The Society Strange

This is how it works-

2006-09-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Current mood: hopeful
Category: Romance and Relationships

When I was sixteen I had a very very brief relationship with the world of modeling. It consisted of a few car shows and *one* walk down a runway wearing a tuxedo. This was in Dallas, during my glorious and wonderful (and there is absolutely no sarcasm or irony in this statement) time in high school, and it was for a GLBT Community Center Fundraiser at the Arboretum. Chelsea and Geb may or may not remember it, but for two weeks leading up to it -
I was fuckin' Kate Moss.
Except that my mom was in the audience, and really, how lame is that?
I mean, she waved at me.

Anyway.

After the show, the arboretum became the site of the after-party and since the theme of the night was romance and gay marriage, they played some slow tunes for the happy couples in attendance. Beautiful stuff, too. As I sat at a table with a group of friends and my mother, a handsome stranger came up to the table and asked me to dance.
As I live and breath, Arnie is the first and only man to ever have asked me to slow dance. Most guys balk at the very idea of slow dancing, and must be dragged forcibly to tiles just so they can hold you between their wooden arms and look around self-consciously, and that sucks. But here he came and fulfilled one of my lifelong fantasies. It was a wonderful few minutes. I'd go so far as to say one of the most romantic moments of my life.
Things quickly went pear-shaped after my little dance-floor affair with Arnie. We never went anywhere cause I was sixteen and he was in completely 'nother age bracket. But shortly thereafter, for various reasons, my view on romance and all its trappings went from blissful to seriously in need of something therapy.

Still with me? Good, cause here's the payoff.
(Yeah kids, I'm thinkin' I'm done with the "woe-is-me" bit. At least for now.)

Last night, I went out with long-time friends and new-found friends together. We danced, made merry, gagged on the sub-par-even-when-gospel-house-WAS-popular music and generally had a ball.
And between drink two and drink three, as I talked comics with Forrest, Arnie appeared at the bar, beside me. It took a few minutes for us to put two and two together. But it happened. And the feeling was unlike anything I have felt in a long time.
It wasn't love, or the illusion of attraction; Not for either of us, I think (I think he was there with a guy), was this a "Before Sunset" kinda situation. What happened last night was that my present communed with my past and I experienced what can only be described as magic.
The feeling that I had during my only slow-dance was hope, and faith in the idea of a future unmarred by anger or cruelty or misunderstanding or inabilities to communicate.
I knew there was no such thing as perfection, but I secretly wished for it.

I allowed the combination of time and experience to fake me out and for the past ten years I have allowed a splinter of cynicism to fester within myself. And all the while, to assuage the pain, I called it "growing up," and I wore sly, knowing grins. I smoked cigarrettes and sneered at those who still had stars in their eyes. I replaced songs of love with songs of regret and anger on mixed tapes. After all, I thought, aren't they more real? More prevalent?

Last night, my sixteen year old self and I had a chat.
Turns out love songs are just as beautiful, and the tears they can bring are just as fiery as any song about heart break.
Turns out, "knowing grins" don't have to carry poison with them, 'cause at its best "knowing" includes understanding and embracing..
Turns out, any splinter can be extracted. No matter how deeply it's buried or how long.
Sometimes it just takes a bit of work.
But sometimes, it works itself out unexpectedly.

Currently listening : Bag Lady By Erykah Badu
Release date: By 12 October, 2000

Come Here You Little Golden Sexbomb!

2006-01-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

The film I spent all last year sacrificing major hours of the prime of my youth to has just been nominated for a freaking OSCAR!
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one entire year of my life, possibly the most difficult year of my life, to be honest, has been nominated for best visual effects.
Aside from the obvious joy and pride for it being the Year of the Gay Cowboy, I am now extremely grateful and utterly thankful for the experience which, at times, I thought would be the death of me. Many 80+ hour work weeks, disgusting meals for 100+ picky people, copies, faxes, meetings, cannisters of film and midnight drives to Burbank and beyond have surely paid off. This is why this work ROCKS!
In the words of a billion folks before me, "just to be nominated is an honor!"
FUCKIN AWESOME!

