Cautions:

• If you haven't seen the movie and you're a fan of Ewan McGregor, you might want to skip this clip.

• If you're incapable of clinical detachment, and tend to retch when seeing revolting things, you should probably skip it.

• If you watch it, and it severely grosses you out or ruins your dinner...well, I warned you.

"Drug use (and abuse) over the course of the twentieth century has fluctuated significantly. As new drugs have been introduced into the public, popularity has shifted between a number of legal and illegal substances. With these popularity shifts have come changes in social acceptance, legal tolerance, and use rates among the public.Drugs Over the Decades

Dozens of illicit substances are used daily around the nation. 5 of these substances have emerged as the most popular (and therefore most abused) over the years. Looking at these drugs based on their number of users gives a clear picture of the magnitude of national popularity, as well as a clear snapshot of the past four decades of use.

A necessary compliment to the sheer number of users is the percentage of national population using these illicit drugs.

The most frightening trend that can be seen in this information is the rise in number of users over the course of the decades. Between 1979 and 2006, the total number of illicit drug users almost doubled. Correspondingly, the percentage of users (as a percent of total population) rose over 14%. So, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, almost 50% of the US population has used illicit drugs at some point in their lives. Based on the most recent survey data, we can see that marijuana is by far the most popular substance used, making up almost half of all users nationwide.

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Heroin junkies are facing a new scourge: fentanyl.  Throughout the country, junkies are falling out from fentanyl mixed with either heroin or cocaine.

I wonder if oxy sales have dropped in the past year.

Full Article

Here we go,

• Speaker is echoing. If this goes on the whole time...let's just say, "Chinese Water Torture."
• Speaking not as a candidate, but as a citizen of U.S. and World.
• He just laughed at a crazy yell from an audience member. So perfect that show of humor.
• Talking about his father dreaming of a better life and someone in American answered his calls.
• Recalling when U.S. & Germany histories became intertwined 60 years ago.
• All that stood in the way of the Soviets marching across Europe and perhaps starting another world war was Berlin. The airlift began.
• "People of the world, look at Berlin. Where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other." And make good beer!
• NATO - the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security. Take that, isolationists!!
• Good speech writing, Good delivery cadence.
• The 21st Century has revealed a world more intertwined than at any other time in history. (paraphrasing) This new closeness also brings new dangers.
• The terrorists of 9/11 plotted in Hamburg.
• Climate problems.
• The poppies in Afghanistan come to Berlin as heroin.
• We cannot afford to be divided... No one nation can defeat these challenges alone.
• Sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny.
• In America, there are voices that deny Europe's role in our security and our future.
• Global citizenship.
• "Greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from each other."
• We must tear down walls dividing rich/poor, races, religions.
• I hope Americans are remembering that Germany is having massive race/religion issues. Their lax immigration laws have created tension with their growing population of Arabs and Muslims. In many ways, America has outpaced European in progress of race relations - I noticed while living over there.
• Now is the time to join together across the globe.
• "This is the moment we must defeat terror and dry up the well that supports it."
• The camera has closed up on his face - good staging.
• NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders, Afghanistan, must be accomplished.
• He said tal-ee-ban again. One of his handlers needs to get on that.
• "We must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons." Ahmadinejad, can you hear me?
• We need a strong European Union.
• If I were a betting person, and I am, I'd say he's obviously going to win the election if, for not other reason, than he's the polar opposite of George W.
• Passing responsibility to Iraqi govt. and finally bring this war to a close.
• Crowd started chanting Obama! Obama! with a European accent. giggle.
• Must reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere.
• "This is the moment to give our children back their future."
• The world will watch and remember what we do with this moment.
• He's addressing problems in more countries than George W. can probably name.
• When we reject torture and stand for the rule of law.. (attn: Rummy, Cheney, McFlipFlop etc. etc.)
• There are time when U.S. actions do not live up to our best intentions. -- Is he saying W. and Cheney had good intentions? Objection!
• All free people everywhere became citizens of Berlin. Jeez, that's a good line!
• Conclusion: I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope with an eye toward the future, with resolve in our heart. Let us remember this history and answer our destiny and remake the world once again. Thank you, Berlin!

Andrea Mitchell is reporting German officials say the crowd is more than 100,000 strong.

Compete with that, McCAN'T. Booyah.

McCain says he'd like to give a speech in Berlin as president (suggesting it's inappropriate for Obama to give the speech as just a candidate). Won't happen, John. Sucks to be you today.

UPDATE: Huffpo is reporting the Foreign Service barred it's employees from attending the Obama rally. Is there any freedom left the Bush administration hasn't tried to curtail?? There has never been an administration in the history of the United States that has so strongly attacked our freedoms, liberties and right to pursue happiness. How does that man Bush hold his head high every day as he marches our country toward an autocracy? I have never been more thankful for term limits than I am at this moment. Of course, I suppose it wouldn't matter if Bush could run for reelection. The landslide would smother any hope he would have of continuing his disastrous political career.

 

Not suitable for work. Not suitable for children. Not suitable for bedtime. Not a suitable film.

 

The Story:

 

The Joker from The Dark Knight takes heroin with a girl in a bath, takes medical-grade heroin with Casanova Frankenstein from Mystery Men, gets girl pregnant, loses girl after she loses baby after they stop taking heroin. Girl returns, but the Heath from A Knight’s Tale doesn’t want her back. The end.

 

The Good:

 

Heath Ledger from Brokeback Mountain.

Geoffrey Rush from Shine.

The girl, I’m sorry, I’m lazy.

This film acts the spig out of itself. In ever-decreasing circles.

 

The Bad:

 

Not suitable for anybody. This is not a date movie.

This movie starts at the bottom and works its way down.

Of course, this means that all Bad points are Good points.

 

The Verdict:

 

24 pigs. There. I did it. I do not have to see this movie again. Should be shown to all schoolchildren around 14-15 years old.

I'm just now getting into the Velvet Underground, and I'm not really sure why. On paper, this band has so many stupid, nearly unredeemable qualities (as you can see in the video below): no bass guitar, electric viola, Lou Reed's ridiculous trapezoidal headless guitar and perm/mullet, bizarre drum kits with giant timpani, Andy Warhol.

But somehow they're still really fucking good. I don't understand this yet, but I suspect more Advancement is afoot.

Klicken fĂŒr Großansicht.

I signed up Sunday morning and there is no backing out now without flushing the entry fee down the toilet.

So, it will be 13.1 miles in about 5 weeks.  That will be the longest distance I have run since 1993, when I completed a full marathon in a tad under four hours.   Since I have a few OCD issues, I have already broken out the stop watch and am timing my runs.

