A Long Way Down

He said, She said. Annie and Paul debate the merits of Nick Hornby's new book, A Long Way Down. Annie talks about the agonizing wait for the author's books; Paul contemplates suicide.

There are a lot of ways to commit suicide: jumping off a bridge, ODing on drugs, pissing off Oprah; but I’ve never really seriously considered it. I mean, yes, as with many alienated gay teens, I have fantasized about Ending It All instead of having to suffer one more day of wearing a uniform to high school. But in my fantasies, I’ve somehow skipped the killing myself part and pictured myself lying in the casket, looking serene and peaceful, a light dusting of powder on my nose and cheeks to prevent shine. My family would be wailing, beating on their chests. Serves them right for not letting me go to the Salsa and Merengue Dance Camp. Suicide is scary to me. Death is scary to me. I fear death because I fear the pain of dying. I visualize the dying, I visualize the pain. I have very lurid visions of what it would be like to be rammed head-on by a speeding semi-truck while driving on a highway.* I look at a knife and imagine someone stabbing me repeatedly, my eyes watching the blood spurt from my chest, a silent scream frozen in my mouth. I think about suffocating under Star Jones and an avalanche of Payless shoes. But what of those who experience a pain in life that exceeds that of the pain of dying? At least when you’re dead, there is no more pain. read what He said.

This book would have irritated me less had it not been written by Nick Hornby, which I suppose is akin to saying, “I’d like water more if it weren’t so wet.” It is what it is. Great Mandy Moore--how to deal? The thing is, I can’t outright say “it’s bad” or “I didn’t like it,” would that I could be more two-dimensional, like Janice Dickinson. And it’s nothing to do with my long-standing allegiance to this particular author. There’s Hornby in here to be sure, but I can’t help thinking the real novel is another draft or two away. Waiting for a new Nick Hornby novel is worse than waiting for your period after senior prom. You start getting a little antsy as if something’s...missing, only you’re not quite sure what. Before you know it you’re a seven-week-long F-you to Strunk & White. But then there are hints: you’re a raving bitch; you’re crying at that Michelin commercial again; all that’s left of your graduation wad is the receipt for $675 worth of smores ingredients. And the big payoff? YOUR STINKING PERIOD. Fast forward seventeen years: You live your life, read books, see friends, watch TV--okay okay maybe that’s the same as “see friends,” but my point is, you live. No matter how sad & empty it might seem compared to your glamorous “friends’” life – it’s living, as some of us know it. read what She said.

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Recommended books by Nick Hornby:

Hardly Knew You

Doug, you were the first person who made me feel welcome at work.

It’s hard starting a new job. Expectations are high: I’ve built myself up in my resume, now I have to live up to it. My resume said my name was Jet Li. I was hoping they didn’t remember that. In my interview I said that I played well with others, but the truth is, I only play with myself well.

It was my second day. I was being dragged by my bouncy, perky boss to be introduced to every department. It was very embarrassing. I felt like a little chihuahua. I wished she had a little Louis Vuitton bag for me to hide in. I felt so fake with my wide, pasted-on smile, it made me nauseated. I wanted to puke on her awful mint green pumps, it might’ve made an improvement.

I must have shaken the hands of nearly thirty people, but all I could remember was that of Bob in Accounting. He, with the damp sticky hands, the bulbous, red, runny nose and the crumpled snot rags on his desk. I thought it might be rude to ask if I could go home and take a shower. I felt a little bit like Typhoid Mary Tyler Moore, passing on Bob’s germs to at least eight other staff members before I was able to wipe my hand.

You didn’t notice when my boss and I walked into your department. I got a glimpse of you surfing on eBay before you heard us behind you and casually clicked away. As if you knew I saw you, you gave me a sheepish grin. I knew we were going to get along.

You were so ambiguously gay: soft-spoken, witty, you used mousse in your longish, shaggy hair. And when you told me you loved David Sedaris, I was almost positive you were gay. I was so excited, I instantly thought that you would be the perfect boyfriend for my friend Annie.

Annie would’ve loved you and your tall, skinny frame. You are Lanky Boy, her romantic ideal. She even has a poem for you: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ribs..."

I was so disappointed to learn you were not gay and you already had a girlfriend. I wasn’t sure what angle I could use to hook you into friendship. Homosexuality or possible sex with Annie was all I had. I had nothing else; I couldn’t learn a sport now, the muscles in my wrist have atrophied from disuse.

Then I found out that you are a drummer in a local Chicago girl band. That’s bonus, you know? I love music and I love men who are brave enough to be in a "girl band." Very Hole, very Eric Erlandson. I play the guitar. We could jam. Music indeed, makes the people come together.

Last Thursday, at work, you called me on the phone. “Paul, what the fuck is going on with the company website? Why I am not getting our orders? Is the webmaster asleep or something? You should kick his ass or something!”

We both despised the webmaster, this old fart who didn’t know the first thing about running a professional website. So, we ranted for a little while about the guy and then chatted about other incompetent people in company and the upcoming weekend.

“Did you hear,” asked Doug, “I just got promoted to Customer Service Manager, I start next month.”

“Congratulations!” I was excited; I would be working closely with this position.

“My band and I are playing a gig in August, you should come. We rock!” He laughed.

“Yeah man, I’ll put it on my calendar,” I promised.

“Ok, call me after lunch, we’ll find those missing orders.”

Doug never came back from lunch.

He was killed instantly, along with two other co-workers in a car accident. A suicidal young woman deliberately crashed her car into theirs at high speed.

She survived.



When I didn’t hear from Doug, I just thought he was busy. I didn’t hear about the accident until the next day when our VP herded us into a room to break us the news.

