299
I did have an elliptical work-out at the Y to Peaches yesterday that was, could have well been, considered the 299th dance, but decided maybe it wasn't quite all the way there to full dance-hood. But it was. At any rate, who's counting?
This morning I put on Peaches again. I tried Suicide first, but that didn't come close. I chose her album "I Feel Cream" because it's her most personal. And it was a revelation. A revolution.
She says, "I'll take you on!" and she does. She's my new muse. And my muse says, apparently, that I'm not trying hard enough. But she also says not to worry, she'll help me with my Mama complex. When it starts to hurt and I complain, she calls it out, "I think you got a little bit more than you asked for."
But no, it was perfect.
The freedom to say "You can't mess with me!"
"I'll take it all on!"
That's it. Once there is nothing left to mess with any more you can take anyone on. And therefore they are taken. Just as I am taken with Peaches.
I'm going to make my own video for that song. Just me dancing down an aisle of graves. I've got to choreograph a routine. I started today. I'm going to throw cemetery shots up during the breaks.
It's going to mark the start of taking it all on.
That was one idea.
Another was a scene out of my joke of a novel, "Re-republic", wherein a suave, but goofy teacher, Mr. E, from San Francisco, comes to the midwest to teach, in the most conservative community in Missouri. There he befriends a boy named Playdoh in one of his classes. After having been taught by Mr. E some Burroughs, or Ginsberg, even Kerouac or O'hara, Playdoh coaxes himself out of the closet. There's an impossibly long scene in which the school explodes. Mr. E gives a speech,
"Look, settle down. Everybody is different from everybody else, alright? Is there anybody here who would want all of us to be exactly the same, anyway? How boring would that be? If you look closely at the evidence you will see that our beauty and purposes here are to be found where the differences lie. Therefore the last thing you want to do in life is to shame someone for being different. Shame leads to erasure of the spirit. In shaming others you are, in turn, erasing your own spirit, your own purpose, your own life, because you, also, are different. I can hear some of you thinking, "Yeah, well some of us are a little too different." Yeah? Says who? Who decides? You? A Quorum of you? God? Do you think God is the decider? If so, then who decides what God decides? That's relative too, don't you think? Do you think everything is in black and white? Is it true because the bible says so? Those black marks on white paper in the bible have been interpreted every which way by now, until they have become shades of gray. It's all in the fine print. The spirit of the law is love. Let us get back to the idea of a color spectrum, children. The gay movement has co-opted the rainbow flag. It was a genius marketing move and we can only marvel at their chutzpah. But the rainbow flag is not just for the gay kids, kids, it's for all kids, all colors of kids, all those color pantones in between. Pantone 292, for instance, is my favorite, because the narrator of The Magnetic Field's "69 Love Songs" says it is the precise shade of blue that he feels for the loss of Reno Dakota. Anyway, that's a little beside the point. I'm mixing up my metaphors. Which is the whole problem here. All I am trying to say here, now, to you, is; let us learn to enjoy all the starburst flavors in the pack. Let's be free to be you and me, shall we? (-to quote a silly, but terrific show from the seventies called "Free To Be You And Me.) Let's get as weird as our DNA will allow us to, you know what I mean? And if you are too afraid to do that, then please at least leave alone the others who are bravely making the attempt. And as they reach out to their basic selves, toward freedom, applaud them. Thank you for listening. It will reflect in your grades. Let's have a moment of silence in which to reflect."
Of course the boy eventually gets killed by a mob of students and the teacher is run out of town by the townsfolk on the Hemlock Express.
So, yeah.
But then I found a tomato in the secret garden behind the debris hill at the back of the cemetery. I gave it to this beast. And to this child.
This morning I put on Peaches again. I tried Suicide first, but that didn't come close. I chose her album "I Feel Cream" because it's her most personal. And it was a revelation. A revolution.
She says, "I'll take you on!" and she does. She's my new muse. And my muse says, apparently, that I'm not trying hard enough. But she also says not to worry, she'll help me with my Mama complex. When it starts to hurt and I complain, she calls it out, "I think you got a little bit more than you asked for."
But no, it was perfect.
The freedom to say "You can't mess with me!"
"I'll take it all on!"
That's it. Once there is nothing left to mess with any more you can take anyone on. And therefore they are taken. Just as I am taken with Peaches.
I'm going to make my own video for that song. Just me dancing down an aisle of graves. I've got to choreograph a routine. I started today. I'm going to throw cemetery shots up during the breaks.
It's going to mark the start of taking it all on.
That was one idea.
Another was a scene out of my joke of a novel, "Re-republic", wherein a suave, but goofy teacher, Mr. E, from San Francisco, comes to the midwest to teach, in the most conservative community in Missouri. There he befriends a boy named Playdoh in one of his classes. After having been taught by Mr. E some Burroughs, or Ginsberg, even Kerouac or O'hara, Playdoh coaxes himself out of the closet. There's an impossibly long scene in which the school explodes. Mr. E gives a speech,
"Look, settle down. Everybody is different from everybody else, alright? Is there anybody here who would want all of us to be exactly the same, anyway? How boring would that be? If you look closely at the evidence you will see that our beauty and purposes here are to be found where the differences lie. Therefore the last thing you want to do in life is to shame someone for being different. Shame leads to erasure of the spirit. In shaming others you are, in turn, erasing your own spirit, your own purpose, your own life, because you, also, are different. I can hear some of you thinking, "Yeah, well some of us are a little too different." Yeah? Says who? Who decides? You? A Quorum of you? God? Do you think God is the decider? If so, then who decides what God decides? That's relative too, don't you think? Do you think everything is in black and white? Is it true because the bible says so? Those black marks on white paper in the bible have been interpreted every which way by now, until they have become shades of gray. It's all in the fine print. The spirit of the law is love. Let us get back to the idea of a color spectrum, children. The gay movement has co-opted the rainbow flag. It was a genius marketing move and we can only marvel at their chutzpah. But the rainbow flag is not just for the gay kids, kids, it's for all kids, all colors of kids, all those color pantones in between. Pantone 292, for instance, is my favorite, because the narrator of The Magnetic Field's "69 Love Songs" says it is the precise shade of blue that he feels for the loss of Reno Dakota. Anyway, that's a little beside the point. I'm mixing up my metaphors. Which is the whole problem here. All I am trying to say here, now, to you, is; let us learn to enjoy all the starburst flavors in the pack. Let's be free to be you and me, shall we? (-to quote a silly, but terrific show from the seventies called "Free To Be You And Me.) Let's get as weird as our DNA will allow us to, you know what I mean? And if you are too afraid to do that, then please at least leave alone the others who are bravely making the attempt. And as they reach out to their basic selves, toward freedom, applaud them. Thank you for listening. It will reflect in your grades. Let's have a moment of silence in which to reflect."
Of course the boy eventually gets killed by a mob of students and the teacher is run out of town by the townsfolk on the Hemlock Express.
So, yeah.
But then I found a tomato in the secret garden behind the debris hill at the back of the cemetery. I gave it to this beast. And to this child.
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