A Tuesday Truth

It seems a rite of passage in so many ways to name crushes. Their school crushes, their life crushes, their celebrity crushes, their shameful crushes, their secret crushes...they're all incredibly important in personal development. They reflect the partners you have now, the way that you see them and the way you love them.

Crushes bring people together in their love of cultural, media, "iconic," and popular figures. Knowing that that girl liked Justin Timberlake in 2005 when I liked Justin Timberlake in 2005 allowed me to feel closer to a person that I didn't know really well...to have a weird common ground.

With all of that touchy-feely bullshit about crushes: sharing them, loving them, knowing them and knowing each other, I can safely say that I was an adult before anyone knew who my biggest celebrity crush was. Even now, only Mr. Dustin and a few others know. The implications of a crush like this (one that I've had since I was a child) is different than just a girl's everyday love for Keith Partridge in 1975.

K.D. Lang.

I guess if you're a lesbian, this isn't necessarily a stretch, but for me...it was always a secret crush. Secret yes, but not shameful.

I remember first seeing her on the Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. Exactly the kind of show that a weirdo like me would find a same-sex crush. She was wearing a ridiculous blue dress with snow flakes all over it and a pair of weird off-white Beatle-boots. I remember thinking, who is this person? I remember not knowing whether she was a man or woman. I remember not really caring that much, but knowing that she was really rad. Since then (and I've probably seen that Christmas special a few hundred times), it grew from a weird fascination to a bit of a lustful craze and now a silly attraction to a celebrity.

The implication of having a same-sex crush meant that I questioned my own sexuality in a very guarded and closed-door way. I asked myself over and over again if I was a lesbian. I wondered time and time again if I should be dating men or women. If I should be a Dyke on a Bike with a topless girlfriend riding behind me or should I be worried about falling into a heterosexual lifestyle and producing babies and mortgages? It was an incredibly tumultuous and fucking lonely time. No one knew and even now...I'm not sure that they really do.

After all of that searching I found...well, nothing. It's actually not a big deal. I guess I'm bisexual or whatever, but I'm married...so until Mr. Dustin murders me (just kidding!), I guess I'm Dustinsexual. When I was younger and figuring it all out I got caught up in the labels, the stigma and wondering where the fuck I fit on some imaginary polar scale where the faggots were on one end and Pat Robertson was on the other. The truth is I got over it and realized that I could have a super-crush on K.D. Lang and still have a husband.

That's right. I've got it all. Heh. 

They're not all THAT different, are they?

Breaking Up is Hard To Do...Unless There's a Soundtrack

Having NPR as a "friend" on facebook is both informative and amusing.

Among several Valentine's Day articles featured on NPR's Facebook page, Stephen Thompson wrote, "Bitter Pills for Bitter Pills: Five Essential Breakup Songs."

You can read the article here.

Thompson writes about the five stages of the Breakup and the corresponding songs he's paired with these emotions. Thompson's songs are obscure and hipster-y. Meh.

Thompson's analysis is great, but the songs don't really reach a wider audience when they're completely sullied by hipster beards, knit caps, and TOMS. At some point, too, Thompson seems to lose sight of the notion that this is all in good fun. Why is a fake analysis of annoyingly obscure music so serious?

Jessica's Bitter Pills

1. Denial

Styx "Mr. Roboto"

Styx is really in denial about their being a great band. I saw on one of those VH1 classic specials that the lead singer sings with his son's band. My gawd. This song, however, is pretty great. Wait, maybe this isn't the denial Thompson was talking about. Whatever. I stand by this comment.

2. Pettiness

Wednesday 13 "Bad Things"

A truly fantastic piece of music (not really). My favorite lyrics include, "I'd celebrate your wake/I'd bake myself a cake," or, "I want a car to run over your head/put it in reverse and do it again." It doesn't get much more petty than eating pastries at your ex's funeral. If I were to eat a pastry at my ex's funeral, it would probably be something free of powdered sugar. I want to look my best.

3. Self-Pity

Mortiis "Parasite God"

I have an especially large affinity for any Norwegian artist that wears a troll mask, a mummy costume and adds a bit of a 90's industrial flair to his song where he's bold enough to have an "mmhmm" lyric...like he's a sassy black soul singer. Anyway, this song is loaded with self-pity. What could be more pitiful than a man who knows that he's caught in the middle of a love triangle between people wants and needs? Black Metal fans got their black metal panties in a bunch when Mortiis went in this direction, but it's a lot easier to deal with than the ambient dungeon noises. Who the hell really listens to that shit?

4. Fatalistic Self-Pity

The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black"

"Paint it Black" might be my favorite Rolling Stones song. Mick Jagger is pretty positive that everything needs to be black. He wants to "see the sun blotted out from the sky." But Mick...how will I grow basil this summer? Did you even think about that?  