I’ve only known Doug for six months, only part of a year. We were more colleagues than friends, but I was in shock for the rest of the day. His death was senseless.

I couldn’t function. I don’t know why, but I kept thinking about whether there were any eBay auctions he was bidding on. I worried that his feedback rating would get dinged.

That afternoon, in my status meeting with my manager, my throat locked up and my eyes turned a watery red; an item in my agenda had Doug’s name on it. My manager silently handed me a napkin from McDonald’s. I think it had a small grease stain on it. It was the only thing she had on her desk. I am such a faggot.

Back at my desk, I checked my e-mailbox. Amidst the long list of e-mails, Doug’s name was sprinkled about like daisies in a field. I wanted so badly to delete those messages.

On the way home, I turned the radio on to see if I could catch any news about the details of the crash. No news as of then, the authorities were still keeping mum until the families of the victims were notified.

Every song on the radio made me think about drummers. Mick Fleetwood. Larry Mullen. Animal from The Muppet Show.

I kept trying to remember, who is the drummer for Oasis? Don't remember. No Doubt, oh that's easy, Adrian Young: shirtless, hot, with a mohawk. Coldplay? Don't know.

I didn't know if I was doing this because I was thinking of you or trying to stop myself from thinking of you. So I played an Indigo Girls CD instead, Come On Now Social.

When "Soon Be To Nothing" came on, these words from the song made me lose it:

"I have passed these pines 'bout a million times / Effortlessly / Now I grip the wheel / fear is what I feel / At the slow unraveling of me."

I don’t know why, but I kept repeating the song until I finally got home. I guess I needed a sentimental song to accompany my tears. Gays and their need for a soundtrack. But I don't know if I could've dealt with the silence.

Goodbye Doug. I hardly knew you. We might've been good friends. You were a good man, one of the very best.

"But the road is long and my song is gone / I blow empty in my cicada shell / If I saw my choice I might find my voice / But I don't know when and I just can't tell..."

"Soon Be To Nothing"
- Indigo Girls

Doug, second from left, with his band
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Epilogue - Three years later.

Wanted: Friend

When you’ve got a well-established group of friends as I do--well-established in the sense that for the last ten years, we’ve gone through a lot together, lied and backstabbed each other--you realize how empty your life would be without them. Just think: no Friday night movies; no Saturday night drinking binges; no Sunday morning calls to a bail bondsman. We’re friends through thick and thin--but mostly thin because I only have a sub-compact car.

As a good friend I try to look after them as much as I can, because if I neglect them, that naked picture they took of me could wind up on the internet. I was skinny-dipping in a very, very cold Lake Michigan and my mighty ‘bamboo shoot’ looked more like a puny ‘rice stick.’ I've a reputation to maintain.

I think finding a lover is significantly easier than finding true friends. With a lover, there’s always the promise of sex to lure them in. And if that doesn’t work, you can always slip them a roofie. You don’t have that kind of luxury with potential friends. You actually have to make them like you, not your clothes, your a-list status, or if you’re a lesbian, your flatbed truck.

Short of joining a religious cult, there’s no real easy way to make friends. It’s not like you can go door-to-door, hold out a pamphlet and say, “Hey, would you like to be my friend?” The pamphlet would have to be two $20 bills taped together.

We’re a very picky bunch. It’s not easy to get into our inner circle. You’ve got to have the right type of personality, sardonic humor and raving psychosis to fit in. It helps if you’re on some kind of medication, so that we can bum your prescriptions.

Han, a grad student from Korea had started hanging around our little group, unexpectedly showing up at places that we usually hang out: under the Walgreens sign, at the local Starbucks, in the alley behind Einstein’s where they throw out the day-old bagels.

We were standing in the alley one Saturday morning, Starbucks cups in hand, tongues hanging like dogs, waiting for Einstein’s to open the back door and start throwing out the day-old bagels. We would jump up in the air and grab them with our mouths and then walk casually to the street corner, munching and sipping, watching the people in the gayborhood.

That’s when we first noticed Han, who also had a bagel in hand. From his sidebag, he pulled out some lox he kept in a baggie and kindly offered it to us, along with some cream cheese (I declined--the dairy thing).

For the next few weeks, he doggedly stalked us. The others started to warm up to him, but I think it was the A/X sweaters he gave them for Christmas.

I resisted, of course.

I mean, the Asian quota in this group is used up. Everybody knows that according to very strict boy band rules that there shouldn’t be two overlapping “types.” There’s the Rebel, the Cute One, the Kleptomaniac. So, Han had a huge obstacle to overcome to get into our group. And if I had to give the obstacle a name, it would be Joey Fatone.

I was already the resident Asian, that’s my thing. We can’t have two people who make Chinese take-out impressions:

“Phone numba? Ok. Wat would you rike? Ok. Ok. Ok. You rike egg loll wit daat? Ok. Ten minute.” Click.

Or the Dude, Where’s My Car? drive-thru version:

“And then? And then? And theeeeeen? And theeeeen...” NO AND THEN!!!

But I had the upper hand, I could also do the classic “Suckee fuckee five dollah me love you loooong time!”

Everybody knows that if you put two Asians in a group, they would have to fight to the death, or at least until somebody loses a slipper. I refuse to be sidekicked. I mean, I shake my head sadly when I see some of the all-gay Asian groups (or the ‘Gaysians,’ as I call them). It’s like there’s the Lady Thiang and her attendants in The King and I. It can’t work. Just throw a Rice Queen into their midst and watch them implode.

