Brother Ghosts of the Holiday Season

The men seem to be disappearing from my family-- to death, physical displacement or otherwise. What used to be six chairs was then five, then four. This holiday was the first time that one particular absence was felt, that of our older harrassing lead brother. And the first holiday sitting in a new number of chairs always sucks, expecially knowing that in four weeks, Christmas will be the same odd configuration of three.

Even celebrating here in New York, we didn't know what to talk about, the three of us who were left.

I had no 6'3" male to tease me into docile girlishness, no one to render me humble in a headlock, no drunk knuckles ground into my scalp, no scrawny hands grabbing mine to slap my own face. No one to level my touchy ego to a humble goofball. Although 6'1", my little brother is still little, and cannot body tackle me to the couch. In sum, my whole persona was kidnapped.

Once the weekend was over I dreamt of a time before the last brother was born, before I was made middle child, when it was just four chairs. I followed Brother Elder around. He grabbed the garage door as it rose, let go, and ran off to the next obstacle. I let go and got the wind kocked out of me. I thought I was dying. But it passed.

Thanksgiving for a Native Detroit Lioness

There are only two times a year I just may possibly-- but not definitely-- be found watching (a minute or two) of football; one, of course, is the Superbowl, pretty near the half time show on the off-chance to see a random nipple; second, on Thanksgiving, to see the sweet mascot team of my childhood fumble, whimper and fuck shit up. Call me sadistic (or is it masochistic?), but I just love them Detroit Lions.

As all American XX carriers know, for decades it is reliably the worst football game in any league. If anything, it's awesome just to hear Native Detroit males yell, swear and give the TV the bird as they get another brewskie (we're across a small lake from Canada). Spectating the Thanksgiving Lions Game is more a tribal ritual of self hatred and testosterone than true sports watching. Yell, yell, yell at fate and misfortune of odds, at the way the world is, and the way it will always be! (piece of furniture gets punched).



This year the badness of their football was outstanding. In the second to last play of the game (some sort of "down"-- I had to transcribe football-ease verbatim from my little brother, mind you, but then water got on my note pad, blah blah blah) was a pass that should have been as easy to make into a touch down as a store-bought pumpkin pie. But so goes pie to the face, and our sweet Lion fumbled and the cursed ball bounced off into the end zone, where the smart assed Lions mascot, Rory the Lion, slid on the ball to demonstrate how it's done (tsk tsk). The player who blew the play bounced the football on Rory's stuffed animal head. This "fuck you, dude" moment was replayed by the bored sportscasters some six times, with ample psychoanalytic analysis.

Things were not always this way. Being a music nut at an early age, I remember, once, in the early 80s that the Lions were doing well. They were all the rage and took the then-hit Queen song "Another One Bites the Dust" and sang over with lyrics detailing every team's future destruction at their hands, all led by the hot leading player Bubba someone-or-other. We were Detroiters with a shitty has-been auto industry full of gas-guzzling clunkers, but our team was winning and we were on fire. But even that year, the curse of fate was switched on and they fumbled out of the play-offs. (Or something.)

A regular repertoire of Lions watching would be too much. But on the last Thursday of every November, it is perfect. We watch the Lions and scream at that ugly, deserted, forgotten beloved kicked-around city that we came from, cursing the players for our disappearing home, our disappearing past, and our list of life grievances and dreams that will never quite pan out. For no fault of our-- or their-- own.

Gay News Story of the Day

Boston gayness, 1995

So, I'm slamming my 3rd espresso when I catch today's headline on that addictive little news junkie elevator screen:

Vatican Rejects Actively Gay Priests.

I assumed the Onion had hacked into our sweet elevator news, but alas, this was actually the news. I choked and had bitter coffee bean laughing attack hiccups. The Conde Nasties beside me raised a tweased brow.

How pathetic. Guess they know that if they went whole hog and eliminated gay tendencies in the priesthood that they'd be so labor deprived they'd have to, like change and, like, let in straight priests who marry women or something. So, yeah, let's just keep the door shut to active gays. Um, huh?

VATICAN CITY - Reiterating its stand against sexually active gays in the priesthood, the Vatican also says in a new document that men with "transitory" homosexuality must have overcome their sexual tendencies for at least three years before entering the clergy.

How GAY. Jeepers, let's make masturbation the next hot topic. No actively masturbating priests shall administer the body of Christ to church-goers, at least within 72-- no make that 24-- hours of friction or fluid loss, which ever came earlier.

