Deviant

DeviantorHow I'm Ending This Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:49:00 +0000

My mad Irish sociology professor scribbled the word onto the chalkboard.

"D-E-V-I-A-N-T."

As he explained the meaning I felt the guttural pain of being classified. Deviants violate cultural norms. It was this moment where it all made sense. Post-pubescent confusion fell off me like an old snake skin.

I was on a beach in Los Angeles reading Moby Dick when I decided to start this blog. I pinned grains of sand between my feet as I wrote in my notebook the words "Deviant."

I was 18 years old.

After several entries I started to share my blog, and it was found by the editor in chief of XY magazine. Several of my entries were published including one about my first love who I met at a Pride fair. I showed my love the article and we kissed in the back of my car. He later broke my heart.

The editor in chief of XY offered me a job as managing editor, and I accepted. I quit school and moved to San Diego and lived in a hotel paid for by the company. I spent my first Christmas away from my family in a house full of queers. My friend made me rip up the photo I carried of my first love.

I was 19.

XY's editor in chief wanted to move to London, so I went along. London was the last place I thought I'd end up in being a poor boy from Inglewood who was raised in a studio apartment with 6 other people. I did Special K in the stall of a bathroom with friends and I felt like I was walking on gravy.

I was 20.

I was supposed to move to New York with the job but the job fell through. Nevertheless I had visited New York and fallen in love with the city when I saw a Burger King employee give a rude customer the middle finger. For the second time in my life I felt the same guttural pain I'd felt when my sociology teacher wrote the word Deviant on his chalkboard, but this time it was stronger.

New York is what I was, and I was 21.

I made quite a few friends and acquaintances here, as well as more than a few loves and enemies. I met Fly G--one of my best friends--and in his mania I found a home for my restless soul. When my roommate in Harlem threatened me with a knife I called the cops and left with a few bags and I went to Fly G's apartment, he let me stay over as I sobbed uncontrollably.

I was...well I don't remember. New York is where I forget my age. This city has a way of making you feel eternal.

And I look at this blog and it isn't quite who I am anymore. The wangst of yesteryear has been replaced with something different and maybe a bit more perilous.

I am 27 and will be 28 in about a week. Deviant ends now. I have owed this blog my life because without it I wouldn't be sitting in this apartment in Brooklyn. This little blog has actually shaped my life, do you understand? But it no longer is my life.

Deviant, it was real. I thought the black background with white text was a good idea at the time so I apologize for all the eye straining it caused. I know better now though.

And as this blog closes I continue. What happens to a Deviant that has to grow up? You can find out along with me.

Cheers.

-Deviant

I Hate FacebookorI'm Only Staying For The Invites

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:11:00 +0000

I'd done everything correctly.

After every major update to facebook I diligently researched the changes and clicked off the correct privacy flaws in my newly vulnerable facebook page. When statuses were made public I switched them off, when galleries were made individually public I individually made them private. It was like a swapping of virtual flies in cyberspace.

And yet I watched my newsfeed with stupefied curiosity. A friend of mine in LA had invaded with farmville. Farmville animal requests were sent, and I blocked them, but then they would still appear on my facebook reader like rats to a barn.

The Lost finale happened and my feed was filled with posts from my less than scholarly batch of friends. I maintain that Lost is a show for people who are deprived of good narratives. One Lost fan told me he rarely read fiction, well of course you don't, I thought, you watch Lost!

"Look have you seen this?" Fly G said as he showed me his iPhone. "It's PhoneSquare! I can sign into any place and it let's everyone on my facebook wall know."

"I think that's called FourSquare," I corrected, "and yes I've heard of it. Why would you want people knowing you aren't at home anyways?"
"Well, it's no different than if you update your status saying you're out somewhere."
"No, I could be lying or talking about an event in the past tense. With that program you are telling everyone that you are most definitely not at home at this very moment."

I watched my newsfeed and I made the personal realization that I did not give a shit for the majority of the drivel that was being posted by the alarmingly large amount of derivative people I had friended. Song lyrics there were, and someone posted about how they hated life and how they were sore.

And then there was bloating, headaches, nauseau, I was surprised to see no mentions of fluids leaking, but that was implied, and these were people my age!

It was always inane, but we had now reached new heights of inanity, and so I no longer clicked off privacy settings, I started to delete. I deleted my fan pages, and some friends, I deleted the people who just linger and don't say anything, and I deleted the ones who overshare.

The oversharing on facebook made me start to dislike people, and maybe it was because they'd lost some of their mystery. I knew what new people were thinking about, and what they were thinking about numbed the mind.

And the other part was that I do believe we were talking less. Facebook is taking our innocent instinct to overshare and turning it into something ugly. We were being sold off to advertisers and losing the bonds of intimate communication.

Not cool.

I can't delete my profile though because I still get invites to parties on there.

Meanwhile, twitter is where it's at. I have moved on enthusiastically to tweeting and the reason is two-fold:

1) It makes no bones about being full of crap.

2) I have heard lots more "I saw what you wrote on twitter" than "I saw what you wrote on facebook." It seems like people who read twitter are more open to actual conversations about what you wrote than people who are reading facebook, at least in my world.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tweet about Celebrity Rehab, now available on Netflix instant streaming!

-Deviant

Fat Kid~or~Exercise, My Eternal Foe

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:38:00 +0000

It'll be proper spring in seasonal cities, and that means the majority of us are starting to face the fact that we're too fat for Spring. You shed a layer and you expose a previously unseen groove of flab that mounds of jackets had helpfully hidden before. The only cure for this is a frantic exercise routine that targets your problem areas, you hope it'll work in 3 weeks but see nothing, so you eat instead.

Exercise and I never mixed together. When I was a kid in grade school we had Physical Education which is a special section of school set aside for torture from demented adults who use shame and fear like medieval weaponry. I went to an inner-city type school, the kind where I only saw two white people and I used to think they were just sick kids, and it was the same there that it was everywhere.

"You boys, we'll play dodgeball. You girls, skip rope."

And I played with balls and boys and watched forlornly at the girls because I wanted to jump rope. It seemed like fun, and there was so much pressure to the games that boys played, and there was only fun to the games girls played. Those girl games had no consequence, and the boys games were all consequence, you won if you didn't suffer any humiliation.

My mother took me to a communal pool later on, the sort where all the kids piss in (she encouraged it of me too, why use the bathroom?). I stepped out of the kids locker wearing a tacky speedo, I fell into the pool, and I became a fish. The water was my home. There weren't rules here, and the only humiliation was if you hit a floater, but there was joy in the movements and it felt like I was flying.

"That's great exercise isn't it?" She asked.
Exercise, I thought, what a curious thing.

My curiosity dissipated when we had to do such exercise in school. We ran laps and miles for vicious gym teachers, we climbed ropes that went nowhere, and I climbed onto a balance beam which shook violently under my nervous feet.

At this time I was fat. I was eating-a-happy-meal-every-friday fat. My mother would supply me with happy meals because I begged her, but she worried, and she worried when all I drank was soda, and when I did nothing but run home from school and stay in the house. How could she know that I didn't leave the house because I'd notice the sharp mood the neighborhood was changing into; neighborhood boys now dressed like gang members, gang members loomed closer to houses and away from alleys, gangsta rap became popular.

So my mother purchased a bike and pushed. I fell over and cried because a dog had scared me. In Los Angeles people buy vicious dogs who will run towards you, hit their fence, and bark loudly (this only happens if you're foolish enough to walk around LA, or bike on sidewalks as a kid). I imagined dogs leaping over a fence and tearing my head from my torso.

When I got older my mother forced me to take Tae Kwan Do. FORCED me! Imagine that, spoiling your only child your entire life and then so rudely forcing him to go and join an inner city dojo. I went and I punched and kick things, the smell of sweat, gi, and pre-pubescence was palpable and the stuff of nightmares. I faked an illness, I faked it for 2 years. It consisted of gagging myself. My mother took me to a doctor, and the doctor told me to see a therapist, and the therapist said I wasn't sick but I told him I was. I could lie, I was destined to be an English major.

