Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Wednesday, June 18, 2008 )

The New York Times‘ Amy Goodstone Live Blogs A Sexual Encounter With Boyfriend Brad Smithee

9:05 p.m. Brad’s watching a show on cable about geese, but then sees a bit of that one “Sex and the City” episode where Cynthia Nixon is naked

9:06 p.m. “We haven’t done it in a while.” “I know,” I say.

9:07 p.m. I go to brush my teeth. My scalp and feet are starting to itch and might change my mind, but he’s already taking off his clothes. When I come back in he’s already running around naked like a 4-year-old toddler with a sock puppet. He lies back and puts his hands around his head, as if everybody in the room is supposed to acknowledge his pripaic hood ornament and offer it obeisance.

9:08 p.m. I turn the light off. Brad asks me to turn it back on. “I like to see.” “But there’s a mirror there,” I say, “I don’t want to see myself or be seen by anybody to see me, including you. I haven’t been to the gym.”

9:16 p.m. Brad takes the mirror down and puts it in the other room. I crawl under the covers and turn on my side. Brad comes over and starts feeling around like he’s tuning a piano. His clothes are already off.

9:17 Brad sticks his hand under my shirt and starts moaning like Young Frankenstein. I think he’s being ironic at first, but he’s not.

9:18 Brad rips the covers off me and then takes off my clothes. I ask him if I can leave my socks on, but then he starts whining. So I take those off too.

9:22 p.m. We start the act. He wants fellatio, but he already went inside me. “Too late,” I snap.

9:23 p.m. I ask him which “Sex and the City” character I’m like. He says “Miranda” and I get pissed off.

9:24 p.m. I ask him what’s going through his mind. He says me. Liar.

9:27 p.m. I’m thinking about Don Knotts. This is going nowhere fast for me.

9:28 p.m. I ask him to tell me a story. An erotic story. “You mean like two strangers on a train?” he asks. That’s not really it, but I let him go with it. He’s talking about coming into my compartment and seducing me, but then comes up with some hokey thing about seeing a dead body fall from the top of the car, and I know he’s just getting off track.When he finally mentions lesbians, I kiss him to shut him up. “Just do it already.”

9:29 p.m. The dog’s looking at us and we gotta throw him out.

9:30 p.m. I’m still not sure about Obama’s health-care plan, I say. Brad isn’t paying attention, because he’s trying hard not to finish too quickly, but then he starts getting into it and says it was better than Hillary’s plan. Then we start talking about my dumb ass cousin who’s in hock up to her eyeballs.

9:31 p.m. Brad says he wouldn’t mind hitting my cousin. That pisses me off, but then I start thinking about it a bit and getting pissed off is kind of turning me on a little. I push his head down between my legs. “Assume the position,” I bark at him. “General quarters.”

9:32 p.m. Brad mentions that this part always takes 8 minutes and that I’m like a perfect train that always pulls in on time. I’m thinking of Brad Pitt rubbing my feet and asking me how my day was and then asking how our daughter was. Then Brad gets lost, and I’m just thinking about me thinking about myself. I’m the center of my goddamn universe.

9:40 p.m. Yes, yes, yes.

9:34 p.m. Brad comes back, and then he finishes in a couple of minutes. A big mess.

9:35 p.m. Clean up. And a few cookies while standing naked in the kitchen. Then I go back online and start chatting with Janine about “All My Children.” “Kendall’s such a whiny bitch,” I say.

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(Originally posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008 )

I have put “The Dionysian Rationale” back up at ER Salo Deguierre’s page. What could these strange lyrics mean, you ask?

I will tell you only that they were inspired, as far-fetched as it may sound, by my readings of Joseph Campbell and his rather fanciful suggestions about “body wisdom”–the idea that mythology is actually the result of bodily processes at war with each other. It suggests that the journey of the hero in a story actually represents the body’s journey through its various stages, passions, growing pains and deteriorations. Some stories are about becoming aware of sexuality. Or anger. Or a collective spiritual presence. Or power–the need to dominate others.

