Ding Dong

Now, if you haven't seen this yet, you're in for a big, glistening treat.

Ok, first, this is the most fun you can have with cheesy pseudo-French accent and a tube of Astro-Glide.  And that's saying a lot!

Now that everyone has seen this video (everyone I tell you!) maybe someone can e-mail or comment and explain a couple of things to me:

First, is that a drag queen that's sitting to the left of the couch where the two chicks are like, necking or whatever?  I can't tell.  The person appears to have that weird bobbing smiley action happening similar to what one sees in a person suffering from a degenerative nerve disorder.  I suspect it may be Gunther himself in drag.  But then I come to my senses and think that Gunther must be far too manly for such folly.

Secondly, d'you think Gunther's lips are like that naturally?  I'm curious.  I'm rather fascinated by them and think that he must have found some ancient artifact deep in de night in some Finnish cave or something and an uber Viking lip spirit possessed them. They're so radiant and they seem to be the primary focal point of the person photographing the video.  I figure the photographer is drawn in by their mystical powers just as I have been.

Answers!

Victims, Again

Deja fucking vu.

I didn't think about Kobe Bryant's rights when I said that people shouldn't call the chick that he (allegedly) raped a "victim" (see archives 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003). I was thinking more about her human rights. This does bring up an important (and often ignored) point though. He is innocent of rape until proven guilty. He did cheat on his wife for sure though. This much, he admitted. Does that make him a rapist? Nah.

What makes someone a rapist? I made a list. I like lists. I make lists all of the time. So being the selfless gal that I am, I made a list for you to remember when you hear about a rape, are raped, or maybe even sit on a jury of someone accused of rape:

1. Say you are "doing it". You are in the middle of hot, hot sex and suddenly, the woman feels weird or sobers up. Whatever. She says, "Stop. Now," and you don't stop. Congratulations, asshole. You're a fucking rapist.

2. Say a chick has been coming on to you all night long. She's been all over you like White on George Bush. You get her home. Oops. She just sobered up. Or passed out. Either way, you don't have permission. But...she's been coming on to you! She owes you something, right? Wrong, dumbass. She says no or if she's in no condition to say anything at all and you go on ahead and get your sex on, you’re a fucking rapist.

3. Say you just fucked a crack whore. The crack whore said no, but who gives a fuck. She's a crack whore, right? Wrong, fucker. You're worse because you're a fucking rapist.

4. No matter what the circumstances, unless you're playing a sex game or something and everyone is absolutely certain what's up, if a woman says no, it's rape if you still fuck her. Even if she's just gang banged 29 guys right in front of you. Even if she just did the goddamned donkey show. She says no, you do it anyway; you’re a worthless piece of shit rapist.

I mention substance abuse often because if you don't already know this stuff, a woman would have to be drunk or a crack whore to have sex with your dumb ass.

Also, if you're female, say no if you mean no. Don't say, "I don't feel like it." Say NO. There cannot be room for ambiguity until we live in a world where your vagina is as sacred as his penis. And so far, we don't live in that world.

All that said, yes, Kobe Bryant is way innocent until proven guilty. I hope he is innocent because that is one less woman that got raped last year.

Last Dance

Saturday April 7, 2001

Timothy Thomas knew he'd been spotted by two off-duty police officers working outside The Warehouse nightclub on Vine Street in Cincinnati. Thomas took off. The officers called in backups. Twelve officers joined in, like you do with a crime lord like Thomas, a 19 year old kid with some unpaid traffic tickets. Police said Thomas jumped fences and darted behind buildings, finally turning down an alley off Republic Street. Officer Steven Roach was in pursuit from the other direction. He saw Thomas walk from behind a building and said that Thomas was reaching for something in his waistband. Officer Roach fired, hitting Thomas in the chest. No weapon was found on or near Thomas' body. Timothy Thomas was the 15th Black man to be killed by Cincinnati police since 1995.

That night, I got off work early from my job as a bartender at Warehouse. I had a stray cat in the backseat of my car (the late Lady Goodman), and since this was before I hopped on the proverbial wagon, two hits of X in my pocket and some acid in my purse. A guy backed into me while trying to squeeze his big ass truck into a tiny spot just a few feet away from the club and cops were everywhere. I had no idea what was happening at that point except hey, pretty lights. I was lucid enough to know that Truck Man was obviously drunk and that if they found my drugs, I was fucked with a capital dick. However, a cop trotted over and told me and the other guy to "Get out of here now..." If there was no damage. He's letting the drunk guy go? Something was amiss but I had to look out for myself and (to me, at the time) more importantly, an innocent cat and most importantly, enough drugs on me to kill us both. Fine with me, Copper. Bye-bye and thank you very much for the huckleberry pie.