If only mom had seen the Michael Phelp's-like potential in my swimming, if only we could have a private pool, but alas, all we had was a communal pool in the apartment complex that had long become a cement pit. I had no hope until I wandered into a video game store and discovered my salvation, the one thing that would change me from a chubby kid into a contender.

It was Dance Dance Revolution

A dancing video game? You mean I can be active doing something I like to do?

Hours of play and sweat ensued, and I was an expert. I had enough confidence in my dancing abilities that I would play the game on the Santa Monica Pier arcade and show off to the beach-goers, I even got a round of applause once.

We bought the home edition and I continued to use it until I'd lost so much weight that my own mother couldn't recognize me from the kid she dumped into Tae Kwon Do.

That's when I realized a hard truth; it's easy to lose weight, it's super hard to get fat. To get fat takes dedication and perseverance. You must not only be inactive, but you must also eat creatively and for maximum pleasure. We as humans get bored when inactive, and so you must find creative ways to be entertained when fat.

Losing weight is so easy any stupid person can do it, and let's face it most fit people are downright stupid, comparatively some of the most clever people I've met are fat slobs. They're well read and watch lots of movies, all a fit person does is repeat the same actions over and over and "eat until they're full." How simple is that?

Since the snow has stopped in New York I have taken to running half an hour every other day. I own weights but I rarely use them, also I sometimes sleep in a day here and there, and that's fine. As I wake up my roommate Big Nig has remarked how I seem to be so full of energy in an envious tone.

I'm not. While I'm skinnier I still feel that a part of me is a wily fat kid, faking illnesses, not fitting into gym class but confounding it--defying it--still enjoying the ravenous pleasures of food as vice, and taking in other vices as food.

I have not traded the stupidities of being fit to the complexities of fatness, that's the man I am.

-Deviant

I'm Not Crazy~or~The Roughly 4 1/2 Days of Sodom

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:20:00 +0000

One of the central concerns when trying to grow up is figuring out whether or not you are sane. You can't possibly become what society refers to as a "responsible adult" if you are indeed a lunatic.

For the last week since my last entry I was attempting to try and figure out if I had a pre-existing condition preventing adulthood. If anyone deserves adulthood, it's me.

Had I jumped the gun on my initial assessment about needing a therapist? Was I too crazy to get into a cocoon and emerge an over the hill butterfly?

Circle of Manias

It was Fly G's birthday as I joined him and his closest friend J_____ for dinner. J______ is a mean girl in male form; lithe, fresh faced, white trash evolved, with an upturned nose, he is Fly G's raging ego whom Fly G dated during the Mesozoic era. J_____ met us with a boy in turn, his "boy of the week" according to Fly G. I wished Fly G a happy birthday as we walked to our dinner spot. The boy and J______ walked in lock step and whispered unsavory nothings in the other's ear as we entered the restaurant.

Once there we took our seats.

The unnamed boy grappled onto J_____ as if the world was a spinning top. I suspected the boy was untrained in the ways of lust and mania, Fly G had seen similar delusions before.

"Where'd you two meet?" I asked.
"Manhunt?" Fly G interrupted
They were silent and enthralled with each other, and it was made clear that they would remain enthralled with each other throughout the birthday dinner where they were not the center of attention.

"Who else is coming?" I asked Fly G
"Jose." He answered
"Oh fuck Jose," I said. The unnamed boy looked at me and I explained, "We don't like Jose, he's a bit trash."
"He wasn't that bad last time we all hung out, he was almost tolerable," J_____ said.

We waited for Jose and soon enough the unnamed boy had to excuse himself to use the bathroom.

Fly G started the interrogation:

"So does he have a big cock?" Fly G said.
'Huge' replied J______
"Like sucking on it?" replied Fly G
'It's good'
"How big is it? Show me with your hands"
J______ expressed a robust looking size that wavered between tree trunk impressive and 'not bad for a white guy' as the champagne coursed through his veins.
"Does it hurt going in? Is it fat?" Fly G asked.
"I wouldn't know." J____ said.

The unnamed boy came back as I sipped on my drink and looked at Fly G who had taken off his jacket revealing a necklace studded with bling and shaped like a key.
__

Circle of Shit

It was two days after Fly G's birthday dinner and we sat at a familiar bar we always accuse of slipping us mickeys (they're just actually generous with their alcohol).

We'd taken a walk around the park during that day where it was 80 degrees and everyone came out but unfortunately that also meant that all the douches were out.

We ordered and sat, and I heard the following story from Fly G's friend;

"Oh I get off on having guys circlejerk on me. I'm serious, I have a black book full of names, and they are listed by city. When I land in a city I go to the hotel, I check my book, and I call them all up. They show up and they jerk off until they go on my face...It's so hot! I think it's a submission thing."

Fly G and I thought for a milisecond before we both asked questions:

Me: "Do they touch each other?"

"NO! It's all about me"

Fly G: "Do you say things while it's happening?"

"No more than usual."

I thought about it and resolved it, "well no one is getting hurt right? It seems like you're having some relatively safe fun."

Although I don't think I said the above as I remembered that he had also previously suggested we all visit the Rambles, a practice that hasn't been considered safe since the 60's.
__

Circle of Blood

It was the night of Fly G's birthday dinner when Jose arrived 40 minutes late. Jose looks like John Leguizamo if John Leguizamo was hit in the face with the ugly stick until his face was locked in a fake grin full of cerebral palsy.

I hate him because of the fact that any decent intellectual person SHOULD hate pure evil. You would hate pure evil if you met it, and pure evil is willful ignorance, would you not agree?

Fly G sat between Jose and I

"Hi Jose!!" I said
"Hi Kevin!!" was his reply.

After a few more silenced stares into our menus J_____ broke the silence, "Well aren't we an interesting bunch...you know the dynamic of the table?"

Fly G and I looked up at him, then back down to our menus.

After we ordered Fly G remembered he had cigarettes to smoke, and because he had a pack then J_____ would follow and the unnamed boy.

"Play nice you two," FLy G said to me and Jose.

And we sat alone, and then we looked at each other, and I broke the ice with conversation because this particular burden falls on me 100A% of the time.

What's new with you Jose?

"I've gotten into Special K," he said, "Man I was into it so much, last week I was in a k-hole though. I've been in trouble though because I hit my boyfriend. He's only 17...and I feel bad. Still that's because that's the Evil me, you know? I got that side of me that comes out, it's fucked up man.I just gotta have fun you know "

He hesitated.

"Do you have any drugs with you?" he asked.

"No."
__

Eureka, I think. I've learned something...

I don't need therapy.

-Deviant

Kevin Needs Therapy~or~Murder/Mutilations/Coprophilia Make Me Grumpy

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 01:28:00 +0000

I stirred the ice cubes around my drink for a few seconds. I looked down on it away from Fly G for a moment. We were seated comfortably at a bar for a surprise round of drinks. Fly G had caught me leaving work and I gladly joined up with him. After taking a sip of my vodka tonic I looked up and said to him:

"I think I need therapy."

"You're not anybody in New York until you have a therapist!" Fly G gleefully informed me. "I just got all of these pills just now!" He took out a suspicious looking white back and shook it, it made a rattling sound. My insurance paid for all of it, I just had to pay 10% of the visit. Let me see your insurance card."

I showed him my card and he compared my card to his card while I leaned on the bar to order another drink. "Yes, I think you might be covered, you might have to pay 20 dollars, but paying 20 dollars a day every week isn't so bad, that's just 2 nightclub drinks."

We measure money in units of booze.

I saw the Sopranos where Tony's mom finds out that he's going to therapy, and she freaks out because she thinks its a condemnation of her. That's the cliche, so I'd like to make it a point that I had a very well adjusted family who raised me....they just so happened to be poor.

I suspected something was up as I walked home one day having been dismissed from class early and told to stay home because black people had started rioting due to the Rodney King verdict. As I walked the street alone from the public transit bus to my house pulling on my tacky large backpack strap, I walked past a Church's chicken that displayed a large sign through its window written in crisp black thick font; "BLACK OWNED."