My method of training is simple.  Long run on Sunday, medium run Monday, rest Tuesday (Football practice), medium run Wednesday, a undetermined run on either Thursday or Friday and a short run on Saturday.   

I am at about 21 miles a week and will increase that by at least a mile a week (long Sunday run) until race weekend.  The biggest surprise is that I haven't hurt myself so far and that I have been keeping my miles at a manageable level.   It is hard for me to actually use my rest days for resting.  On those days, I usually mow the lawn or play some catch with my son so I can keep my legs loose.

It looks like my weight is going to be staying in the 158-162 range, despite the WiiFit saying my ideal weight should be 141.   But I feel really god about getting back on track.   It has given me something else to focus on other than work.

For me to get to 141, I am going to have to track down a local heroine dealer.

Verse 1:

Orange skies

Carnivals and cotton candy and you

And I love you too you know I do

Verse 2:

Nightingale

Prettier than anything in the world

And I love you too

You know I do

Bridge:

You make me happy

Laughing, glad, and full of glee

And you dont have to try, girl

For you it comes so naturally

Right here in my arms

This post is a tribute to the man who inspired this blog, its name and also its spirit.

Arthur Lee seemed to be predestined. A black swan destined to success, blocked by a coitus interruptus in patches inexplicable, stopped thousands of times at the threshold of celebrity, maybe from heroin inertia. A posthumous famed when still alive, adored by legions of rock fans which weren’t enough to put him in the immortal hall of fame, when he croaked on the 3th of august, 2006.

Towards the middle of the sixties, Arthur was a young guitar player and composer, black and skilled, friend and Siamese twin with a Jimi Hendrix dude, and years after he even bragged he taught Jimi some chords. His lysergic and dreamy songs were released by a label which at that moment was standing out, the Elektra. His band, the Love, well represented an already multi-ethnic Los Angeles, with huge influences and clashes: despite of his sophisticated sound, the band was far from the hippie gurus of that time, to whom peace & love brought a full coitus without interferences, coming to the celebrity orgasm, even with a Lsd Half-burnt brain.

Born in Memphis under the sign of Pisces, Arthur Porter Taylor was a lonely child in the big city, escaped from school straight in the L.A. of basket and then rock. He was sure to succeed and also Elektra, which put him under contract as a young hopeful, rebellion offspring in an age when real or so called rebels made out billions very easily. Lee was handsome, he shot heroin and he wrote awesome songs, sweet and violent ones: in a word, he fulfilled the requirements needed to become a myth, he had fate signs, but
 one day, the owners of his label watched on stage a problematical guy named Jim Morrison, suddenly put him and his sexual charge of a Robin Williams sixties under contract with the Doors, and from that moment the poor Arthur was diddled and fucked up; before you could say knife, for the record attrib. he was a coitus interruptus, just a used condom. So, Lee and his pals thought they could behave as jerks with journalists and fans, just to attract attention, but it was ten years before the coming of Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten, and back in the age of the Summer of love the idea didn’t work so much, rather the band ended on the black list of magazines and promoters. Their songs were often masterpieces, but they were out of time too: the most famous one, Seven and Seven is, became a garage-punk hymn, but only after some decades, at the time when Arthur was already on his absconding way, despite of all his efforts to revive himself.

Between them, the recording of a duet album with the friend-rival Jimi Hendrix, which for mysterious reasons have never been released. But there’s nothing to be astounded to, this kind of stuff is typical of coitus interruptus careers, isn’t it? In the ‘90s he went to jail as well, sentenced to 8 years for shooting a neighbor, however if without hurting him. But if your fame stumbled somewhere, if it stayed outside a door you could not unhinge, it could also happen to you that in the country where some people gets a gun just opening a bank account, you may end in jail for illegal possession of a firearm


Verse 1:

Orange skies

Carnivals and cotton candy and you

And I love you too you know I do

Verse 2:

Nightingale

Prettier than anything in the world

And I love you too

You know I do

Bridge:

You make me happy

Laughing, glad, and full of glee

And you dont have to try, girl

For you it comes so naturally

Right here in my arms

Questo post ù un omaggio all’ispiratore di questo blog, del suo nome e del suo spirito.

Arthur Lee sembrava un predestinato. Un cigno nero destinato al successo, bloccato da un coitus interruptus a tratti inspiegabile, stoppato mille volte sulla soglia della celebritĂ , forse dall’inerzia dell’eroina. Un celebrato postumo ancora in vita, adorato da legioni di rock fans che non sono bastate a farlo entrare nell’olimpo degli immortali, quando il 3 agosto del 2006 ha lasciato questa valle di lacrime. A metĂ  degli anni ’60, Arthur era un chitarrista e compositore giovane, nero e talentuoso, amico e gemello siamese di un certo Jimi Hendrix, cui anni dopo dirĂ  di aver perfino insegnato alcuni accordi, e le sue canzoni lisergiche e sognanti trovavano domicilio in un’etichetta allora emergente, la Elektra. Il suo gruppo, i Love, ben rappresentava una Los Angeles giĂ  multietnica, ricca di influenze come di contrasti, e malgrado i suoni raffinati era lontano, nello spirito, dai santoni hippie del tempo, che col loro Peace & Love si guadagnarono un coito completo e senza intermittenze, arrivando all’orgasmo della celebritĂ , seppur col cervello bruciacchiato di Lsd. Nato a Memphis sotto il segno dei Pesci, Arthur Porter Taylor era un bambino solitario in una grande cittĂ , evaso dalla scuola nella L.A. del Basket e poi del Rock. Lui era convinto di riuscire, e lo era anche la Elektra, che lo mise sotto contratto come grande speranza, virgulto di ribellione nel tempo in cui ribelli veri e presunti facevano miliardi come noccioline. Lee era bello, si iniettava eroina e scriveva bellissime canzoni, dolci o violente che fossero: insomma, aveva tutte le carte in regola per essere un mito, aveva i segni della predestinazione, ma
 un giorno i responsabili della sua etichetta videro sul palco un ragazzo problematico di nome Jim Morrison, lo misero sotto contratto coi Doors e la sua carica sessuale da Robin Williams Sixties, e a quel punto il povero Arthur era fregato, fottuto; in men che non si dica, per i discografici era diventato un coito interrotto, un condom usato. Lee e i suoi compagni pensarono allora di fare gli stronzi con fan e giornalisti, per farsi notare, ma all’avvento di Johnny Rotten e Sid Vicious mancavano ancora dieci anni, e in tempi di Summer of Love la cosa non funzionĂČ molto, anzi il gruppo finĂŹ sulla “lista nera” di riviste e promoters. Anche le canzoni erano capolavori, ma spesso fuori tempo: la piĂč famosa, Seven and Seven is, diventerĂ  un inno garage-punk, ma anche in questo caso bisognerĂ  attendere dei lustri, e a quel tempo Arthur sarĂ  giĂ  sulla via della latitanza, dopo vani tentativi di rilanciarsi. Tra questi, la registrazione di un album duetto con l’amico-avversario Jimi Hendrix, che misteriosamente non vedrĂ  mai la luce. Ma non c’ù da stupirsi, che coito interrotto sarebbe, il nostro Arthur, se non gli capitassero cose del genere? Negli anni ’90 si beccherĂ  anche la galera, condannato ad otto anni per aver preso a fucilate un vicino, peraltro senza conseguenze. Ma se il tuo successo Ăš inciampato, se Ăš rimasto fuori da una porta che non sei mai riuscito a scardinare, puĂČ anche capitare che nel paese dove regalano fucili con l’apertura di un conto in banca tu possa finire in cella per detenzione illegale di arma da fuoco