But my concern was unwarranted. Han was open and honest, totally lacking in attitude. He won us over one by one. I’m not really sure how he did it with the others, but with me, it was the 20G iPod complete with carrying case.

Han is moving to Amherst in a few weeks to pursue his Ph.d. In the past year, he had become an integral part of our group.

We had jokingly said we would have to put up a want ad and hold auditions for people to replace him. Even though he laughed along with us, I sensed that he felt a bit hurt. I think he felt that we had already moved on, even while he was still here. But he cannot be replaced. Making jokes, that’s just our way of dealing with pain--and we are a very jokey bunch.

If we did write a want ad, I think it would say:*



* Wanted: Friend. Must have eclectic taste in movies and own White Chicks on DVD. Able to order bulgogi, kimchi jigae and mandoo in a Korean restaurant convincingly. MUST BE ABLE to get side dishes only reserved for locals. Can solve moderate-to-difficult Sudoku puzzles. Most of all, wanted: a friend--honest, loyal and true.

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My Einstein's bagel sandwich story

This Is The Last Year

I know that to a lot of people, their hairdresser is their confidant, their shrink, their priest, all rolled into one. You come in racked with guilt and dark roots and you come out a new man. It’s like a one-stop shop at the Guilt Emporium. You can’t get it better than that. Father O’Shanley may absolve your sins with three Hail Mary’s, but a hairdresser can make your three gay friends go ‘Hail, Mary!’

Hair is just such an integral part of who we are, it’s hard to entrust its care to anyone who charges less than $150 per cut, shampoo extra. I mean, how can I take you seriously, if you only charge $12.99 a cut? Creating a unique look from such instructions as ‘short on the sides, a little off the top,’ or artfully covering up a 4 inch bald spot takes real skill. Obviously, Nicholas Cage has not learned this last lesson.

One may go bargain basement on things that are less visible, less obvious, such as a kidney transplant, but when it comes to our crowning glory, only one who has toiled endless nights at beauty school, whose hands are blistered from no-ammonia bleach, who has done more to promote the gay stereotype, is worthy enough to take my incredibly generous $3 tip.

Some hairdressers are too eager to cultivate this relationship. They can’t wait for you to bare your heart and soul the second you are seated in their chair. For good reason: a repeat customer is one whose weighted follicles are cared for, whose weighted soul can be used for a little bit of blackmail and extortion. They have your name, your phone number, the dates and places you had your trysts with that hunky Irish Catholic with the piercing green eyes and broad shoulders.

But garrulous as I am, I find myself unable to speak in the presence of a hairdresser. There must be something defective in my homo genes that I cannot form meaningful relationships with hairdressers.

Maybe it was because I was brought up in another era when men went to barbershops. The barbers in my youth wore white tunics and smelled like the combination of Ben-Gay, Brylcreem and the sharp astringent they slap on you after every haircut. These men traded crude jokes and hurled their political views over their customers’ heads, but nobody just talked, you know, nobody shared their feelings.

Or maybe I was just traumatized by first experience in a salon.

Very soon after I came out, I started going to the local salon. The hairdresser was very friendly and open and gave me a great haircut and then skillfully mussed it. I started to open up to him over the next couple of visits.

But then something started to feel very wrong, although I was unable to put my finger on it. Maybe because I was often distracted by the hairdresser’s hard crotch pressing on my shoulders under the cape. I couldn’t figure it out. My discomfort continued so I left soon after.

Maybe I can’t share my feelings with someone who just cuts my hair. Maybe they have to do my nails and taxes too.

This is the last year I will have a full head of hair. I can feel it.

Next year, I would have to start avoiding any direct light above my head when I am giving a blowjob. The shine on the top of my head may become too distracting.

I have never understood this before, but now I do:

"With Great Hair Comes Great Promiscuity."

Is all my good hair is being wasted being in a relationship? Shouldn’t I be out there fucking my brains out while my hair can still be styled into the latest ‘do? Should I buy a sports car while I’m at it?

I don’t know how to broach this subject without sounding pathetic and ridiculous. I’m sure Donald Trump feels the same because, well, just look at him. Does he look like someone who is communicating honestly about his hair? Please. With his money, he has more options than that dead squirrel on top of his head.

For me, my deepest, darkest secrets can only be revealed in that most private, most intimate place: a blog. Within the confines of this URL, I can reveal all my innermost thoughts, all laid out in a nice template, comments provided by Haloscan.

I've never discussed this with any of my closest friends. I have not made a pact with them signed in tinted hairgel to tell me when I should stop combing my hair over. Maybe they'll be too embarrassed to say something. I don't know. I don't know how to share this with the people in my life. So, like everything else, it ends up right here.

Turnabout

Turnabout is fair play.

I love being interviewed. It’s a forum for me to talk about myself without appearing really egotistic.

I fantasize about Barbara Walters interviewing me. I would be dressed in Armani and she would be dressed in a gorilla suit. We would be bathed in glow of diffused light; the Vaseline-smeared lens would blend away all my imperfections like my large pores, my blackheads, my chinky eyes. Once, I tried doing the Vaseline trick in a home video, but there was too much pubic hair in the jar. I ended up looking like Chewbacca.

I am also ready for those wacky questions Barbara likes to spring on her guests like “‘If You Were a Color, what would you be?” (blue); “If You Were a Tree...?” (willow tree); “If You Were a Fruit...?” (Liberace).

A reader, Harriette, wrote me an e-mail asking if I would like to be interviewed for an article she’s writing:

"Dear Paul, I've been an avid reader of your blog for more than a year. I am currently writing an article on the gay rights movement in Chicago. Would you like to participate in an interview?"