People, let's get our head out of our pants and focus on good, platonic, everyone's-a-lezzie style love. People-- are ya with me? [she pulls up her pleated pants and thanks the crowd]

Great Movies (Not to Go on a First Date to)

You'll cry, you'll be trying not to cry, your chest will heave and your lip will quiver in some wimpy neurotic manner, and it will look stupid. Take it from me.

But aside from that, seeing After Innocence will make you outraged, grateful and hideosuly ashamed for the mountains of crap you take for granted and your mini-tantrums at subway interruptions. It will make you want to quit all career pursuits just to open the thousands of letters of the potentially wrongfully accused. I mean, a couple guys were just fingered for their hair. (proof #55 of Hair is Everything Theorem...)

Exterminating Angel of the L-Train

It is always a test of burrough power dynamics to have a party in Brooklyn. This weekend Williamsburgarians of the N-Y-C were trapped by a non-working L-train, our one-stop umbilical cord to that resort island called Manhattan. Yet at a certain third floor apartment on a certain street off the G-train, a full house of guests were locked in for a Buñuelian night of unlimited vino, burnt pumpkin stew and Depeche Mode. The angel's deepest commitment, however, was to promote a debilitating addiction among Cosmopolites to a Midwestern guilty pleasure: the Mexican 7 layer dip...

2 packages Cream Cheese (full fat)
2 cans refried beans
7 avocadoes
1 thing of shredded Cheddar
1 thing of salsa
3 tomatoes

Spread cream cheese on glass long pan thingy, followed by beans, then mash up avocadoes on top of that. If you get around to it, make the latter into guacamole before throwing it in. Put cheese on top of that-- no wait, the salsa goes first... oh who fucking cares. Just put it all in.

The above is best made by putting your early guests right to work, who the host should order around while still in a towel and applying mascara.

A Good Sunday

John Hughes and the Detention Movies

In addition to gleeful snickerings at Eric Stoltz's liberal use of blue eyeliner (on the underlid!), one of the many good things about (finally) seeing Some Kind of Wonderful was, well, because in college the peops told me I looked like Mary Stuart Masterson, and of late they've told me Leah Thompson. Vanity and nostalgia got the best of my Netflix Queue so that I may share some dialogue gems....

"Don't mistake paradise for a long pair of legs"

"She's mom, I'm dad, and you're nuts."

"Come on-- it's a party, it's not the end of the world."

"Punch her apron one time for me, huh?" (knuckle knock) [THIS was awesome]

Watts: Three things I love the most-- me, me drums, and you

Ray: People think you're confused. But I know you can be a girl if you really want to be."
Watts: Ray, this is 1987. Do you know that a girl can be whatever she wants to be?"

From a mouse-teased hair band playing center stage at "the club": "You took the words right from my lips... without asking!"

Dad: You're only 18, for chrissake.
Keith: Then I'm 19, then I'm 20, when does my life belong to me? Dad, listen-- I'm going out with a girl tonight, and she's beautiful, everyone's in love with her, and she's going out with me. Get it? See, in the eyes of most people around here, I'm nothing. And so if I don't start agreeing with them I'm going to go through with this date. I just want to show this girl that I'm as good as everyone else.
Dad: And so you're going to impress her with money?
Keith: Dad, didn't you guy have guys that didn't fit in?
Dad: Of course.
Keith: Well dad, I'm one of those guys.

Amanda Jones: I rather be next to someone for the wrong reasons, than alone for the right ones.
Keith: I'd rather be right.

Best ending line ripping off Casablanca:

Watts: How do I look?"
Keith: You look pretty good wearing my future.

And with that, they walk down the moonlit suburban street.

A Year Ago Today (Ballad of Liberal Love Lost)

Election weekend, 2004

On our third date he wore a Spandau Ballet shirt, and I was still undecided. We couldn’t stop talking election jibber jabber. He put his hand on my knee and spoke like Peter Jennings, husky and reassuring to disguise his native southern accent, and told me Our Man would win in a land slide. I got butterflies. I glowed. I might have fallen in love, and I spread the landslide gospel. I invented a landslide dance.

Weeks later: me and my man in Florida for election weekend to help our team conquer the land. I got cold feet and almost didn’t go, but I appeared at the airport and spotted him. Our hotel was named after a mermaid and our room had sandy floors. The highways were oddly quiet and tense. Even the S.U.V.s were as nervous as we were. I rental-car deejayed and learned my man liked (and sang) along with Wham! and hated ironic music. He was older, so I forgave him. The freeway grid was Dallas-like. Thirty miles of snaking red tail lights from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, me counting who had what bumper sticker. The ticker count ran all weekend and it all seemed perfect: our team was winning (I may have been deleting the enemy).

