Happy Lupercalia!

Doing my best to piss off more Christians

I've been bothered by this for ...well... ever since I saw the first one of these, which has been on my step-mother's minivan for a couple of years:

I mean, isn't this a violation of something here? I know it's Florida and those people are making Texas look like Massachusetts these days, but COME ON!

They also have nifty "Family Values" and "Family First" plates in Florida, not to mention all the tags devoted to "Invest in Children" and whatnot, which carry the same subverted connotation.

Where are all the "Fund Stem Cell Research" and "Pro-Choice" tags? The only thing close to that that I could find here in Georgia to try to right the universe was the Dog/Cat Sterilization plates we have:





(Mine's the first one.)

I know there's nothing I can really do about this. As it is, I'm plagued by driving through a sea of Jesus-fish on a daily basis, but I guess I can be thankful that I don't have to see those Pro-Life plates here. I'm just wondering what's next, Florida? Ten Commandments tags? I bet they'd do that one in a special "collect 'em all" series. Or maybe "Intelligent Design" tags? What would that look like, I wonder...?

You know you're a big dork when...

...you see a headline like "Three Afghans killed in protest against cartoons" and instantly this image pops into your head:

And you know you're as big a dork as I am when you spend the better part of an hour of your morning putting that mental image into a picture to share with everyone.

Do you know this person?

I'm using my blog for a very weird request right now. I'm sure this is just a wild goose hunt and everyone will think I'm looney toons, but I haven't been blogging much lately anyhow, so who cares.

I'm looking for a guy by the name of "Julian Martin" ...I think. It could be "Julien Marten" or any combination of initials, letters, or sounds that could be similar to that.

Why am I looking for this guy? Here's the looney toons part...

I was laying in bed, not asleep, but trying to get there, when several images of a guy I'd never met or, as far as I know, never saw before just started running through my head. And the pictures wouldn't go away. There were about 6 or 7 of them in various poses... you know the "8x10 b/w glossy" types that actors use... although these were more like photo proofs. He has straight, darkish hair and intense, light-colored eyes, that I do know, and in one of the pics seemed to be wearing his bangs hanging into his face a bit, but the rest were all brushed back. Age... maybe somewhere around late-20s or early-30s is my best guestimate.

So anyway, these "pictures" of this guy kept presenting themselves in some sort of stream and finally I said aloud (annoyed that I wasn't getting any sleep), "Who the fuck is this?" And that's when the sound of the name popped into my head... I then went "Whaaaah?" aloud, and so the name popped into my head again, only spelled out for me. I kept hearing it over and over and seeing it over and over, until I went to sleep.

I have no idea what my brain was doing or why, but for some reason I feel like I'm supposed to talk to a guy who fits this description. Why? Again, I have no idea. I guess I should have asked that question aloud, too. Hopefully he has a job for me though. That'd be cool.

Okay, that's it. I just wanted to put that loopy request out there and see if anyone answers. My luck, he's probably someone's dead cousin or something useless like that, right?

--Madame Dorko

NYE 2005 with Jay

What did I do for New Years, you ask? You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you... but what the hell. Here goes:

Jay came up from Orlando as he did in 2003, and this time we were planning a trip to Athens. At the last minute, we changed our plans and opted to just stick around Atlanta, since my friends were all wanting to lay low for the evening and Jay and I were still exhausted from our previous two nights of bar hopping. First night, we went to the Independent for pool with my pals Bill, Christian, and Kevin, then a quick visit to wet our whistles at the Highlander. The second night found us at the E.A.R.L. for a drink (which was packed), then over to Flatiron for another drink (which started to get packed), so we headed down to Gravity Pub (which was dead), turned around and slipped into Mary's for another drink and some man-on-man action voyeurism, and ended the night over at the East Side Lounge for some 80s music and one last drink before calling it a night at 1 AM. At home, we drank berry-flavored beer over our LBHS yearbook and my old school photo albums.

That seems quite tame compared to our youth when we'd easily finish off a case of Busch and crawl home around dawn. Hell, it's even far tamer than his last New Years trip here 2 years ago, when we sucked down about 9 beers a piece and I topped off the night with a full glass of whiskey. How does that saying go? "Liquor before beer, you're in the clear; but beer before liquor can kill a fellow"? I'm sure I'm mixing that up with snakes, but I sure did feel snakebit for a day or so after that night.

That's me, unable to move and wishing for death, with an alien popping out
of my stomach, which is exactly how I felt that day - January 1st, 2004.