Do birds fly? Do dogs lick their balls? Does privatizing Social Security bridge the gap between the projected shortfall and enable high income individuals who normally wouldn't benefit direct these funds to private accounts that are eligible for their heirs to inherit? I was only happy to comply.

The questions were tougher than I thought, but once I had a couple of shots of tequila, I was able to loosen up my sphincter and the bullshit started to flow.

And because I’m an extremely modest mouse, and in the spirit of Gay Pride Month, I thought I’d share it with you all.



Start Interview: Hairdressers turn to the Dark Side

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Here's an older interview I did way back when...

Pride

(c) copyright 2004 The New Yorker

Thank U, Alanis

I can’t even remember what I was doing ten years ago. Oh, I remember now, my best friend was fucking my boyfriend of three months. Yeah, that was bad.

I was so angry I saw red. I was green with jealousy. And then I saw yellow--a yellow discharge oozing out of my dick. They had given me the clap.

I felt terrible. In one fell swoop, I had lost a lover and friend. In the following weeks, I searched my soul even as I searched for a good urologist. I pondered my exes and I pondered the whys. I still am not sure how it all happened, even though the signs were plain as a zebra’s stripes.

I had even told them I was happy they were getting along so well. I thought it was a sign that the relationship was going very well. I guess it was, just not mine. Hindsight would’ve been on 20/20 if I had gotten to the knife drawer before they ran out of my apartment, dragging along whatever clothing they were able to grab. I would’ve filed a lawsuit, but I didn’t know their last names.

Ever since then, I have made a decision never to introduce a new guy to my friends until I got to know them first. I want to make sure that I found the craziest homo I could find so I wouldn’t feel so bad if they slept with him.

That’s what’s bad about gay people. It’s hard to trust anybody. Good men are so rare that everybody’s always trying to steal your boyfriend. I can’t say I blame them. I’ve knowingly slept with guys who were already in relationships. Karma, right? It comes back to bite you. You just hope it has had its rabies shots.

Eventually, I got over my anger and disconsolation. It all evens out in the end. Or at least that’s what it says on the box of my medication. In any case, I got over it.


And after ten years, Alanis Morissette also got over it.

In the ten year anniversary of her groundbreaking CD Jagged Little Pill, she has released an all-acoustic version of the CD. You can buy the CD now at Starbucks, six weeks ahead of the record stores. Alanis observed that the calm, relaxing atmosphere of the coffee chain is the perfect place to access her latest album. I agree, it gives me something to listen to while I am sitting in Starbucks’ bathroom--coffee just makes me shit, y’know?

This move is not without its conflicts. Record store chain HMV retaliated by pulling all Alanis titles off their shelves, which in my mind, probably won’t hurt Alanis that much since her last CDs So Called Chaos and Under Rug Swept didn’t exactly fire up the charts.

Last Saturday, in her concert at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Alanis mocked her own image of an angry, spurned woman. She noted how a couple of songs (“Forgiven” and “You Oughta Know”) on Jagged Little Pill made her the poster girl for a whole movement of riot grrlz.

If you’ve listened past “You Oughta Know,” you’d know that the song is really quite uncharacteristic of her. “Ironic” and “You Learn” are very gentle and introspective songs which are more in tune with her onstage persona: shy and very self-deprecating. She is not Avril Lavigne or Lindsay Lohan partying it up with Paris Hilton, dancing on top of tables.

The set looked like a very comfortable den: it had a grandfather clock, a couple of couches with throw pillows and blankets. All it needs is cat hair all over the place and it could be my living room. The persian rugs, the small buddha gave it a slightly eastern flavor (whereas I only have to stand in the middle of my own living room to give it some eastern flava). A little end table with a small lamp sat on the front of the stage next to the mic.

The whole vibe of the concert was as if the band were spending an evening at home, playing music together. It felt very intimate, very tight. A fart would’ve been disastrous.

The concert wasn’t strictly acoustic. The bass and drums gave the songs a fuller sound and the organ created a gospel undertone. There are no surprises here, no radical re-imaginings of the songs. But I think that these arrangements brought out how personal and touching some of the songs were.

My wussy friend Joe cried during “Perfect,” a song about trying to live up to someone's expectations: “how long before you screw it up / how many times do I have to tell you / to hurry up?” I loved the way she captured the awkwardness of falling in love in “Head Over Feet.”

Alanis also throws in some choice cuts in between JLP songs. I loved the conversational tone of “Hands Clean” and the stark “Uninvited.” She updates “Ironic” to reflect the new freedoms in her country, Canada: “It’s meeting the man of my dreams and I’m meeting his beautiful...husband.” The crowd cheered.

She closes the show with an exuberant “Thank U,” thanking providence for letting her get this far.

And if I stopped to think about it, I’ve a lot to be thankful for as well. Losing a lover, losing a friend was necessary to bring me where I am today. If those things didn’t happen, I still might have been wondering how I got the clap.


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Buy the CD:

Extraordinary Machine

As I listened to Fiona Apple's unreleased album Extraordinary Machine, I pictured Fiona, face heavily painted, alternately banging on trashcan lids, playing an accordion and the armpit fart, while a monkey scampered about her feet, dressed in a marching band suit, playing an organ grinder.

It's Fiona gone vaudeville. Or a western saloon.

Extraordinary Machine was reportedly shelved by Fiona's record label Sony since late 2003 because it had been deemed 'uncommercial.' I guess when they were thinking 'surefire hit,' they were thinking Mariah Carey's Charmbracelet. I think this proves that you can't predict what the public will like, because the only thing different about Charmbracelet and any of its predecessors is Mariah's increasingly trampy outfits.

