When my mother put her foot through the wall

When I was in 2nd grade I got pink eye three times. It was awful. Whenever one of my friends who has a kid with pink eye, I stay far away because I never want to go through that again.

Every night I my mother would put these eye drops in my eyes and they made my eyes sting. When I awoke in the morning, my eyes would be sealed shut with some horrible brown crusty stuff. Opening my eyes was very painful because my eyelashes would be pulled out as I was trying to open them.

Eventually I refused the eyedrops and my mother would have to pin me down with her knees and she’d try to get the eyedrops in my eyes, but I would move at the last minute or just close my eyes tightly. She became very frustrated because it was talking a long time and the eyedrop medicine was very expensive. She’d scream and yell at me to stay still and open my eyes, but she was never able to get the drops in my eyes. She got so mad that she got up and put her bare foot through the wall. After she did that, I stayed still and let her put the drops in my eyes.

We had to hide the hole in the wall from my father, which was easy to do because he was never very observant and the hole was behind my bedroom door. My father never beat us or anything like that, he just would get so angry and follow you around the house, yelling, so my mother and I were always trying to avoid having to go thorough that.

I have a problem with anger too. Someone once told me I should do “anger exercises”, but I don’t like to exercise. Sometimes anger is the only thing that wakes me up and the only time I’m in the moment.

Today’s song is by Eurythmics with “You Have Placed A Chill in my Heart” This is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. It fits the angry mood. It was released as a single in 1988. I used to have the 12” single. I love Annie Lennox’s voice. Is there anyone still singing like this? I mean, besides Annie.

I am posting three versions and the video.

Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (chill mix)
This is the hard to find single version.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478156bc23c8d


Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (dance mix)
This is the extended dance mix
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478057cc9a3f2

Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (acoustic)
this is the acoustic and very passionate version.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478022c0d412d

Here’s the video, one of my favorites.

Last Night I slept on sheets the color of Fire

I’m a Scorpio. The sex sign. My birthday is coming up, but I’m not going to celebrate it this year. I am, however, going to take off work. I’ve never gone to school or work on my birthday.

I’m told constantly by my boyfriends that I have a high sex drive. I still like to come at least three times a day. I’m still on my eternal search for The One that can have sex with me all the time like I like it.

I love porn. I’ve always wanted to be in porn, but I never did it because I never thought I was good looking enough to be in porn. It used to be that I thought I was too skinny, now I’m too fat (at least in the waistline). I’ve decided to give up working out. It never “works out” for me (ha-ha). I don’t like exercising.

Today was a hot day and everything in California is burning up. No one here seems to care. Whether things are on fire or not, no one in LA has much of an opinion or reaction to anything. This is the like land of the walking dead, except in LA no one walks.

Back to sex now. When my parents first got a VCR, they used to rent porn a lot. When they got cable, they would sometimes order pay per view porn, but my father didn’t like it because they didn’t show everything.

I always wondered why my parents never went on vacation together. My father never took vacations and my mother always took her vacations with other people. Years later, I asked the cleaning lady, Kay, why my parents never took vacations together. She told me that they did once before I was born, but my mother said she’d never take another vacation with my father because all he wanted to do was stay in the hotel room and have sex. This shocked me. Not the sex part, but because it was Assembly of God, religious Kay who bluntly told me this. Even though she raised me, she and I had never talked about sex. The only thing I remember even close was when I was little and I would play with myself under the blanket, she’d slap away my hand.

When I asked my mother about what Kay had said, she told me that she wanted to have sex, just not with my father. She said she had to get stoned to have sex with him.

When my parents were watching porn, they’d either send me upstairs and I’d listen to the sound of the porn from the upstairs hallway or they’d send me to go play outside. I remember being 8 or 9 at the time and being told to go play outside and standing on a tall snow bank and looking though the window and watching the porn (I couldn’t hear it, just see it) and watching my parents watch the porn.

They never did pull the shades down when they watched porn, but I guess there really wasn’t much to watch (well, except the porn, of course). My father would sit against the wall in front of the TV with his left hand down his pants and my mother would lie down on the couch and read a book while glancing occasionally at the TV. She’d usually fall asleep at some point.

I was fascinated by the porn. The thing I wondered most about was if the cum shots were real. My thinking was since blood is not real in movies, why would cum be, but I also couldn’t figure out how they’d get the “fake” cum to shoot out like that.

My mother told me I could watch the porn later, if I wanted to, after they went to bed. (My favorite porn movie was called "Rick Quick: Private Dick".) My mother was one of those open moms (not really, but she thought she was). She was always too open about all the wrong things and not open at all about the things I would have liked to be open about.

This started my long love affair with porn. Now porn is everywhere. It’s a pornographic society we live in. Everyone seems to have that porno sheen about him or her. Everyone looks like they just got done shooting a porn and missed a few spots while cleaning up.

Today’s song is “Boys In The Trees” from 1978 by Carly Simon. This is a song filled with incredible imagery and captures sexual awakening quite well.

