Invert(e)

Nyuck, nyuck ... YUCK!

Hello again - sorry for being away from the blog for so long, but the ninety degree learning curve of my new job and the demands of finishing up a short story have kept me from posting. But like last night's onion-smothered enchiladas, I have returned.

Two recent events have conspired to drag me back to the blogosphere - the arrival of Volume Five of The Three Stooges Collection, the re-mastered chronological release of all 190 Three Stooges shorts, as well as the recent announcement that the Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary) will be shooting a Three Stooges movie starring Benicio Del Toro as Moe, Sean Penn as Larry and Jim Carrey as Curley.

I'll get back to that once my stomach settles.

Waaaay back when I was a little queerlet, the highlight of my day was right after school. Not only was the horrid school day over with, but there was the Poopdeck Paul show on channel 2 (WJBK in Detroit), hosted by Poopdeck Paul, a faux sailor/TV host. The Popeye cartoons he ran were only okay, but I thought the Three Stooges were the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

Blog Goddard, blog hard!

 

It is a trip, it’s a year in a nutshell, it is quirky as Vermont can be in the springtime, like its weather, it changes by the minute, you just wait! Goddard rocks my world, makes my sails laugh away from rough waters. Goddard is a trip, makes me vend my wares on a busy street. Located in Vermont, near Montpelier, barely a walk from a two street town called Plainfield; I work in an unlikely place for a Chilean immigrant like moi. An unlikely place to exist, Goddard College, where students come to create their own curriculum to get a Bachelor’s degree (they have other programs too but this is where I work), to rehearse their identities, to revel in the bubble of what we cannot normally be in other places. Goddard, a place for radicals and misfits, a triage for wounded souls but not therapy, only spoken words, because the word heals even when we spitfire at religion and politics.

THIS WEEK'S TRAITOR (SAME AS LAST WEEK'S)

It’s a beautiful day outside and I hate men.

Sunlight pours through the window; sky glows blue-white. Spring arrived yesterday, and it lasted about ten minutes in my heart.

Men: they don’t let you keep anything nice.

Men betray you fifteen ways to Sunday . . . with a story attached to every moment . . . a weight attached to every story . . . dragging us down to visit each and every level of Hell. I hate them for playing stupid, thinking, this will make life easier. I hate them for noticing how much I need to be loved, and pretending they don’t. I hate them for not noticing the glowing sky.

What does God have to DO to get men to look up? He paints the sky flaming red, orange, peach, lime. There is nothing so beautiful that men can’t find a way to fuck it up . . . even the sky, even atmosphere, even space. Give it time, watch us go to town. As is turns out, the worst case scenarios were not pessimistic enough. Fifties Sci-fi writers could not imagine reality TV as scary as what we got, nor a government as treacherous, nor people so ready to be replaced by bad replicas.

I don’t know what happened to the man I thought I was dating. I thought he was into me. He seemed to be into me, he acted like he was into me.

Last night I took him to hear some beautiful romantic music at Yoshi’s SF courtesy of the Lowrider Band (War, without Lonnie whatshisname, because his manager apparently owns the rights to War), which meant that we got to hear some messy and some lovely renditions of “All Day Music,” “Slipping Into Darkness,” “The World is a Ghetto,” “Southern Part of Texas,” “Cisco Kid,” and best of all, a short but sweet version of “City, Country, City” as an encore.

He said, thank you, and drove me home. He came up to my apartment for five minutes, whereupon he gave me a kiss I would not be embarrassed to pass onto my mother.

NOT Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: My version of Demons and Angels, starring Jody Foster, Brad Pitt, and me

If I wrote a movie called Angels and Demons, it’d be the story of my life. God’s honest truth, fictionalized just enough that I could be played by Jodie Foster.

I’d be smart, capable, compassionate, and butch as fuck. I mean, she would be. Let’s make her an artist, an outsider queer. Give her a show at the Guggenheim, after struggling in obscurity for decades. Let’s give her one moment when she thinks she’s got it made.

When she isn’t painting or taking care of business, she visits people who are dying. She sits with them, makes tea, gets popsickles to soothe their throats, helps smokers have a cigarette without nodding off. She holds hands with people who are moments away from crossing over, and for this she is rewarded with visions. She only paints what she sees.