A fan, desperate to get Extraordinary Machine released, started the Free Fiona campaign, hoping to pressure Sony to release it. It's an uphill battle of biblical proportions, like the David vs Liza Minnelli-Gest divorce proceedings.

Fortunately, the whole album was leaked to the internet in March, purportedly by Fiona's camp. Fans had been buzzing about how amazing it was.

Like everyone else, I started trying to find sources where I could download it, but Sony had shut down many sites which had provided it. It was just by luck that I happened upon a site which had posted a high quality rip of the album for a very short time.

I wasn’t really sure what to think about the album. The only other time I’ve heard anything like this was when Barbra Streisand sang "The World Is a Concerto/Make Your Own Kind of Music," accompanied by an orchestra made up of strings, horns and household appliances. Barbra, in a long satin white gown with long sleeves and a bouffant, sang her heart out while typewriters, vacuum cleaners and blenders all clacked and whirred along. Yes, it was that gay. Throw a Pucci apron on her and she’s your average domestic goddess.

Many of the fan-created CD cover artwork had been very literal: robotic Fiona, Franken-Fiona, Fiona-and-a-rotisserie-oven (appliances again). But no, the album isn’t electronica or Nine Inch Nails; it’s more like Fiona meets Tin Pan Alley, emphasis on the tin pans.

At first listen, the album is all dissonant chords and jangling percussion, very difficult to listen to, very distracting. Remind me never to play this in a BD classroom or within twenty-five feet of Robin Williams. I thought it was terrible, I don't think you can blame me.

"Red, Red, Red" was Fiona channeling Yoko Ono. She played jarring, fat-fingered chords on the piano in "Oh Sailor." "Better Version of Me" had me looking around to see if Christopher Walken was going to suddenly burst in and yell, "More cowbell! I need more cowbell!"

But, the album did get better as I listened to it more. The pot had nothing to do with it at all.

I would say it took about eight tries before I was able to get past producer Jon Brion’s extravagant flourishes and the Fiona we all know and loved emerged: the broodiness and melancholia, the sudden tempo changes, the crazy ex-girlfriend who gave you herpes--on purpose.

This album is very similar in spirit to When The Pawn, but nowhere near it’s accomplishment and artistry. I think a lot of folks prefer Tidal, which was more mainstream. For these folks, Extraordinary Machine will probably not suit.

The title track, "Not About Love" and "Better Version of Me" are very good songs, but there is no "Criminal" or "Limp" here, but that shouldn't be a reason why this album should be held hostage. I think it deserves to be heard. I mean, we had to listen to Hillary Duff sing for chrissakes, the suits owe us this one.

I turned to my boyfriend Brian and asked him what he thought about the album. He said, "It makes me angry. Shut it off."


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Note: This post is about the unreleased version of this album. Subsequently, upon the official release, I had a chance to listen to this CD again, with producer Mike Elizondo's polish. I've grown to truly love this album.

Listen to Music Critic Ken Tucker's interesting review of the CD at NPR.
Listen to NPR's story of the release of Fiona's CD

Watch Christopher Walken's SNL Cowbell Skit (wmv)

My First Time

by Annie

When first approached by Paul to write a guest blog I was flattered.¹ Alright, maybe I wasn’t “approached” in the Angelina-Jolie’s-been-approached-by-producers-to-reprise-the-role-
first-made-famous-by-Phoebe-Cates-in-'Lace' sense so much as I was barraged with the usual flurry of Saturday morning at the laundromat questions (What are you doing after this? Do you want TBP? Did you watch Best Week Ever? Do you want to write a guest blog? Are you going to Gap?). And maybe I wasn’t flattered in the If-I-can't-have-the-girl-I-really-want-you-know-you're-my-number-two sense so much as I wasn’t really listening. I thought he'd asked to borrow a color catcher or if the venti latte made him look fat – laundry day stuff. Paul stuff.

Then he began using strange words – flatulence, butt-plugs and boobies were replaced by deadline, moniker and bitch better not fuck this up. Luckily I recognized his ulterior motive – one crap guest post will only make his public’s love and adoration multiply. I can see him adding to his wish list now. Thinking otherwise made me nervous.

Picking a topic? Easier than I am on a Tuesday!² I mean, what is NMP about if not the everyday, sometimes mundane events treated with humor, irreverence, and the occasional meat tenderizer ("Yes, exactly -- IRREVERENT!!" Paul seemed shocked but pleased that I’d decoded his secret Filipino recipe)? Seeing as my life is nothing but a series of everyday, mundane events treated in the above manner, the hardest part would be choosing what not to write about.

Television was too obvious yet so close to my sad black heart that it assumed frontrunner topic status. The season's end has been weighing heavily on me. Although it has made room for Dancing With The Stars! If the marketing geniuses could please remove their collective monster heads from their collective monster asses for two minutes, maybe they'd see this as the opportunity to sell America what it's been waiting for: the potential for Trista Rehn to get Gillooly’d on live television.^3,4,5

Then came the helpful hints, beginning with, "hey, just so you won't be pressured..." which is basically shorthand for "hey you with the astigmatism and small bladder, you need to do an emergency tracheotomy on this sick little girl's puppy – STAT!"

On cue, I started feeling all this...pressure. I mean, I'm no blogster or blogstar or any other kind of –er. Truth be told I'm a big ol' blog virgin. Not that I'm not proud of who I am; it's one of the last spaz frontiers I haven’t conquered and now what? Not only am I getting screwed by Paul but am sure I owe someone upwards of $6000 for having been so sure I'd never need that sentence.