Carly Simon—Boys In The Trees

http://www.zshare.net/audio/443009541e7844

"Here I grew guilty
And no one was at fault
Frightened by the power
In every innocent thought

Last night I slept in sheets the color of fire
Tonight I lie alone again
And I curse my own desires
Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze"

It's time to let you go...

I moved to San Francisco for school in 1994. Actually, I didn’t want to go to school, but I had a trust fund and the only way I could gain access to the money is to go to college. At least this is what my father told me. The trust fund came from my super rich republican grandfather and my father is his accountant, which means he gave out the money.

On my moving day, August 16, 1994, my father took me to the airport. I remember having a small CD player with me, a backpack and an overstuffed suitcase. I shipped all my belongings including my television. I had no furniture that year at that apartment.

My father and I didn’t talk about much during the drive to the airport or while waiting for the plane to takeoff. When it was time to board the plane, I hugged my dad and said goodbye. I handed my ticket to the boarding gate attendant and turned back to wave a final goodbye to my father. I was shocked to see his head in his hands, sobbing.

I had the urge to run back and hug him, but I had already given my ticket to the gate attendant, so there was no turning back. Once I was on the plane and sitting down, I thought “Fuck You”. I was mad because my father waits until the very last minute to show me that he cares about me and now it’s too late because I have to get on a plane.

I wrote this poem on the plane on the way to San Francisco:

20 Years
“When he said goodbye to me at the airport
And I was in the line,
About to enter the plane,
About to move to San Francisco,
I turned back to wave a final goodbye
Before he was out of my view.
I was shocked to see his head in his hands,
Hunched over shaking.
He was crying.

My own father crying!
He was crying about me!
I had been ignored for twenty years
And finally, now he had acknowledged my existence.

When the plane rode around the take off strip
And the flight attendants pointed the way to the exits,
I knew then that I couldn't go back
Emotions weren't going to interfere with
My plans to get away.
I waited twenty years.
He can wait until he's dead.”

It seems that whenever someone gets emotional with me, I get angry. I have a history of that. I thought my father was the unemotional one, but really, it’s me. Emotions embarrass me. I love to write about feelings and express them in writing, but being emotional in the real world is not for me.

The song I picked for this entry is from 1994. It’s Bonnie Raitt with “Circle Dance”, a song about parents and relationships.

Bonnie Raitt--Circle Dance

http://www.zshare.net/audio/4409167bc6015d/

“Now that this has occurred to me
I just wanted you to know
I've been too faithful all my lifeIt's time to let you go.”

Piano Lessons with Mrs. Erickson

I took piano lessons from a lady up the street named Mrs. Erickson. She had a sing songy voice and she was patient and sweet. I didn’t really like her much. What I mean is I didn’t like piano lessons much. The thing that drove me crazy was that I was expected to play the music without the sheet music when they held the piano recital for all the students. I never understood why it had to be done this way and Mrs. Erickson never was willing to explain the reason to me.

My piano lessons were always on Wednesday evenings and they ended right when a new episode of Charlie’s Angels was on. My favorite part of Charlie’s Angels was the incredible opening theme song with the angels running around and those silhouettes. When my piano lesson was done, I would run home as fast as could to see the opening credits. This was before we had a VCR. Usually I’d make it home just as Tanya Roberts (this was the last season of Charlie’s Angels, 1980-1981) was riding on top of a car trying to hold on during the opening credits. She was always my least favorite angel.

I had spent a lot of time practicing for my first upcoming piano recital. When I say practicing, I mean going once a week for piano lessons and practicing there because I never practiced at home. I didn’t like going to piano lessons, so why should I bother practicing?

The piano recital was held at Mrs. Erickson’s home. My parents came to see me play. The piece I was playing was called “Fluffy The Puppy”. When it came time for me to play, I did ok for the first three notes and then I forgot the rest of the song and just kind of improvised. It sounded off key. I looked out at my parents and saw them sinking in their chairs. They avoided eye contact with me. I played through and finished the song in my own way. There was some slight applause.

I wasn’t embarrassed by my performance because I thought the rule about having no sheet music at the recital was stupid and I was going to show Mrs. Erickson that I thought so and show my parents that I didn’t want to have to go to piano lessons anymore.

After the recital was over, my parents pretended they didn’t know me and they walked home without me. I never had to go to piano lessons again.

Today’s song is Fake Empire by The National from their 2007 album Boxer. It’s a pretty good album. I picked this song because it’s one of my current favorites and it has a piano in it. Wow.

The National—Fake Empire
http://www.zshare.net/audio/43661884689b42/

The Evil Eye

When I did something wrong when I was a child, my mother would give me the evil eye. She would squint her eyes and stare me down. It didn’t scare me (other behaviors of hers did), it just made me know that whatever I did made her mad, or really, just annoyed with me.

Every morning when I would come upstairs from the basement, my mother had a look on her face that said “You’re still here?” I always felt like an inconvenience for her. I know I was planned six years in advance and conceived on a February evening in 1973 in front of the fireplace. My parents never liked children and neither do I.

