The Jigtastic Journal of J. Na Na

Things That Are Cool And/Or Of Concern About Next Month:

Can you discern which is which is the real question, though….

1. This bitch turns 28! How in the holla hell did that happen? Just as fast as you can say dial Dr. Botox circa my mini-Extreme Makeover Special, and now we’re talkin’.

2. My PTO accrual rate goes up to 14.78 hours per quadri-weekly cycle! PTO, which stands for "paid time off" for the sad uninitiated, generally increases by ten, fifteen, and twenty years increments of service to my employer. But since my employer is a UC school, and I went to and worked at a UC school, heeeeeeey! I gets credit earned for credits served. Cha-ching bling bling and e’erything.

3. The Castro Street Halloween "Festival" Occurs! And this time, the Castro isn’t my backyard, so I can come, piss as I please, get loudly drunk and obscene, and not have to suffer from others doin’ the same when I throw in the towel at 8:00 p.m. as per my wont.

4. The second pay check I receive in October can be used for whatever I want! Since I get three pay checks in November versus two, thus covering November and December rent, the second of two I get in October is all mine, baby. Will I pay bills? Will I invest wisely? Will I forward the monies towards some large munificent "project" to my liking? Oh, the suspense is barely perceptible.

It’s the kind of summer-y day that smells of Coppertone sunblock and Lipton’s iced tea, and my co-worker has the shades pulled down to keep it cool inside, but instead it resembles a coffin of sorts.

Symbolism? You bet yer ass.

And speaking of death, Allen sent me this charming link that alerts you instantly to celebrity deaths: http://www.celebritydeathbeeper.com/ "For your blog," he chirped. And so I share with you thusly.

I’m sweating like a snow cone in Phoenix, like a prostitute in church, like a muthafucka, I tells ya, so alas, I must go.

Tsk, tsk all you please–I think celebrity gossip is a buttload of fun to discuss.  Gossiping itself is enjoyable through and through.  There’s no way around that fact.  So isn’t it better to gossip about those you don’t know versus those you do?

Darn tootin’.

Therefore, I feel it safe to say after viewing my second episode of "Breaking Bonaduce", about former child star turned freckled demon Danny Bonaduce, that the man isn’t really so much unhinged as he is a drama queen.  I mean, "Hi, I’m going to do a reality show about my obsessive-compulsive-addictive personality starring me, my family, and my radio show, and air it on VH1."  If you genuinely wanted help for such a cocktail of disorders, you would see the benefit of toning down the histrionics, not turning them up.  Not televising the doctor’s visits.  Not playing the part in a problem you don’t intend on eventually fixing, while your spouse sobs openly beside you on national cable television.

The man scares the poo out of me, though, I will say that.  And not in a sexy way either.  His sheer refusal to wear moisturizer or sunblock of any kind during any point in his life is loudly testified to in his mummified crimson visage.

Also scary in a much more indirect fashion served in a much more palpable veneer is "Laguna Beach".  This is the reality show that follows a group of cute, well-to-do white kids who live in the coastal paradise of Laguna Beach, California, and is about absolutely, positively, straight up nothing.  It’s also hideously addictive.  Hideously.

They don’t got no jobs ’cause they rich, schoolgrounds are off limits for the cameras (or not titillating enough to nab the big ad revenue–take your pick), and there aren’t even any of those little one-person camera confessionals a la "The Real World" offered that you might gain some personal "insight" from the "characters" themselves as to what they are "thinking".

But in this way, "Laguna Beach" offers you an even truer fly-on-the-wall experience–under the airbrushed, edited auspices of MTV cameras–of this group of "real, live people".

And let’s face it–their lives have this bovine, utopian bliss factor to them that would be so, so nice to have.  Personally, I don’t remember high school being a damn thing like that show.  I mean, I wish I could’ve gone to big parties, had cool friends, and gotten hair extensions for the prom when I was little.  Capped teeth and spray-on tans.  I recall nothing of the sort.