The next day, it was all over the news. The shooting, the cop (who had spotted Thomas in the first place), to whom I had served pizza and soda every Saturday night for the previous six months, and the club. Right then, as drug addled as I was, I knew that it was all over for Warehouse. Predictably and as a result of so many other human rights violations on the parts of the Cincinnati P.D. (some of whom are friends and many of whom were disgusted by the Thomas murder), Over-The-Rhine erupted after a (reportedly) peaceful protest was set upon by yet more of the police. There were riots, lootings, and what really is a potentially lovely area was pretty much destroyed. At the time, I didn't know what was more tragic: One man was dead but thousands of lives would be altered because the cops were out of control and the powerless residents of the area had nothing but rage to use as a weapon against them. Ironically, Warehouse was dead center of all the rioting, the reason why Thomas had been spotted by police in the first place, and had remained untouched. Untouched but not unaffected.

Last Wednesday night, May 26, 2004

After years of having put up a valiant, inevitable struggle against cultural evolution and social entropy, Warehouse finally scored its last touchdown. Though it had moved from its location on the most notorious street in the city, it proved too late to unsully its weathered combat boots. It was time for the old gal to roll up her carpet and call it a decade (and some change).

I saw a few people that I used to call friends and truly understood the word pity. Pity is another word for mourning except that you're mourning something that is still somewhat alive. For the most part, my friends were supported by their wealthy parents and for the most part, did doodly squat with their lives yet for some reason, still have the idea that doing nothing at all means something if enough people know your name. And they are NOT drunk.

I do not regret going there or working there though. First off, (and this is fucking sad), it was the only club in town that played music that made me want to dance. It was the only club in the city where you could dance along side (and sometimes with) gigantic, ex-football players who had become beautiful drag queens and not have to worry that some arse with a jock-itch to scratch was going to swim out of the darkness and start causing trouble. It turned social rejects and weak minded fools into Kings and Queens of the Underworld and though many of those Underworld Queens and Kings grew into parodies of themselves, they were great fun to be around in their time. Other clubs caught up later but for its time, Warehouse was the poo.

Secondly, it was where I had a nervous breakdown that cured me of my drug habit and eventually became the springboard for me ditching the aforementioned friends with absolutely no regrets. It is ironic that sometimes, clear thinking also clears up any doubt of why you started needing to tune out reality in the first place. Luckily for me, I had only burned the most twisted and broken bridges and had a Fairy Godfather (probably the last person in the world anyone would suspect has a heart made of solid gold puppies) holding my hand most of the way across the new one.

I was really happy when I left on Wednesday because unlike my old friends, I didn't settle for spending my life trying to recapture or hold on to an illusory sense of power that I'd sifted from the dubious attention of bar toads. Life rarely affords us positive, healthy closure. When it happens, it fulfills a human need for a linear chronology. We get the book ends. We get straight lines. We get to put a thumbtack on the map. It's like a freshly vacuumed floor or a shiny new dollar bill.

The only real goodbyes in life are the goodbyes that come with this kind of closure because they're cathartic without emotional upheaval. They're more like hellos to the future.

Thanks Tomm, Mike Dangers, Kevin, Dave, Kim, Dusty, and J-Bear for making my memories more memorable.

Show 'em The Door

Joy. I experience the greatest hope for humanity when a small fish decides to take on a bully. The best part of it is when the small fish uses its own tools and ingenuity instead of stooping to building its own Mecha-King Ghidorah. Good luck, Vermont.

Mash the Bataytas

I'm tired of saying goodbye to artists that I love. Maybe it's a good thing that lots of the artists I love were dead long before I was born.

Once in a great while, someone turns me on to a great artist that didn't yet kick the proverbial bucket. Hubert Selby, Jr. was among those great ones. I was nauseated for at least a month after reading "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and "Requiem for a Dream" made me shun all types of chemicals for at least two weeks. When someone can kick me in the ass so hard that I won't even touch coffee, he has power that extends far beyond the human realm.