It seems nowadays all the gays want kids. I told everyone that the reason my last important relationship ended is because he wanted kids and I did not. This is not true. I mean, the kid thing is true, but the relationship ended because he found out the truth about me, meaning that I have opinions and I am not his shadow.

I liked the old days when being gay was dirty and weird and fun. It’s of course gone mainstream now, years ago. Now the gays all want kids and now when I say I don’t want kids, people act like that is terrible. You see, I never wanted a “normal” life. The problem is that I never figured out what life I really wanted.

When I mouthed off to my mother, she put on the in between area on the stairs. I think it’s called a mezzanine. She told me I would have to stay on the stairs until I was ready to apologize for whatever it was I said to her. Since I am never bored, I would remain on the stairs for hours, sometimes a day or two. I would refuse to apologize because whatever I said to her I meant. Eventually, she would beg me to come down off the stairs. I would refuse until she apologized to me for putting me on the stairs. She’s a psychologist, yet she never seemed to have a clue how to deal with me. I think it’s that she has a really short attention span and I can stay stuck on something for weeks at a time, sometimes years. I don’t give up.

I have never apologized for something if I didn’t mean it. This means I’ve rarely apologized in my life. I’ve always thought apologies are only for those who get caught.

I came across a poem “The Judgmental Eye of Larry” I wrote a few years ago. Here it is:

The Judgmental Eye of Larry

“You’re missing, he told me
But, Dad, I’m right here
But truth can’t be seen through the judgmental eye of Larry

As a child, I was well behaved
Did everything the wall told
I believed in god and all that jazz
Now as I am older now
I see your eye, like a third eye for what it is
Cold, hard and judgmental,
Like the eye in the sky

Yes, I never loved you
And I don’t miss you now
Just turn your back on me now.”

Today’s song is The Maker from 1998 by Willie Nelson with Emmylou Harris. It’s a hello to Austin song because I am visiting Austin for the first time coming up in a couple weeks. I hope I like it so I can escape LA. If not, I don’t know where to go.

Willie Nelson & Emmylou Harris—
The Maker
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4311514525b201

“I can't work the fields of Abraham.”

How many gay Jewish Amy Grant fans are there?

I’ve been a secret Amy Grant fan since high school. Originally I started listening to Amy Grant as a way to piss off my father. Even though my family is Jewish, I’ve always been drawn to Christian things. Part of this is because the woman who raised me, Kay, (also known as the cleaning lady) is an Assembly of God church member. That’s a rather strict religion. Kay went to school in Minnesota with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Kay used to take me to church every Wednesday night.

Another reason I was always drawn to Christian things growing up is because I grew up in Minnesota. There were Jews there somewhere, but I never found any as a kid. I used to want to be Christian and have Christmas and be blonde and all the stuff the goyim have. I still feel that way, except I no longer want to be blonde.

I was drawn to Amy’s album “Lead Me On”. It’s still a great album and I think it’s the best selling Christian album of all time (or something close to that). It’s full of questioning and deep feeling. There’s a song called “Faithless Heart” where Amy thinks about having an affair. “Lead Me On” talks about slavery and the holocaust.
I also love her 1997 “Behind the Eyes” album. I come back to that album a lot. It’s an album about depression and difficult times. Amy is a very honest writer and never shies away from the darker themes.

I’m reading Amy’s new memoir “Mosaic”. It’s a pretty interesting read.

I wonder how many gay Jews are fans of Amy Grant? I’d love to know. I’ve googled “gay Jewish Amy Grant fans” but nothing ever comes up on the subject. What a surprise. I think I might start a gay Jewish Amy Grant fan group on Myspace.

I am posting one of my favorite Amy Grant songs “After The Fire” from her 2003 album “Simple Things”. It’s a song in which I find great comfort, as I do with many of Amy’s songs.

Amy Grant---After the Fire

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43077091cc3b93

“There will be many voices calling.

Mine will say welcome home.”

Shining as she reeled him in

I booked my trip to Austin. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard so many good things about it. I am keeping an open mind. I may move there, I may not. I won’t know until I visit. I arrive on Halloween.

One of my loyal readers who also knows me in the real world pointed out a story I had forgotten. It’s related to yesterday’s story about my stepmother Corinne.

The history is this: My mother met Corinne back in 1970. They were neighbors. Corinne’s kids were my best friends growing up and now they are my stepsisters. My father ended up marrying Corinne and my mother never forgave her, even though she didn’t want him. She didn’t care about my father, but she felt betrayed by Corinne for dating my father and then not telling her that she was dating him.

My mother was dropping off one day at my father’s house which is the house where she used to live. when she got to the driveway, she noticed Corinne’s car parked there. She dropped me off and then proceeded to drive all over my father’s lawn. I’ll never forget the look on Corinne’s face when she heard the screeching of the car and saw my mother driving all over the lawn. My mother is not someone you want to cross and Corinne has always been afraid of my mother.