Kaiser Network (July 22): Summary of a Chicago Tribune opinion piece discusses the danger of HIV infection faced by black women, especially those living in the inner city.  (Compelling case for the influence of environmental factors like location and economic status in determining HIV risk: e.g., a woman "in a poor neighborhood, for example, who engages in the lowest levels of risky behavior is dramatically more likely to acquire a sexually transmitted disease than higher-risk women in communities with low rates of infection, according to public health experts.")

New York Times (July 22): Conflict is brewing over the use of methadone (a treatment for easing heroin addicts off the drug) in Russia, where the HIV outbreak is driven by IDU.  Summary here.

IRIN/PlusNews (July 21) : Poverty, displacement, and other problems contribute to early marriage, sex work, and sexual abuse among girls in war-torn northern Uganda.

Scoop (July 17): The UN has developed a policy on HIV/AIDS among migrant workers, who may face high risk with little treatment access.

ExpressIndia (July 1): A recent report shows that "Men who buy sex [...] are the single most powerful driving force in Asia's HIV epidemic and constitute the largest infected population group."

So I'm reading this book again for the second time, and every time I read it, there are times when I'll just stop and pause and think about how a certain passage relates to my life, or I'll just think about my own problems. And I could never really figure out why this book made me dwell so much on my own shit, but it's because I realized that people are drawn to other people with similar issues. Like interests, but instead, its your problems, and your fucked up emotions that bring you together.

Take Red and I, for example. The reason we're such good friends, and have such a strong bond is because we've shared some of the darkest, most intimate tales with each other. Its almost like slicing each others knuckles, and then pounding your fists together. We're like sisters now, because of everything we've been through together. Blood is thicker than water, after all...and god knows we've bled enough. 

But really, this book is the probably the most honest, disturbing, inspiring, and hopeful book I've ever read. I would most definitely recommend it. 

There's another thing about this book too. I feel a very strong connection to Nikki Sixx, because of this book, despite the fact that we have no idea who the other person is. But I think its because honestly, I see myself in him, in the possible future. I know how weak-willed I am. I've come face to face with that realization lately, and it's scary. I know how easily I give in, and I know how out of control I really am. Already in my life, I've gotten wasted, done weed, smoked cigarettes, and taken painkillers in excess. And its not good. I see myself becoming this man's nightmare.

We always tell ourselves when we're young that we're never going to be something, right? Like, say your dad is an alcoholic who beats your mom. And you tell yourself, "I will never be an alcoholic because of what its done to my family" and some people stick to it. For some people, the thought of drinking that bad, and losing that much control, it makes them sick. But then there are the others who have the Alcoholism printed directly into their pre-disposed DNA. They start to drink to "ease the pain", and what do you know, in the future, they become their father, beating their own wives, like they said they'd never do.

All I'm saying is, don't promise yourself things you know you won't keep. Even if you're fierce about it, even if you're stern, the demons will always come back to challenge you once again. And you can decide whether or not to honor the promise you made. 

After all, I used to tell myself I would never smoke, drink, and do drugs. I even tell myself now, "Oh, I'll never do cocaine, I'll never do heroin..." But there's always that chance that you'll become a liar, not only to everyone around you, but to yourself.

 

We as humans are much too unreliable when it comes to speaking truths. 

 

 

That's what I'm afraid of.

Autopsy reports released Friday confirmed that two college students found dead in an Athens apartment bathtub in May died from a drug/alcohol overdose.

The autopsy reports on Hocking College student Christopher A. Theil and his girlfriend, Ohio University student Kelly P. Armbruster, lists the cause of death for each as “acute heroin and alcohol intoxication.” Both were 22 years old.

In the autopsy findings, the Montgomery County Coroner’s office also noted that both of the bodies displayed “severe pulmonary edema” (fluid in the lungs), and that drug paraphernalia was found at the scene of their death.

Authorities were called to the Riverpark Towers apartment complex early on the morning of May 3, by a 911 call from Theil’s mother, who was visiting for OU Moms Weekend.

She told the dispatcher that she had just “pulled my son and his girlfriend out of the bathtub,” and that both appeared to be dead.

Both Theil and Armbruster were from the Columbus area, Theil from Dublin and Armbruster from Powell, and both had attended the same high school.

Toxicology reports found that Theil had apparently consumed marijuana, Xanax (a prescription anti-anxiety drug), alcohol and opiates before his death.

The drug screen on Armbruster turned up alcohol, marijuana metabolytes, benzodiazepenes (anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax) and opiates, according to the report. The heroin reference in the autopsy report evidently relates to the opiates listed in the drug screen.

Early on, authorities apparently ruled out any foul play in the couple’s death, and suggested that drugs were probably the cause.

Click here for the original article

On his fortieth birthday he decided he wanted to be completely independent.  This was probably the worst choice he has ever made. After red tape and bureaucracy were dealt with, the authorities moved him into a council flat.  On a sink estate with his fellow untermenschen. The local drug addicts homed in on him.  Those people smell blood and, like most predators, they hunt in packs.  They pretended they were his friends, they got him addicted to heroin at the age of forty, they used his home as a crack den.  It took a long time for the police to become involved.  Far too long.  They arrested the dealers and cleared Karl's flat. They did not arrest Karl or charge him with any crime.  He was homeless for a while and then moved back into sheltered accommodation.  He is still addicted to heroin.

A poster boy for the failure of the Care in the Community policy if ever there was one.

Nick Zinner of !!!, doing what Nick Zinner does.

I'm currently working on my annual "trend spotting" type list of what I saw at this weekend's festivities. (You can check out last year's here.) If you are not aware, Pitchfork is a festival that brings local, national and international talent together, so they can all look at how each other are dressing. Oh yeah, there’s music there too.