Alright...

2006-01-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

Current mood: disappointed
Category: Friends

Like La Lopez before me I have had ENOUGH!!!!

I have often told my friends and lovers that because of a youth spent trailing behind my mother in her nomadic wanderings I have been left with little to no tolerance for prolonged relationships of any kind. I am awkward in them, to say the least. At times this has become the cause of many dramatics between me and my friends. I think for and about myself and act out of selfishness. This has ALSO been the cause of many dramatics between me and my friends. I have tried to learn how to be a responsible friend for many years, and despite all that I am still human and destined to fuck up sometimes. Many times.

I am angry right now. And I take full responsibility for my complete past, forgotten, unknown, horribly remembered and everything besides. But when I try to erase all of the stupid, convoluted dramatics and do something real, something separate from my past, someone must remind me of it. And so I think, "Alright: you've got me pegged, motherfucker. I AM Satan and you just figured out all the prophecies were TRUE!"

Sometimes I feel so much that I don't know what I'm doing and to try and contain myself seems Herculean. I end up exploding. And then I end up regretful.

I don't care anymore. Right now I feel like my best efforts continue to hand me right back into the arms of my past mistakes. SO the only thing I can think to do is explode here, very visibly, and then implode ever so gently and lick my self-imposed wounds.

This sounds very dramatic, and so I guess I come back to myself again. And lots of people may be foolish enough to buy what I'm selling and think that nothin makes me happier than to be this trumped-up character I've created, all frantic happiness, innocence, tattoos, wisdom, venom and madness.....

But believe me, if I could be anyone other than myself, don't you think I would be?

Fuck. Even I don't know the answer to that one.

Candy Canes and Chestnuts and Popcorn on String

2005-12-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

Current mood: grumpy
Category: Life
If you or anyone you know falls victim to these over-used, tired cliches, please arm yourself and protect your loved ones.
For these people are beyond help.
They've fallen prey to the Christmas spirit
And must be put down
Do not approach people with a twinkle in their eye, or those with a "peppermint mocha" in hand, consider them contageous and extremely dangerous
They're beyond salvation, and must be put down
People with shopping bags or dead trees either affixed to car roofs or ceilings of homes (them's some trendy bitches, TRENDY bitches!) should be reported to the authorities.
Equally dangerous are those who've chosen to affix a wreath to the bumper of their car or deigned to wear a "Santa Hat" until December 26th.
Since this type of infection reaches the highest levels of the government and even if it didn't, the government is pretty ineffectual right now anyway, please report people in the throes of this debilitating disease to..... Try your local commie-liberal HQ
On second thought, they are ALSO beyond help and must be put down
In general, anyone remotely enjoying themselves during this season should be considered suspect and immediately terminated
In the event this is impossible, please engage a wire tap and then let nature take its course.
Currently listening: Fake Plastic Trees
By Radiohead
Release date: 26 September, 2000

Bareback Mount Him...No really....I loved it.

2005-12-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

The midnight screening at the arc light cinema in Hollywood was a tremendous milestone for me.

This film exhibits what people continually ask for from the movies today: originality.

Ang Lee took a difficult story and translated it into a fantastic film. The luminous landscapes coupled with the well-paced story give the movie a feeling of dimension and grandeur, while not overpowering the tremendous work of the actors.Heath Ledger, whom I previously thought of as a piece of eye-candy rarely well-utilized, really takes the seeds of talent he exhibited in Monster's Ball and allows them to come to fruition in Ennis Del Mar. His inner turmoil and inherently awkward nature are painful enough to watch; add in the explosively desirous and possibly dangerous character of jack Twist played by Jake Gyllenhaal and the near-tangible temperament of the 1960's and it's enough to make your heart break.