And did you read the last entry? Apparently there are people who read this thing ON PURPOSE. People who don't do laundry with the author. And Paul's become some sort of blog guru (note to self: trademark "bloguru"), and actually...has answers and like, rules (Dear No Milk Please, Is it possible for a blog virgin to get blog burnout just from thinking about it too much? P.S. When does the itching stop?), rules that might have helped my current situation had I known about them sooner.

I would've put more blog-thought into that last cock-sucking session and been done with it already (second note to self: cannot pull off self-referential mentions of cock-sucking on world wide web without envisioning shame on mother's face. Third note to self: do not let mother get computer).

And then there’s the whole comments issue. Topic schmopic, let's worry about something else! The concerns, I think, are obvious – people are going to make comments. I will not like these comments as they will be mean and hurtful. Fortunately, I can anticipate and avoid a comment like nobody’s business. I’m the freaking ________ of comment avoidance.

Okay so I can’t think of a famous comment avoider right now but you know what I mean. Orrrrrrrrrrrr...no one will make any comments. Why isn't anybody making any comments?????? And what the hell is a moniker anyway and why do I have to have one for his blog? I know it's something bad that he’s trying to hide in a word that sounds like musical simians.^3,4

Only the first time is this uncomfortable, right? Next time I'll know: more lube.

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Here's No Milk's Blogging for Dummies, or as he likes to call it, "helpful hints." The numbers in my text refer to what rule(s) has/have been compromised. In my defense, there is a clear implication to rule #6 in the very first sentence. It really went to shit after that.

1. start out with your strongest line - it needs to bring in the reader into continuing.
2. exaggerate, stretch the truth, to get your zingers in. it's irreverent and humorous, not autobiography.
3. make sure to not make the paragraphs too long, put in lots of white space. i personally zone out when there's too much wordiness going on. cut it into several paragraphs.
4. the "story" is important. i know i am guilty of digressing. but it helps when you're editing your post to think about this.
5. Don’t write about what happened on a TV show unless you have a point of view
6. write about poop, farting and puking--people seem to like that a lot.

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Annie is the first official NMP guest blogger. On Saturdays, she and Paul meet for coffee, laundry and crosswords. These are her boobs.

Blog Advice

Hey Paul,

Have I told you how much I love what you write and how you write lately? How do you do it? Sometimes I feel as though I don't have the inspiration to blog. I've been feeling a lot of mixed emotions.

It's been a while since I've had the time to read anyone's blogs and I've stopped caring about who reads my site. And then I read other peoples' blogs and wonder how they get all those comments. Sometimes I just want to be these other people, just to see how it's like to be a blogstar. Am I contradictory? I'm trying to figure this all out, like what am I blogging for? Has this happened to you? How do you deal with it?

xo,
Jase*

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Hi Jase,

I am happy to hear from you and I am even happier to hear that you enjoy reading my little blog.

What it sounds like to me is that you're experiencing a Blog Burnout. It's a very normal thing to happen.

I think that people view "blogging" as writing an online journal, which may be the case for many people. But I think that for many others, like you and me, blogging is more than that: it's artistic, it's feedback through comments, it's interaction, it's a social network, it's a goddamn popularity contest.

I think this happens because we become wrapped up so much in our blogs that it takes over our lives. Then blogging starts becoming a chore and a job instead of being fun. You are constantly trying to find material such that you can't enjoy just doing the things you love, like sucking cock, without thinking about how to blog it.

And comments, whew! they can be very tyrannical. I know that feeling, the anticipation, the dread, when you open up your site to see if the number of comments increased. And then you find yourself, refreshing refreshing refreshing to see if it changes.

For awhile, I have considered turning it off because I've always felt that my posts speak for themselves. But then, I realized that people wanted, needed, to have a way to interact with me. So I left it on, but made a rule to only comment back if there is a question that is directed towards me specifically.

Don't worry about who reads your site, as author John McNally said in my interview with him, you don't choose your audience, they choose you. Therefore, you cannot make them like what you write. You can make them like your pictures of shirtless celebrities, but that's another matter.

Write what moves you. Write about your feelings and opinions. If you write about what you had for breakfast or what you and your friends did over the weekend, you've got to say why it was so important for you to do so. And don't write about what happened on a TV show unless you have a point of view.

If you write what moves you, hopefully it will move others, or at the very least, move their bowels. And speaking of that, write about poop, farting and puking--people seem to like that a lot.

As for being a BlogStar, we're only stars in our own minds. The truth is, we're a dime a dozen. If you truly want to be a star, like DailyKos or Wonkette, then you have to have a real point of view about matters outside your own daily life such as the war in Iraq, activist judges, or why Tom Cruise couldn't stop calling Katie Holmes "Kate" on Oprah. And then, I would take out a $5,000 banner ad to promote your site.

We've missed the bus on early days of blogging where just having a blog made you famous. But if you write well, you stand a better chance of being "successful," whatever that means to you.

Yes, it does happen to me. Every week, I wonder, why am I doing this? Why am I spending so much of my time writing this bullshit? Shouldn't I be spending more time doing important things like getting a pedicure? My cuticles need help really BAD. I don't know the answer to this, but if I do, I'll write a book about it and you can buy it at Amazon.

Chill out, man. Step back. Cut down on the number of posts. Quality, not quantity. If you write 3 posts, consider publishing them over 2-3 weeks to give yourself some breathing room. Get your life back. Here, I'll even give you a head start, you should post this letter on your blog, coz I am.

Good luck,

Paul a.k.a. "No Milk"


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*Jase's e-mail was edited for content and brevity. See the original version. Please show him some comment love, let him know I sent you!