It was a pretty good year, actually, but I was hoping for more in the "style" department, not sure why. It could be for anyone of these three reasons:

1. As Pitchfork notoriety has grown in the last three years, perhaps the fest’s “edgy” feel has worn off a bit, and with that, it’s forward-dressing attendees have diluted.
2. My disillusionment and unending distaste for anything new or old
3. I am WAY ahead of all trends now.

Bradford James Cox of Deerhuner and Mark Sultan of King Kahn attempt to entertain impatient Cut Copy fans. "A" for effort.

The feast was actually really fun. !!! killed, which is no surprise. Les Savy Fav was awesome, also no surprises there. Biggest issue with the event was actually Cut Copy’s failure to make it from the airport in time for their closing set. Though that’s no fault of their own, it’s still supremely disappointing. In what allotted time was left, they made the most of it, banging out both crowd-bouncers “Light & Music”, and “Hearts on Fire” to an enthused (but obviously peeved) crowd. Those that stuck around to see the hyper-abbreviated set worked very hard for an encore which didn’t come -- chanting “Five More Songs, Five More Songs” probably didn’t help.

Before I write about “trend spotting” thing, which I’ll post about tomorrow probably, I wanted to mention things I didn’t see but expected to...

• Party-Rappers: I saw very few nu-rave/b-boy kids. There were a few zany fluorescent windbreakers in the crowd, but surprisingly few retina-burning limited-edition hightops, Kanye-esque Venitian blind sunglasses, and “crosscolor” wear.
• American Apparel Smack Girls: Emaciated heroin-chic AmAp mannequins, looking like the Olsen twins on a budget, did not take over the fest. I’m not particularly against American Apparel at all, but sometimes their style and color-choices are very disturbing. Just because you bought your entire outfit at the same store does NOT mean that it will automatically go together. They should put that as a disclaimer on the bag.
• The Unapologetic Prep: With XRT-approved artists Vampire Weekend and Spoon both playing, and with coverage from outlets like Chicago rag The Red Eye, I anticipated seeing a lot more Chad/Trixie presence. V.W. especially, whose style is particularly "high-prep" did not bring out the J. Crew slew. Surprisingly, the most evidence I saw of this was on Friday during Public Enemy!(?) Who woulda' thunk it? While Chuck D was talking about war, racism, Darfur, etc., there was a dude next to us going on a tirade about Chicago’s 10.25% sales tax. When Chuck was talking about the drug trade and Big Pharm, this guy started screaming about how much money he lost with his Pfizer stock last week. I’m NOT making this up.
• Mud People: I’m am SO impressed with the lack of Mud People over the weekend. The hippie count, though present at the fest, was still at very low levels. Very few idiots thought it a good idea to douse themselves completely in mud. Yes, L.S.V. did it, but they’re on a stage -- you are not.

Check back soon for a quick overview of what was stylin' this year, and what you will soon see in your local bar if your local bar has Yo La Tengo on the juke box.

Oh, and just to streamline the process, here's all the missed connections posted from this weekend so far. You're welcome:

Jul 21 - My new friend from the East Coast - w4m - 29 - (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 - Pitchfork -- the draw of the music kept me from stopping to chat - m4w - 30 - (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 - Broken arm dude at pitchfork - w4m - 22 - (pitchfork)

Jul 21 - giant camera lense and gray cut off jeans boy - w4m -

Jul 21 - To all the beautiful women at pitchfork that I missed (and still miss) - m4w - 28 - (Union Park)

Jul 21 - I saw you yesterday, but we still haven't seen Of Montreal - m4w - 22 - (pitchfork)

Jul 21 - you asked if i'd blow the next hit in your mouth - m4w - 25 - (pitchfork animal collective)

Jul 21 - Rae...Ghost...Empty Cups...Backpacks - m4w - (pitchfork)

Jul 21 - your friends called you caleb - 25 - (pitchfork)

Jul 21 - Pitchfork: owl belt buckle both days - m4w - 26 - (union park)

Jul 21 - To The Hula Hoop Chick From Pitchfork (Saturday Night) - m4w - (Pitchfork)

Jul 21 - Can I see you again? - m4w - 28 - (Pitchfork) pic

Jul 21 - Hey, another pitchfork post - m4w - 24 - (The pitch)

Jul 21 - pitchforked - m4w -

Jul 21 - Pitchfork's No. 1 Boobs - m4w - 27 - (Pitchfork Music Fest)

Jul 21 - Pitchfork glance - m4w - 26 - (Pitchfork)

Jul 20 - pitchfork guy at cut copy - w4m - 21 - (pitchfork)

Jul 20 - pitchfork - w4m - 24 -

Jul 20 - Brad on the No. 9 to Pitchfork - w4m - 25 - (Ashland to Lake St.)

Jul 20 - tennessee and pitchfork boy - w4m -

Jul 20 - Cute girl at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday - m4w - 26 - (Chicago)

Jul 20 - Pitchfork -- Throwing up near the entrance - w4m - 21 - (Union Park)

Jul 20 - saw you at the art museum AND pitchfork -

Jul 19 - Katie, this is Alex from Pitchfork - m4w - 22 - (Union Park)

Jul 19 - Pitchfork--your friend asked to unzip my shirt - w4m - 25 -

Jul 19 - you were working by the jewlry - w4w - (pitchfork)

Jul 19 - pitchfork - (indielove)

Jul 19 - Pitchfork Fest - 25 - (Union Park)

Jul 19 - pitchfork girl with guy's face tattooed on left arm - m4w - 27 - (grant park)

Jul 18 - Pitchfork Cutie - Blue Cubs Hat and Glasses - m4m - 33 - (Pitchfork)

And there was the attic. The five of us, four boys and I, moved a stereo and a couch up the stairs. He put up cheap plastic glow-in-the-dark stars that made our every weekend neon. Our nights were always electric. And even still, the Fall always smells like pizza and must to me. Real stars didn’t shine as bright for a long time until I told myself that I can’t compare those nights in barns and basements and attics to the sky, I can’t hold a memory in front of my life. And I moved on.

But not before the new house. They left his dad and dog with The Barn and the attic. His mother took him and a futon and an heirloom couch. The couch moved into the new basement where we found new sounds to fill our nights, but with his angst, he brought new smells. And my winters of snow angels in the golf course behind the old barn turned to cold days of second-hand smoke and late-night consolations; his doctor said it was up to me to keep him from suicide. No one succeeded in keeping him from anorexia, bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, overdose after overdose in the following year.  Somehow in the middle though, I learned to love the newness: the new bedroom with a futon and a ceiling fan. The new basement with its empty bottles and graffiti. It wasn’t hard to fall in love in those days. And we all did, and spent our Friday nights in lazy postures writing on the walls and singing old songs that meant everything. That was all that mattered, and it’s funny now how none of it really matters.