Say that we are talking about “Wayne’s World,” just to be silly. Wayne Campbell’s conflict with girlfriend Tia Carrera arises from his inability to overcome his adolescent sexual fixations, his discomfort with his sex drive, and his inability to deal with it as an adult. As he becomes more sexually confident and confront his urges, he can see her as an equal.

OK, I know this all sounds patently hokey. But there are a lot of attractive things about the body wisdom concept that keep me reading about it. I could say that a lot of human hostility–and thus the potential for dramatic conflict–comes from the need to shun ourselves and our own feelings–say when a boy calls a girl slutty just because he’s attracted to her and can’t admit it. We aren’t fighting with her, we’re fighting with ourselves.

So I was hoping to talk about this subject a little in a song with a 4/4 disco beat. Nothing wrong with freeing your ass so that your mind will follow. Even if you think the lyrics are stupid, maybe you like the arrangements, no?

(EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been revised since it was first published. I think I wrote the first draft when I was feeling a bit incoherent and tired. So I decided to clean it up a bit and add some parts to clarify my points. Why do I get to do this? Because it’s my fucking blog, that’s why!)

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(Originally posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008 )

Wolfeboro, N.H (AP) — Gertrude Procnow, a 110-year-old resident of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire who had remained mentally sharp through her final years, died on Tuesday night at her home, and doctors say her continued perspicacity was enough that she was fully able to grasp the final horror of her own imminent passing.

“Oh my God,” she said in her last minutes. “It’s all horribly, horribly vivid! Oh Jesus, why couldn’t I have been spared the agony of knowing?”

Her children and relatives said that “Grandma Gertie,” as she was known, exhibited a quick wit her whole life, and even in her past few years, enjoyed doing complicated puzzles, acrostics and rebuses.

“You’d always see Aunt Gertie with some IQ book, keeping herself in great fettle,” said nephew Ray Simeon.

“Oh mother of Jesus in purgatory, why did I do all those idiotic puzzles,” Gertrude was heard to say. “Now the body dies and the brain lives. I’m like the disembodied head in that movie. I cannot live. I cannot die. Oh, the horror! The horror!”

Said her daughter Rosemary Starkweather, “Mother wasn’t just a passive reader, either. She was always up for a lively debate, and would argue you to pieces on any topic with that great silver tongue.”

“Oh great scion of Moses, please let the sweet, sweet dementia come visit me now like the dove of Gabriel and relieve me of this bedeviling lucidity,” said Gertrude, only barely audible to her family.

“Mom didn’t want any drugs,” said Starkweather. “She always valued her mind and said to me long long ago that a person’s wit and intellect were the possessions to be most prized, and those were the values she imparted to us when she said she wanted absolutely no analgesics.”

Gertrude was a huge connoisseur of fish all her life and called it her brain food. “Always eat your salmon,” she told her grandchildren Mitch and Todd.

“We’d always make a face,” Todd says now. “But seeing how strong it made Grandma Gertrude’s mind, I guess we could afford to hold our noses a little. Though now that I think about it, I should also mention that Grandma Gertrude was pretty good at holding grudges. She had some going back to 1927, and when we said, ‘Grandma, can’t you just let it go?’ she’d answer, ‘I’m going to out live all of you because I remember everything. Every last little thing you all did.”

“Every minute is so bitterly clear before my eyes,” said Gertrude in her final moments. “And here my husband Charlie went quietly in his sleep without a thought in his head. That shitbird couldn’t find his asshole with a hand snake.”

The doctors who reviewed Gertrude’s brain, after she had donated it to science, said afterward that there had been no narrowing of the arteries and few malformations. She continued to have the mind of a 60-year-old well into her hundreds.

“I thought my wit would save me,” said Gertrude. “I thought I was smarter than death. Oh, here it comes, now, and pitiful me, I am ironically able to grasp its enormity in full! Oh God, why did I read all those books? Where was I going with that?”

“I know that no matter what mom was feeling,” said Starkweather, “that her dedication to reading a book a day, doing puzzles, learning about new concepts, whetting her sharp wit … basically making her brain the strongest muscle in her body … will be an inspiration to many who believe the mind can triumph over age.”