I was 9.

Reginald Denny was the name of the man who I saw on the TV get dragged out of his truck and get kicked and thrown around the street. As he was trying to get up another man came up and threw a very hard object at his head. As he fell back down the attacker laughed, pointed, and disappeared down the street.

I'm worried that I somehow internalized this as something that was normal. I watched Salo on Sunday and I didn't blink, partially because I knew what was going to happen (people eat shit and die in that movie, literally), but maybe I read the book because I had been curious about the extreme nature of it. The man who wrote the book was named the Marquis De Sade, he was crazy, and we share the same birthday, month and day!

I mean, Salo did stay stuck in my mind at least, it made me a little grumpy that night.

"Look at this dick" Fly G said as he flashed me a picture of someone's black penis he was talking to via his iPhone.
"Good one I guess."
"Hmm...I bet this is about you not being out to your mother." He said
"My mom never asked!"
"It all comes back to that," Fly G said.

Well maybe he was right, but the main point is that there seems to be baggage there, and I can't become awesome with a psychosis, can I?

That last one wasn't a hypothetical, feel free to answer.

Fly G and I sat down on a comfortable bar couch. He got me a drink and I scored him a cigarette from an unsuspecting smoker using only my charms ("I still got it") and I start to think that maybe I'm making mountains out of prairie plains.

Maybe this right here is enough?

Oh btw, fun fact that let's me sleep well at night, Reginald Denny was saved by four people who saw his beating live on television.

All four were black.

-Deviant

Doctors: What Do They Know?~or~The Big Fucking Deal and You

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:51:00 +0000

Before something like RateMD we all just assumed our doctors knew everything and that they were simply the best of all possible worlds.

But it turns out Docs can be lazy pieces of shit just like we can be when we work. Sometimes we go full ass, often, it's half.

I hold a healthy wariness towards doctors which is why I end up simply riding out minor illnesses. My rule is a 3 day one, if I'm still feeling completely horrible on the 3rd day of a sickness then I'll consider going to a doctor.

It was with this thought that I swayed back and forth in a Bed Bath and Beyond in a pained haze while forcing myself to be out on this sunny Sunday with Fly G. The floor started undulating and I felt hyper conscious of my breathing. Fly G was very busy talking about the merits of purchasing a roomba.

"My friend says she doesn't a vacuum anymore! It's so smart and it goes around chairs and then it knows when it needs to recharge and it back ups right into its recharger. Boop! You see that? It just knows where to go!"

"I think...I have to go home." I said.

"Are you ok? Are you sure?"

I was and I left. A very painful stomach bug had made me it's host and put a major cramp in my social life (I had to stop drinking for 3 days, can you imagine?).

Mother had sage advice, "drink lemon tea, have Pepto Bismol, rest a LOT."

She's usually wrong as mother's are, for instance, washing your hair and going out in the cold doesn't give you the flu, and if you push the tip of your nose upwards it won't possibly 'stay that way.'

Mom saved me a trip to the doctor this time. I felt better after my 3rd day with just tea rest and a Pepto.

Yes, I have health insurance. How do I have health insurance? By the skin of my balls is how. I've proven to myself that I'm remarkably adept at winging it with the ferocity of a cornered fox in a burning building. If I could blow on a trumpet I'd teach Louis Armstrong how to play some better Jazz.

Fly G has health care too. Very good healthcare

"I have pills for anxiety..

...digestion

...depression

Xanax!" He went on with a list of 3 other pills he had gotten from his doctor. He seemed to be almost boasting

"Oh and I got a new one, Lunesta! It helps you sleep!" He said.

"I've seen the commercials. They have the glowing butterfly flying around all the people who are really stoned." I replied

"Yes! I got some now." Fly G trailed off and followed with a wise non sequitur, "don't become a pill popper."

When the Big Fucking Deal passed live on the web my stomach felt better. I ascribe wholly to the peer reviewed and proven idea that the mind can control the body, and when the mind is clear the body rids itself of diseases. The Big Fucking Deal isn't perfect, and a lot of our doctors are--quite frankly--shit, but as Robocop once famously told his partner when he told her the moon looked lovely and she replied that they were out in broad daylight...

"It's the thought that counts."

Some people believe that health care isn't a right; no doubt these same people believe that eating one's own children is perfectly reasonable under certain common circumstances. I believe we should at least continue to strive to pretend to be something approaching a 'civilized society.' I know this is tough to do when we're killing everything that moves and when we refuse to adopt the metric system (yeah never happening under my roof Europe), but again, it is the thought that counts at the very least.

As for me, I am back to full health and partial sanity and I wouldn't have it any other way.

-Deviant

Getting A Haircut~or~The Hair Confidence of the Harajuku

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:49:00 +0000

I would say I'm an eloquent person.

I can only say that about myself because you couldn't call me eloquent because it would make you a racist; going around implying Hispanics aren't eloquent and I am, it's offensive.

I'm pretty eloquent and I can describe a great deal of things. I've been published and I've been writing on here for years, so you'd think I'd be the one person you know who could most successfully tell my barber how I want my hair cut.

Wrong.

For years I've had no idea how to answer the question, "how do you want your hair?" My answer to that question is to wave my hands around my dome and say, "short."

I suspect I'm not the only one who struggles because I don't know anyone with complete and total hair confidence. You know the type? They're usually on the subway train, they're lithe, most likely Japanese, and they have hair like a peacock. Everyone see's them and thinks to themselves how great that hair is, and they stand confidently because they know this is true.

These hair confident people are another species. If you know me then...sorry...you do not have hair confidence, you have amazing strengths in other ways, you are intelligent, handsome, pretty, witty, maybe you're funny...you're a myriad of wonderful things.

You have no hair confidence though, we are not in the hair confidence clique.

Upon writing this I remember I did date someone who had hair confidence. He had a revolutionary haircut, long and parted just right, it was long and complimented his great horse face.

"Oh he's cute!" I'd hear

Well he was, and he was also crazy. My brief encounter with a hair confident person and I hated him and his hair. He was intelligent enough but it was chaotic and untrained, he would dip into the worst stereotype of a brooding emo kid...

And now, as I continue to talk about this, I remember a SECOND hair confident person of my past.

He cried.

He cried a lot.

Nuts to them. I told my barber recently exactly what I wanted, "I want it very short on the sides and on the back but leave all of my hair on top."

I wanted to look like a freak. When my barber stopped and I put my glasses back on to check out my hair, I noted that it looked like how I like my hair to look right before the barber cuts off too much and I hate it.

"Perfect."

I walked out happy and with no hat so at least I wasn't hair shamed. I'm still not in the league of a typical Harajuku Boy but who wants to be? The Harajuku kids have single handedly sapped all sympathy I had for the bombing Japan (damn their hair).

-Deviant

Two Films I Recommend~or~I Tortured A Cat Once

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:33:00 +0000

Thanks to my netflix subscription I now have the ability to easily follow along with films that have received accolades.

There are two movies I saw recently that I liked and had a few thoughts on:

I used to not care for the Coen Brothers, then I watched Fargo, and after that I viewed more of their movies like The Big Lebowski, and I think I understand them. I'm a fan now and I have the pleasure of still not having seen some of their lesser known works. I watched A Serious Man because it was their latest movie and I heard a lot of reports that could be summarized as "WTF." The film does have a point though that point might differ depending on who you are.

I took it as a very unique view into what it's like to be a Jew, and more specifically, what it's like to think like a Jew. The film isn't religious and it is only accidentally about the culture of Judaism. The story is about the people of that faith and how they respond to the world around them. The opening scene is absolutely well done and I took from that scene that the Coen Brothers might suspect that Jewish people are cursed with a supernatural mistrust of people.

Watch it if you don't believe me. I've heard from others that the film is really about how Jews uniformly deal with adversity, and how this behavior hardly matters because life's events are so chaotic that to fall back on one strict moral code hardly makes any sense. This sounds good but it doesn't explain the great parable that plays during the intro to the movie, it's about a mistrustful Jewish wife and a visiting rabbi who might not be what he appears to be (or maybe he is), killer stuff!