But our livers are getting old and gray now, so we chose to be kinder and gentler to ourselves and left the reindeer games to the Athenian youngsters.

Instead of Athens, we chose to hold down the couches all day, watching Being John Malkovich (Jay hadn't seen it yet) and eating pizza. Later, we struck out for some picture taking around town (Jay's needing new pics to impress the Myspace girlies). There were pics at Atlantic Station in the late afternoon and more at Oakland Cemetery at dusk... magic hour with the perfect sunset backdrop too. Then dinner at Six Feet Under and off to meet my pal Kevin over at Apres Diem for dessert and Irish coffee.

While there, Kevin got a call from another pal of his asking if he wanted to go to a party at Rachel Bolan's house. Who's she, you ask? Apparently, it's a he and he's the bassist/songwriter for the 80s/90s hair band Skid Row.

I believe he's the "chain in nose, camel toe in pants" guy on the far right.

Driving to the party, we passed big fancy house after big fancy house with 20-30 cars outside them. If the party had been one of those, I would have felt more comfortable. Instead, it turned out when we got there that adding me, Jay, and Kevin brought the total party to 10, including Rachel... the other 7 were all wafer-thin rocker types... 4 tattooed guys with short, spiky hair who looked like present-day versions of Tommy Lee, and 3 girls with long, stripy hair who resembled the hey-day version of the Skid Row guys after some smoothing creme and a flatiron. Hmm... second thought, maybe that one chick was actually Sebastian Bach?

Rachel's got a really pretty house, but it didn't seem like a rocker lived there. It seemed like the whole place was beige... no art... no cool artifacts. The only thing somewhat rockerish was his guest bathroom wallpaper, which has a microscopic leopard print to it, but you had to basically have your nose pressed against it to tell that's what it was. Otherwise, it just looked like textured beige. On a table in his living room, his cell phone sat atop a stack of Best of Skid Row cds from 1998 still in their shrinkwrap. Not sure if they were being used as party favors or coasters.

A couple of times someone's phone would ring, and it was always some cool rock song of sorts, which sent a panic through me while I remembered that should my phone ring, everyone would hear the theme to Monty Python's Flying Circus and they'd all laugh at me and poke me with their sharp hair and belt studs. That fear was alieviated soon when they switched the Sex Pistols documentary they were watching over to The Holy Grail for a bit. Had I found my people? No, I still felt out of place... even after Rachel brought his little prairie dog out to meet everyone. That's not the nickname of his penis, weirdos. He really does have a prairie dog.

After 30 minutes of feeling like an outsider, we left Kevin at the party and Jay and I took off for the East Atlanta Village again. This time, the E.A.R.L. was wall-to-wall nimrods, so we walked down to Flatiron again at 2 minutes to midnight, where we were immediately greeted with glasses of champagne and we sat down to toast the New Year with a subdued couple closer to our age. It was nice. Turned out they were from Central Illinois, so we chatted about that coincidence for a bit. We stuck around for about an hour or so and went home again, this time to drink some chocolate flavored beer and burn some mp3s.

Having Jay here was great, but the only drawback being what has happened to my health. I'd barely fought off the flu that hit me right before XMAS, but that left me with a crouping cough for Jay's arrival. After our 3 nights in a row of drinking and shouting over loud music in smoky venues, my throat has taken a turn for the worse.

As a result, I won't be answering my phone for the next week or so until I recover. I don't want to scare any unwitting callers who may not know that I have severe laryngitis. When I am able to speak above a whisper, the sound is quite frightening... like a barking sea lion trying to mate with a honking goose, and some porpoise sounds thrown into the mix. I'm wondering if my vocal chords are ever going to recover from this. So much for shitty temp work to make ends meet this week. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure a foley studio would find me quite useful. Perhaps Skywalker Sound is looking for a female wookie?

What Would Elvis Do?

I had to post this for everyone's enlightenment...

My father shipped a box of goodies to my kids for Christmas. The part of the package that stood out the most to me was what was given to my son, Malachi.

I should state here that Malachi waivers between atheism (when he's wanting to see who's goat he'll get) to reverent agnostic beliefs, but always filled with challenging questions that could rattle the Pope. My father, on the other hand, sits firmly on the side of evangelical, born-again Conservativism, don't-question-what-you're-told sheepdom. He sees Malachi as a "tester."