Corinne’s youngest daughter, Caroline, was born two years after me and five years after Corinne and my father first met, back when my parents were still married to each other. Caroline bears a striking resemblance to me. If I were casting a part for my sister (I have no known siblings), I would definitely cast Caroline because she really does look like me. She also completely shares my father’s politics. They would often talk about issues and agree with each other on everything, meanwhile my stepmother and I would egg them on by talking about how much we like guns and how poor people should be forcibly sterilized. It’s always easy to bait my father because he takes things so seriously.

For a long time I have wondered if my stepsister is actually my half sister. One Sunday after family dinner, I stole a fork that Caroline had used and put it in a plastic baggie so that I could have her DNA tested and compared to my own.

I called a bunch of places that do DNA testing, but every place was either too expensive or told me they couldn’t do a DNA test without the person’s consent. I still have the fork with the DNA on it, so if any of you readers out there know how to do a DNA test, let me know and I will send you the fork and some of my DNA so you can test it to see if Caroline and I are biologically related. I’d really like to know.

Today’s song is the first Joni Mitchell song I have posted on this blog. It’s from 1975 and it’s called “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” from her “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” album. The reason I chose this song to go with this entry is because it’s about what the suburbs does to people and the petty things people do to each other when they are in a relationship. The song is full of incredible imagery, like:

“A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof
Like a dragonfly on a tomb
And business men in button downs
Press into conference rooms
Battalions of paper minded males
Talking commodities and sales
While at home their paper wives
And paper kids
Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid.”

Joni Mitchell- Harry's House/Centerpiece
http://www.zshare.net/audio/40787494ba060c

The song reminds me of the relationship between my father and my stepmother.

“Yellow checkers for the kitchen
Climbing ivy for the bath
She is lost in House and Gardens
He's caught up in Chief of Staff
He drifts off into the memory
Of the way she looked in school
With her body oiled and shining
At the public swimming pool ...”

Cancer of the Face

Today’s song is “Helpless” by k.d. lang. It’s a Neil Young cover from 2004. I first heard it on the show “Brothers & Sisters”, which is a piece of crap show, but for some reason I can’t stop watching the dvds. I’m an only child, so I don’t relate to this show. Big families are really weird to me, especially if they are TV families.

I love watching TV shows on dvd. I’ve always liked tv better than movies. Movies suck.

Today I came across an old email which had a memory in it that I had forgotten. It was early 1996. It was really cold. What I mean is it was Minnesota. My father took me for bagels like he usually did on Saturdays. We spent the time talking about whatever it is I used to talk about then, which are probably the same things I talk about now. My father usually doesn’t have much to say. When I ask him what’s new, he always says nothing.

After bagels, my father drove me back to my apartment. As I was about to get out of the car, he said he had something to tell me. He then told me that my stepmother, Corinne, had cancer. He was very vague and not descriptive, as usual, just telling me she had cancer. No other information was given. He didn’t seem to know much about the cancer. I said goodbye and went on with my day.

Corinne had cervical cancer, but she never died or whatever. That’s not the point. The point is my father always tells me stuff at the last minute and then doesn’t ever want to talk about it again.

When I told my mother about my stepmother’s cervical cancer, her exact words were “She’s a cunt and she got it from fucking my husband. I hope she gets cancer of the face next.” My mother, you see, used to be Corinne’s best friend. She left my dad for a woman, but she never forgave Corinne for ending up with her ex-husband. Even though my mother didn’t want to be with my father anymore, she felt very betrayed by Corinne since she had spent 20 years complaining about my father to her and she ends up with him.

Here is Helpless by k.d. lang: http://www.zshare.net/audio/406255436f6f77

Everyone's saying different things to me

Today I was thinking about the teacher of a class I once took called “Social Deviance”. She started the first class by sitting at the back of class and teaching facing the wall away from the students. This was the only creative thing a teacher in the community college I went to ever did. Something happened to her, something involving an accident, but I can’t remember what happened anymore.

My father banned two things in my house when I was child (well, he also banned anything Christmas related, but I’m saving those stories for Xmas week). Nestle products were banned because in the 60s or 70 they napalmed some babies or something. I don’t remember why anymore.

When I escaped from him and got my own place right after high school, I filled my new apartment with all the Nestle products I could find. It was wonderful to try all the forbidden, secret tastes of the world of Nestle. Today, I bought some more Nestle products when I stopped at the store.

The other thing that was banned from my house was the TV show “Little House on the Prairie”. This may seem strange to you, especially since no other TV shows were banned, but the reason Little was banned was because Michael Landon (aka Eugene Horowitz), Melissa Gilbert and those twins that played Carrie were all Jewish in real life. My father couldn’t stand the fact that they were praying to Jesus and all that christian stuff they did on that show.

As a result of this show being banned, I watched it every chance I could. It was a big deal, growing up in Minnesota, because Little House is set in Minnesota. Everyone from Minnesota watched Little House when he/she grew up (well, maybe not all the boys, at least openly).