The second film is Precious. You've probably heard of it. Precious is fat, she's black, and those are the very least of her problems in this well-made ghetto drama. I think this shares that people-first attitude that A Serious Man has. If you've wondered why poor colored folk don't just pull themselves up by the boot straps then you might get a clue watching this film. Shit begets shits. Precious is a surly tank of a girl who regularly uses unwarranted force on bullies and innocent little kids alike.

I remember torturing a cat once while at a sitter's house in her yard, I flung it by it's tail, when it came back it scratched me. Why did I do that? I don't know because I'm not that person any more. What I can gather is that I wasn't too different from Precious (maybe separated by several important Happy Meals) but the oppressive feeling of the ghetto. The story is fictional but the people and the attitudes are real. Our only hope is education which is the key to the pulling of one's bootstraps. It's a shame when I hear stories about our school system's falling behind, or about how we should teach religion in science class.

Oh and that actress that played Precious was robbed by that dumb cow Sandra Bullock.

-Deviant

I Change My Mind On Male Shades of Sexuality~or~The Secret Tranny

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:08:00 +0000

Today I changed my mind.

This rarely happens, I mean to change your mind, not just decide you're going to do one thing then do another, but to tell yourself that a previously held belief was incorrect and that your new belief is now a lot more in tune with who you are as a person.

Today I thought to myself, "male sexuality isn't as rigid as I originally thought. It isn't either straight nor gay, there really are whole types of fucked up behavior."

I first gained this kernel of truth last weekend as I was having brunch with Fly G and several of his friends.

Across the table was a boy I'd met before with Fly G. He was attractive but shy, when he spoke. You would have to lean into him to hear every word he said.

Fly G entertained us with a story about how he had pissed all over the back of a cab one night ("It was a low point for me") and when he was done it was time to order our drinks. We all ordered unlimited drink specials except for our shy friend who ordered iced tea.

After our shy friend excused himself to go to the bathroom Fly G explained to us that Mr. Shy Guy had been sober, "hasn't had one drink in five years." Shy guy wasn't so shy in discussing how sober he was when he came back. Seeing as how open he was being Fly G related more of shy guy's story.

Apparently shy guy was a flight attendant and on one layover they'd gone to see him in his hotel room to ask if he wanted to go out. When he answered the door he was wearing a woman's wig and a dress. "He looked like the scary girl in the Ring videotape."

"Samara the witchy girl?" someone asked.
"No."
"The woman brushing her hair?"" I asked.
"Yes!" was his reply
"She looked kind of matronly," someone else said.
"Well yeah that's what he looked like!" Fly G answered.

Apparently he acted like a whole different person, "he was all flustered and making big hand signs and had a high voice, oooh ooh I can't go out I have guests coming!" Fly explained that the guests in question were men Mr. Shy Guy had invited over the internet to come over.

"This is fascinating," someone said as we stared incredulously at shy guy."

Mr. Shy smiled and pushed several buttons on his iPhone. As Fly G continued to tell us about Mr. Shy's personality as a woman Mr. Shy handed me his iPhone where I was staring at a faceless picture of him as a goth chick. He was wearing a tight blouse shirt with a pink mini-skirt and black stockings.

"Well you don't look so bad here," I told him.

Apparently Mr. Shy would invite these guests over. They were frequently straight males who knew that he was a man but who wanted to be fucked by him dressed as a female. "And they're HOT too," Fly G specified, "we were going out like chumps to come back home alone drunk and he was doing guys in his room every night dressed as a girl. I don't even know what your neighbors think of you with all of the strange men coming through your door."

Mr. Shy opened up when he saw we didn't go Christian-conservo on his ass, we were giggling in delight actually. "One time I opened my door and saw a guy I thought I was meeting, I was in full wig and dress and I waved him to come into my room. He looked really scared and ran away. I found out later this was a neighbor's son who was just in the building to visit his mother."

This was the catalyst for changing my mind. Afterwards I talked to people on a popular news aggregator and heard from straight men who liked dick, gay men who had fooled around with women, and guys who liked getting done up the pooper by lesbians who wore strap ons.

So I changed my mind; there are hitherto unforeseen levels of screwed up male sexuality that make me, quite frankly, look like Martha-fucking-Stewart on sleeping pills.

This is not to say that we should have no labels--perish the thought--this just means we need WAY MORE labels than we previously believed, granted I do consider myself a label whore.

-Deviant

An Image Seared Into My Soul~or~My Very First Tattoo

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:30:00 +0000

It will probably surprise you to learn that I don't have a tattoo on my body. I don't have anything pierced either.

I pierced my right eyebrow when I was 16 like any lovable dumb fag, but my sign of rebellion made me uncomfortable. I learned that I had to maintain this piercing by cleaning the crust that formed around the ring to prevent infection. I remember dipping my face into solution and being annoyed with how it felt. The piercing lasted 2 weeks, the hole healed, and my rebellious spirit internalized and left my outer shell alone.

I've wanted a tattoo since forever. I like how they look, I think they're sexy on people, but I've been weary of what I'd ink.

We've all seen our share of dubious tattoos in our days. You've seen the tiger scratches on a porn star's back that look like a staph infection, or the chinese characters down a blonde's leg that could read "asshole" for all we know...

The amount of horrible tattoos are many, but the majority of tattoos that I've seen are even worse; they're unremarkable, they're boring, they're neither interesting nor bold. I respect a man who has inked an ornate 3 foot design on himself, that shows commitment, but a barcode or a meaningless crucifix tucked away in a shirt leads me to ask why even get a tattoo in the first place.

Several tattoo enthusiasts gave me the following piece of advice: Think about your tattoo, if you're not sure then don't get it--often enough you will see the image that you want as a tattoo and it will hit you immediately--this means you're on the right track.

I'm happy to report that I think I found this image for myself. Last week I was browsing the internet and came upon this piece of art that spoke to me. I saw this and I thought back to the advice, "I...think I want this as a tattoo, nay I believe this has always belonged on my body, like the birthmark on my left hand underneath my thumb. It's me."

I'm revealing this image to you now followed immediately by my reasoning. I want the following image tattooed on my shoulder:

(Click here if you cannot see the above image)

Reasons #1 I want this as a tattoo: It explains itself. Just look at the image again, there's nothing REALLY to explain. You either get it or you don't. This is no diamond, it is no chinese character. It requires no back story unless prompted. It would not seem I am inviting casual conversation on the meaning behind this. It is quite simply a happy-go-lucky man who is kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach.

#2: It has an explanation. Let's say you've survived the initial shock and your corneas haven't melted off as if you'd landed face first into the ark of the covenant, now you ask, what's up with the tattoo? I think it's hilarious, and I think it's innapropriate. A swastika can be hilarious, but it's a weighted icon, it symbolizes hatred and the death of many people. The above picture doesn't, it isn't an icon. It is a picture of a cartoon man kicking a cartoon lady in her pregnant belly. I love things that are funny and innapropriate, that's who I am. Let's face it, expressing yourself via a tattoo is...how should I put this...is REALLY retarded? "Oh I'm always running around worrying, I should put an Ouroborus on my hand...the snake that eats itself..."

Yeah whatever, look at my tattoo, it's a man kicking a pregnant woman in her stomach. Cool huh?

#3: It has layers. The image isn't as simple as you initially thought it was. It is absurdity piled on top of absurdity. The man is smiling ear to ear like Mickey Mouse, his kick to the woman seems like an afterthought, the woman, in turn, seems surprised in the way your mother would seem surprised if she caught you looking at pornography. The pregnant woman is also wearing a t-shirt that says "baby" on it and it has an arrow pointing to her belly...who DOES THAT?

#4: It is a videogame reference. Yeah I know, but it's me too. I don't watch television shows, I play video games instead. This isn't a triforce tat as it is more subtle. The cartoon man is actually Vault boy who, in turn, is the fictitious mascot of a shady company that designed vaults to house people from nuclear attack in the Fallout games. He's a satire of 1950's PSA mascots, an ever smiling paragon of optimism in the face of nuclear annihilation.