And for those curious onlookers, I named him Malachi not for the OLD TESTAMENT reference to the prophet Malachi who foretold the coming of Christ... and not for the evil red-headed kid who did Isaac's bidding in CHILDREN OF THE CORN... but for the simple fact that it had a bouncy ring to it everytime his father and I said it. And for further reference, Malachi's real life personality tends to waiver in between the prophet and the evil henchman mentioned above, oddly enough.

So I watched this year as Malachi unwrapped what turned out to be a metal Russel Stover's candies tin with an image of Elvis on the lid. Then I noticed as my son's face twisted into a puzzled frown when he opened the candy box and pulled out... no, not candy... but a book. A "WWJD" book, to be precise. (for clarity's sake, WWJD=What Would Jesus Do)

Shoved inside the book was a card. Malachi read the card quickly, then shrugged and simply tossed it on the table. I asked him what the card said and he replied, "Just some Jesus stuff again." He looked really disappoined. Although he did get 2 gift cards that he could use later on, I could tell he was really looking forward to the candy.

I never read the card until just today, as I have been sick with a 104 degree fever, a crouping cough that sounds like sea lions mating, and so much mucus that there simply aren't enough tissues in the world to contain it all... adding up to what I believe is some version of Bird Flu, because I had been visiting a couple of pet shops and I cooked chicken the other day and 2+2=4 ... I'm no dummy. I know this administration has been looking for it's opportunity to rub me out! Well, I'm still here, suckers! I'M! STILL! HERE!

So anyway, in my feverish fog, I never thought to read all the children's cards until today, when I was tidying up and about to throw all holiday reminders into the trash. That's when I noted that my card, as well as my other two children's card, had no other note but: "Have a Blessed Christmas!" from my father and step-mother. But Malachi's card... well, Malachi's card solves the mystery that has lingered with America for like a quarter of a century:

Why did Elvis die?

Read for yourself!





Of course! Now it all makes sense!
The King of the Jews ... The King of Rock 'N Roll.
One and the same! Jesus = Elvis
And Elvis died for our sins too!

Why hadn't I thought of that before? I'm sure someone else has a whole theory on this. Probably South Park. Or Mojo Nixon. I'm glad that I've finally been enlightened. Now I get to share this theory with Malachi when he gets back from his dad's house in a couple of days. I can't wait to tell him all about them both being "the King" and how dying on the cross is akin to dying on the toilet.

Amen.

Cowboys in the Mist

On Saturday night, I went to see BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN at the only place in town that it was playing: the Midtown Art Cinema. It was, of course, completely sold out for each and every showing, and we had to wait outside in the drizzly, frozen rain for about 30 minutes in line just to catch our 10:35 showing. All I have to say about the film itself is: any awards it gets, it totally deserves. If you go, bring tissues.

Being that the movie was preaching to the choir in this area of town, I'll be interested to see it again when it comes to Larryville in a week or so. If you haven't been reading my blog very long, I'll refer you to last year's entry, "Me thankful? F**k off!" once again for a review of local reactions to cinematic cornholing. I don't think I can do it justice, but I love to see those 'necks squirm.

As for the previous night's screening, I stumbled upon a new favorite audience-wide reaction: a multitude of gag sounds when seeing raw meat. My guess is that about half of the audience were vegetarians of some sort... I said VEGEtarians, not VAGItarians... yes, there were a handful of lesbians in attendance, but the overwhelming majority of the gag sounds were male.

My guess is those sounds came from the bird-chested indie rocker gay boys and not the muscular preppy jock types. There was also the awesome catty arguements overheard while waiting for the film to start. The best one came from the row in front of me, where about 7 khaki-clad "all-American" passers were seated next to 2 scrawny indie boys... all of them were gay, that wasn't in question... but was in question was if they were all together, which I soon discovered they weren't.

The 2 indie boys decided to drain the lizard before the movie began and thought they could save their seats (chairs, you perv) by draping their scarves over them. No sooner had they walked away, but another of the jock boys waiting for an open seat and watching the whole thing simply lifts the closest scarf off the seat and tosses it over onto the other scarfed seat with a kind of arrogant disdain.

That's when all of his friends started to berate him, telling him it was so "uncool" of him and that those other guys were just going to the bathroom and were trying to save their seats. They tried to get their own friend to move to a different seat and he simply refused, over and over, stating that you can't save seats with a scarf, blah blah blah. His own buddies were really upset and about to force him to move to save their own embarrassment, when the seat-stealer finally trumped the whole argument with, "Besides, it was a striped scarf." At that point, they all calmed down and agreed that he did the right thing then.

I don't get enough of this kind of fun banter in my daily life anymore.