning his sexuality did: I was into Goth.

Goth reflected my deep feelings of isolation, of societal rejection, of my yearning for thick, black eyeliner. Those were the years when I begged to God to change me, to make me straight; my anguish evidenced by the smudged make-up running down my pale, white face. I looked into the mirror and realized in that moment that I could never, never be a heterosexual—I looked too good with eye make-up.

My twin Peter, also dealing with the same issues, became a die-hard Durannie.

My dad was clueless of course. He thought my dark clothes, my sullen looks were an indication that I was running with the wrong crowd, probably snorting coke. I wanted to scream at him, “Yeah dad, I am snorting coke! I go to my dealer and buy drugs with the 50 cents you give me for lunch, you fucking tightwad!”

My dad went around demanding “Are you doing drugs? Are you doing drugs?” To which Peter and I would reply, “Yes!” My dad, expecting vehement denial didn’t know how to respond to this admittance. He would retreat mumbling, “If I ever catch you…”

Peter and I, who then shared a bedroom, came up with the idea to fill little baggies with cornstarch and leave it strategically “hidden” in our bedroom. We had debated whether sugar, flour or baby powder would look more convincing as dope. We smiled maliciously, anticipating the mocking we would do to my father for being duped. In the end however, our brilliant plan was wasted. My dad was too lazy to rifle through our belongings.

My mother would never have been taken in by such a transparent ploy. She knew our twisted teen-aged minds. She would have looked at the baggies and decided to bake Butter Cookies with them and put it back.

Far wiser, and armed with knowledge gleaned from a story arc in “All My Children,” she knew that we dealing with issues that are buried deeper than Peter’s stash of muscle magazines hidden under his bed. While she didn’t understand “it”, as most people didn’t those days, she never wavered in her love. She never did anything stupid. She just quietly locked up the make-up kit.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time, I was going to a Cure concert. I silently cursed her and the sparse eyelashes I inherited from her. Boys don't cry unless they are the only ones going to a goth concert with healthy, glowing skin.

My mom was of the opinion that "it" was just a phase. Maybe it is appropriate that "it" is sometimes called "the love that dare not speak its name," as if we didn’t speak of it, it would go away.

Mom, Dungeons & Dragons is a phase. A mohawk and a pierced eyebrow is a phase. An eye for matching patterns and accessories is most definitely not a phase.

My mother’s almost sixty now. I sent her a cheery, sappy Mother's Day card—just the kind she likes. I wrote in every available space inside the card, even around the margins of the trite verses. I wrote of current events, of job hunts, of small victories—no female evident in the story. She knows there won’t be any. She’s my only gal.

Maybe she’ll turn misty-eyed. Maybe she’ll pull off her glasses and wipe it with a kleenex to draw attention away from her face.

Maybe she’ll read it just once and then use it as a coaster for her coffee, just so she can have it near her every morning.

I hope she does.

All About My Mother, Part 2

CONTINUED FROM Part 1.

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Annie, my friend and personal librarian, a source of great books, lent me her copy of "Bird by Bird," a wonderful book on creative writing. In it, author Anne Lamott encouraged writers to mine the depths of their despair, to use their pain to find creativity and inspiration. I wholeheartedly agree—some of my best posts were written after a bikini wax.

My mother mined her despair: she’s donned the denim overalls, the hardhat, took a flashlight and a pick ax, and gone deep into its coal mines. Maybe she went a little crazy in there after confirming her suspicions of my father’s infidelity. All I know is, after a while, she dusted off the grime and dirt and emerged determined to get to the truth.

It was quiet for a month or so. Then suddenly, a flurry of activity.

My mother would disappear into dubious hardware stores. Sometimes she would take me shopping deep into Chinatown. The stores smelled musty and earthy or thick and greasy. They had weird, dried things stuffed in jars and bins. There were ducks roasted whole, impossibly orange, naked and hanging by the neck in the window. In my head, she was either concocting an untraceable poison or putting together a device that would blow my father and his whore to smithereens.