The above illustration is recently unearthed art for an earlier Fallout game. The player would have seen the icon had he killed a child in the game (either on purpose or by accident). It was turned down for obvious reasons. People would understand the image had they not played the game that I spent way too much time playing, but people who had played Fallout would love it right off the bat.

#5: It's damn colorful, plus look at the woman's hairstyle. That's some 50's moxie there.

-Deviant

A Night with FlyG In Three Acts: Act 3 Dementia~or~We Are What Is Wrong With America

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:14:00 +0000

We step outside as Fly G, one of my oldest friends in New York, looks around befuddled. "Could I bum a ciggy off of you?" He lisps to a nearby boy in a long coat who looks alone and scared at Gym Bar, a bar full of the old and uninteresting, but this night the awkward air of immobility is broken by my friend who has just picked a vicious fight with a rival flight attendant that has gone--for the most part--unreciprocated.

The boy gives Fly G a cig which he toys with in his mouth, he is lit up and starts smoking like a novice; waving his hands around too much and puffing audibly.

We notice that the Delta Flight attendant is talking to another boy in the bar. "Who does he think he is? Bitchy queen!" My friend Fly G scoffs as I chug down my drink, "can you believe he got all upset about you drinking his drink? I bought it! I can say who drinks and when!"

Fly G angrily finishes his cigarette as we step back into the bar. This time the Delta Flight attendant address Fly G with a more pronounced slur. "You know it's a damn shame how you treat me, and how we treat each other," the Delta flight attendant says, "you know people like us--people in our profession--we used to watch out for each other...we HAD to! Now we just at each other!"

Fly G says something while assuming a bitch-ass stance, that is a finger waving in front of his face and his other hand on his back hip. I saddle up next to the Delta flight attendants friend and introduce myself, he responds "Hi, I don't actually know him, he just went up to me and started talking about flight attendants."

"Are we ok?!" I hear the Delta man say, "are we good? Because I don't want to fight you!"
"We are good, we were good..." Fly G says with a pang of what I am astonished to think of sounds like guilt. "We were fine until you called me a bigot!" Fly G finishes.

"I never called you a bigot!!" The delta man slurs.

The boy I was talking to goes "uh oh" and skedaddles. I watch with great anticipation, I am unabashedly a fan of train wrecks with victims, at the very least it can be said that I know myself and can admit this readily.

Some more crazy words are exchanged between these two drunken flight attending titans. They are like immobile mountains, each standing tall against the other, no sign of an attack, but their sedentary bases are slowly overtaking each other's rock.

The man from Delta wants to stop this it seems, he says, "We gotta stick together, pure and simple. Let's say you're flying to France and you get stranded...oh wait I forgot...your airline doesn't fly to France!"

"Good luck with Delta they let go of people all the time!" Fly G shoots back.

"Delta was here BEFORE, and it will be there AFTER!" He says as we retreat back to the outside patio.

You might ask yourself why is this continuing? At least I hope you are, because it was here that I was furiously attempting to recall the details of the entire night as I tried to find the answer to this question myself. We weren't having fun, we were all fighting, and to prove what??

Fly G found a lone polish boy who was smoking, he told him something and the Polish boy nodded. It was here that the Delta flight attendant followed us out to the patio and told me specifically "Oh he can keep talking about me! He's acting like a BITCH!"

"I don't care that you work for Delta or that you think you're hot shit, the truth is they hired a bunch of trashy faggy flight attendants 2 years ago! That's how I knew you worked for them."

The Delta man looked at me and said with an almost sober tone, "Your friend is beautiful...but a BITCH!" He scoured off away, finally, after about an hour long ordeal. Fly G turned to the Polish boy and said "you think I was acting like a bitch?"

The Polish boy thought for a moment, he nodded his head, "yes a little bit."

"I can't believe this."

Fly G stormed back inside and I followed, thankful that this was over, but a little disappointed at the resolution. There was no blood spilt and no permanent bruises, still it was as beautifully pointless as any fight should be.

Fly G had some more to drink. "Two people called me a bitch tonight," he lamented, "that Delta cocksucker and the stupid Polish boy, I was only talking to him for you," he confessed.

"Really? I didn't care for him."

"I told him I was having a fight with a dumb black south african Delta cocksucker and he told me he knew how the blacks could get, har har," said Fly G.

"So he was weird looking and a racist, thanks bud," we shared a drink and I had to go home, tired. Fly G would stay behind no doubt to have another drink and troll for thug boys on his Grindr app.

Fin.

-Deviant

A Night with FlyG In Three Acts: Act 2 Exclusivity~or~The Secret World of Flight Attendants

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:24:00 +0000

You may or may not remember a few things about Fly G, and so here is another tidbit that you'll want to hear. Fly G is called Fly G because he's a flight attendant for a young airline company. He hates it there naturally, and he's informed me that flight attending involves little more than kicking out rowdy minorities from airplanes and getting so drunk with coworkers that they all forget how they get home.

After outting himself as an ebay scammer and after we finished our meal Fly G decided that we should go to Gym Bar.

Gym Bar isn't really fun, but I go there because I must commit myself to documenting my good friend who I've known for near a century here in NY, he's like my brother...who scams people over ebay and sleeps with thug black boys.

We order our drinks and Fly G is talking about his father who is a racist ex-cop. When Fly G goes to visit his father they trade quips about how bad and unruly the darkies are. I think Fly G's father knows that his son was enamored with a black guy but neither of them care.

"So he just talks about how many people he had to pull over.." Fly G says, and with a mischievous smile he leans in and whispers "especially the coloreds!" At that moment I look to my right and see a friendly looking black guy, drink in hand, who is slightly drunk.

"How are youuuu boys doing today?" He asks.
"Good!"
"Good"
"It's really crowded here tonight isn't it?" He continues.
"Yeah it's tough to get a drink, it's a good thing they're in big glasses otherwise I'd have to get two at a time!" I say.

I notice the body language from this gentleman. He's clean and effeminate, in other words he is not at all Fly G's type, who likes them thuggish with big billed caps on their heads. Nevertheless our new friend has taken a liking to Fly G and I'm only filling in the awkward silences with some meaningless fluff.

"So what do you do?" I ask.
"I'm a flight attendant." Our new friend answers.

Fly G's eyes arch devilishly as he points an accusatory finger at our new friend's chest.

"I bet I can guess the airline you work at in 2 questions," says Fly G.

Our friend accepts the challenge and Fly G starts:

"When were you hired?" Fly G demands.
"Around 2 years ago." He replies
"Hmm I see ok. Next one, what terminal do you work in?!" Fly G shouts.
"You are a feisty one!" He slurs. "And cute..."
Fly G has solved his riddle without caring about the answer to the second question.

"You work for DELTA! Don't you!!?" Fly G has guessed and I look over to the man with genuine curiosity. Had my friend guessed correctly? How did he do it.

Our new friend looked playfully deflated. "Yeeess I work for Delta." He admits.

I am amazed, and I'm determined to see how Fly G knew this, but I excuse myself to the bathroom briefly, and when I come back I see Fly G has bought a drink for me. "Here drink it," he says, "I told that guy it was for him, but he didn't touch it and went to make a phone call."

I take some sips and he comes back.

"Is this my drink?" He asks. "Someone drank it."

Fly G looks insulted. "Well no," he clarifies, "it isn't yours. We offered it to you, but Kevin drank some."

"You know you have a damned attitude," the Delta flight attendant says, "and it's real sad!"
"Ok fine then leave!" Fly G implores.

The Delta flight attendant looks at me as I shrug.

"I've got to make another call excuse me," he says.

As he walks away I think this will be the last we see of him. I turn to Fly G and ask him how he guessed the man worked for Delta. "Delta hired a ton of faggy niggers two years ago," he said, "my airline only hires big black thugs. Thuglies!" He gulps down his drink.

I'm amazed at the deductive reasoning at work.

"Let's go outside, I need a cig" Fly G says, which is curious because he doesn't smoke.