We didn’t have that in the ’90s.  The very hairsprayed, flanneled, color-curious, triangular-shpaed ’90s.   That cruel gay attention to detail had yet to break big and go mainstream.  Instead, you figured out your fashion style by following the right trend, not by finding the right fashion style to best fit your figure in.  Boys sported aerodynamically-impossible ‘do courtesy of ozone-ravaging hairsprays.  Clown-white foundation on the face cropped at a ruddy, sunscreen-free neck was a not uncommon sight among both girls and women.  And a plague of denim swept the land, with women making their butts look even bigger by donning airtight, sky bright jeans, thereby transforming their asses into living, breathing, dual-headed blue dewdrop beasts, eyein’ ya from behind, lolling left and right down the path.

Ah, saying as such reminds me of high school.  A list of attendees has been generated for the reunion.  Some people have gotten married, and actually have new last names.  Can you believe that?  Who would want to marry those people?

Said I in my oft-perused profile on Classmates.com, "I think I’ll pass on the reunion.  That way, you can all remain forever mentally Botox-ed in my mind as youthful seventeen-year-olds."  No plumped out features, gone-to-hell body parts, or sagging what-have-you’s for me, no sir.  Just an army of evil, evil little children, and some good ones, frozen alive in my mind’s eye of all things past, but sho’ as HAIL not forgotten.

Greens, collared.

Umm…Alright, look. I don’t mean to get all flouncy up in here, and I know I said in a previous entry that I don’t like people who "write poetry", but I do like "good poetry", and have resumed taking a stab at it in tandem with my shot in the dark stab at writing song lyrics.

For musicians who will never sing them in songs that will never exist, no less.

But anyways, this is something I wrote, not intended for translation to song, but that I kinda like. Weird. OH, and I swear I’m not at all suicidal; the title came to me mid-way through writing it.

"Suicide Anthem: Hopelessly Devoted to Lose"
Marching regimen of seconds
steadfast come the sixty minutes
Hours sweep us into days—
months, thirty roughly bundled make
Stacked twelve together,
years then take us through it all again times ten:
Aligned for miles,
decades ten,
encapsulate an eon then.

The sun will rise
The moon will fall
In turn shall all of us grow old,
our measured circumstance bestowed:
we know not when, but that death comes.

Time thus to us is everything
and precious,
even pittance-owned
The gift of life
is but the beggar’s folly
in the eyes of fate.

For starts have stops,
beginnings, ends—
sole token of assurance given,
the worth of which some great unknown called God we say determines:
Uncontested, fluctuating,
without reason, on a whim,
Life is, quite simply, what it is,
this silent juggernaut contends.

So, what’s the use
and what’s the point?
Let’s shuffle loose this mortal coil!
Resist by resting in peace, to eternal slumber lie,
stark crumbs thrown by fate denied
Just die!

For no one answers nor agrees
to pleas or means to happy end,
What kind of world, of life makes sense
where pleasure keeps pain companion?
This twisted, sad, scraping abyss:
enslavement of our existence.

But in a blinking, breathing pause,
if you should catch the traces of,
glimpse but a wisp on some horizon distant
even as the darkness falls,
make out just the shape through clouds of
how’s and why’s we kick up trying to explain our lives
Witness firsthand
the magical intangible love is

You know
It speaks
And to anguish-defeaned hearts
sounds like a song,
Shows to prison-mired minds
a crystal ball:
sprawling plains of possibility,
hope swirling
Even if it flickers briefly,
floats forever, memory
Somehow makes light
of those forces that are beyond our control
Leads the way, creates,
suggests to us there’s something more.

I don’t mean to be a traitor to my own kind, but your average straight boy is just about nine times hotter than your average gay boy. 

I was reminded of this fact today while walking past a coffee shop.  There was a guy sitting at one of the outside tables, facing the street, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.  Amazingly average-looking by all accounts, although the tatoo encircling the right ankle at the base of his tree trunk legs certainly stood out.

There was just something about the way he was sitting there, completely comfortable in his own space, unfettered masculine confidence warmly emanating from his person, that made me inwardly sigh at the contrast of potential applicants I get in the gay community.  And of which I am, I hasten to add.  Straight guys possess a natural confidence that doesn’t need expressing, and that comes from growing up without being, you know, called a faggot everyday. 

There are so many benefits to being different from the norm, but in order to survive and flourish, you also have to lift yourself up from the norm.  Basically, consider yourself better than the norm.  So we never quite get to the point of just being naturally confident, because we’re too busy overdoing it.  Hence, hyperbuffed circuit boys, bitchy drag queens, et. al.  Wouldn’t it be nice if every faggot just, you know, sort of chilled out en masse?

