I feel bad for him, but I had to make this. With help from Ariana.

So I just walked across my office, snapping my fingers and shuffling my feet, proclaiming myself to be a Jet. I love musicals. I always have. I remember sitting near the piano listening to my father play bits of Guys and Dolls. I probably still know the entire score to Barnum and so on. I just love me some musicals.

Hell, I’ve seen High School Musical, just because I had to, it compelled me. Compelled me, I tell you (for the record it isn’t bad per say it is a homage, in the truest sense of the word, to Grease – so if you have mad, mad love for Grease it is worth watching for what they did and how they coped with being owned by Disney) and I could not fight back.

I wish that, in the world, people would feel a rush of emotion and start to dance in a loosely choreographed manner while singing. I truly do. I think the world would be a better place if gang fights were dance fights, if everyone knew how to properly twirl a top hat, if craps games could be danced around by all involved and, for God’s sake, more people joined the circus.

For all we have come forward with equal rights and such I realized there is something I have never in my life seen, really. Let me set the whole thing up for you:

Barbara and Sean are madly in love. They’re young, fifteen, but they are serious and love each other with all the flames and passion that only fifteen year olds can truly manage. They have no real scars yet, they’re pure and raw and powerful and young and stupid.

They spend every possible minute together and they have begun to explore each other, slowly, uncertainly. One night, nervously, they have a conversation.

“Should we go all the way?” Sean asks. He isn’t quite sure, he knows what the world expects of him but he just doesn’t know the answer to this.

“Well, I know how I feel,” Barbara claims. She feels she has this concept locked and knows what she wants both in her heart and body.

“Maybe we should wait,” Sean tells her.

They discuss it more and agree to wait. They’re young, they’re in the middle of a carnival and frankly it’s noon. But still.

—————

And we’re back. Why is it that every single time I see that scene played out one of two things has to happen? Why is it that the woman has to be the one to say “we should wait” or if the guy says it then he is a weakling?

We say we are open and honest about sexuality and gender roles, more and more, right? But even some writers I feel as fairly progressive with this sort of thing fall into the same damned trap.

When you read the above did you expect Barbara to say “wait” or did you think Sean was somehow less for saying it, or at least saying it first? I mean, obviously, this being the Internets you will all say no, of course not. It is, no offense, like asking about how young you were when you learned to read. Going by Internets polling everyone on the Intardweb learned to read before conception and by the time they were learning to not shit themselves had read all of Russian literature. Just the way it is. So of course you are all enlightened creatures, even if you aren’t.

And I don’t mean offense by that, it is just the way things are.

But seriously – why do we never see this scene the way I wrote it above without baggage and goofy notions layered in. The Bechdel Test (which I have issues with but that’s a different problem) is a known and fairly accepted object – but even that doesn’t argue for this.

Getting angry about the consistent subversion of female sexuality is just goofy at this point. Some of the horniest bitches I know are female. Some are female in gender, even. Yeah. But see, why do we shy away from it? What’s so scary about it?

On the male side why is it wrong or bad for a guy to not be an oversexed fiend? It happens. I don’t personally get it, but you know, I don’t get a lot of things that I can see and prove exist. So there you have it.

We’re just all so afraid of fucking and wanting to fuck and not wanting to fuck. Fuck! Why?

Went to see Rev. Horton Heat tonight. But that isn’t the story here. After the show I left Hammerpants and Hammercapris. They were going to go find food. I was heading home, to stop and grab something from the deli and do some work. Had stuff to do and was already tired, so I knew if I waited I would push it off until tomorrow and so on.

So I leave them and start walking. It was raining, not too hard, and I was on the east side. So I decided that rather than walk all the way across town to grab a train that was running with problems I would grab a cab. Except it was raining and right near shift change, two of the worst times to try and get a cab in NY. But whatever, I stood on a corner a second and a cab stopped right next to me, to let some people out. Score!

As I grabbed the door I noticed a woman standing there looking honestly upset. Not mad or annoyed, but kinda worried/upset. I stopped and looked at her.

“Are you going to get in that cab?” she asked.

“That was the plan,” I told her. I didn’t move though, I just stood there.

“Oh, well, ok, I mean my friend,” and she pointed at another woman, walking slowly toward us with a cane, “I was just hoping to get her home.”

I considered it and nodded. “Take it,” I told her and started to walk away from the cab.

“Are you sure?” I was. She smiled and told me I was a very nice gentleman. I shrugged a bit and walked off. Which is when it started to rain a lot harder. I decided I would walk cross town and if by the time I got to my train no cabs magically appeared then I would just take a train. Understand the train would take far longer and I was tired and hungry and needed to work. Such is life.

I was a few blocks away from the train when I spotted an off-duty cab. Little secret: They don’t have to stop for you, but sometimes, if you are lucky, they will anyway. They’ll stop and ask where you’re going and if you happen to be going close enough to where they’re headed they’ll take you.

