The Lone One: Or How One Small Thing Can Be A Powerfull Remider

Over Thanksgiving dinner my sister-in-law and I were discussing her two and a half year-old’s newfound fascination with his penis. “When he pees in the bathtub he becomes mesmerized, like he can’t believe it’s coming out of him.” Without a beat I quipped, “And he’ll feel the same exact way twelve or so years from now.” It took my sister-in-law some time to figure out what I was referring to. “Oh?...Oh! Gross!”

I didn’t intend to sexualize her little boy, and I suppose to a woman (and a mother, no less) it’s relatively unfamiliar territory, but the first time a boy ejaculates semen is, for lack of a better term, MESMERIZING! I’ll never forget my first time. I was busy rubbing up against something soft behind my double-bolted bedroom door when, after months of shooting throbbing blanks, BOOYA!, there it was! Only, it was hardly a stream of virility; it was more like a sad little droplet of diluted baby batter. But its implications were nevertheless gargantuan, and I knew this then. I was a man.

There’s henceforth an array of physical rights of passage that most men experience as they pubesce and age -- shaving, growing chest hair, sprouting an upper ass patch, etc. I remember the first time I noticed hair on my toes. Well, it wasn’t I who first pointed it out but a couple of my high school friends. I was lifeguarding on a sleepy beach in Southern New Jersey and I asked my friends -- both girls -- to stop by one particularly drowsy summer afternoon to keep me company. They grudgingly obliged, only after I promised to buy them a case of beer with my infallible fake ID. When they arrived at the beach and saw me perched atop one of those towering lifeguard stands, they almost lost it. My friend, KMH, ever the alpha, grumbled, “What, you’re just going to sit way up there and look down at us the entire time? No way. Get your ass down here.” “I can’t come down unless it’s work related.” “Work related? There’s no one in sight. Well we’re not going to stand around and talk to your feet all day.” That’s when my friend, ABK, surveyed the few, errant, wiry hairs springing out of my big toe. “Eew, sick, look at his toe hair. It’s like a Hitler ‘stache.”

Fast-forward to today.

After one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve had to endure in quite a while I woke up this morning to a new physical right of passage -- one that is not so much mesmerizing as paralyzing. Not so much virile as sterile. Not so much stimulating as utterly deflating.

Cruelly confident in and of itself, resolute, foreboding and unmistakable, there it was (shining in all its glory): the lone gray pube.

I couldn’t believe my bleary eyes. Maybe it was the way the sunlight gleamed on it as I rolled out of bed naked? (Note: I only wake up unclothed after sleepless nights in which I rip off all articles of clothing one-by-one in an insomnolent haze). But after close, closer, *extremely* close inspection, however, I was able to confirm that it was not a healthy and vibrant sheen of my natural hair color but indeed a gray, nay, a white, nay, a whiter-than-white pube. Fucker.

I immediately crawled back into bed to contemplate what this meant. There of course would be more of these. And soon, I’m sure. While wrinkles and gray hair (on one’s head!) may, on a good day, help to “distinguish” a gentleman, there’s nothing at all sexy about gray pubic hair. No one can pull it off. NO ONE. (Sidebar: Google ‘gray pubic hair’ and enjoy what comes up).

So I considered where this sadistic and arrogant pube now left me. No doubt I’m a changed man. Sure, it’s only one pluckable little hair, but the implications of it are huge, and not nearly as exciting as when I first discovered I could procreate. But then I realized -- I could still procreate if I wanted. In fact, I could still do everything I did before, some of it even better than when I was a young man. And, in a way, this gray pube proves it, not to anybody else perhaps but definitely to me. My lone gray pube is actually my body’s way of telling myself that after all these years I’ve earned it, whatever ‘it’ happens to be. And, come to think of it, I have. I have earned it. And I deserve it, too. Thank you. Thank you, lone gray pube, for reminding me of this. You did good, really good. I genuinely appreciate it. Now, goodbye.

**FLUSH**

-Duardo

Those Disgusting Gay Pride Parades: A Response To Paladino

Admit it, you’re kinda intrigued but also put off by gay pride parades. Maybe ‘put off’ is too strong a term for you. Perhaps you’re, say, perplexed by them? Yes, perplexed – how’s that?

And, frankly, who wouldn’t be perplexed?

Gangs of overweight bull dykes cruising along on their blustering hogs? Rail-thin twinks dithering about wearing nothing but glitter and body paint? Big muscley dudes grinding each other to the drilling beat of unhappy-sounding techno music? And drag queens?! Drag queens everywhere! Ten-foot drag queens. 300-pound drag queens. Drag queens in leather, pleather, feathers, sequins, furs, nylons, raw meat, you name it.

It’s all so weird. Disgusting even.

And that’s the point.

Sort of.

My reaction to my first gay parade was probably not too dissimilar to most people’s. Who are these freakshows and why are they behaving so unseemly, so trashy, so utterly untoward? Just when I thought I had seen the “worst” of it, a whole new level of inappropriateness revealed itself in the flesh (and, my, were there lots of it). Needless to say the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable, confused, dirty. But, above all, it made me feel afraid.

Looking back the fear was innocent enough; some would say naïve even. I was coming to terms with my own sexuality then (still am); and witnessing those “extreme” representations of sexual expression only complicated the whole process. You see, like many others, I could only handle a little bit at a time in what I presumed to be the linear process of coming out. The reality, of course, is that nothing in life is truly linear, especially human sexuality. But linearity is, seemingly at least, safe and somewhat controllable. Even the notion of a ‘process’ can be very comforting.