I thought it would be impossible to leave that second house behind. To leave his mother without warning, though she had warned me to save myself before. Maybe, I often thought, if I had known that one night would be my last, I would have taken the time to cement it in my brain for good. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. We watched Fight Club and ate pretzels and said goodnight, not goodbye.

I can still remember pulling out of the driveway that last night. When I think hard, I can smell the sour summer air, recall the weather, hear the sounds of cars on the other side of the woods. But those parts are dim now. Mostly, I just see him. And not all of him really. Just, very clearly, the eyes. They were clear blue when we met. The bluest blue you can imagine, not ocean blue or sky, but bright bursting Crayola blue that sucked you in. After the move, they never lost their color, but the whites around them turned veiny and red, bloodshot. And the shiny black pupils were always too big or too small, depending on the night’s poison. On the last night they were too small--the needle he used just before I got there had sucked the black right into its chamber.

It wasn’t always just the eyes. In that last image, the one I see clearest when I think of him, there is a mess of black hair, spotted green and blonde, a result of careless dye jobs. A nose perfectly shaped, like his mother’s, straight and narrow. And the shy mouth, two lip rings, self-inserted, and a set of pure white teeth that would have surely needed braces had he cared enough about his image to pursue the matter. He was tall, too tall for me but not imposing. At seventeen he weighed 100 pounds, bones protruded from his shirt when he sat. You could trace every vertebra. He could wear my pants. None of these were flaws to me. Not even the holes in his shoes, newly burned from red-hot cigarettes, or on the knees of his torn black jeans could have made him seem less than perfect. Only the bag he hid under the speaker in his room, only the syringe in the shed.

Looking back it was easy to block out the leaving. It was simple to tell myself the smell of hay and innocence and Fall nights in barns, winters in basements and attics and golf courses could never return and that I had no business holding on to something so inherently fleeting. I convinced myself his parents were ghosts. When I drove by Larchmont and later, by Harrigan I taught myself not to look, not to even hope to see the car that drove us around on late nights when I would lie to my parents to sneak off to shows and highways with him. I didn’t even cry when I went back to the silo we used to climb to look out over the ruins of that burned down building. I didn’t cry when they sealed up the entrance and trapped all our memories inside. I let them stay in there forever. It wasn’t hard to find something else to do with my Fridays and Saturdays and in between every class in school. After he dropped out we just stopped showing up at his locker. I threw out all the notes and dried flowers from our first walk in the forest, our last Valentine’s Day.

It was easy to accept never seeing his father again too. We all hated the man, knew it was his fault that everything came crashing down. His fault for cheating and lying and putting his son’s head through a wall. It was his fault that Charlie had to get away. No, it was easy to let go of all that.

So if I could so easily turn away from buildings, moments, seasons, dogs, why couldn't I let go of a ghost? Surely, I could at least loosen my hold
 But always, nights and mornings, he comes rushing back in a flood of two blue waves. The bluest, hardest blue to have to face. And once my own eyes connect to them, I know there’s no escaping the rest that washes ashore: the breathless laughter, the singing voice, arms moving lightning speed over a beat-up guitar, the smell of soap and smoke and skin, the jokes and serious conversations, the slow rhythm of breathing on a sunny futon afternoon, the plans for a crappy apartment when I graduated college and he made it with the band, the dreams of something better, something far away from here, the sound of a quiet voice over the phone just before sleep, swearing that things would never end, that when we woke up, everything would be alright.

and so i kept on rowing and you just drifted away. and there's just no way of knowing where you've been melting all these days. but i hope it's sunny there. i hope the weather's fair. and in case you ever wonder what you've missed or miss the way we wandered through our lips, you should know i'm traveling on and there's something pure about this. 

i've left a trail of shedding days in case you ever choose to follow.

and we tried to make you permanent--tried to make those loud days last, those neon nights never grow older. but we couldn't, they didn't, they did. 

and then i spent three summers, three winters, too many falls putting you on pages, writing to you across city lines and under lonely trees. but you were already gone. and then every obituary did list your name, even though none ever did. they might as well have.

we miss our calloused-fingered friend. i miss my shy-smile skeleton, my blue-eyed ghost. but i don't hang my head don't hold my pen in sadness anymore. you're one tragedy i woudn't take back. i wouldn't take you back now even if you came around. 

in spite of everything, you found something permanent and you let it in instead. you let it fill your veins and replace us. and now you're a new kind of distant, a sadder kind of lost. more untouchable than the day we met. 

i just hope it felt as good for awhile. and i hope you still remember us on november nights.

it's sad but i'm not sorry.

...

The answer is yes, I'm one of the 28 million Americans that get migraines. They started way back when I was in junior high school. Coincidentally, when I started to enjoy slumber parties with girls, instead of holding hands with boys. The funny thing isn't the headaches...they, as you have no doubt heard, suck.

The funny thing is where I am when I start throwing up.

You see...for the thirty years that I've been getting these little gems, I've refused to let them get the best of me. To my stomach's contents chagrin.

The first one came when I was in eighth grade. I was in reading comprehension class, enjoying the most thought provoking story about a snake venom specialist that was bitten by a cobra and had to spend the rest of his life in an iron lung. (Adult insight considers this the reason I don't like snakes...that and murky Texas lakes). So here I was trying to comprehend the major theme and insight into this cautionary tale, when I began to feel my pulse in my noggin like a metal mental bandanna vice.

"Put your head down on the desk". That was the brilliant idea the reading teacher had. I'm a good kid, I did what I was told. Of course it didn't work. I was having my first migraine. "OK...go to the nurse's office." By then the vice had clamped down hard and I was starting to get those waves of nausea that come with the pain.

I took the shortest route to the nurse.

...

...

"Go lie down." That was the extent of the nurse's advice and sympathy.

Head down...body down...it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a snake venom expert to know that I wasn't feeling well and maybe you should ask some pointed questions about what might be wrong.

Then it hit. That literal gut wrenching, as the pounding in your head climaxes and you give yourself over to your animal instincts. Your body is going to get rid of what ever there is inside. I was in the middle of an exorcism...at the tender age of 13.

First thing I saw? A small trashcan sitting next to the cot/bed that I was lying on. I sort of made it...sort of.

It did get the nurse's attention. "Next time use the toilet" and pointed to a small door I hadn't seen before. Maybe because I had passed the test for truly being sick, maybe because she was mad that I hadn't thrown up in the correct place, but my father was called and I was sent home.

Since then I've managed to be in many strange places when I've given in to the migraine exorcism.

...

...

All the specialists will ask you what brings it on:

Food? Lack of food? Heat? Cold? Tension? Hormones? Period? Alcohol?

"Yes" I say.

"Yes to what?"