Most people do not get her work. She paints love and they see bodies. She paints life and they see blood. She paints addiction, but people don’t see shit. Still, she eventually figures out a way to use paint to convince her audience that Art might be the most authentic spiritual path for our plastic civilization and oily hearts. She is not sure, by the way, that she hasn’t made a deal with the Devil.

When the 7th person dies in Room 21 at Ward 63 of the County Hospital, Angels come and whisper in her ear:  nothingness.

B-gay b-day @ Sun Peaks/ March 14th, 2009

If I was the wife of a white handsome thirty something physician, with blonde kids and blue eyed dogs, I would sky and bathe in the outdoor Jacuzzis of Sun Peaks; being the infectious harlot immigrant queer that I am, I only get to desire them and hate them in one breath. Without betraying too many secrets of the not so secret and quirky not-for-profit business, I can tell you that my baby and I came to this place as part of a project to reduce stigma and discrimination for men who have sex with men in rural areas in the province of BC at the hands of general primary physicians and we might not have made a dent in it. Their bubble is stronger than ours, much more. For those of you who follow my blog co-writer and have seen Watchmen, these are Dr. Manhattan, beautiful, dangling blue bits, unfazed, beautiful in their chilling goodness.

ANOTHER THING

I didn’t drop acid just to see Watchmen: the Mermen were playing at the Independent that evening as well. It’s hard for me to talk about the Mermen, even though they are one of my favorite bands ever, especially live. They take surf music to a whole other level, incorporating the chaos of the ocean, the noise, the danger, ripping undercurrents, and they mix it up with a calm, gorgeous, low-tide beauty. Yet, somehow, they remind me even more of one of those sand mandalas that Tibetan Buddhists create over a period of three weeks, only to sweep it away before they can get attached.

It’s weird, I always somehow forget—between the live gigs—how great they are. They give me goosebumps on top of goosebumps, their music blows my mind and takes me away, and hearing them play is a deeply satisfying experience. And yet . . . .

I think it’s because they are the least gay band I have ever loved.

Hore Trips and Falls and Goes To See WATCHMEN

I’ll tell you one thing: none of the reviewers who panned Watchmen saw it on acid. It’s a strange, dark, twisted movie, and it helps if you see it in a strange, dark, twisted, and utterly open frame of mind. Hello, LSD.

Sitting in Metreon Theater #13 (only a few years old but already dowdy and depressing), feeling pummeled by pre-preview bullshit, I just want the damned lights to go down already. I’m busy praying none of my clean and sober buddies are into Hollywood blockbusters based on post-modern comic books.

Hmmm, at least a third of the seats are empty, although this is an afternoon showing on opening day.  Makes me wonder if some people are already smelling trouble. I imagine there are fans staying away because Alan Moore wants nothing to do with the movie. After all, we know one guy who isn’t watching Watchmen: the man who created it in the first place.

Finally, a preview of the next Seth Rogan movie and I think I have never loved any Hollywood movie star as much as I love him, so, obviously, I am coming on.

'LIKE THAT RIVER TWISTING THROUGH A DUSTY LAND"

 I saw my own tragic transformation play across the features of a new potential boyfriend. I think I went from interesting prospect to loser fanboy, maybe even potential stalker, in very short order.

Well, I was overexcited, overstimulated, overtired—having underslept—which is a lethal combination.  The Extra Action Marching Band had just finished the hottest, funkiest, most blazing set ever for the San Francisco Mardi Gras Ball at the Independent.  He’s part of the band and he’d already given me a sweaty sloppy kiss in front of everybody.  It was a wonderful moment and I should have packed my ass up and gone home soon as the band left the stage.  I’d already spent eight hours writing at the computer and four hours working at the restaurant, before this show.

So I was done, I was happy, I was cooked, and I felt fried.  But I waited for him at the rope to the backstage area.  I asked one of the guys in the band if they had seen him.  Then, I asked another one.  Then another.  I couldn’t stop, but no one had seen him.  (His name is . . . no, I can’t use his name, because I haven’t actually gotten permission from him to publish this . . . . although, he didn’t tell me not to either. Hmmmm.)  Finally, I got my backpack and made to leave.