I made sure every Monday night to be glued to the tv set to watch Little House and continued to watch it in reruns. My father always told me not to sit so close to the TV, so, of course I sat just inches from the tube and watched Little House that way. Laura and Mary always looked very red and green and pixilated, but I didn’t care. I guess that kind of behavior is why some doctor once told me I had Oppositional Defiant Disorder (O.D.D., of course), but I disagreed with that diagnosis. By the way, I own all the Little House DVDs. It’s still a great show.

My father always tells two stories. One is about the time he went to Chicago with his family as a teenager and how he was robbed. To this day, he will not go to Chicago because of that experience.

The other story, which comes up all the time, is a story about when my father was in gym class during swimming lessons in grade school. He always starts off by saying that in gym class the boys always had to swim naked. After he tells that fact, then he talks about a boy who drown during swimming lessons. No one noticed him until the class found him floating. My father still doesn’t know how to swim.

Today’s song is Zero 7 with “In The Waiting Line”. I relate to this song because of the line that says “There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me.” Yeah, that’s me, all the time.

Zero 7- In the Waiting Line
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3985943fba99c0

In order to be optimistic, you have to be irrational.

Since I escaped Minnesota two years ago and spent some time in Vegas and LA, I’ve been thinking about why people are mean or heartless or careless or all of those things. I’ve been told my views on people are pessimistic, but I just call that realistic. Nothing makes people run away faster than when you tell them you think most people are mean spirited and stupid.

One of my father’s favorite quotes is when Anne Frank said in her diary “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” The thing is, Anne Frank wrote this while she still had hope of being rescued. I’d like to hear her say that as she’s being gassed. My father and I talk about this all the time.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the last two years about why people are so mean and more specifically, I’ve been thinking about times when someone was mean for no reason all the while exhibiting weird behavior.

Here are some examples:

1. My friend and I were in line at a pancake restaurant in Vegas (I know, only high class for us) and this old man said to me that I was standing to close to him. I didn’t feel that I was standing too close to him so I didn’t move. He just wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept telling me to move away from him and then I told him what a line was and again told him I was not standing too close to him. I paid my bill and this guy was out in the parking lot waiting for me. I got into the car and drove away and he followed us. Years of watching “Charlie’s Angels” paid off since I was able to quickly lose him using some driving techniques the Angels used in the show.



2. Around the same time in Vegas I was in a line (what is it with the lines?) with my mother. We had won $200 in a video poker tournament (yes, more high class times; my mother doesn’t gamble anymore because a lady died next to her the last time she was playing, but that’s a story for another time). We were standing in line waiting to pick up our prize money. I was eating a piece of cake.

This old guy told me it was rude to eat cake in a line. I explained that the cake was made available for everyone and he could have some too if he wanted. he again told me to stop eating the cake in the line. I refused and for some reason he told me he was a veteran. I told him, “Then I salute you by eating this cake”. He persisted the whole time telling me not to eat the cake. My mother and I got our money and as we left we told him to go to hell and both gave him the finger. I’ve given the finger to many people with my mother. She’s fun that way. She’s not afraid of anyone.

3. A long time ago at a restaurant in Minnesota called Byerly’s, my mother and I were in a hurry to eat, so we sat at the counter. There were two spaces available, but there was a woman sitting in between the two open seats. We asked the woman to move down one, but she said, “No, that’s too hard.”

My mother and I sat on either side of this woman and proceeded to have a long, loud conversation in between her, going back and forth discussing things like surgery and other things that are unpleasant while one is eating. We also passed things to each other back and forth until the lady got mad and left. My mother and I are good at collectively punishing someone.

4. I went to this volunteer training for a homo film festival here in LA. They ran out of chairs so many people had to stand up. Sitting next to me was this obviously Jewish woman (a Jew can spot another Jew) who had put her purse on an empty chair next to her. One by one, people would come up to her and ask her to move her purse so they could sit down. Each time she refused to move her purse and let anyone sit down in the chair.

In a way I was impressed by her ability to not allow anyone to sit on the purse’s chair. I wanted to ask her why she why she felt her purse needed a chair more than a person, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase it to her. I just wonder about her, what she is thinking, that sort of thing.

5. This one really pissed me off. At this coffeehouse I go to in Silver Lake, this guy, as he was leaving, put his dirty dishes on my table. His table was empty and the table between us was empty, but for some reason he deliberately put his dirty dishes on my table and then walked out the door. What does this mean? Is this some kind of weird mean LA thing? Why not just leave his dirty dishes at his table and leave? Why put them on my table?

6. As my mother and I were leaving a casino in Vegas, we got to the space where the car was parked in a handicapped spot (my mother has diabetes so her handicap permit is real; unlike before she got diabetes when she used her dead mother’s handicap permit), anyway, this guy in a wheelchair was screaming something to us and blocking the way. We couldn’t understand what he was screaming or what he wanted, but we couldn’t leave so we saw a security guard sitting outside in front of the casino. We went up to him and asked for his help. He told us he didn’t work there and refused to help us. My mother yelled at him and told him he shouldn’t be outside wearing the security uniform and giving everyone a false sense of safety.