5. Bitterness Masquerading as Acceptance

Marc Almond "Waifs and Strays"

You may not think you know who Marc Almond is until you realize that he was in Soft Cell and he sang, "Tainted Love," that goddamned song you've heard a million goddamned times. Or maybe you'll just wait for me to tell you that. Either way, this song is really great. When I listen to this song all I can think is that there are large drag queens that roam the streets looking for drag queens in training...but in the end, every one's just really desperate. He probably should've used that idea for the music video. I mean, he's wearing a track jacket in this. You couldn't get a blazer or sport coat for your music video? C'mon Marc, you're totally worth a splurge at Brooks Brothers. 

Picking a break-up song is probably as difficult as picking a together song. Always consider this classic,

Okay, don't.



Polly wanta Jello Pretzel Salad?

Every family function I've ever been to...including showers, picnics, reunions, parole hearings, wakes and christenings have always had a treat that I can't live without. It's a treat that I hate that I love. The Jello Pretzel Salad.

During college, my roommate Laura informed me that this delightful mixture of sweet and salty is a regional treat that whets the appetites of those in Southwestern Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas all the way through Youngstown, OH. I think she is a liar and can't handle that such a delightfully trashy treat would actually find its way to where she grew up.

It's basic ingredients can almost completely be purchased at a convenience store, and nothing is fresh. I really feel like maybe the shelf life of a dessert like this is easily six months, as long as it's refrigerated.

I've never tried to find the caloric content, but it's probably somewhere between that of a Big Mac and Movie Theater Popcorn.

My Gram's Recipe

Jello Pretzel Salad

2 cups Thin, Crushed Pretzels

3 Tbsp. Sugar

3/4 cup melted oleo

1 lg Jello (and here we go with the shorthand. It's a large packet of strawberry jello)

2-10oz Strawberries (these are the super healthy sugary syrup, frozen strawberries)

1 small can of crushed pineapple with juice

8oz Cream Cheese

1 cup Sugar (yes, more sugar)

1 8oz Cool Whip

Mix pretzels, sugar and oleo. Pour into 13x9 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 7 minutes. Cool for one hour. Dissolve Jello in 2 cups boiling water. Add berries and pineapple. Chill until partially set.

My favorite Jello Pretzel salad story involves my friend Garett's mother, Polly. She's a lovely woman that has not only beaten a raccoon to death with a flashlight (it was killing her chickens, what did you want her to do?), but she's also raised a billion wiener dogs and makes wedding cakes. Anyway, she made some Jello Pretzel Salad on a day that I happened to be over with Garett. I told her how much I really enjoyed this dessert, so she hacked off a piece the size of a floor tile and screamed, "Here You Go!" I looked at it...and for a minute...I actually considered eating it all before laughing hysterically. Garett and I managed to polish if off collectively.

But I still think about the stomach ache that might've been.

Take a Gamble. It's only celebrities.

I love chatting about celebrity deaths. Why do they always happen in threes? Why do we pretend like a celebrity has had such a great and meaningful career when they're dead/dying (ahem Patrick Swayze and Christopher Reeve)? How does Abe Vigoda manage to stay alive?  With these kinds of questions, I took to the interwebs and was able to make a bet on celebrity death.

I am the worst gambler in the world. Why in the hell would anyone spend money on gambling? Why would you put money in a slot machine when there's a 1% chance you're going to get even a fraction of what you spent? Why doesn't everyone just give me their money and I'll probably not give it back?  Gambling is the equivalent of throwing all of your money down the toilet and flushing. Maybe it all won't go down on the first pull...but chances are...by the second, it definitely will.

Rotten Dead Pool, though, has provided the only gamble I'm willing to take: the one that involves dead celebrities. So, you have a year from the date that you make your picks to have all ten of your celebrities die. Not that you win anything but the notoriety of being a celeb death-predicter, but even that is worthy of a fancy nametag or maybe a custom business card.

My Picks

1	Licia Albanese	Singer	Operatic soprano, La Bohème	22-Jul-1913	TBD	12-Feb-2011
2	Beverly Cleary	Author	Children's author, Ramona Quimby series	12-Apr-1916	TBD	12-Feb-2011
3	Pierre Cardin	Fashion Designer	Inventor of the "bubble dress"	06-Jul-1922	TBD	12-Feb-2011
4	Zsa Zsa Gabor	Actor	Cop-slapping Gabor sister	06-Feb-1917	TBD	12-Feb-2011
5	Joe Jackson	Relative	Patriarch of the Jackson family	26-Jul-1929	TBD	12-Feb-2011
6	Tommy Lasorda	Baseball	Slim-Fast shill	22-Sep-1927	TBD	12-Feb-2011
7	Lindsay Lohan	Actor	Mean Girls	02-Jul-1986	TBD	12-Feb-2011
8	Andy Rooney	Journalist	60 Minutes' resident crank	14-Jan-1919	TBD	12-Feb-2011
9	Elizabeth Taylor	Actor	Cleopatra	27-Feb-1932	TBD	12-Feb-2011
10	Slim Whitman	Country Musician	Western singer, balladeer and yodeler	20-Jan-1924	TBD	12-Feb-2011

There's no real science in this for me. I chose a series of old celebrities that I'd actually heard of, and then one wild card. As you can see, my wild card is Lindsay Lohn, but really with the life that she's been leading, it's hard to really even call it that.