In an effort to combat my spiraling descent towards a wheelchair-bound existence, I also purchased some Dr. Scholl’s gel foot insoles.  Problem is they felt like they were full of not a cool gel, but rather burning lava caused by the friction of the insole, my foot, and the disproportionate space all up in the party going on in my shoes.  Ouch. 

"A credit card is a lie," I told myself, the jostling of plastic bags in hand creating a flurry of sound not unlike the sea spritzing up ‘gainst jagged rocks.  But when the good people at Capital One saw fit to bestow a Silver Platinum Visa on my ass, my first credit card in ten years, I couldn’t help but celebrate. 

So, after buying food, Rite Aid-type essentials, and new white undershirts for work, I treated myself to some new CDs instead of the usual used ones.  And that was only because the used CD shop near my house has shite for dance music, and only after I applied my "Always put one thing back" rule for final purchases. 

Just plumb wild, aren’t I?

It’s the result of my first experience with credit cards.  You know, common sense and basic human empathy keep us from committing crimes that could land us in jail for several years.  But credit card management can only ever be learned, and never truly mastered.  And if left unchecked, it can quickly become a blight on your credit report sentencing you to seven (7) years of severe life restrictions.  Like, say you want to live somewhere.  Better have been born there or else have a semi-spotless credit report, ’cause even the grubbiest of landlords will run one on you.

I was a mere child when I unwittingly signed up for a Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card at one of the insidious vendors lined up outside my college campus’s main food court.  What basis for fiscal responsibility did I have except for the fact that I was getting a higher education?   Still, the credit card companies sent ‘em, and I certainly used ‘em, dismissing my mounting debt as a problem for some future version of myself.  Personally, I think it’s a little evil to hawk credit cards to eighteen-year-olds who are newly on their own away at college for the first time.  But that’s just me.

Now that the damage done has been cleared away (well, more like dropped away) and I’ve been given a fresh new start, I plan to make the folks at Capital One proud.  Or at least wealthier.  Although I think the sizzling kernel of buyer’s remorse I felt last night coupled with the fact that I felt like I was committing identity theft with every purchase I made (stealing from my future self, that’s what it was…ooh…deeeep….) bode well for my recovery.  On a scale of 1 (freewheeling spender) to 5 (only for emergencies), I’d say I’m a 3.5 (use as needed and thensome, attendant guilt with each use).  God knows I’ve gone through enough money problems this year alone to go stepping right back into another steaming pile of monetary dog shit. 

"’Diane Warren’s success as a contemporary songwriter is unparalleled.’ 
That statement, taken from an ‘American Idol’ voiceover, is one of the saddest nine-word combinations in the English language."

–Daniel Frieberg
  reviewer, zap2it.com
  from an online review of an "American Idol" season 2 episode

You’re lucky if you get to do what you love for a living.  You’re fortunate if you like what you do for a living and still get to do what you love on the side.  Moving from the latter scenario to the former is the hard part.

Well, maybe not if working at Walgreen’s is your true passion in life, but if you want to be, say, a big, fat famous DJ, then it is.

Since buying my own decks in ‘02/’03 (the years are hazy, see), I’ve gotten pretty good.  But I’m still working from CDs whereas vinyl is the norm.  And while I enjoy clubbing, I don’t have any connections in the club scene.  Were I more tech-saavy, I’d hawk my sample sets online, but you need a PC before you can design your own vainglorious personal web site. 

I want to make my own music, too, but had to sell the flute back in college to pay for food (though I was first chair back in my day, holla!), and have all but forgotten those fourth grade piano lessons.

Where does that leave a brotha?  With my fucking literary prowess and wonderful view of the world, tha’s where.

Normally, I don’t like people who "write poetry", but I’ve written one or two in my day, maybe had some published, maybe won an award.  But the point is that a poem is just a song dressed up in Victorian stigma.  Strip it down, slap on some music, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide tune.  Now, I can do the stripping, just not the slapping, but I am awful good at it, I think.

Although it’s not too hard to surpass the lyrical depth of such pop music pabulum as, "I’m like a bird, I’ll only fly away, I don’t know where my home is, I don’t know where my soul is…." (hint: In a nest, upon a branch, in the wood.  Don’t analogize unless you’re going to be accurate.)  We do love our pop music, though, clogged as it is with trite sentiment and oversexed bravado, mmm.  I wonder if people much listen to the words of a song at all nowadays?