So I tried for it and he pulled over. He stopped a few feet in front of me and as I turned a bunch of teenagers leapt off the curb and flung open his door. Ah well, such is life. The cabbie honked and I turned to see him telling them that he had stopped for me, not them. Well that was cool. So I told him where I was headed and he said it was too far uptown for him. So I thanked him, wished him a good night and a safe drive home and walked away.

By then the teenagers had camped out on the corner I was using to try and get a cab from so I decided to just walk the rest of the way to the train and chalk it up to life. And then the honking started. I ignored the first two and then realized that it was a car trying to get someone’s attention. The cabbie waved out of his window for me and I went back and could see him telling me to get in. So I got in the cab and he started driving.

“I didn’t stop for the money,” he told me very seriously, “I stopped because you were respectful of me not wanting to go that far uptown. Even in this rain. You were respectful. And I decided,” he said as we stopped at a light and he turned to grin at me, “that tonight respect gets you a ride home.”

So I thanked him a few times and he nodded as he drove. I noticed his meter was off and told him he might want to turn it on, before we got much further. No one likes to have to argue with a fare, you know?

“I said respect gets you a ride home,” he said over his shoulder, “not that respect makes you pay for the ride.” So we drove uptown, in the black and the rain, and talked about NY, cab drivers, the rain and everything else that you talk about late at night on a drive.

We got to my corner and I shoved some money at him. He protested and I insisted. He took it, thanking me and turned to face me. “Sometimes you do nice things for people because you can. Sometimes you do them just because you want to. I wanted to, you know?” I assured him I did and came home. Got something to eat, did some work and now I type this up and go to bed.

This is why I love my hometown. Right here. This.

I saw an entry in a blog today that sat there and listed every day of the week and why it sucked. You know the sort of thing:

• Monday sucks cause it’s the start of the week.
• Tuesday is just one day in.
• Wednesday is the middle of the week but that means you have two more days.
• Thursday is still waiting, 4 days in.
• Friday sucks because now you have the pressure of a weekend.
• Saturday sucks because there is this pressure to DO something.
• Sunday sucks because then it’s back to work.

And I read this post (that went into far greater detail than a single sentence per day) and thought about all the times I’ve seen posts just like it over the years. How much various days suck just for being there.

It made me kinda sad. I’m not saying every day is fantastical and wonderlicious or anything, of course not, but no day is shit by default just for being itself. That way lies a darkness. Because if you wake up every Monday and are convinced it will suck because it is Monday then you will find that they do all suck. Because even where they don’t, you refuse to see it and only think about the bad parts.

And if that’s who you are: Fuck off. I know I don’t need that. I know you don’t. No one does. And with that in mind:

• Monday can be cool because you get to start a fresh week and make it awesome.
• Tuesday can be fun because even if you stumbled a bit on Monday it’s still early enough to make an awesome week of it.
• Wednesday is a funky day of funkyness. Your week is all midpointed and you can go anywhere from there.
• Thursday is a great day to start to plan the weekend if you haven’t had time yet.
• Friday is a nice night to go out or stay in, really. But it’s a night you can enjoy.
• Saturday is full of possibilities.
• Sunday is a great time to take it easy and plan your week and find kick-ass things to fill it with.

Is that so fucking hard? I just get so sick of the bitching and moaning and whining that goes on while people force themselves to have a bad time and then complain about it. Part of me wants to give them something to complain about, you know? Ah well, fuck ‘em. They’re the assholes who see a unicorn and instantly think “I bet it’ll stab me” not “UNICORNUNICORNUNICORNUNICORNIWANNARIDEIT!”

No sound needed, just… follow the dialogue. What the… I mean… really?!

Dear lord Amazon is tempting me today with The James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set, today on sale for only 90 bucks. Normally it’s about 300. All 21 Bond films (Never Say Never Again is not included, because it isn’t a Bond film, really) including Casino Royale.

It also has all the extras from everything.

Dude. 42 discs in total. Gah.

Want.

So our President managed to pose for the photo of his career. Taken from Whitehouse.gov itself this is a pic of Bush with members of the Arizona State University Men’s and Women’s Track Team Wednesday, on Nov. 12, 2008.

Wait, is that Bush throwing the shocker? No way! It can’t be?! Let’s blow it up and find out!

Well. There’s the shock and here is my awe. Yeah, Az State uses that hand sign from re-shocker days and they don’t seem to care. But come on! COME ON!

Two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, yo. Represent.

I make for you ice rave!

Come on, it’d be more interesting and more socially relevant!

Maybe, but it’s just mean.

Do you have something against alternative lifestyles then?

No! I just don’t think he would appreciate this conversation.

Did I mention more interesting as well as far more socially relevant?

I don’t know…

S/He-Man and the Gender Questioning Masters of the Universe! Come on!
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