We went back to the car and pushed the screaming man in the wheelchair out of the way. He was still screaming something as we drove off. My mother did her best not to hit him and I don’t think we did hit him.

I have so many more of these sorts of examples. Have you had similar experiences? If so, leave a comment or email me at theawfulrowing@gmail.com.

Today’s song is Bettye Lavette covering the Fiona Apple song “Sleep to Dream”. I love this song. It’s from her strong 2005 “I’ve got my own hell to raise” CD. This song really fits the theme today.

Bettye Lavette—Sleep to Dream
http://www.zshare.net/audio/391045404b4c9e

Extra Extra

I missed my chance to be on national television today (well, crappy television, but still).

I registered months ago as an extra with Central Casting just for fun. Yesterday they called me for a featured extra role on “Desperate Housewives”, a show that I have never liked (although all the homos seem to LOVE this show), but it would have been fun to go and be on a network set.

I was going to be a “friend” at a baby baptism. When I finally got through to their archaic phone line, after three hours of busy signals, I listened to all the info about the job. One thing I wasn’t expecting is that you have to provide your own clothes. They wanted all the men in suits, which created a problem for me because I don’t own a suit. I’ve never owned a suit.

I called the emergency hotline and told them that I didn’t have a suit via voicemail. Someone called back and took me off the job. This morning they called me wondering where I was. I missed the call, so I called them back, but I only got a message that said “goodbye” and then hung up on me. It must be the line for the rejects that don’t show up. I did leave a message for someone there and explained that they took me off the job so that they wouldn’t think I just bailed, but no one ever got back to me, so I guess I’m banned from Central Casting. No big deal, but it would have been fun even if it was for a piece of crap like “Desperate Housewives”.

Since, as it turns out, I had the day off, I had plenty of time sit and think. This led me to thinking about how I feel out of place both here in LA and in my life. Is it weird that an almost 34 year old doesn’t own a suit? I mean, I hate suits. I look like a junior version of my father in a suit. I'm just not a suit person, but it got me thinking, well, what kind of a person am I? Are there ever areas in life where you think you should be more grown up, but then you think well, fuck it, I am who I am. I'm not a suit person.

There was only one time I wore a suit and that was for a really stupid movie I was in. In fact, it was the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I had to borrow a suit from my father for the part. I looked really stupid like some kind of midget or 12 year-old in the suit (I was 30 at the time).

When my mother would take my father shopping for suits, they’d always have to look in the corner, and bend over down by the floor to find my father’s size since he’s very short. I always wanted to be taller than my father, but I am exactly his height. We are both 5’6”. I lie and tell people that I am 5’7”. You know how men tend to add inches to everything.

The only other thing close to a suit is the 4 times I wore a tux (all rented of course). They are:

1. Oct 1989. My friend’s sister’s wedding to some fireman. Her family is rich so everything had to be perfect. The stupid marriage only lasted a few months, so that was a waste.

2. April 1996. My stepsister’s wedding in Nebraska. This was the first time I got really, really drunk. My father and me were the only Jews for miles and he had his soon to be wife to talk to, but I had no one to talk to. There was a great champagne fountain at the reception and I drank and drank. The last thing I remember is turning over the tape of music I made for the wedding (I was in charge of the music) and then stumbling into the elevator and then passing out in the hotel room. When my father came to find me hours later, I thought I had missed the wedding. Unfortunately, I had not missed much.

3. August 1997. My father’s wedding to my stepmother. They had known each for almost 30 years by this point. My step mom, whom I’ve known all my life, used to be my mother’s best friend, but for obvious reasons they are not friends anymore. My stepmother is terrified of my mother and she should be!

I was dating my first Jewish guy, but he wasn’t invited to the wedding. My great aunt (I think she was my great aunt, she was some relative that I was related to in some vague way), because she had dementia (she’s finally dead now), she kept asking me where my mother was. She followed me around asking this question many times.

This was the most narcissistic wedding ever with my 50-year old step mother wearing white without any irony and acting like it’s her first wedding, all the while my father is checked out and irrelevant as usual. It was like my stepmother was marrying herself. I’ve seen so many weddings like this.

4. September 2002. My other stepsister’s wedding. She married some weirdo with a bad last name. He’s always talking about plumbing and roofs and beavers. My stepmother was just happy that he took out his dreadlocks before the wedding. This wedding was anything but joyous, with my stepsister telling me she didn’t really want to go through with it, but everything was already paid for, so…

I went with my friend Rochelle (not her real name; her real name is Raquel) as my date. We were the hottest couple there by far. We were the only ones dancing and having any kind of fun. My family, on the other hand, always looks like they’d like to be someplace else no matter where they are.

The last three family weddings proved successful. All three couples are still together, so who am I to judge considering I’ve never had a wedding, but if I do (I’m not a wedding type) my family better come to my stupid wedding, behave, smile and shut up!