(to be concluded in act 3)

-Deviant

A Night with FlyG In Three Acts: Act 1 Inclusivity~or~The eBay Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:54:00 +0000

Fly G and I talked had dinner at our favorite location in New York, Spice restaurant. Spice offers cheap thai food with overpriced drinks and trashy ambiance so we are naturally attracted to it like flies on honey.

In case you've forgotten, FlyG is one of my best friends in the city who I've known for the longest time. He's attracted to "black ghetto thug men who are clean" (his words not mine) and he is a racist, like his father, but unlike his father he...you know...does black guys.

I was playing with my food as I watched FlyG tinker with his newly unlocked iPhone. "Check this out," he squealed, "it tells you where the nearest guys are by how many feet they are," he points at a torso in a 2 inch by 2 inch square, "this one says 10 feet."

I instinctively look behind me. Two dudes sitting and eating, none of them looks like a torso, I look at FlyG again.

"I've heard of Grindr," I informed him.

FlyG went back to his phone and I went back to staring blankly at him. It is astonishing to me how he doesn't regard the presence of other people like this. I sometimes wish I had the same ability but my mother hammered in me a form of superhuman politeness. I am at once aware and concerned with what everyone in a room is feeling.

"I used to have an iPod touch before I got too drunk at my birthday and lost it. I had like 50 apps on there." I said to FlyG. "Do you use the ebay app? I know you like going on there to buy and sell things."

"Oh I don't use ebay anymore. Too many scammers, the site is untrustworthy I feel," Fly G responded. I was taken aback because he had sold a couple of my leftover belongings from my move to Brooklyn on ebay not too long ago. "100 DOLLARS BABY!" He said at the time.

"Ebay scammers? Really? How do you scam on ebay?" I asked.

At this moment FlyG leaned in to make things clearer for me. "It's easy. You put up something to sell, then you get the address of the winning bidder, then you send an envelope to the wrong address..."

"Hold on a second," I said. "You scammed people on ebay?"
"Yeah."
"So when you said you quit ebay because of ebay scammers, you were talking about yourself? You're the scammer."
"I made over $1,000 over it last year," FlyG boasted, "You just send a blank envelope to the wrong address, it bounces back to you, when the customer complains and they investigate they only find the zip code was correct. You sent it to the right zip code therefore you did your part and the customer can't complain about you again!"
"You're a monster."

I can't lie in this case, I was impressed, I don't think anyone writes a How-To guide for scamming people on eBay but yet here we were...

(end of act 1)

-Deviant

Faggy~or~Slurs

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:40:00 +0000

I was on www.reddit.com when this topic came up: "Is anyone really offended when I say 'fag' while playing video games."

The answers were astounding and awesome, giving me hope for the future. The answer was "yes it is offensive" or "no it isn't offensive to me personally, but you sound retarded when you say it..."

And it reminds me of the word niggardly, which is now out of vogue, but which has a meaning different from nigger...but who else besides the biggest tools still say 'niggardly?"

Language is fascinatng because it reveals so much about us.

Who are fags? America considers homosexual men 'fags,' men who have taken great pains of insight to determine that they were meant to love other men.

What isn't faggy? Sports. Wars. Killing.

And the boy in Nebraska who questions his sexuality and critially thinks he might want to love men for the rest of his life is a "fag," but what isn't a fag is the Mother who would send all of her sons to die in a war.

The fag is the fey interior designer who invades a house in order to spruce it up, make it more beautiful, what isn't a fag is father who beats his wife.

A fag is a man in a loving relationship with another man, a fag isn't an ignorant redneck that kills a doctor that performs abortions.

A popular slur is a denial on a national stage. Gay people aren't fags, America is. America is fey, unsure, faggy, weak, subordinate, embarrassing, afraid, meek.
Think about it. When slavery was in vogue, black people were called niggers, monkeys, primates...who were we talking about again?

-Deviant

100,000 Dead Haitians~or~It's Hard To Get Priorities Straight When Under A Cold

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:24:00 +0000

I'm pretty sick today, but this doesn't stop the flood of crazy in my world.

Today 100,000 or so Haitians died in an Earthquake. I didn't feel it naturally and I don't know any Haitians, though I understand how shocking that number is to a great many of people.

My twitter feed was bombarded with a number to text a $10 donation to Haitian relief (found here, and almost simultaneously...

Almost simultaneously someone else was bullying me into giving $1 for cancer on a facebook group.

Bullying people into donations, what is that about? That's despicable. You take something good and sprinkle it with horrible. It's like being a monogamous rapist, or a cake baker/poisoner.

Yesterday I found out someone I know was laid off of work, and today I found out that Dexter has cancer.

It's a sad time, and so forgive me, world, if I'm not at %100 to deal with it all because I am sick.

Granted, the biggest issue is 100,000 dead Haitians. There is nothing rational to say about that other than sending relief money (I don't do...prayers).

Other than maybe one thing. How futile is it to think about starting wars when we live in a world where 100,000 people can die from natural disasters? That death count is something I can't even imagine, and if someone tells you that they can even begin to understand it then they are lying to you.

Oh and I forgot about the Conan thing. Damned horrible situation if you ask me.

-Deviant

Milk~or~Don't Even Get Me Started On The Boy In The Wheelchair Scene

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:09:00 +0000

I started watching Milk tonight with trepidation.

The film sat on my shelf from Netflix for about 2 weeks now, part of that was due to my visiting family and how wrapped up I was with them, and part of that was an internal conflict.

I feel like watching Milk is required for me. "My family gave me Milk for DVD," my friend Fly G told me, "should I be offended?"

"Why would you be offended?" I asked.

"Everyone got DVDs...and I got Milk. My mother's boyfriend gave it to me..."
"Did you like it?" I asked curiously glancing at my copy.
"No"

Then he started going on about black guys and dildos, at any rate, I wasn't looking forward to my screening of Milk because I felt like I was required to watch it, required to reflect on how amazing it was, and required to then write about it as a bit of a gay activist myself ((cough)).

And I was liking it for the first hour or so. I don't think Sean Penn's performance was as good as people claimed as I feel he went full gay just like he went full retard. The supporting cast was pretty damn great though, and the story was a real underdog drama and who doesn't like that?

Then they introduced Diego Luna's character, and something felt off. All of a sudden I wasn't watching a movie FOR me, I was watching a movie talking AT me, like if one of my synapses snapped.

The only people I'd seen on screen were white, fair enough I can dig it, and then I saw this latin character who was hysterical and immature, dismissed repeatedly as someone stupid.

Films can't be racists, people can be racists but not films, films are either boring or entertaining, and this short changing of an ethnic dude struck me as pretty boring.

And then I noticed that the rest of the cast (particularly in the vignettes) were white dudes who looked like gogo boys...

It was like the film had stopped engaging me with a conversation and went off on a black boys and dildos tangent like my friend Fly G usually does. In other words, I probably felt like how an indian american would feel when he saw Dances with Wolves, or how an alien would feel while watching Avatar...

WTF?

I hate a good story ruined by single-mindedness and a closed in view of the world, and if this is the best gay cinema has to offer then consider me bored.

...and just in case you're wondering, which I know you were...

F,
Marry,
Kill.
Milk Edition

I'd F Emile Hirsch, Marry Joseph Cross, and kill Sean Penn as Harvey Milk...as inappropriate as that sounds.
-Deviant

Christmas With A Nerd~or~Batman Teaches Spanish

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:59:00 +0000

It's tough Christmas shopping for a nerd. Us nerd types demand gifts that are mostly expensive and rarely practical. I want video games, gadgets, electronic toys, gift cards to Best Buy...I never want a scarf or pairs of socks.

On the other hand, you can't tell with most people if they are really pleased with a gift you give them, but a nerd's appreciation is always obvious. I've given my aunt some neat little presents here and there, and I get a "thanks!" You probably get a "thanks" from most people too, but do you ever wonder whether you really succeeded in pleasing that person with your gift?

Gift-giving is one of the few practices in life that offers very little feedback, and very little room for improvement because of that lack of feedback.