Every member of the supporting cast comes correct and makes this world a reality. Anne Hathaway is gorgeous (even beneath a country-fright-wig in a few scenes) and makes the most of each and every scene she has, taking Jake's charisma and meeting it wink for wink. Rounding out the film with the daring and emotive Michelle Williams we have a quartet of the most amazing young actors and actresses in Hollywood right now, and if they continues to make choices like this, I will follow them no matter where they go.

I was afraid that this movie might be yet another attempt by Hollywood to do something daring which resulted in clichés and let-downs. The surprising truth is that regardless of one's sexuality, this film is a beautiful example of that elusive thing: undying love.

I have a feeling this movie will be preaching to the choir, but I sincerely hope that others will give it a chance.

Fumbling toward insanity

2005-12-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

Current mood: uh....duh....

Things are very very busy, and then there's the holidays, which is all I will say about them. I have friends I love, people I wish to see, emotions to deal with and I'm incredibly lucky. However, incredible luck is not compensatory for incredible loss.

I try to stay positive and upbeat, and then I feel like there's a little worm in the pit of my stomach that eats the fruits of my labors.

No my friends, there is no balm in Gilead.

And Sarah McLachlan is a dope.

I'm just saying......

P.S. I wanna get really shitty and dance.

Town and Country

2005-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

I think I'm growing weary of this general area.
I'm an evolved city-boy. Not natural.
but cities aren't natural, so who cares.
Point being:
I LOVE THE CITY!
....usually.

Right now....not so much.

I wanna get out of the way of nighttime lights and gaze at stars and listen to QUIET.

soon, my friends, soon.

Sound Advice

2005-11-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

Glowing meat alarms Australians

Australians have been told there is no need to panic after a recent "glow-in-the-dark pork chop" scare.
A caller to a Sydney radio talk show sparked fears of radioactive contamination in the meat supply.
The New South Wales Food Authority said the glow was caused by the harmless pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria.
Food authority head George Davey said he understood people would be "shocked" to see their meat glowing in the fridge but said the bacteria were safe.
"It is important to remember that the micro organism responsible for the glow is not known to cause food poisoning," he said.
The bacteria are naturally present in meat and fish but they multiply quickly if food is not stored at the correct temperature.
So the glowing can be a sign that the food is starting to go off and Mr Davey recommends consumers throw any luminous pork chops - or other cuts of meat - straight into the dustbin.
"Remember this simple advice - if it glows, throw it."

Thanks Mr. Davey!

Our Wacky World

2005-11-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

So there's this lady right?
She was probably the hottest chick of the 80's and mid-90's.
Fairest of them all, you know what I mean?
Sometimes she looked like this....

And we liked her for that. It was unique and she wore wedding-dresses and danced slutty and she kinda evolved into the ultimate in "sexiness." Come to think of it, didn't she dabble in publishing?

It was around that time that she looked like this.......

And that was okay too, if maybe a bit more "sexy" than most of us were really ready for on VH1 at the time......sigh......

I remember moving to Southern California in 1999 and hearing about this tranny called Viva Sex, who did the best Madonna impersonation of anyone. EVER.

Now I never cared for Madonna, (Althought I do adhere to the Homo-Bylaws which clearly outline that any human being with a penis who likes other humans with a penis must own "The Immaculate Collection."), but I will say that Viva Sex really was pretty damned good. Even if she was a one-trick pony.

Who woulda thought that the hottest woman of the 80's and 90's would move to England, have kids and then end up impersonating her impersonator, badly even??

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!

Splendiferous gorgeousity!

2005-11-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

TA-DA!!!!!!!

Today marks the end, end, end!! of the show we have been sweating blood to finish.
It was marked by days of anger, harrowing self-doubt, alcohol, greasy food, and above all, patience and clumsiness.

We have finally reached the top of the mountain, prayed with the man who lives there and now we will all be making our way back down, to the gently rolling hills of the City of Angels.

It's funny how spending every waking moment of your life in a crock-pot makes you tunnel-visioned about making a stew. And then once you leave, suddenly, you aren't what you once were.