Today’s song is Aimee Mann’s Wise Up. This song was featured in the movie “Magnolia”, not one of my favorite movies (actually, I fast forwarded through most of it), but the scene where the characters sing this song is quite stunning. You can see that clip on Youtube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsqCl2vO9xA

This is a great song to listen to when you are stuck, like me.

“It's not what you thought when you first began.”

Aimee Mann—Wise Up
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3888921b57dffb

Just an ordinary man slipping away…

My new boss, I’m sick of him already, he wears cut off jeans with holes in the back and no underwear so I see things I don’t want to see all day long.

Everyday I have to untangle my Ipod headphones. I try to keep them untangled, but it doesn’t work.

I’m still recovering my Friday night when it took me two and a half hours to get home in the rain.

A friend is coming back from some place far off and she will come back with all kinds of obnoxious revelations.

I spent today looking up info about Austin and planning my escape.

I was thinking today about the first job I ever had, which started this long hateful journey I have with employment. My mother calls jobs “adult daycare” and I have to agree. Most of my friends are amazed by my ability to avoid employment, but I’m not. It just comes natural to me.

I’ve hated every job I’ve ever had, so why would I be out searching for this?

I’ve gotten away with everything I could in jobs, almost as much as my mother, but I did not steal. I did once send a lava lamp to my friend and charge it to a mean customer’s account when I worked for a home shopping channel years ago.

My first job was at a place called Hal’s. It was a men’s clothing store located in Knollwood Mall in St. Louis Park (or was it Hopkins?). My father played ping pong—I mean table tennis, with the owner (he’s dead now just like everyone on my father’s team).

My father helped me make a hand written resume, but I can’t remember what was on it. What could have been on it since I’d never had a job before this point?

The job, like every job since, was not a good fit. First off, it was at a men’s clothing store. I knew and know nothing about clothes. When a customer came in with her son, she asked me if we had any sport coats. I asked her for what sport and she rolled her eyes at me and sighed heavily in that entitled suburban mom kind of way. It’s funny that I would ask her what sport since even if that was the correct question to ask, I would have had no idea about anything related to sports.

We had to stand the entire time and I found that unbearable. I was also horrified one day when the effeminate, fat, closeted gay guy I worked with was wearing the same cardigan sweater that I owned. When I got home, I threw that sweater away.

I remember that my mother and her non-lesbian “roommate” (that’s for another blog entry) came in and they purposely unfolded and messed up the sweaters that I had just folded “the Hal’s Way” (I still fold clothes this way). Then my mother’s “roommate” came back to the storeroom where I had gone to escape them and talked to me and I got in trouble with my boss. She said the rule was no non-employees in the storeroom. I pretended I didn’t understand her, which is my way of coping when a boss yells at me.

I lasted for a month and a half. I still don’t understand clothes. I have no idea how to dress. I look at old pictures of myself and I think I look like I escaped from the group home.

I think a lot about what I should be wearing now that I am almost 34. What does a 34 year old wear? Certainly it’s not “nice-nice” clothes. I mean I don’t own a suit or a tie or even a sport coat, so I don’t know what to wear.

I was thinking about the song “Ordinary Morning” by Sheryl Crow. I feel this way, the way she feels in the song, the part about slipping away. This is from her “Sheryl Crow album from 1996. I’m not a big fan of Sheryl’s hits, but some of her lesser known songs like this one are some of my favorites. No one writes in such detail about depression. I once saw Sheryl Crow on TV sing opera and I was amazed. She has an incredible voice.

This song is exactly how I am feeling today.

I'm just an ordinary man slipping away…

Sheryl Crow—Ordinary Morning
http://www.zshare.net/audio/381644578f9055

Whatever happened to Soon-Yi?

When I was about 12 my mother decided that she wanted to adopt a 12 year-old Korean girl. She said that this girl would be a good companion for me (I’m an only child) and a great free housekeeper for her.

Even then I knew this was a bad idea, so I redirectioned her by suggesting that she get some miniature horses instead of the girl. She became very interested in miniature horses but I had to redirection her again because I realized it was not a good idea to have a bunch of miniature horses in our suburban backyard, not enough room for the horses.

I told her that instead of miniature horses she should get new carpet. I hated our brown carpeting in the house, so she got new white carpet. That kept her busy for a long time because she ended up having to replace the carpet with better carpet when the new carpet starting falling apart. I remember the first time my father came home after the carpet had been changed throughout the house from brown to white, it took him awhile to notice the change. My mother used to say that if she grew a pecker from her head, my father would never notice. Yeah, he's really not that observant.

Last weekend when I went to visit my mother I had to once again talk her out of getting an Iphone. She had already got one and returned it, but now she wanted one again. I didn’t want to have to be her Iphone support (I’m not Apple), so I redirected her by telling her to instead get an internet wifi card for her laptop. She seemed to like that and forgot all about the Iphone.