Each day was a door-to-door rampage for me and my clipboard. Every stranger, pet cat and sidewalk was political and on the edge of landslide. Everyone seemed tense and obsessed as we were. Cashiers’ faces even imparted determination and excitement that Our Man would prevail.

We were so sure of it all that we took the day off (was THAT what changed the outcome?). My man and I went to the hotel beach. I swam next to a group of businessmen who splashed each other in the ocean. Up at the pool I asked my man if he saw “those old conservative dudes frolicking” without realizing they were right above me. They burst out laughing, and I assumed they were on our side. I fell asleep in the sand while my man read my newest thing. I woke up and he said nice things. That night I walked around with bumper stickers all over me and spread ballsy hope. People slapped my back blew kisses. I was winning, and I was on South Beach. I dreamt about landslides and a victory parade down Fifth Avenue, post-WWII style.

November 2. Dropped man at polls to act as an avocat watching for evil-doing. It was warm but the sun was still done at five. Every home I entered was low, dead and beaten. Four streets had no cars or had bosses that would have fired them. I informed them of voting rights. They stared at me: yeah, right. Go away. Five streets were half way houses for the bi-polar. I gave directions to the polls. They stared at me in disbelief: you gotta be fucking crazy, miss priss. I talked to the supervisor and got uppity, Hollywood-moment style. I met an enraged and anti-Bush Sarah, who had her act together enough to join me. She mapquested the polling site. I saw her to the bus stop and made sure she had her medication. Next door I met the 80 year old Gomezes. I don’t know Spanish, but there must’ve been a white light becase for ten minutes I spoke Spanish and got them into a car. Later I called to see what happened. Mrs. Gomez had a three hour wait with walkers. "No!" "Sí!

Later on the TV, the exit polls, the sweet, sweet exit polls!
We went swimming at the hotel.
The frolicking businessmen worried about Bush losing.
We gloated.
Mike had a fake martini.

Later.... That night under the TV, within a certain 30 minutes the faces at our election watching party cracked politely, as if they were on live TV while being informed their lover cheated on them on a daily basis. My man pulled me away and we went back to snaking tail lights and the silent highways. We listened to our radio heroes shoot themselves with Thorazine in their bunkers.

The next morning my man woke me at 4am. Doom was suspended on the TV, an anchorman trying to be civil and cautious. My man packed and hurried me along. He kissed my forehead like I was a four-year old afraid of the bogeyman. But hours later on the plane, the sad stickered and buttoned people all had the bogeyman-fear look. We all looked and felt pathetic. There would be no landslide dance. And for days on the subways, we’d all look gray and silent and hate the rest of middle and southern America for making us endure him again and wonder what other monsters would come out of the bog. A year later, there are more than a few, and the man who put his hand on my knee and whispered "landslide" is now just a friend, and an ex-pat.

Halloween is for Sluts

When I was seven, I was a fat martian for Halloween. An unintentionally fat martian. My butt hung out of thick silver tights, and I was perplexed.

From then on, I made sure to dress as cute things like pumpkins. Even once the baby fat was lost, I still stuck to the pumpkin, even as my preppy good-girl high school friends dropped from the sky as ass-baring French Maids. It dawned on me: For females, Halloween (or any costume opp, as years would prove) is a chance to be slutty. Halloween during years at an upper crusty college-- which seemed to have "leather and Lace" parties every other month-- took this to an extreme. The usual sweater set and pearl earring girls (the kind strictly or primarily seeking "MRS." degrees) suddenly ho'd down in leather teddies. Show 'em what you've got for sale.

But not me-- I whipped up a feverish costume as chubby Scooby Doo's Velma, complete with tummy stuffing, wig and glasses. Ever notice that your friends don't like to talk to you when you're ugly? It scares them. A friend finally recognized me. "Wow-- that's great. You look awful." and he sped away. It's even worse with garish face paint, which I have never dared try beyond 80s goth-lite. (So to my half-assed vampire homies, stop, okay?)

Now I'm older and wiser. Halloween is the opportunity to wear what you're not allowed to the other 364 days. Straight men wear fish nets (I won't go there), women are dominatrixes. Is annually exhibiting the inner ho a class thing? Those from the mid to upper decks, taught not to flaunt the cheese, go hog wild, mardi gras style. A possible dissertation topic might be: Class Basis of Dressing like a Halloween Slut. Not sure there's a study done, but there's room.