"Well, sure man," you may exclaim, "you're freakin' stew."

Damn skippy, friends, I am stew.

-thestrange

Are you KIDDING me?

2005-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

BOULDER, Colo. - Home Depot was sued by a shopper who claims he got stuck to a restroom toilet seat because a prankster had smeared it with glue.
Bob Dougherty, 57, accused employees of ignoring his cries for help for about 15 minutes because they thought he was kidding.
“They left me there, going through all that stress,” Dougherty told The (Boulder) Daily Camera. “They just let me rot.”
The lawsuit, filed Friday, said Dougherty was recovering from heart bypass surgery and thought he was having a heart attack when he got stuck at the Louisville store on the day before Halloween 2003. A store employee who heard him calling for help informed the head clerk by radio, but the head clerk “believed it to be a hoax,” the lawsuit said.
Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said she could not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit said store officials called for an ambulance after about 15 minutes. Paramedics unbolted the toilet seat, and as they wheeled the “frightened and humiliated” Dougherty out of the store, he passed out.
The lawsuit said the toilet seat separated from his skin, leaving abrasions.
“This is not Home Depot’s fault,” he said. “But I am blaming them for letting me hang in there and just ignoring me.”

YAWN.

2005-10-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

taken from an MSNBC pointless-trivia-type-story.

Why is yawning contagious? - P.H.
If you don’t think YAWNING is contagious, see if you YAWN by the time you’re done reading this explanation of YAWNING.
First, let’s dispel a myth. You don’t yawn to take in extra oxygen. “That’s been rejected in lab tests,” says YAWN expert Robert Provine, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus. He had test subjects breathe air with extra oxygen. For others, he reduced the oxygen intake by giving them air high in carbon dioxide. Neither caused more or less YAWNING.
(YAWN. YAWN. YAWN.)
Provine says “we YAWN when we’re changing states of activity. Going from sleep to wakefulness, like YAWNING in the morning. Or wakefulness to sleep.” (He says we YAWN more in the morning when we wake up, by the way.)
“Concert pianists will YAWN before going out to an important performance. Olympic athletes YAWN before the big event. Embryos begin YAWNING eleven weeks after conception,” Provine notes. He says YAWNING is somehow connected to changing levels of body activity, changes from one state to another, like inactive to active or vice versa, but nobody understands just what the connection is.
“It probably helps stir up the blood and brain chemistry to facilitate those transitions from one level of activity to another.”
Why? “YAWNING is ancient and autonomic,” Provine says. “Maybe it’s to get everyone in the tribe to synchronize their states of activity, to increase the success of the tribe if everyone’s working together. We really don’t know.”
(YAWN. YAWN. YAWN.)
YAWNING is highly contagious, he says. Every vertebrate species YAWNS. Fish YAWN. Birds YAWN. Alligators YAWN. But Provine says it’s apparently only contagious in humans.
Provine has made test subjects YAWN by showing them a YAWNING face. Interestingly, if he shows them just the YAWNING mouth, it doesn’t trigger the YAWNING. If he covers the mouth, and shows them just the nose and eyes of the YAWNING face, it does. He’s made subjects YAWN by talking about YAWNING, or asking the test subjects to think about YAWNING, or by having them read about YAWNING.
Yawning yet?

good luck during the witchy season

2005-10-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

this rocks.

Today

2005-10-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

is a day whose time has come, and very shortly will be gone.
Today won't ever return, like your virginity or your baby teeth.

Course, like your virginity, very few people (aside from the deeply spiritual kook) realize the importance of today and its power. And, like baby teeth, today will be replaced, but the replacements need just as much care as today did.

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known."

And I will do my best to make sure each and every day I can say those words with all sincerity.

"You are all beautiful creatures. And I bless you:

More Life!"

get outta here. enjoy.