“I curse you all, living in your dumb happiness, oblivious to existential dread and the confrontation with nothingness,” beloved Grandma Gertrude whispered to her family. “May your stupidity cover you like a warm blanket in your horrible benighted, unknowing lives. You poor, pitiful god damn wretches!”

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(Originally posted Sunday, June 15, 2008 )

2 CBS
“The Ghost Patronizer”: A new show about a pretty blonde medium who talks to spirits, though they don’t like her because they think she’s shallow.

3 NBC
SNL does a repackaging, “The Best of Michael O’Donoghue” that refuses to patronize you by making you laugh but instead sticks a thumb into the eye of your bourgeois, potato-eating vulgar sensibilities. No, I’m sorry. It’s the “Best of Gary Kroeger.” Mix up!

4 ABC
Your regular coy, string-plucking female dick joke show isn’t on tonight. It’s the NBA finals. So put a tack in it, skirt.

7 The Prayer Network
Reality Armageddon: Our camera crews are there as sinful humanity finally succumbs to the rapture and the sinners drink their own blood in the streets and watch their own children be borne up skewered on the horn of the beast. Brought to you by Tide.

8 CW
“Girly Girls”: Sally fights with Muff over Bitzi’s confrontation with Peanut at the spray-tan salon. Lots of IPhones used.

20 Biography
Hmmmm. This is supposed to be a documentary channel, and yet there are a lot of ghost shows. Evidently, stupid people are a self-organizing force, and they have organized themselves around this channel the way ants organize regiments around the queen, changing the structure of the channel to their idiotic taste in a kind of negative/positive feedback process. Fascinating.

25 Discovery Health
“Dr. G: Medical Examiner”: This episode ends pretty quickly, as Dr. G is pretty sure this gang member was simply shot in the head. “This one’s pretty much an eggs and coffee job,” he says.

26 DIY
A pioneering bachelor in Kentucky finds an innovative way to masturbate by shoving two pillows together.

27 TruTV
Forensic Files: A woman is found dead in a creek, wrapped in the plush comfort of the amazing new Lexus SUV with rack and pinion steering and anti-lock brakes

28 Disney
Hannah Montana learns all about kissing from her bestest female friend Dilly in a very special and highly satisfying episode.

29 Discovery
“The Deadliest Catch”: The Bering Strait fishermen deal with a tiny nettlesome white crab-a deadly catch that’s a little close to home, if you know what I mean.

30 Lifetime
“Army Wives”: Anal-Erotic Top Chicks Versus Women Who Need Their Femininity Affirmed By Marrying A Man of Exaggerated Masculinity-The Dance Off

31 CMT
Sugar In The Tank: A very metaphorical truck show

32 Animal Planet
“So You Were Attacked By A Wolf. Big Deal.” A show about people who survive an animal attack and then go into a deep suicidal depression when their brief spurt of fame is gone.

33 E! Entertainment Television
“From Eye Candy To Eyesore” A show about the women who have been discarded by George Clooney and then go into a deep suicidal depression when their brief spurt of fame is gone.

33 E! Entertainment
Chelsea Bad Comic Timing

34 Bravo
“The Actor’s Studio”: James Lipton asks Jessica Alba how much she is in control of her sex appeal-specifically if she is doing what she does to men on purpose, and does she mean it to be hurtful, this sinful, provocative prancing around like a tit.

36 Trio
Unscripted fart jokes: The best moments of the 2008 Writer’s Strike

80 HBO
When the fuck is “Flight of the Conchords” coming back? I’m starting to get angry.

81 Showtime
A new show: “Mumbly, Coy, Naked, Hip”

82 Cinemax
A retelling of William Wycherley’s bawdy Restoration picaresque play, “The Country Wife,” abbreviated with 20-minute softcore sex scenes that make the double entendre pretty much unnecessary and beside the point.