Need some (dairy) free advice? Send me an e-mail!

Wicked

If Ann Coulter had a button to press that would instantly kill all the homosexuals from the face of the earth, I bet she wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Ok, maybe that was too harsh. Maybe she’ll do what every compassionate conservative would do: she’ll consider just where and when to hold the press conference first. Theeen, she’ll press the button.

I think that for the ultra-right wing conservatives, gays are not human. We’re just deviant animals, not worthy of living, let alone in fabulously furnished high-rises with a sunset view. Sometimes I think that if we had the Holocaust all over again, the URWCs wouldn’t find it too hard to herd the gays into the gas chambers--all they have to do is stage a musical in it and we’d all line up and buy tickets.

(But seriously, if these URWCs want to do this homo-slaughter properly, they should disguise the gas chamber as a Prada store with a sale of unbelievable magnitude. The sale has to be to-die-for or else don’t bother thinking that gays are going to die. Sure, maybe a few heteros, some metrosexuals will get caught in the carnage, but that’s just the price of morality isn’t it?)

I mean, take my best friend Joe. He didn’t find it hard at all to get group discount tickets to Wicked. He needed 20 people. He got 35 without even trying. All he had to do was go to that gayest of gay places: the Gym.

There were more muscled gym bunnies there than a gay Easter parade. It was funny to see the flurry of excitement as gays hopped over barbells, skipped past the pec deck, and jumped over the hairy, sweaty fat mound doing sit-ups to get discount tickets. And twenty minutes later, Joe was done.

Yeah, it was quick and painless, plus we got discounted tickets to the hottest show in town. God knows what would’ve happened if he went to a leather bar and yelled “Ballet tickets!” instead. People would’ve gotten hurt in the stampede for sure--not to worry, that's just foreplay to them.

Wicked is based on the novel by Gregory Maguire about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West before Dorothy came to Oz.

The Oriental Theatre in Chicago, with its baroque décor featuring gargoyles and semi-nude Roman figures seemed perfect for this show. There was an enormous animated dragon with fiery red eyes mounted above the stage and extended over the orchestra. The sets had the inner workings of a old clock, gears and hardware, interspersed with more cartoonish elements. It was cool, but I had expected it to be more outlandish, more Cheesecake Factory, so I was a tad disappointed.

The story follows the story of Elphaba, a green baby girl born to the Mayor of Munchkinland and his unfaithful wife. Elphaba grew up being taunted and jeered by people because of the color of her skin. She also had to control the great magickal power growing within her. She grew up to be an outspoken, yet shy girl, with a pure and tender heart.

When she goes to college, she meets the bubbly, air-head society girl Galinda, the future Glinda the Good. After some initial girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks / haughty-rich-girl conflict, they become very close friends.

Then, Elphaba blossoms into a beautiful, yet still green, woman. All is wondrous and fair until she learns out about the terrible secret of the Wizard of Oz, then the story spirals into its dark third act.

The show invents the origins of many of the characters from the original story: the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Flying Monkeys, which for the most part was very entertaining, although somewhat forced.

I loved wonderful, powerful performances of the lead characters of Stephanie J Block (Elphaba) and Kendra Kassebaum (Galinda) which thankfully, overcame the show's weak songs. I did love the song “I’m Not That Girl.” The participation of Carol Kane as Madame Morrible was an added bonus.

I loved the story of this infamously Wicked woman. It fleshes out this one-dimensional character by giving her a touching backstory and a push-up bra.

I think that many queers can relate to this story. We all understand being viewed as one-dimensional and evil--except SpongeBob--he's two-dimensional. But even he must feel awful, being labeled as the cause of the decline of civilization in Bikini Bottom and everything else above the Pacific Ocean.

To many of the so-called “conservatives,” gays are indeed a wicked bunch. We are lumped together with pedophiles, murderers, tourists, which wouldn’t be so horrible if they didn’t wear so much polyester. It just makes us look bad, you know?

Anyway, I hear there is a direct correlation to crime and the amount of synthetic fibers in your clothing, which only proves that the gays and Simon Cowell are innocent. Duh, everybody knows that we like our spandex clothing to be as tiny as possible. All the spandex thongs in the world would fit into Elton John’s suitcases.

For here are the lessons of Wicked: If you knew what it was like to be gay, if you walked a mile in our ruby slippers, without Dr. Scholl’s inserts, would you still hate us?

Interview with Author John McNally

John McNally, author of the novel, “The Book of Ralph,” in a bit of self-indulgent googling, found a post on a blog about his book.

In the post, the blogger debated on which book to read next. John, ignoring his instincts and courting danger, decides to write to the owner of said blog and presented the case for why his book should be next.

After a flurry of e-mails, a request for an interview emerged. This is the result of that interview.

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No Milk: I have never heard of you or your book before. I bought the book for very superficial reasons: One, I liked the name Ralph because it is one of the names I would've picked for myself if I had more than three personalities; Two, I liked the artwork on the cover of your book because it showed a kid biting the ear off another kid and I was hungry at the time; and Three, because the first chapter was called "The Vomitorium." Man, you had me at "Vomit." I shelled out the full price of $12.00 for your book, cheapskate that I am. What do you think of that?

John McNally: I think this is the best purchase of your life, Ralph. May I call you Ralph? You may still decide to legally change your name to Ralph -- there’s nothing stopping you -- but this book may inspire you to make that final plunge. As for the book’s cover, it’s not just artwork; it truly is a work of art. Ralph biting another kid’s ear? Priceless. When you’re done reading the book, slice off the cover with an X-acto knife and then frame it.