This comfort, however, comes at a price – a price most gay people recognize early on, not only in spite of but also because of the torment, discrimination and hatefulness they’ve endured. It’s not unlike enlightenment attained through suffering.

And therein lies the paradox of gay pride parades.

Like any other procession (derived, of course, from the word ‘process’), there’s a natural beginning, middle and an end to a gay pride parade – in terms of both time and sequence. But that’s pretty much where the linearity desists. For the parade itself is meant to celebrate the OPPOSITE of linearity. What’s the opposite of linearity?, you may inquire. Well, it can be anything you want it to be – revolution (derived, of course, from the word ‘revolve’), centrality, randomness, chaos, nothingness, otherworldliness, whatever.

You see, those freakshows – with their props and their dancing and their nakedness – are merely acting as embodiments of the idea that nothing meaningful in life is so straightforward or predictable or right. Additionally, and equally importantly, instead of fearing complexity, randomness and unknowingness, the freakshows are in fact humbly, if not joyfully, acknowledging them.

In other words, they’re embracing their perplexity.

(often quite creatively)

When I write that I’m still coming to terms with my sexuality, I really mean it. I believe that, as humans, we are fated or wired to undertake the complexities of our sexuality no more or less so than any other core aspect of our being. Our essence, after all, isn’t something we are granted but rather something we continuously strive toward – openly, respectfully and non-linearly.

So the next time you come across a gay pride parade, whether on the streets or on TV, instead of gawking or judging, take a look at your own openness and humbleness, and be also proud – proud of your own perplexity. It’s what links you to everybody else, including those freakshows; who maybe don’t seem so freakish anymore.

-duardo

TEN WAYS TO MAKE SARAH PALIN GO AWAY FOREVER

You were first perplexed by her emergence from nowhere. Then you were shocked by her lack of knowledge, credentials, and ability to form a coherent thought. You soon grew angry – angry that people actually took (and still do take) her seriously. Shame quickly ensued; shame to be a fellow American, Republican and/or Alaskan. You eventually got over all of this, thankfully, and even learned to find a bit of humor in her incessant, very public gaffes. But now, NOW – countless train wrecks later – you just. find. her. annoying. Her trite colloquialisms. Her mind-numbing rambling. Her nasally nagging. Argh. For the sake of the purity and sanctity of a true 15 minutes of fame, Sarah Palin, will you go away already?!

Ah, but do not fret; for here are ten ways you can help ensure this really happens:

10. Put off the off-putter. Attend an event in which Palin is speaking and repeat everything she says loud enough so she can hear just how ridiculous she sounds. Really practice the accent. You may be no Tina Fey, but that’s okay; the point is to come across as gratingly irritating as Palin is, which won’t be difficult.

9. Place the onus on somebody else. If a supporter utters Palin’s name in your presence, sniff both of your armpits and say, “Phew, thank god it’s not me.” Then look at the person accusatorily. Walk away.

8. Eradicate the virus. Whenever you see her name in print online, remove Palin from the tag cloud and add your favorite one-hit-wonder band instead.

7. Make lemonade from poop. Create a snazzy Sarah for Prez website. Pool some funds to purchase the following Adwords on Google: blockhead, dolt, dummy, fool, imbecile, jackass, ignoramus, moron, nitwit, twit, twat and you betcha. Link these relatively inexpensive words to the website. As for website content, upload people’s reactions caught on video to Palin’s speeches, etc. (similar to bestreactions.com vis-à-vis the infamous 2 girls, 1 cup). Watch the traffic on the site explode; then charge for advertising. Send all proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

6. Bribe the willing. Since it’s obvious that Palin is purely money-driven, simply organize a fundraising campaign to raise enough cash to pay her to go away forever. Think about it – if every American donated $1, Palin would earn well over $300 million. That’s so beyond worth it – for her and certainly for everybody else.

5. Offense and defense. Use Palin to plug the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, yes. But why stop there? There are limitless gushing holes that need plugging. Hmm, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Palin as the new face of tampons? Nah, that’s offensive to tampons.

4. Promote brand awareness. You can accumulate (and delight in) as many Palinisms as you’d like – and there are already zillions – but the real way to taint (read: color) a legacy is to personify that individual’s most celebrated failure. So, for example, a person who quits halfway through a political term for no other reason than out of sheer laziness or opportunistic self-gain should be branded a Pali or Palinite or Palininny or Palinumskull or Palinincompoop. You get the idea.

3. Porn. Just, porn. Rent, buy or download Nailin Palin and request squeals. The porn industry is perhaps the most adept at quickly responding to market demands. And advertisers will no doubt follow suit. If there’s going to be a Palin empire, then it might as well be in porn (and at others’ monetary gain).

2. Boycott the products you’re not already using. Do not patronize any organization or company that supports, endorses or pays Palin for anything. Fox, no. TLC, no. HarperCollins, no. It’s not like you’ll be missing much from any of these companies. Glenn Beck? What Not to Wear? Whatever. Although, Toddlers and Tiaras is some pretty deep shit, if you ask me.

1. Out of sight, out of a job. Lastly, pretend Palin’s a panhandler or a Jehovah’s Witness or a crying baby, and, well, simply ignore her.


-duardo