"Yes to them all."

Because honestly the migraines have me...I don't have them. I can be minding my own business, having done all the things I'm supposed to do (30 years will tell you what might help stop these things...) and the pain will begin. Years ago when they didn't have the meds they do now, it was a dark room and sleep...maybe...but what happens when you're driving back from beautiful Amish country? I'll tell you what...

We had been to visit friends out in Lancaster, PA. Beautiful country, with rolling hills and farm after farm.

I started getting the headache on the way home. My girlfriend, a nurse herself, was very sympathetic and hit the gas to get me home ASAP.

"Tell me if I need to pull over."

"OK" I mumbled. Still trying to focus on something outside this band of pain around my head. Of course we pass all the gas stations and restaurants before the exorcism begins, and I croak, "Now...pull over right now."

I have no idea where she turned but as soon as the car skidded to a halt I had the door open and was heaving. When you're that sick, you don't care...about what you're throwing up on, who's watching...nothing. It's an exorcism and you are powerless in its grasp. I went on for a couple of minutes, until all that fine country cooking was dispelled and I heard laughing...from my girlfriend.

She had gotten out of the car and had come around and was smiling and laughing.

Of course I shot her a look that should have burned a hole through her forehead, but I was weak from the exorcism.

"I'm sorry, honey" she smiled..."but the llamas are very concerned."

At that point I looked up and there, not 6 inches from my nose were half a dozen llamas-their heads craned out over a fence, all looking into my tear filled eyes.

I had to laugh...whatever strange noise I was making while I was throwing up must have mimicked a llama's mating or distress call. They were all right there, looking at me like I was one of their own.

From that moment on...my girlfriend and I refer to throwing up as "going to llama-land".

...

...

"Honey...pack something to eat along the way. I don't want you to get hungry and go to llama-land." The trend caught on with some other friends and now anytime anyone gets sick to their stomach, they officially "go to llama-land."

There have been many more places that I have been "to llama-land". Turning the corner of a major intersection trying to get to the TGIFriday's with all the opposing traffic watching me "llama-land" all over the outside of the car, because the exorcism has no respect for traffic jams on the expressway. I've "llama-landed" at the Natural History museum in Fort Worth, Texas. A proud moment for everyone. I've llama-landed" in all the bathrooms of all the houses I've lived in. Maybe that's why I'm such a clean freak...when your head is stuck in a toilet or you're lying on the floor between exorcisms, you tend to notice whether you've cleaned your bathroom well enough.

Oh yeah...I've got the drugs for it. I have the full cooperation of my GP and a neurologist. Good drugs...drugs that for the most part work...except last Friday.

The worse migraines are the ones that I wake up with. There's no way of catching them in time. 5am last Friday was one of those times. Go through the meds...doesn't make a dent. Call the doc. She's on vacation. F*ck it. I can't take this anymore. My girlfriend drives me to the ER. This is my last resort. I know there are very sick people that need help and there are life and death situations going on, but 30 years of these things and sometimes I just can't ride it out. Time for the big guns: IV drugs.

...

...

It comes to no surprise to me that I would be a heroin addict. I'm in such a bad way when I get to the ER that the triage nurse (luckily it's during the day so the ER is empty) takes one look at me and says, You need help. What's the matter?" ..."migraine"...I mumble. She is the antithesis of that nurse back in 8th grade. I can see it in her eyes. She knows what it's like...she goes through the exorcisms also.

"OK let me just get some vitals and I'm sending you right back."

I glance at my girlfriend and she knows what's coming next...llama-land.

The next sequence of events goes pretty fast. I do make it to the bed. I see the trashcan. I look at my girlfriend, and like magic a basin is handed to me. I immediately begin to call the llamas. Luckily instead of llamas another nurse and the doctor come in. The nurse comments that I've won a prize for my diastolic bp being over 100, and starts an IV. At this point anyone could have said anything that would take the pain away, and I would have agreed.

"We're going to have to cut off your head."---"Fine. Do it quickly."

"We're going to give you Toradol for the pain and Fenergan for the nausea."---"I don't care what you put in that IV...just make the pain go away."

And with that they do. It's like liquid love. It is amazing what those IV drugs can do. Within 5 minutes the pain is subsided to a dull soreness and llama-land is far away. I know I would be a heroin addict...I just know it. Unfortunately, the euphoria of the aftermath of a migraine is overrated. I'm so tired from the pain and Fenergan that I just want to sleep. I only rarely get the visual auras that precede the migraines, so there's not even a pretty light show for me. Just the knowledge that the llamas are waiting, and they are concerned.

Manly drinking etiquette is important in today's society. With the right etiquette applied you can become a cold, hardened sociopath who doesn't care about anything, or anyone, you'll literally be harder than frozen dog shit. Without it, you are nothing more than an effeminate little nancy boy spending his, bitch-boy, pocket money on alcohol he can't hope to appreciate, floundering and drowning in a sea of your own feminine hormones.

First off, If it isn't beer, whiskey, vodka, or a bourbon, you shouldn't be drinking it.

Here's a basic run down of the "dos, the don'ts", the "do drink"s and the "don't drink"s, of dominant male culture.

Beer, the wine of the common man.

Drinking beer is often done in a time saving, haphazard, fashion by men.

"The faster I drink it, the faster my night will stop sucking." - Seems to be the generally applied rule these days. But, a fine beer, is like a fine meal, granted it's a liquidized meal, but it's a meal all the same. You should savour each moment of drinking your golden nectar. Drink it slow. Another important tip would be to not spill your beer over a waitresses breasts, it may seem hilarious at the time, and while being slapped in the face is definitely a sign of manhood, wasting beer most definitely isn't.

Whiskey, brewed from Clint Eastwood's sweat.

Ah whiskey, my alcoholic beverage of choice. It should be noted, that whiskey, is a different breed of animal. If you're used to drinking beer, you may need to practice drinking whiskey at home. So, break up with your girlfriend, buy a bottle of Jameson's, go home, and sit in the dark and practice your whiskey face.

In an ideal world, no man would suffer from whiskey face, i.e., that distortion of ones entire face, that looks like an epileptic, tied to a chair, in front of a strobe light.

However, this world is not ideal, and if it is entirely impossible for you to drink whiskey without pulling faces, at least try to ensure that when you involuntary spasm into your whiskey face, you look like Clint Eastwood having a shit. The preferred whiskey face is always "grimace." (More on grimacing later.)

Whiskey, like most alcoholic beverages, tends to make me quite violent and angry, which is probably helps to explain why I, self-destructively, drink it by the bottle.

However, it should be noted, that after consuming an entire bottle of Whiskey, your ability to throw a punch, let alone fight will have been reduced to zero. I like many others learnt this the hilarious way.