The title of chapter one – “The Vomitorium” – is, of course, the clincher. Keep that page open when you’re on a bus or train, and see how many people talk to you. Your social network will grow in ways you can’t even fathom. “What are you reading?” they’ll ask, and then, a few weeks later, you’ll be trying to squeeze in a movie with them, much to the annoyance of all your other new friends.

And how much did all of this cost you? Twelve bucks? A large pizza costs more than twelve bucks. This book is worth at least three or four times that much. Let’s face it. For twelve bucks, you stole the frickin’ book.

NM: This interview came about because you wrote an e-mail to me. You said that you were "doing a totally self-indulgent google search" on your book. Are you in the habit of finding out what people are saying about you? You must have a cast-iron stomach. Once, some guy wrote this completely humiliating post about how stupid my blog was and it made me throw up for days. The good news is I lost 10 lbs and now I can fit into my pants again. What have you found people saying?

JM: I almost never write to people who’ve written, for better or worse, anything about any of my books, but since you wrote in your blog that you had already bought my book but weren’t sure when you were going to read it, I felt that it was my obligation – my duty – to get you to read it.

Actually, I did write to one person who posted a negative review of the book on Amazon. She wrote, “i gave this book two stars instead of one because, while it was really bad, it did make me giggle... and i suppose i did enjoy reading it, if only to scoff at it.” Her only other Amazon review was for the movie “Legally Blonde” and begins, “i am a youth director at a small church, and let me tell you how impressed i was by this movie.”

So I sent her an email, thanking her for taking the time to write a review of the book, that it had taken a few years of my life to write it, and that I was grateful for her thoughtful feedback. My real wish, however, was for a church bus to flatten her early one Sunday morning. Otherwise, I take criticism well.

CONTINUED: "You are very sexy, I MUST MEET YOU"


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John McNally is currently on tour promoting The Book of Ralph, check out his website for locations and dates

Self-Googling is Masturbation

Self-googling is masturbation. For me, it often comes late at night, when I am feeling lonely and a little depressed, a sweaty, cold beer bottle in hand.

It’s that dark time when you start googling all your old exes to see if you can find a hint of where they are now. Did they move to a different city? Do they regret breaking up with you? Do they think about the time when you slashed their tires? And when you have exhausted the list of 43 names, you start googling your own to see if anybody is talking about you.

If you’re unlucky to have a common name like me, it will be harder to sift through the morass that is the World Wide Web. If you’re lucky, your name is unique, like Fartogus Ishmael, and you can easily find that the people you used to go to high school with, who still refer to you as “Ishmelly Farts.”

Author John McNally must’ve been doing quite a bit of ‘masturbation’ when he found my site. He had been looking for notices for the paperback release of his novel, The Book of Ralph. I had written a brief post about buying his book along with a photo of the growing stack of unread books on my nightstand.

The post was the result of a problem that plagues some normally verbose bloggers: opinionus interruptus – the temporary exhaustion of opinions. When this happens, there is suddenly a spate of photos of their pets instead of a post. You get photos of cats doing cute tricks; photos of dogs in goofy sweaters; photos of gerbils in anal cavities.

I don’t know how some people are able to write post after post, some almost daily. I admire how committed they are. I hope they will be released very soon from their mental institutions.

I had debated whether I should get started on The Book of Ralph or try to dig through that stack. Upon reading this, John felt that he had to make a pitch on why I should start with his:

"Hey. John McNally here. Now, listen: I know you have a shit-load of books on your nightstand -- I saw the photo -- but you really should read my book next, and I'll tell you why. It's funny, it's moving, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry. Actually, it just came out in paperback, and now's the time to get some groundswell of grass-roots support going for the book, so my reasons for getting you to read it soon are completely selfish."

This was a start of an exchange of e-mails that resulted in my first Author Interview, which will be in my next post.

Even though I am only in the third chapter as of this writing, I laughed out loud when the titular Ralph tries to make money as an eighth-grade hitman. I hope the rest of the book is good, it is very promising.

Funny what happens when somebody who self-googles acts upon something they find.

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Even though I am happily in a relationship now, every so often, I will turn on the computer and start googling those names again. I don’t know what I am looking for. I don’t know why I do it. It’s spontaneous and impulsive, you know, like winking or burping or giving your mother-in-law the finger.

I don’t know what I would do if I found anything.

I don’t know what I would feel if I were an ex of mine, and I found this site, this post, these words.

Yeah, I still think about you sometimes.



NEXT: An interview with author John McNally

Nightstand

I cannot stop by a bookstore without spending a few minutes going through the New Releases stack. I don't know what it is, but the sight of rows of books makes my heart flutter. Maybe it's because I am always on the lookout for the next About A Boy or Perks of Being A Wallflower--that amazing book that takes you completely into the character's head, into another world. I don't think there's anything else as satisfying as reading a good book, except maybe stealing it.

I bought The Book of Ralph by John McNally today, which given the number of books on my nightstand waiting to be read, may have been a bad idea. I don't know when I am going to be reading it, although reading the blurb, I can't wait to get started.

I am currently reading Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me. It's written well, but a tad slow--it doesn't rock my world. I am already looking forward to the next book.

I thought it may be fun to take a photo of the books on my nightstand. I haven't read any of these books, except the hardcover copy of Perks, which I got as a gift on my birthday last month from Annie, so read them at your own risk. :)

Just a little glimpse into my bedroom, my side of the bed.

What's on your nightstand?



a closer look:



For a complete list of all the books on the nightstand, look here

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Other books in my bookshelf
A post about my love affair with books