One

2005-10-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

There was the moment, Saturday morning in 2003 when I was working at the MOSAIC Project and had been for a few weeks now, and my new friends and I were enjoying the Napa forest and really sinking deep into each other and falling in love. Not the kind of love that leaves you sticky or sick-in-the-head, the kind of love that makes you want to grow it and spread it around for free.

We spent the morning rowing a boat in a little pond, Arturo and I, and we talked in the sun about God. And he reflected on his ideas of prayer, what it was, what it was good for. He had believed for a very long time, in the very basic tenet, that prayer, the conscious act of praying to God, was a way to communicate thanks for life, for the world, for everything to this all-knowing, all-powerful sentient and needy being.

I remember feeling so blessed to be able to share my thoughts with someone who I had experienced so much with. We rowed, shirts off, just men with lives behind us and futures and knowledge uncertain. Neither one of us was comparing or competing.

It was Idyllic.

I breathed the morning air in deep, noticed that Jose was wandering and exploring the man-made banks off to our left. Julie, Ginger, and Elicia, who I called "the three Graces," sat on a large rock on the other bank of the pond nearer to the kitchen/office of the grounds. They ate as we spoke. It looked like cheerios. As Arturo handed the oars to me, I wondered about my view of God. What was it?

"I don't think that a god who could create all this," the girls began to sing, in harmony, "would need our validation. Surely our thanks is evident. Surely waking up each day and taking everything in, as we have been, Arturo, is proof of our perfection in his eyes. No matter how we see ourselves, I think we were created just as we were meant to be. And anything that has the power to do that, sees our gratitude in our actions. Where the hell would mandatory, cheap, flattery figure into the equation?" I never felt more sure of anything in my life.

Arturo and I continued to exchange questions and quiet, and the day was probably one of the most meaningful of my life.

I knew in that one day, what it meant to exist, and to make an imprint on the world around me. I had found something infinitely more priceless than fame or wealth. And in that one day, I knew that this feeling was familiar. It was the light of recognition illuminating my mind so that these individual jewels of experience might be found. And lo and behold, they had all been sitting in my grasp threaded on the same string of my life. I guess I had never realized what I had in my possession.

Thinking of this reminds me of a story I read or heard somewhere sometime ago. It's something like this:

A society of people wear necklaces for their entire lives. For each day they are truly alive, they take the bead from around their necks and mark it with a notch. When they have died, this bead is tallied up and the marks totalled equal the true time they spent living.

How many notches would your necklace have?

Personally? I can think of one, off the top of my head.

2 was yesterday

2005-10-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

and yesterday I decided that today would be good.
as good as yesterday.
all my troubles were just games we played.
oh, yes ladies and gentlemen, I DO believe in yesterday.

and I believe in tomorrow as well.

Tomorrow will break with the same force as its predecessors did.
Perhaps rain, perhaps light, but surely another breath drawn in peace.
I continue to breath through the wide world and all it has to offer me.

I am not the man I was one year ago.
Imagine that.
Nor am I the man I was five or even ten years ago.

I hadn't realized just what was changing, until it occurred to me to look at myself.
I thought everyone lived like this.
Maybe they do.

26 years ago today:

2005-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

Every year my mother called me in the weeks and days before my birthday, and each time was exactly the same.

This year the conversation would have gone like this:

"hello?"

"Twenty-six year ago today..."

"Hi Mom." I always feigned boredom, which delighted her, of course.

"Don't interrupt. Twenty-six years ago today. I had a belly out to here and was due any day. You had apparently decided you liked it where you were and hadn't shown any signs of wanting to leave. But I knew...."

"Knew what?"

"I knew that you were just waiting for the right time. You've always had that sense of drama. I knew you would be my perfect creation. And you knew how to make an entrance. And when you were born, you were."

"I was what?"

"Perfect."

This always stung, though she would never understand why. "I am not perfect," I would say emphatically. But of course, in my mothers eyes (as it should be with all children), I was, and no amount of evidence to the contrary would ever convince her otherwise.

Like that for the past 25 years.

I broke down in the projection room today.

good thing the fuckers sound-proofed.