I found it rather amusing that in the list of the most picked celebrities, Courtney Love was among Billy Graham, Kirk Douglas, and Fidel Castro (some really moldy oldies) with over 5,000 picks. Does everyone know something about her that I don't know? I mean, being an unattractive hanger-on isn't fatal, is it?

 Lord Have Mercy. To Quote Pee Wee Herman, "I've seen better heads on boils."

Like the sick weirdo I am, I will be waiting with baited breath to see if my predictions come true. I'm thinking that if I will, my business card will have a cat Grim Reaper. That'd be pretty sweet.

It's time the tale were told of how Morrissey wrote a song and we made it our own. We made it our own.

Whether with The Smiths or solo, Morrissey has managed, over the last thirty years, to enchant me on a daily basis. My iPod is completely full of their catalog and even on shuffle, both The Smiths and the solo work comes up several times a day.

 That self-righteous homo makes me swoon, even still. Probably the nicest thing that Mr. Dustin has ever done for me (besides the whole making sure that we have a roof over our heads thing) was get tickets to see Morrissey when he came to Pittsburgh in 2009. Not only did I cry as soon as he walked on stage, but I also stood gape-mouthed during, "Death of a Disco Dancer," because I was positive that I had been taken back in time, and I was seeing a young, lithe, and maudlin Morrissey enchanting every person in the audience.

Whether it's the song that he personally sings about me, "You're the one for me, Fatty," or even the craptastic, "How Soon is Now?," Morrissey manages to make a private concert for me every day.

"Don't talk to me, no, about people who are nice. 'Cause I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are nice."

"So I ignore all the codes of the day. Let your juvenile impulses sway. This way and that way. God how sex implores you, to let yourself lose yourself."

"I was driving my car. I crashed and broke my spine. So yes, there are things worse in life than never being someone's sweetie."

"They who wish to hurt you work within the law. This world is so full of crashing bores."

When Dustin and I were dating or living together or whatever stage of our relationship we were in, we often talked about what song was "our song," and I feel like we've chosen a zillion.  

We connected very early with our mutual love for The Smiths. He is, of course, going to be super-embarassed for everyone to know that during our first makeout session you could hear "Strangeways, Here We Come."

It only seems fitting that a Smiths' song would stand out among the rest of "our songs."

There is a Light that Never Goes Out

There is a Light that Never Goes Out 

S. Morrissey and J. Marr

Take me out tonight
Where there's music and there's people
Who are young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one anymore

Take me home tonight
Because I want to see people
And I want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their home
And I'm welcome no more

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Take me home tonight
Take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last
But then a strange fear gripped me
And I just couldn't ask

Take me home tonight
Oh take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
No, I haven't got one

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out

Happy Valentine's Day to my grumpiest Valentine...all the way ovah in the desert. xo.

P.S. I totally stole this from some genius on flickr.

The Underground Tourist

I really like to think that I’m incredibly sophisticated. I read books about Metaphysics, Pragmatism, and the history of apples. I drink organic, fair-trade, and 100% Arabica coffee. I’ve probably watched more documentaries than the Sundance Film Festival. I have enough black shirts, coats, and pants to make Glenn Danzig and Brigitte Bardot jealous. Truth be told, I’m kind of a pain in the ass.

There’s a part of me, though, that can’t get enough of tourist traps. Not only those roadside attractions in realm of “The World’s Largest Thimble,” but also the “Old Tyme Photos,” the air-brushed t-shirts, and the rows upon rows of shot glasses and toothpick holders. I love that although there are TONS of these establishments, each one seems to hold so much unique kookiness.

In January, we took a trip south to visit Mr. Dustin’s daughter in Alabama. The three of us then went to Panama City Beach, Florida for a few days. Florida without the summer, the sun and the tourists is left to the snow bunnies. At the souvenir shop, we were the only customers…besides the pap buying the back-scratcher, and the nana that happened upon the rack of half-naked lady and gentleman postcards and could only muster up an, “oh my,” over and over and over.

On the way back from Florida, we stopped in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. A proverbial tacky tourist Mecca.

Rawr!

Jesus Saves...Bears?

Totally Twee

My next tattoo?

During our time in Gatlinburg, we shared the streets with thousands of participants in “Resurrection,” a huge Christian Teen convention. Our only refuge from the teenagers was an “Adult” shop on the second floor of an air-brush hut. Sitting there (and if it wasn’t for photos being prohibited, I would’ve had a documentation of this) was a senior citizen, reading a book and eating graham crackers. Her companion, a tiny bird, was sharing the graham crackers with her. She chastised him for making a crumbly mess. We shared conversation with her about hotels, tourists, Resurrection and how there were three birds that inhabited the sex shop, and she’d named them all and could tell them apart.

If it weren’t for situations like these, life would be hardly worth living. Yeah, you’ve got your job in a cubicle and it affords you a house with equity, a car, the fancy-ass grill and television…but when did you ever chat-up a nana with a wild bird in a dildo shop?

That’s what I thought.

There's Nothing I Can Say

I'm thinking about you, Eric and Gloria.