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(Originally posted Sunday, June 15, 2008 )

Just a few hours after we landed back in New York today (after a much-needed nap) Stephanie and I found out that “Entourage” writer and Will Ferrell pal Chris Henchy had picked “The Retributioners Episode 4: Drunk Dial Party” as his pick for the month on the Funny Or Die Web site. Since then, our views on the site have zoomed!

We hate to ask all of our friends to go back and watch it a third time, but we’re riding a wave here, and maybe if enough people go back and enjoy “Drunk Dial Party” again for the third time, maybe we can get it on the home page:

See it here:

Regardless, we’re pretty psyched! Somebody in Hollywood is watching “The Retributioners”! Yippee!

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(Originally posted Sunday, June 15, 2008 )

We are home after hanging out with the big Oklahoma family yesterday at a party thrown by my illustrious sister, Oklahoma TV news personality Lori Rasmussen. This was when I got to explain to all the relatives who helped raise me from infancy that I had grown up into the kind of person who would put my wife into S&M gear and exploit her for all the perverts in Turkey, Tokyo and Sinapore on YouTube.

Because they loved me, they understood.

We left Oklahoma much too early, and wish we could have stayed longer with my beautiful sister and her beautiful friends, a couple of whom wore provocative, backless shirts to my screening and thus made us look super chic. (Thanks, Mel!) You might also now notice a lot of pictures of Stephanie and me at the “S&M Queen” Q&A on Friday. Because I am not accustomed to speaking in front of an audience, you will notice how uncomfortable I look. (Again, thanks, Mel!).

It’s my sister’s birthday today, so, if you’ve a mind, hit up “Raisin Muffin” and give her a shout out. Or just do it here. She reads my blog, like, religiously. Don’t you have children, Lori?

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(Originally posted Saturday, June 14, 2008 )

Last night at the DeadCenter Film Festival, we got to screen “S&M Queen For A Day,” at the Midnight Shorts program. There were about eight other films that were really good, and I was happy to be in such esteemed company. One of the most disturbing was a German short film about an obese woman who gets liposuction, and we get to see the disturbing things they do with her removed fat. A real groaner. There was also a film called “Deus Ex Machina” about a guy with a ’70s pornostache who does nothing but primp and preen and dance in front of the mirror in wildly silly and obnoxious fashion and hits on every chick he can find until God takes care of him in an unexpected ending. And there was a film about a man and a woman whose stories are told separately on a split screen. She is moving backward and he is moving forward, and it is about their gradually coming together (or moving apart, I’m not sure which). In any case, it was beautiful.

We also saw a feature called “Half Empty” by an Oklahoma-reared actor who has been doing smaller parts in big-budget Hollywood films for several years. His name is Robert Peters, and Stephanie and I were lucky enough to meet him, because his film is really funny. It’s about a self-help book writer who goes to Germany thinking he’s popular there and finds out that they hate him. His sunny disposition manages to win over at least a few hearts and minds, however. It’s a really funny movie and I’m glad we saw it.

We might not be making much more of the film festival, since we’re leaving tomorrow and I need to see family. But I’m glad we came. My sister made me get up and do a Q&A after S&M Queen. Not that there’s much to say after a 3-minute film. It’s not “Lawrence of Arabia,” people.

If you guys want to keep your eyes on any of these films I mentioned, go to the DeadCenter site here.

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(Originally posted Friday, June 13, 2008 )

Stephanie and I are currently attending the DeadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City, talking a bit about “S&M Queen” and handing out DVDs of “The Retributioners” to any interested partisans. Last night we hit an opening night party, saw a film about women’s body issues called “Disfigured” and went to an after-party at a cigar bar, which caused us to come home reeking of pungent tobacco. So much for Steph’s pretty new dress.

As alcohol flowed more liberally, more cards were handed out and more promises to stay in touch, and pretty soon, bromides like “I love you guys” were starting to come out of people’s gin vermouth tinged mouths. Listen, dude. You’ve had five or six Tanquerays, and I’m starting to doubt your love is sincere.