Vodka, it's mantastic!

Vodka tastes like having an angry Russian man shove sand-paper, and carpet that a cat has urinated all over, down your throat. As such, it's really fucking manly. Again drinking Vodka takes practice. Vodka should never be taken in shot form, a shot of Vodka is moronic, and for women.

Vodka doesn't have a high enough alcohol percentage to be taken as a shot, I'd just like to make this clear, because I see way too many people asking for shots of Vodka and Whiskey these days, if you're going to order a shot, it is to be absinthe 75% or higher.

Bourbon, the gentleman's drink.

Bourbon one of the few drinks that can make you look like either of two extremes, a 75 year old down and out heroin junkie, or a sophisticated socialite on a high flying night out. Ensure you look like the right one.

Bourbon is a drink that should not be thrown down your throat in a matter of milliseconds to the chant of "CHUG CHUG CHUG." So don't do it. It makes you look like a moron.

Alcopops, the scourge of male alcoholism.

Alcopops make you look like a slutty teenage girl. Don't drink them, ever. Let's say a man comes up to you and your woman in a bar, he notes you're drinking an alcopop, he starts hitting on your woman, feeling her up and what not. You demand he stop, as all manly men do.

What does he do? He continues.

Why? Because he has no respect for you, he sees you as an uglier version of your girlfriend with no tits and no luke-warm hole in your crotch.

In short alcopops are about as manly as sitting down to pee.

Mixing Spirits

It makes you a little fucking girl. What's the fucking point in ordering a drink as manly as Vodka, only to show a complete lack of respect for "the destroyer of men" by mixing it with fucking orange juice.

Don't mix shit, only women mix their drinks, and you're not a woman.

10 manly things to do on a night out.

1. Fight.
2. Drink.
3. Smoke a cigar.
4. Get laid.
5. Have sex with a friend of your ex.
6. Use a fat friend as a wing-man.
7. Be really misogynistic.
8. Make fun of the weakest man in the group.
9. Get a blow-job in a toilet cubical.
10. Destroy public property. (I highly recommend phone boxes.)

It was my oldest brother's 58th birthday on Wednesday. He died in 1995, the official cause of which was AIDS. But it was heroin that pushed the spade into the plot of land that became his grave. Gus was a junkie.

Most years, July 16 comes and goes as just another summer day for me. I never talk much about Gus. His struggle with heroin addiction is not a topic I bring up in every day conversation, if you know what I mean. Some things are better left unsaid.

Until now. Last week when I read this story in my local paper and knew that it was time to speak up.

Parents' struggle to save teen from heroin's clutches

Newsday columnist Joye Brown, did a great job covering this story, giving perspective into Natalie Ciappa's brief life story, and reminding us that it's not just the drug user who suffers from its use.

My family suffered along with Gus. I was much too young to remember how he got hooked on heroin. He was already out of high school and in the Air Force before I reached first grade. My earliest recollections are that of a nice, clean-cut teenager, but the person who returned home to our New York apartment in 1972 was someone totally unrecognizable.

He had long hair and a scraggly beard that covered a gaunt pale face. His arms and legs were spindly, and he was constantly running his hands over his face and pinching his nostrils, hiding a look perpetual of drowsiness. These are but a few of the symptoms of heroin use. We didn't know it, yet, but my brother Gus was high and there was not much we could do to stop him.

At his worst, Gus would take or sell anything he could carry from our home to satiate his jones. Cash, clothes, books and jewelry were easy marks. When I was 19, I caught him walking off with the portable typewriter I got as a birthday present from my parents. "I'm just borrowing it", he said as he walked out the door. I just let him take it because I was too trusting and too afraid to resist.

When the well ran dry at home, he resorted to petty crime, mugging people on the subways for a few bucks. The law caught up to him in 1985; he was busted for robbing an old woman of her purse. He did 24 months in the Queens County (NY) Correctional Facility for that one.

There was an upside to Gus though. Like Natalie, Gus was a super-smart kid with a talent for anything he put his mind to. "Jack of all trades, master of none" is what my mother-in-law used to call people who spread themselves thin with varied interests. My brother Gus was the exception. He learned to play guitar on his own and took his music seriously, forming a band called The Delivery Boys which once played on the same bill at CBGBs with The Talking Heads back in the late 70s. Painting, too, came naturally to him. He literally picked up some brushes, acrylic paints and some canvases and painted several landscapes, one of which still hangs in my parents' living room.

But his were wasted gifts. For every moment of lucid brilliance there were three where he was too high to function. I have quite a few vivid memories of those moments. More often than not, I'd find Gus sprawled out on a couch or bed, on his back, eyes half open, with a burning cigarette dangling from his mouth or hand. There was another time when I was playing in front of my apartment building when paramedics showed up with a gurney, only to emerge minutes later carrying Gus out cold with an IV coming out his arm and my parents desperately in tow. How does a 10-year old kid even begin to explain this? Thankfully, I never had to. On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the heartache of drug addiction was considered normal.

I can't begin to tell you what my parents went through with Gus. They did all they could to rescue him. They spoke to doctors and social workers to try and get him help and there were times when it looked like he turned the corner. But helping a junkie stay clean is a 24x7 job. They could not spend every moment of the day with him. They had jobs and bills to pay and six other kids to raise. Unlike some strung out entertainers, they couldn't afford to put him up at Betty Ford or Phoenix House. So this vicious cycle continued for years -- a few months high, a few months sober, a masochistic yo-yo of hope and despair.

My brother Joe suffered much of Gus's addiction, too. He was probably the closest to Gus because he spent the most time with him. Joe was the front man for the Delivery Boys. He idolized Gus not only because he tapped him to sing in his band, but because he was also our "cool" older brother. After Gus died, I recall talking to Joe about how conflicted he was over his relationship with him. Pure love and hate wrapped in one idea and often expressed in the same breath. It was Joe who took over as Gus's "guardian" when my parents finally had enough and tossed him from the house. Joe got him help from the Veterans Administration and saw to it that he made his appointments and took his meds, even to the point of dragging him out of abandoned tenements known as shooting galleries. There were lots of them in New York City in 1984, so finding Gus wasn't always an easy task.

When Gus left jail in 1987, my parents let him come live with us in Queens. He came back to our house in South Richmond Hill with some dire news. He had HIV. No one believed him at first, but he showed my parents the proof, having been tested while he was in jail. He probably caught it from a shared hypodermic needle; a point of probable fact because if there's anything you should know about heroin junkies, they’ll do anything for a hit.