Three days to go.

3

four

2005-10-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

work is all I can think about currently.
which is why the silence yesterday.
however, the silence the day before was because reality was setting in, and i had no words to honor the severity of the situation.
the situation being, this is my first birthday in a sense.
It is my first birthday truly alone.

yeah, fuck all, it is definitely a "woah is me" situation.
severity level?
Well, to inject some humor, this one goes to eleven.

so:

"woe is me."

five

2005-10-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

for silver

seis

2005-10-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

porque mi vida y mi familia vive en mi sangre.
Y en mi Corazon.

6

2005-10-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

I want to write. Write and write and write.
Still not a writer, though, nay.

I just want to let rivers seep from my fingertips.
I want to pour my view of the cosmos onto paper and walls and rough-hewn boulders and let the world gain a bit of weight with my thoughts.

Seven is a number often conjured with mystic overtones. Seven Days. Seven Sins. Seventh Heaven. I guess seven days before my 26th year was a day when I clicked into focus.

I am applying myself to my life.

Six days left, let's see what one can accomplish when one isn't God.

neves (thank GOD that's solved Mix)

2005-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Oldest noodles unearthed in China

Late Neolithic noodles: They may settle the origin debate

The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China.
The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood.
Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old.
Scientists tell the journal Nature that the noodles were made using grains from millet grass - unlike modern noodles, which are made with wheat flour.
The discovery goes a long way to settling the old argument over who first created the string-like food.
Professor Houyuan Lu said: "Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first.
Lajia is a very interesting site; in a way, it is the Pompeii of China
Prof Kam-biu Liu"Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China," the researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, explained to BBC News.
The professor's team tells Nature that the ancient settlement at Lajia was hit by a sudden catastrophe.
Among the remains are skeletons thrown into various abnormal postures, suggesting the inhabitants may have been trying to flee the disaster that was enveloping them.
"Based on the geological and archaeological evidence, there was a catastrophic earthquake and immediately following the quake, the site was subject to flooding by the river," explained co-author Professor Kam-biu Liu, from Louisiana State University, US.
"Lajia is a very interesting site; in a way, it is the Pompeii of China."
It was in amongst the human wreckage that scientists found an upturned earthenware bowl filled with brownish-yellow, fine clay.
When they lifted the inverted container, the noodles were found sitting proud on the cone of sediment left behind.
"It was this unique combination of factors that created a vacuum or empty space between the top of the sediment cone and the bottom of this bowl that allowed the noodles to be preserved," Professor Kam-biu Liu said.
The noodles resemble the La-Mian noodle, the team says; a traditional Chinese noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand.

There is evidence that a sudden calamity overtook the Lajia site. To identify the plants from which the noodles were made, the team looked at the shape and patterning of starch grains and so-called seed-husk phytoliths in the bowl.
These were compared with modern crops. The analysis pointed to the use of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)
"Our data demonstrate that noodles were probably initially made from species of domesticated grasses native to China. This is in sharp contrast to modern Chinese noodles or Italian pasta which are mostly made of wheat today," Professor Houyuan Lu said.
Currently listening: Thanks I'll Eat It Here By Glenn Ribble Release date: By 14 September, 1993

neves (Infinite Crisis Mix)

2005-10-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

neves

2005-10-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

Someone Else Noticed.

2005-10-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

"Hey! Strange! Did I see you on-"
"-yes, yes that was me."
"WOW! So you're, like, a gay celebrity?"
"Somethin' like that."
"That's so funny. You should be really famous and then everyone would know you."
"..."
"Wouldn't that be cool???"
"...for a time."
"Okay, well, bye- Celeb!"

It's great being recognized. It's fun and flattering and silly.
It's also incredibly akward.
How do you respond to anything in this interaction with anything that can be related to humility?

I guess the correct answer is: you soak it up and try not to act like TOO much of a bitch.
That, after all, was what the TV show was for.
Now, you have to prove you're a really nice person.

Right.