Of course, because we are all a bunch of struggling artists, there were also some arguments about the nature of our work and who pays for it and how the artist is remunerated for his efforts in a world where there is not a large audience–as well as arguments about what the Internet means to all of this. I argued that the Internet is going to change everything so that we can at least get our stuff seen and heard and cut a lot of the middle men out of the process and find a more point-to-point business model for the stuff we make. The old-timers chafed at this and seemed to think that the goal was still to get big companies to drop lots of money on you and pay you scads of money for writing a film that gets carpet-bombed on the unsuspecting populace. It seems to be extremely naive to not work basic economics into this: there are too many people who want to be artists and not enough people who want to see their art. It’s basic supply and demand issues. Since I was 25, I have become very confused about why this isn’t apparent to more of the kvetchers. As much as I’d like to see artists get paid, I think you have to love the work first and not get hung up thinking you are going to get rich off of it. To me, that’s the clearest path to bitterness. At times, you just gotta be glad you sent something out there into the ether and hope that it hits the right person at the right time and makes them happy.

If you do want to make money off of it and see it as a business, that’s OK, too. But that means you find a niche that’s empty and fill it. The guy who did “Disfigured” talked to us for a while and said he hoped it would reach the kind of underground of fat acceptance groups that were featured in the film. Had it not been for a couple of sex scenes, I don’t think it would have been a stretch to see the film on Lifetime. Tailoring your work to an audience to fill a need does not make something less legitimate as a work of art. Sometimes the best, most imaginative work of the spirit comes from the constrictions of the medium and format you are given to work with.

After all, what in the hell was the Sistine Chapel built for? For the artist’s amusement?

Enough ranting. I will try to post more blogs from the conference and keep it funny rather than ranting. I have now had two people broach the subject of putting me on a TV news spot, by the way, as a New Yorker attending the conference and the idea makes me a little nauseated. I am a bit camera shy.

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(Originally posted Thursday, June 12, 2008 )

The Sky Mall in-flight magazine always has interesting new gadgets and accessories. What are some of the things being offered this month?

–*A blanket with sleeves and a penis sock

–*A machine the size of a lawn mower that squirts out tiny little turd-sized doughnuts, one at a time every two hours

–*The amazing “elbow polisher.”

–*The outdoor vibrator, which combines intimacy and sensitivity to a woman’s contours with a rugged individual streak and smells of piney mulch

–*Contact lenses with miniature printings of “Desiderata” on them so that you can read this inspirational message over and over while you’re eating, having sex, or in the head

–*A Batman money clip, which shows not only that you’re successful, but that no amount of money will ever buy you any class

–*A Cuisinart and fish tank, all in one

–*A long plastic tube that keeps your money safe up your ass, where you can have a more secure, intimate relationship with it

–*A “smart collar” that sprays your dog with mace every time he licks his genitals
–*A “smart collar” that asphyxiates your octogenarian father whenever he is being racist

–*Descending order masonry jars for your urine

–*The home crystal meth bathtub kit

–*The amazing “U.S. dollar shredder”

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(Originally posted Tuesday, June 10, 2008 )

A recent trend has developed in France in which plastic surgeons reconstruct the hymens of Muslim girls so that they may “reclaim their virginity” and make more acceptable wives. The trend has thrown the spotlight on the cultural conflict between Western liberalism and Islamic cultural ideas about the importance of female chastity.

What else are plastic surgeons doing for women?

–*Giving 13-year-old girls larger breasts to make them more attractive to pedophiles and the French

–*Removing the feet of Japanese women so that they take smaller, daintier, more attractive steps

–*Simply giving all women lots of extra boobs. (“One in the back for dancing,” as Ruth Wallis used to sing)

–*Embedding Pamela Anderson with extra epoxy-coated reinforcing rebar

–*Embedding sippy-cup holders for the baby inside the female breastplate, (as well as a beer cozy on a woman’s back, natch)

–*More holes! More holes!

–*Creating perfume-dispensing vaginas in lavender, mango and “midnight musk”

–*Offering full-frontal lobotomies through the eyesocket to make the over-culturalized concept of female virtue go down easier

–*More shellac

–*Installing an off switch

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