Nerds are different. Once you find out someone is a nerd, your gift-giving will become easier, and the nerds appreciation will be noticeable.

I send my mom my Xmas list when she asks, and once it is sent I can feel her heart nearly giving in.

Oblivion for the Xbox 360 (Game of the Year Edition Please)
Wii Sports Resort
iPod Touch or any other top of the line iPod
A brand new laptop...

etc. The poor woman is in her early 50's and has probably never even SEEN an Xbox 360.

I was stuck with a dilemma however. What should I get my mother? I don't know too many women in their early 50's and I'm hit or miss when it comes to gifts.

People have a hard time believing that my mother used to read comic books, and so would I had I not found her stash of spanish language comic books in our apartment when I was a kid.

It was a box full of Superman comics where he was a dick and Batman comics where he was a well intentioned crusader. It was mostly hokey Golden and Silver age type comics where the hero is a goody two shoes.

My mom, as a young girl, would sneak off into to the comic shop without telling her mother and purchase a few of the books for nickels. She would devour them and get some more, and then she discovered boys, then my father, then me.

And now here I was with her old Batman comics, and I needed to polish up my spanish reading skills in order to keep up with his adventures with the Riddler and the Joker.

Growing up in a ghetto was tough, and my mom was nagging and otherwordly (as most moms are), but in the 90's we found what we had in common as two people; we were both CRAZY about superhero cartoons.

We both watched the Phoenix Saga unfold on the Xmen cartoon show in complete AWE.

"Oh my god, did you just see that??" I'd scream at her.
"Yeah she's dead!" she'd reply in disbelief.

We watched all of the Spider-man cartoons, and we shed some manly tears when we saw the Heart of Ice episode of Batman (It won the show an Emmy you know!)

And so, for her gifts this year, I took a risk.

I was going to get her graphic novels.

"You're giving your mother graphic novels?" A friend asked, "nobody gives their mother's graphic novels."

I bought two graphic novels. One was The Long Halloween, a stylish and modern Batman mystery tale with lots of his villains appearing, and I bought her the Pièce de résistance; Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

That last one was a book that unofficially ended the Golden Age era of Superman, presumably, the Superman that she knew. It details his happy-go-lucky foes from that era turning sinister, some of Superman's friends dying, and it "ends with a wink."

I knew she had a like for comic book characters, but not so sure she'd still like Comic Books, so I got her the Ally McBeal season 1 DVD (the show made her laugh!).

My mother did good for me on my xmas list, and was shocked to see I had given her more than one gift. She opened them--and this next bit might have been my imagination--but I swear that she was underwhelmed by the Ally McBeal dvd, and was overjoyed at the comics.

"Thank youu!" She said, but there again, maybe it was JUST a thank you, and not a real thank you.

"I tried," I thought to myself. I then explained to her that the Superman comic was the finality to the Superman that she read as a youth, I thought she'd love to read whatever happened to him now.

The following morning I walked into her room to ask her something, and I caught her reading Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. She was HALFWAY through it. She put it down next to her, and she bookmarked where she left off with the magnifying glass she was using to take in the detail and make the font bigger.

There were guests to entertained, so she couldn't get back to the book that day, but for the first time since being a kid an object had mystified me....this half-read comic that I gave my mother.

I opened the page up to where the magnifying glass was. What page did she leave on? What panel? How much had she read? Where did she think the story was going?

I kept checking it as if the details inside the book had changed since the last time I glanced at it.

Inside that book was my mother, not as my mother, but as a little girl who was smart enough to be interested in little boy things. She was a reader with flights of fancy that wasn't afraid of being geeky. In that book were me and her and what we liked about the world.

I'm going to send her more graphic novels with explanations as to why she should read them. I'll talk to her more about why Avatar was so weird for a James Cameron film and how it could have been better (a conversation we had when I took her to see it).

I feel like I can start being friends with her, and it's one more nerd that I can give easy gifts to.

-Deviant

Los Angeles Sucks~or~Paying Off That Debt

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:35:00 +0000

I don't do vacations very well.

When I made the decision to plunge forth into the real world, I had with me a certain set of values that--on hindsight--might have been slightly skewed.

And for good reason. You might teach your child about morality and responsibility, but along the way some parents can't help but do a bit of indoctrination.

You see, I thought I owed my family an enormous debt. Call it classical catholic guilt (or jewish guilt, or any-religion-guilt). I felt that I needed to devote a large amount of holiday time with my family.

My mother had always complained that kids in the USA didn't value their parents, "they just don't spend enough time with their mothers, they run away from home and never come back."

Last year I made the foolish mistake of flying to Los Angeles to visit my folks for two weeks, some of those days were unpaid, and I did so because I felt guilty.

But I've learned since then to strip away the indoctrination from the responsibility. Tomorrow I leave for Los Angeles for ONE WEEK and no more!

The In-N-Out burger that will be waiting for me once I land will power me for 2 days, the next 2 days will be powered by multi-player wii games, the rest of the time will be powered by my Angelino friends...

The truth is that visiting my family is a responsibility and not a vacation, at least it has been for the last several years. I'm not sure what I can do to change that, but you'll be damned if I don't find ways to do just that.

My first step will be to get everyone to go see Avatar in 3D, which is something that I've been wanting to do here but hadn't found anyone interested.

I'm packed and I've come to terms with my arrival in Los Angeles, that stinking state from hell...the freeways and the junk in the air, the plastic tits and the dull nightlife...

It's where I'm from. Specifically, the building where I'm from is now condemned, and so is the whole damned state.

I didn't mean to sound so negative, because it is still a good place to visit, but so is Berlin.

-Deviant

A Call From MomorBaby Boomers

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:57:00 +0000

I was audibly angry at my mother when I finally picked up the phone.

"What is it?"

"Oh excuuse me for bothering you!" She answered in spanish.

She'd left a voice-mail message while I was watching a movie, called another time while I was out with friends, and then rang me now when I was relaxing

In situations like this, what occurs when I pick up the phone is an argument about the voicemails, when did I get the voicemail, how many she left, and why I didn't get back to her.

It's like a post-modern painting, oh this painting is ABOUT painting, just like this call is ABOUT the call.

"If I died, you wouldn't find out for days," she snarled.

"Oh I'd find out," I responded through a mouthful of grinding teeth, "Don't worry about that one mom! SOMEONE would tell me and I'd find out."

It was about a day or two after the New York State Senate struck down the gay marriage bill when I became angry at...them.

I thought it was the local senators I was angry at, but it wasn't just them. I thought it was maybe the cowardly Dems, or more obviously, the stupid Republicans; but it wasn't either. Then maybe I was angry at the religious right?

But no, it wasn't JUST them. I was angry at that generation, my mother, your mother, those MOTHERS.

I realized this while watching the State senators for gay marriage stand up and deliver poignant speeches about why they were supporting the bill. I only heard one Senator explain why he didn't support the bill in what was essentially a mumbling of "religion and bible said so."

After all those speeches the votes came in, and it was defeated by a majority of silent votes. Moments afterward people around the internet started to speculate, but these answers wrung hollow due to the simple fact that no one gave a convincing speech as to why they were voting against the bill.

It was cowardice.

And it wasn't just the marriage bill in NY, it was also the War that has raged on without question, and it was the cowering to the religious right. The baby boomers in America grew up with religion when their children grew up with the Internet. They were told about Sweden whereas we might have actually chatted with a Swede on AOL. There was no AIDS scare for me, but there was a terrorist scare, and even afterward we didn't fall in line like they did.

My mother still asked me to pray for people, even though I told her when I was around 15 that I didn't believe in God. What the hell was wrong with them?

I can't stand that they run things, but I also pity them. They don't deserve our anger, they deserve our patience.

"I'll see you this Christmas mom...yep...I love you too mom!" Because I do, but still. Wow.

-Deviant

Thanksgiving~or~New Rule: We Are Allowed to Punch Strange Kids In The Face If They Bother Us

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

I've spent the majority of this Thanksgiving at my friend's house in Boston on his couch passed out watching movies, eating turkey, playing some random video games, and watching my back fat develop into a comfortable portable cushion.