The kind of mind that can transfer that level of human suffering to the page should have been crowned King of the Human Psyche. He doesn't go far into what it feels like to cry but inches slowly through the reasons that people cry. Actually it would be more accurate to say it inches slowly through the reasons that the soul screams in anguish and what happens when those screams are left to bounce around like a ping-pong ball in the darkest caves of life.

I have not found many people who are sensitive enough to read HSJ's books and understand the pain of the characters and still have the fortitude to find out what happens to them. It is pure, emotional torture but if you are capable of feeling empathy, his writing milks it out of you in gallons. Though some may not see HSJ as a Humanistic writer, I cannot help but see his work as a warning. He gives us archetypal poster children who have wasted their potential in their struggle to avoid truth. Sometimes, the most important things to embrace are the things that are the most terrifying and that embrace can free you in ways that unlock long forgotten doors in your soul. If I got one thing out of HSJ's work, it was that life doesn't have to be that way. Don't fucking waste your potential. It's the worst kind of karma you can cultivate.

Teri Gross (My would-be wife) did a great interview with HSJ not long after Requiem for a Dream was made into an incredible film by another would-be member of my harem, Darren Aronofsky. If you haven't seen it yet, please do so immediately.

Memorial two snaps up to HSJ. Thanks for the emotional hell ride.

Wal-Mart: Economic Syphiltic Whore of the World

Anyone who knows me knows that I despise Wal-Mart. I wish I could have written something as wonderfully succinct as this but hey, someone did and that's what's important.

Wal-Mart is Georgia's largest private employer. Guess what? Georgia's PeachCare for Kids (a health care program for uninsured children) covers fourteen times (fourteen fuckin' times) more children of Wal-Mart employees than employees of any other company in the state.

The way I understand it, the people of Georgia, while saving money at Wal-Mart and padding the already soft pockets of the Walton family, are paying the same amount or more for their products that they would have paid a small business owner because they will be paying for the health care of these children with their tax dollars. This is a lovely little cycle, because the person paying the shitload of taxes resents the poor person who can't afford to insure their kid instead of resenting the asshole screwing both of them over. But think about it. The people at Wal-Mart are figuring out ways to exploit legal loopholes to make sure that other people do not get a fair break in life. And that's just Americans. We're not even going to talk about the copious amounts of jizz that Wal-Mart sprays on people in China and India.

Wal-Mart says that it can offer lower prices basically because of lower overhead. If they stopped with the slave labor, the underpaying of female employees, and actually offered their employees medical, dental, and health insurance, they would have to raise their prices. This would probably place them on the same competitive plane as any other retailer. If that happened, Wal-Mart would cease to be the economic monster that it is and a handful of people would not be disgustingly, obscenely rich. No, that would mean that lots of people had a better shot at being more comfortable. And what kind of crappy world would that be?!

It is easy to assume that ordinary people can't do anything to change how large corporations are ruling the world. But ordinary people are the ones who support those corporations. All a person has to do is go somewhere else or at the very least, do without a two-dollar bucket of pickles. It really is that simple. Wal-Mart is not the only corporate giant that is sucking the spinal fluid out of our economy, but it is (arguably) the biggest wolf sleeping in Grandmother's bed. It sells America's own bullshit back to itself. On one hand, I find that extremely ironic and amusing. On the other hand, speaking as an adult female who still suffers from the effects of severe malnutrition and inadequate health care as a child, my empathy for other children emphatically overwhelms any part of me that can remain detatched from such a wool-pulling.

This isn't even digging that deeply. You can find any number of crappy reasons why you shouldn't go back for seconds at the Wal-Mart Shit Buffet. And bring a shovel from aisle 10.

We'll Have a Gay Old Time!

My cat has gotten really fat. I did extra yoga tonight to compensate while he crouched in a corner, glaring at me. He thinks I'm trying to make him feel bad for being such a lump of Play-Doh with fur. But I'm trying to lead by example! I don't think he's getting my drift though because he slouched off and walked beneath me when I was in Down Dog and stuffed his whiskers with Friskies.

I thought all they had in Massachusetts were bed and breakfasts and really cute guys in sweaters. With cute dogs. And scones. Wow, they actually did something profoundly moving in the middle of an all out conservative banquet.

Finally gay marriage is legal. I think this is good. BUT there are some who don’t think that equal rights are such a great idea. Since these equal rights seem to be happening despite vehement opposition to them, I figure there’s only one way to stop all this nonsense: make divorce illegal.