I don’t know if that is the truth, or just my penchant for lurid comics coloring my memories of that time. After unwittingly becoming her confidante, she would sometimes give me clues to her endgame. Maybe she didn’t want me to know the complete story in case I had to testify. In my mind, I was already the star witness, ready to be presented by the defense, dramatically, at the last minute, with a spotlight trained on my scrawny, twelve-year old frame as I walked slowly to the witness stand.

One day, I found her in their bedroom sitting by the telephone, with a tape recorder and a wire connecting the two devices. Those were the days before Caller ID and *69, when you could be lazy in hiding your affair, when short of a lipstick stain on your collar, you could rest easy knowing you won’t be caught. These days, all it takes is for someone to look at your cellphone call log and find some evidence.

She could have locked the door, I suppose, hid her activities from the children. But by this time all my siblings already knew of her machinations, only my poor father left in the dark.

She had been testing to see if the phone jack she bought could record conversations while somebody was using the other set. It did. She could tape my father’s conversations while she sat innocently in plain view knowing that the phone in the guest bedroom was rigged to tape the sonofabitch’s every word. And even though I was already twelve, I (and my siblings) had no concept of privacy, or of needing any. We did not question my mother's actions. It would be a couple more years before we would yak endlessly on the phone about rock stars or the hottie in class.

This went on for months. Maybe my father’s lover didn’t call him at our house. All my mother needed was that one phone call to use as evidence to confront my father. It became so common to see my mother rewinding, fast-forwarding her little cassette recorder, listening to the conversations taped in her headphones.

Whether or not she found the evidence, I cannot tell for sure. When the fighting, the screaming, the crying started, I couldn’t listen. I tried not to hear the words, the recriminations trying to get past my bedroom door, through the thick, down pillows that I covered my ears with.

All I know is that my dad, even up to now, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, has denied all charges. My father would have stood in front of Congress and not buckle against evidence of his DNA on a stained blue dress.



Knowing what I know now, I would rather know the truth of my parent’s unhappy marriage, than to grow up believing that I was a prince living in a castle with benevolent and doting parents. I would rather grow up believing that even though people love each other, they can also hurt each other terribly at the same time. I would rather learn at an early age that when you say "I do," the story is just beginning, that the romance is only a prelude...

NEXT: Conclusion on Sunday, Mother's Day, 5/9.

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I highly recommend Anne Lamott's book for all writers:

All About My Mother, Part 1

My mom is just like any other mom: when I was a kid, she drove us to school with rollers in her hair; she has that special dish, so perfect in my mind that no chef, no culinary master can ever match or copy.

My mom is not like your mom: she is a super-sleuth, a hard-nosed detective, a Master Spy.

When she first suspected my dad of infidelity, she used all her powers of deductive reasoning to try to divine the truth. Her (then) twelve-year marriage was at stake. If you had asked her what her opinion was of the gay marriage debate, she would have looked at you square in the eye and told you that gays were not a threat to her marriage—it was the straight bitch who was fucking her husband that was. The worst a gay ever did to her was to convince her to get bangs. It was criminal, yes, and her hair took six months to grow out, but it was certainly not worthy of a constitutional amendment.

When I was in sixth grade, I walked into our garage and saw her sitting in the passenger seat of my father’s car, fiddling with something. When I asked her what she was doing, she matter-of-factly told me that she was rigging the vents of my dad’s a/c to blow directly on whoever is sitting in the passenger seat. This is after she had already moved the seat back to fit a seven-foot tall man.

It’s a brilliant ploy. Let me explain it to you as she explained it to me:

One: My dad is one of those people that liked to have the a/c blowing at full blast whenever he’s in the car. I don’t know why. Maybe like me, he liked the feel of the a/c in his hair as he pursed his lips and slowly smiled for the imaginary camera in front of him. Never mind, if you aim the passenger side vents just so, the person sitting there will feel the full force directly in her face. Since it is out of my dad’s reach, only she could adjust the vents to evade the cold air, unless of course she’s menopausal, then she wouldn't want to.