She and I will sometimes talk about that Korean girl and where she’d be if my mother adopted her. We refer to her as Soon-Yi. We figured that Soon-Yi would be super pissed since my parents divorced a few months after they got new carpet. I wonder where Soon-Yi is now.

Today’s song is from Tuck and Patti, one of my mother’s favorite groups and mine too. It’s a 1988 cover of the Cyndi Lauper song “Time After Time”. It’s a very uplifting song.

The song:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3691066149ab5e

The video:
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2791423

The video is a beautifully shot black and white video. I love the way Tuck looks at Patti. They make a sweet couple. I’ve always wanted a boyfriend who would collaborate with me like Tuck does with Patti instead of always trying to work against me and trying to kill me.

Tuck and Patti’s website:
http://www.tuckandpatti.com/

Sweet Little Mystery

My father is a ping-pong champion. He gets mad if you call it ping-pong, so I’ll call it table tennis. He used to play all the time, but now he doesn’t because of family obligations and the fact that the rest of his team died.

He called me up the other day to tell me about the new ping-pong, I mean table tennis themed movie, “Balls of Fury”. He even sent me the trailer. He’s not usually into this kind of humor, but he couldn’t believe they had made a movie about ping-pong. He was excited to see it, but told me he would have to go alone because no one he knew would want to go with him.

In his den, he has all of his table tennis trophies from all the times he came in first, second and third when he played table tennis competitively. Through the years the cleaning lady Berdine (not her real name; her real name is Kay), she bumped into most of the trophies with the vacuum causing them to fall onto the floor. Every trophy is missing something: an arm, a head, a racket, a leg, but they are still proudly displayed.

Today’s song is about another kind of missing. It’s about when someone is missing and the ambiguities that come along with that. My father has always seemed strange to me and I know he looks at me like I’m a stranger. He has something missing. It doesn’t matter what is missing. The point is something is missing.

Here is Julia Fordham singing “Sweet Little Mystery” from 1991.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3517936ab9577b

The Secret Marriage or Why I Smacked Shaniqua Fontaine

Something came back to me today. I worked all day and by all day I mean from 11AM-2PM. I don’t know how I get through the day!

I was thinking about the time I hit Shaniqua Fontaine(not her real name; her real name is Prudence Johnston). She was my best little friend from across the street when I was growing up in the boring suburb of Minnetonka, Minnesota. She was my friend publicly until Kindergarten, when to my surprise, she pretended not to know me at school, but then she would be my friend secretly when we were in our neighborhood, behind closed doors. (Like a lot of lovers I’ve had.) Eventually I was semi-banned from seeing her because I always got her alone to play doctor, which her parents did not like. My parents, on the other hand didn’t seem to care if played doctor with Shaniqua or any of the neighbor kids.

One day Shaniqua wanted to have more orange juice, but she had finished the orange juice that was open and wanted to open a new carton of orange juice. I told her not to, that we’d have to ask my father if this was ok. I told her my father was in the bathroom, but we’d have to wait until he was out to ask him if we could open the orange juice.

Shaniqua decided she wanted to go and ask my father before he got out of the bathroom. I told her that the rule was not to speak to my father when he was in the bathroom, along with the rule of not opening anything new unless I asked him first. Shaniqua didn’t understand this rule, so she went up the stairs to my father’s bedroom with the intention to ask him about opening the orange juice. I tried to stop her, to tell her that she couldn’t go up there and talk to him while he was in the bathroom, but she wouldn’t listen. I pleaded with her to stop, but she didn’t, so I did the only thing I could do, I smacked her.

I remember that shocked look on her face once she regained her balance and got up off the floor. She ran away from me and out the door. This did prevent her from talking to my father in the bathroom so I figured I had done the right thing.

Later my mother told me that Shaniqua’s mother had talked to her about how I hit Shaniqua. My mother said I had to go over and apologize to Shaniqua. I went over to Shaniqua’s house all the way across the street in the rain and I apologized to her in front of her mother. I began to cry as I apologized, like I always do when I apologize. Shaniqua never really forgave me, which is the usual case when I apologize to someone. Minnesotans really like to rip your guts out by holding a grudge.

Years later, after her mother had died the day before her wedding (I was invited to her mother’s funeral, but not the wedding), Shaniqua would get drunk and call me from St. Michael, Minnesota where she lived with her husband. She would tell me how unhappy she was and how she longed for her childhood days with me on our street, Crown Drive. I tried to listen, but being the Minnesotan I am, I never really forgave her for not forgiving me, so I changed my phone number (not only because of Shaniqua, but also to stop the harassing phone calls from rude bill collectors).

Today’s song is “The Secret Marriage” by Sting. This short little song is from my favorite year 1987. I want to get married (or whatever it is the homos do at this point) but I think I’m too weird for anyone to stick around, so I’d rather get lost in songs like this one. Shaniqua and I had a secret marriage in a way, until I changed my phone number. I’ve been involved in a lot of secret marriages.

Secret Marriage by Sting:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/34985967bca1e8