This is the best idea since someone said to put “repeat” on the back of the shampoo bottle.

This idea works for me on two levels. First, I can finally have Teri Gross as my wife and she can never get away. Muahahaha!!! Watch out, Teri. I'ma have you. Oh yes, you will be mine.

Ahem.

Secondly, people will shut the fuck up and stop acting like damned fools and I can go to even more weddings and eat free cake and drink a lot.

Gay marriage. Yay!

On the Third Day, God Created Birds

In April 1663, the Inquisition interrogated Galileo. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest for supporting Copernican theory.

I think Galileo got the last word.

Raking the Leaves

As loyal readers may have noticed, the title of my blog is different. This is because Schizophelia Jones must make like a tree and get out of The White Trash Moulin Rouge.

See, it all started with my drug dealing neighbor. He is a criminal, which might be cool if he wasn’t a mega small time, VCR stealing, pawn shop lurking creep. I think he’s a closet case because he and his buddies have (what I call) “Weed Whacking Parties” where, from the distinct sounds of vigorous porn and a shout here and there, they are sparkin’ up doobers and fapping together. There is room for doubt though because I have discovered love notes from him on my door BUT they’re written on lavender stationary and well, I'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body. Maybe he can sense this? Either way, Dwayne, for that is his name, drags his buddies into my building and they steal from my neighbors and fap too loudly and sometimes go on the roof to behold the wonder of gravity by dropping eggs off the side and watching them explode on the little flower pots below. I once caught Dwayne and one of his “friends” getting their Sir Isaac Newton on. They both managed sheepish grins and lumbered back inside giggling like a couple of children, completely consumed in their own abandon. I thought about what a great discovery I’d made: Ovary envy. Two closet cases (Ok, the “friend” was a little less in the closet. I bet he’s worn a few britches with butt-cheek holes in his day) launching ovum and watching them release their gooey insides on the bunch of luscious flowers below. So, as described, Dwayne is not the most stable fellow and obviously somewhat confused about his sexuality. Sometimes he leaves my opened mail on my doorstep, as if he knows I’m getting mail from ‘other men’ and wants to call me out on it! Keep in mind I’ve said like three words to this guy! I suppose when I said “Hey,” he could sense the heat in my greeting.

Dwayne and his buddies are only part of the equation of course. My neighborhood is being gentrified and the locals, who used to mill about on crack, are stoned on Oxycontin and have become too lazy to line up to sell blood down the street or pawn their grandmother’s wedding rings. Not a whore fight on the street in over 2 months, which sucks because you should hear the stuff they say! I don’t particularly relish that kind of confrontation but I can’t help but be impressed with the ferocity of people who must see the worst things in life yet have the strength to violently defend their own meager slice of the pie. But the only loitering that has been going on has been by people who probably live next door to one another in the suburbs, armed only with a Frappucino and the glassy stare that people get when they have New Money burning a hole in their starched Dockers. My landlord (Whiskey Bloom Santa Perv) is slowly losing control of his one functioning neuron too. When there was a gas leak in my apartment and he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, he instructed his henchman (who never does what Santa Perv says after he leaves but pretends to obey him while he’s around) to light a match to find it after trying to “empty the line” and spewing gas into the entire place by putting a fan in front of the room where the gas was leaking. That was my cue that perhaps I should cut my losses and get out while the gettin’s good.

So this month, I've waved goodbye to many things that were static, old, boring, completely unfulfilling, and all together a drag. I'm ushering in brand new stuff that blows away anything I'd ever experienced before but neither negates my previous experience nor makes it anything more than what it was. Right now, life is a peach orchard and it's the first day of spring.

Frankenreilly

Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Terry Gross is one of the funniest and scariest interviews on “Fresh Air” since Gene Simmons revealed that he’s not only dumb as a post, but a pluperfect fool to boot. The MP3 of that interview is located here.

I would really love to post my own thoughts about both Al Franken (whose own interview was on a couple of weeks prior to O’Reilly’s) and about O'Reilly but would rather you make your own judgments. Lots of folks love one or the other. I like aspects of both men for various reasons, though I like Franken more because he probably won’t beat me up if I don’t agree with him!

Birthin' Babies

Because honestly folks, how can we have decent slave labor with no desperate poor people?

Civil liberties are only for Americans. And those dog years appear to be numbered. Send a shitload of money to treat a disease that you then do everything in your power to perpetuate.

I wonder if he used a condom when he fucked Africa?