Two: By pushing the seat farther out, the person would have to pull the seat up to a more comfortable spot. While I may find seven-foot tall Yao Ming attractive, my dad was decidedly attracted to a more petite build.

In this manner, while my dad was taking a shit, my mother was able to deduce by studying the position of the vent and the passenger seat that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he took a woman, probably shorter than she, out possibly for a “nooner”.

Granted, she had no hard evidence. But her heart, heavy as stone was its own truth.

I don’t know if she had thought out what she would do at the end of her investigation.

Did she have some nebulous fantasy, possibly involving a butcher knife and male genitalia? Did she plan out in her head how to pack up four kids, carefully picking out each child’s prized possession? Did she have a speech written ready to be flourished at the appropriate time, designed to cut him down to size?

Or maybe she just found herself in my father’s car, sitting utterly alone, in a dark, damp garage...

NEXT: Part 2.

On The Bus, Part 2

PREVIOUSLY: On The Bus, Part 1

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Two months into this contract consulting gig, I was able to convince the powers-that-be that I can support the client from their downtown Chicago location instead of out in Naperville. I told them that all that clean, fresh air is wreaking havoc with my complexion. They might as well use water for my coffee instead of a double vodka. My successful lobbying meant that I am now able to go back to using the bus to get to work.

I love the bus. Nothing is more annoying to me than having to drive to work, specially when the only thing you can do is sit in traffic and talk back to the radio, who doesn't listen to what you say, like that ex-boyfriend who's idea of monogamy was to have a membership at one gay bathhouse at a time.

While on the bus this past week, I was able to read "Saul and Patsy", a wonderful book given to me by Annie, one of my closest friends. I wish I could share this book with you. It touched me deeply, like a proctologist. But alas, I can’t. So you have to buy it from Amazon through the link provided and earn me a kickback. Then I will know you are my friends, for you are providing for my addiction to male/female oil wrestling porn. I was thinking about setting up a PayPal donation button, but I figured that was too subtle. My mom always said "Keep hitting them with a shovel until they're dead, and then bury them with it." My mom's a card.

The book you read is like the "tell" in a card game. It tells a lot about your personality, your station in life, your inadequacies in bed. You can bluff your way with an Armani suit or a Tag-Hauer watch, but when the pants are down, your deuce is still a deuce.

Here’s a selection of books that I may have been spotted reading on the bus:

"The Vampire Lestat" by Anne Rice
The New Yorker magazine
"About A Boy" by Nick Hornby
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by JK Rowling
"The Hours" by Michael Cunningham

This is what it says about me:

"The Vampire Lestat" – gay. The New Yorker and "About A Boy" – elitist snob, good record collection, possibly with a bad British accent, gay. "Harry Potter" – creative, whimsical, quite possibly gay. "The Hours" – a complete flamer.

Of course, some people will seek to use this knowledge to their advantage by prominently displaying a copy of The Wall Street Journal or carrying around a worn copy of "The Iliad" they found on a windowsill, formerly used to prop up an airconditioner. I have been known to oh-so-casually put a copy of Field and Stream magazine on my lap to project a more rugged and outdoorsy nature--I like fishing for trouser trout.

The bus is a wonderful way to meet potential mates. You can surreptitiously study a person, their personality and habits. The lurching movements of the bus and the close quarters make it easy to strike up a conversation. You can even feign surprise and say that you have the same stop and offer to buy coffee. My friend Fernando was able to meet several women this way until he was arrested for swindling them from their Social Security checks.

Such is the Romance of the Bus. It is the gondola that ferries us from our homes to our dismal, mind-numbing places of work, spewing thick, black smoke along the way. Idly, I wondered what kind of freak I will sit next to today. I pull out my wallet and pay the fare...


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