He was a model citizen after that. After jail, he helped Joe set up a rehearsal studio on Ludlow Street in Manhattan, taking care of the bookings, collecting fees and making sure to open and close it up. I think Joe let him have whatever was left over after paying the rent on the space, which was quite a bit of cash sometimes. Gus had turned the corner. He was going for drug counseling and keeping his doctor's appointments. He even started writing new music and purchased a new acoustic guitar with the money he made. He smoked quite a bit of pot, too. Strangely enough, the effect it had on him was medicinal because he was eating like a fiend and gaining weight.

By early 1995, having been clean of heroin for nearly 8 years, it all came crashing down again. Gus had missed some doctor's appointments and he could no longer be counted on to help out with the rehearsal studio. Joe thought it was heroin again and drove him to where my parents were living in New Jersey. I was there the day he drove Gus over. Joe stormed into the house, dropped him off and said "I can't take this shit anymore" and drove away. As it turns out, Gus wasn't using at all, but suffering from the dementia associated with the late stages of HIV. He had AIDS.

The end came fairly quickly for Gus. His doctor at the VA checked him into Goldwater Memorial Hospital shortly after the incident at my parents’ house. Six months later his heart gave out. Joe and I were there when it happened. Joe called me at work to ask if I would go to the hospital with him. "Gus had to be revived last night," he said. "The doctor doesn't think he'll last." We showed up to find him unconscious. The heart rate monitor next to his bed barely registered a pulse. Joe stroked his head and whispered a few kind words in his ears. That's when the line on the monitor went flat. Gus was gone.

Death offered us little relief. I never saw my brother Joe cry like he did that day. Years of anguish came pouring from him because despite all the shit Gus put us through, he was still our brother. We still loved him. My mother's reaction was no less visceral. I could hear her wail through the payphone receiver when I told her the bad news. What's a mother to do?

Me? I didn't cry much. I was angry in the weeks after his death. But not many tears. Joe gave me Gus’s guitar, which now belongs to my oldest son. Again, I chose to bury it all and not talk of him much.

Until now. When Natalie's story appeared in the paper, it was as if I was reading an abbreviated version of my own family's tale. One e-mail sent to Ms. Brown took the calloused view that the Ciappa family got off easy. In a detached sense, that may be true, but I don’t agree. Family is family. It makes no difference whether the cause of death is drugs or nature. It hurts. You miss them all the same.

What I will say to all of you is this. If someone close to you is using heroin or some other powerful opiate, don't keep it to yourself. The big mistake we made as a family -- a mistake repeated by the Ciappas -- was seeing a family member’s drug addiction as a point of shame or failure. It's not. If the recent rise in reported heroin usage is any indication, it should tell you that this could happen even to best of us. Talk to people. Get help. Do research. There really is hope for the hopelessness of heroin.

Other than stepping all over these fantasies of American property ownership, I've been watching a lot of things: Shot-by-shot analyses of "North by Northwest" and "Notorious"... A comedy/musical hour with a fat tranny named Jackie Beat... A blind old blues guitarist at a bar... The Polo-shirted a Capella stylings of Hyannis Sound... With all this watching, you'd imagine I'd be out of the reach of trouble, after all, an audience is a passive structure. But you're wrong. I, your faithful and timid blogger, raised some feathers, ruffled some flags and almost got into a fight with a very indignant middle-aged Christian male-type inside the "First Federated Church of Hyannis"... a church of all places! Granted, saying "almost got into a fight" is kind of an absurd thing to say, like "she almost got pregnant", there's either physical violence or not. Jimmy McNally provided an insightful linguistic analysis concluding that the angry Christian male was really a "pussy", even though the Christian twice cornered me and threatened to beat me up. What would cause a respectable, bespectacled, polo-shirted cape-codding federated protestant to harass a stranger inside a church, in front of almost a hundred people?

Loud gay man sex? An abortion? Jeremiah Wright...? This time, the provocateur was art. With this week's silly controversy over a New Yorker Cover, it's kind of apropos to talk about art pissing people off. So here's the story... First off, many of you know that I have a pretty heavy doodling habit. My biochemistry notes had more doodles than writing. My fiction/playwriting notebook is essentially a doodle pad with random writing scrawled in the margins. In a way, I'm way more attentive when I doodle. A lecture may be very interesting to hear, but very boring to watch. Doodling complements an aural interest with a visual one. In case of a boring lecture, doodling keeps me from falling asleep.

In any case, I decided to put the little golf pencils and books behind the pews to use during the Hyannis Sound's a Capella concert... It made the entire concert much more appreciable than it would have been had I tried to look at singing boys in pastels from thirty pews away. Since there wasn't any scrap paper, I drew on the inside covers of the hymnals and Bibles. I was very well aware of the potential for sacrilege, but I was feeling slightly subversive (maybe I've watched too much Bunuel), I thought I'd "engage" federated church members with art. Besides, there is a fine line between expression and defacement, between art and vandalism. Ask Banksy. By the end of the concert, I made four drawings (including the drawing below) in two hymnals and in one Bible.

As me and my two Jimmy's got up to leave, the angry middle-aged Christian blocked the pew, the following exchange ensued:

"Have you been writing on the Bibles"

"Me? No..."

"Are you lying? Not that I am accusing you... but you have been accused..."

"Well... There are some drawings in the books."

"Did you make those drawings?"

"I made one of them..."

The angry Christian insisted on seeing this drawing of mine, so I showed him the saxophone player I drew behind the cover of a Bible, pictured above. To say the least, he was certainly "engaged" by the art. He found it an unspeakable act. He threatened to show the art to the church's administration and have me pay for the Bible's replacement (how that drawing makes a Bible "unreadable" or "nonfunctional" is beyond me).

"Why did you draw this?" Torquemada demanded to know

"It felt right with the music."

"Do you have an eraser?"

"No."

The Christian huffed and puffed, but then he thought of higher meanings...

"You know," he started "this is a very important weekend for me and I'm not going to get riled up by this... So I'm going to let this go... but if I ever see you at this church again -just talking to you is pissing me off... I'm going to kick your ass-"

"I don't understand why you are being so disrespectful," I interjected "I didn't draw anything vulgar... If I choose to express myself to God by drawing, why can't I?"

That didn't appease the Christian one bit, he huffed and puffed again. We tried to leave, but the Christian guy cornered me again at the sanctuary door, saying he ought to "express himself to God" by "kicking my ass". I ignored him and started walking away. He demanded that i never return and that I "get the hell out of here" before he "kicks my ass"... By then, Jimmy McNally took my hand as lovingly and queerly as he could and outside we went. We all had a good laugh over this, for a second, I was worried about getting into a fight. I am sort of relieved that I showed him the saxophone player in the Bible, rather than the drawing in the hymnal... The guy would have flipped two shits if he saw my portrait of a Virgin Mary holding a baby and a machine gun titled "Our Lady of the Guerrillas."

- s