The Thanksgiving hangover is starting to settle throughout the household and America at large, millions of gym machines are heard screaming in agony in unison.

(I can smell the bacon for this morning's breakfast, good Dog when does this torture end?)

I've learned something unrelated to food this Thanksgiving though. I don't think a parent should hit their child, but I think we should be allowed to punch a kid real hard in the face provided that you're a stranger and they start hitting you out of the blue.

Look, I understand that children (boy's in particular) have a confused bout of aggression at around age 10, and they might not recognize that I'm significantly older thant hey are due to my cherubic face, but if I'm lying down on the couch and you're kicking me "playfully" I am in the universal right to punch your ribcage real hard.

Back home in Los Angeles some neighborhood kids were "playfully" hounding me as I was doing laundry, please bear in mind that I was around 19 at the time and the kids were maybe 12.

I feel it is an important lesson and should be thanked for kicking the shit out of those kids until they went crying home; do not mess with things bigger than you. Their simpleton mom chose to come to my mom and complain, in which case my mom looked at this woman and told her to "get out of my door, my son is 19 and your kids should know better."

Parents, protect your children against face punching with the same vigor you protect them against diddling, and all will be right with this world.

-Deviant

Gay Sex In Dragon Age: Origins~or~Gay Rights For RPG Avatars

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:37:00 +0000

Videogamers have discovered that it is possible to have hot gay sex in the newest Bioware RPG Dragon Age: Origins

The video game isn't something your uncle built for your Dos Program, Dragon Age is the next blockbuster from a developer known to churn out epic games for most major consoles and the PC.

While this is a triumph for fans of the modern RPG, it is also a small victory for me, as I have always maintained that my video game avatar should be able to have sex with virtual male elves.

I don't spend an hour fine-tuning the size of a nose for my avatar only to have him be rejected by all the other males in the story. I want for the main character in a videogame to have awkward sexual encounters the same as heterosexuals do!

This is a monumental step in our culture. We have been banned from having our male game protagonists cavort with other men. Recently games like The Sims or Bully broke new ground with having things resembling males getting on with other things resembling males, but here we have what is clearly hardcore sexual relations between two guys who look like they're on steroids.

And this isn't about identity politics, it is about the opening up a plethora of MORE options for people to have fun within a game. Do you have any idea how many times I've role played as an angry lesbian in a video game.....TWICE (and that is one too many).

The angry lesbian avatars have been able to partake in forbidden romance AND wage war, the only downside to the gay male encounters in Dragon Age is that no wars will be waged because one will be too busy screwing the virtual elf (and all of a sudden I believe "screwing the virtual elf" should be a great euphemism for an action that I have not yet defined).

-Deviant

Missing the Pop Point~or~Superman Learns How To Fly

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:57:00 +0000

The video has been analyzed before, and yes it is about the secret powers of women, but I feel like the analysis of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video has missed one crucial point...

We love it because it is the birth of a Pop Star.

We knew it was in the protagonist all this time, but no one was sure until the one moment.

-Deviant

The Film Industry Is Dying~or~I'm Ready For My Closeup Mr. Demille

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:01:00 +0000

The best thing to happen to the music industry was the crushing of its industry. Artists are now being discovered on their merit via myspace and music blogs. We can download an album, share with friends, then go see the band live.

I found a good article about the movie industry that claims it is about to suffer a similar fate

One thing that is curiously not considered is the fact that we (as in this country) are all poor, and I'm going to stream The Watchmen Directors cut on my tv using my xbox rather than pony up the ridiculous cost of the 3 disc collectors cut that will only be superseded 2 months from now by the four disc definitive collection.

So, movie industry, it's not you, it's me (okay maybe it is you a little bit). I still care for you deeply Cinema, you were an early passion of mine, but you are now fat and living on welfare, so thanks, but go fuck yourself.

-Deviant

Who Am I To Judge?~or~L.I.E vs Grand Ecole

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:50:00 +0000

There were two films I watched recently that refracted onto each other.

The first was Grand Ecole directed by Robert Salis. It is a french Gossip Girl style film about upper class students struggling with their love lives.

The protagonist is a boy with a girlfriend who is falling in love with his male best friend, his girlfriend challenges him to "get" this boy before she does, meanwhile he is showing lust for a muslim student and boys in general.

I thought the film was disingenuous. We see the protagonist longing for boys, but we also see him making passionate love to women after these scenes. The film seems to conclude that sexual differences, like class differences, are moot.

Well that's a load of horseshit, I thought, because we know what we want on a base biological level! Even the film Grande Ecole has a scene unrelated to the romances where the protagonist watches boys bathing after gym practice, a clear moment of lust in a cloud of romantic confusion.

Then I re-watched L.I.E., a film unfairly caught up in the late 90's youth exploitative age made notorious by Larry Clark and his film Kids

I wanted to rewatch L.I.E because the kid in it is Paul Dano who was amazing as the preacher guy opposite Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

On this second viewing I knew that L.I.E. was no Kids.

While Larry Clark's film is intelligent, it is also exploitative, his camera lens seems to lust after the teen and tween body with the passion of a pederast, even when he makes important moral points.

L.I.E is honest with its camera work. We see underage bodies, but not often--and when they are shown they are done so in service of the character attached to them.

L.I.E is the story of a young boy whose mother was killed in an accident on the Long Island Expressway. His best friend is a sexually active homosexual hooker. The young boy's home life is repulsive, his father is almost a nympho in terms of how much sex he has while ignoring his kid. The young boy eventually befriends the neighborhood pedophile (an awesome Brian Cox) and they begin a will-he-or-won't-he-rape-him father/son relationship.

L.I.E is a disturbing work, and I wondered why. Pedophiles in film are shorthand for evil, when they aren't then it bothers us. But I think the creepiness factor in the movie was more than that.

The film is really about something rarely discussed in America, male sexuality, which is why it disturbs. The young boy's father is voracious to the point that it is neglectful to his son. The young boy's best friend is cocky and discovering himself, but also lost to the thrill he gives to others. Brian Cox's character is conniving, but has a foolish hope that the young boy could be an ideal partner for him. And the young man in the movie is pre-pubescent.

This is important, because the film hints he is in love with his gigolo best friend, but the boy is pre-pubescent himself, so how deep does his physical intrigue run?

Not too deep at all! The young boy may be gay, or he may not be, but he's is too young to tell definitively.

It's a different message that Grand Ecole's fluid sexuality provides. L.I.E concerns itself with what we are after puberty, the folly of what we want lustfully, while Grand Ecole argues that what we want is not specific to gender.

That's when I thought, "well the main difference is that L.I.E is an American movie and Grand Ecole is french..."

And how many times have my fellow gay readers found themselves kissing a "straight" European man? "All Englishman are gay!" I tell people, and everyone who has come back from there in America agree.

Shit, maybe European guys really do believe sexuality is that fluid. Maybe we're more wonderfully different between us than I thought.

Who am I to judge?

-Deviant

Dexterama~or~Batman Can Breathe In Space Because He Comes Prepared

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:32:00 +0000

I got to thinking about the show Dexter today, wondering specifically why I liked it so much.

For a show about a serial killer who only kills other killers it's pretty non-gory. Don't get me wrong, there's blood and body parts, but it lacks the tastelessness of something like the Saw movies.

I like Dexter because the show is a subversive super hero fantasy. It's the logical conclusion of what Batman has to offer, no super powers, and all the villains are just psychopaths.

There aren't any costumes in Dexter (except for Dexter's all-plastic murder suit) and the only masks worn are social smiles.

Every super hero trope is there, the screwed up childhood, the moral code, the secret identities, the villain who is hero gone wrong, the seductress catwoman.

The drama is played out over lunches and not on rooftops, the seductress catwoman is just a co-dependant pyromaniac, and so forth

Superhero stories are considered modern day Greek God drama, and while Dexter and Batman stories follow the same themes they also make the point that there are no gods, and "super powers" are really the powers we have over others, and evil super powers are just trauma.

(Also The Dark Defender was the greatest Dexter episode!)

-Deviant