Well, with the "lyricist market" screaming for new faces as it is, I decided to find out, and sent two samples of my work to a local label.  And lo, got a response back yesterday from the label’s founder (who also happens to be one of my favorite DJs) saying that although he had nothing in the works at present, that they were "great lyrics", and if he has a project in the future that fits my lyrics, he will "definitely" contact me.

You know what that means?

My name.  Bright-ass, blinking neon lights.  Cover of "Gloss" "magazine."  Little insert mini-interview in "Out".

Semi-fame!
I wanna live for quite some time!
Baby you’ll likely recognize myyy naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame…

"That’s the problem with America: There’s too many stupid people and no one to eat ‘em."
–Carlos Mencia

Do you ever feel like you have this curse at the grocery store to always get stuck behind some jerk off who takes forever and a day to pay?

They insist the Hostess cupcakes were marked 3 cents off and make a giant production of it, forcing the cashier to call a manager.

Or they luxuriously count out the exact change, possibly dropping a few coins in the process.

Or they get veklempt at the ATM/credit card machine at the counter: 1. PIN number 2. cash back? 3. amount OK? I can understand. I mean, it takes such acute cognitive ability to master that crafty dag nabbit machine.

The real clincher is when sometime during the ordeal, the person looks back at you as if just realizing for the first time that there is someone else behind them in line. Gives you some blank Jerry’s Kids stare like the concept of other people on the planet had never occurred to them.

And by the by, be sure to take alllll the time you need in the world to put your change back in your purse, close it up nice, bid adieu to your good friend the cashier, and mosey on out with your cart pausing juuuuust short of my getting clear access to the ATM machine counter there, lady. Thanks much!

The problem with status symbols is that they’re just that: symbols. They represent something, but not necessariy what’s intended by their bearer. Consuming overpriced cuisines, sporting designer labels, and traveling to parts of the world from which our ancestors desperately emigrated do not a superior person make. And it’s flat out gross how pervasive this kind of effluvious materialism is in the gay community.

I remember the summer after I’d just come out, I was hanging out in front of a club in West Hollywood with some friends. We weren’t old enough to get in, so we were just chatting with fellow exiled minors there on the street. I was talking with a chestnut-topped cutie who was around my age, and we were discussing a guy who’d just pulled up to park his car.

"He’s not that cute, though," I opined.

"Yeah, but look at his car," the cutie glazed over.

I thought, What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

And this obsession with labels is retarded-and-a-half. It’s sad when someone morphs into a human billboard, brandishing garish designer logos like they’re royal magic badges. It is the epitome of self-distance to define yourself by someone else’s name as it appears stenciled ‘cross the ass of your jeans. An awfully expensive way to say, "I don’t like myself," don’t you think?

And what’s with people who turn a group conversation or their personal cell phone discourse into a General Public Announcement, hiking up the volume of their voice in pre-meditated earshot of passers by? Your inane escapades may not so much impress a third party as horrify them, FYI. Or at least nauseate them. Definitely annoy them.

Tone it down. There are no cameras around. It’s just reality, there is no show. Try to be better, not have more. Just food for thought, y’all.

The nicest thing anyone ever said to me was, "You must have a lot of friends."

It was an observation made by a chubby adolescent boy who randomly befriended me on a train. I had been up to Berkeley to visit a friend for the weekend, and was cramming for a test I had in Logic class on Monday.

This boy took a seat across from me on the nearly empty train and had no reservations about striking up a conversation with me. I, in turn, had no problem with the interruption, and welcomed the intervals of chit chat we had in between my attempted bouts of studying.

I don’t remember what we talked about, nothing important or in-depth, obviously, but at some point, it came up that I was gay. After a pause to register the information, he simply accepted the news and kept talking with the same jolly ease with which he’d started

The compliment about my having lots of friends came shortly thereafter. His stop was the first or second one after I’d gotten on, so it was a short, sweet chat, and that was that.

The reason it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me is because it’s not exactly true, yet it’s an indirect statement of rather profound praise, especially coming from someone who’s only known you fairly briefly. And having as he did that kid-like quality of bald honesty, I was struck by the genuine, unprompted nature of the inadvertent compliment.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you?