Something occurred to me yesterday as a hairy guy rubbed my back . . .

. . . and that is this: Once you zone out, the sex of the masseuse does not matter. Sure, the first few minutes of a dude lathering me up in lotion was a little off putting. Yes, when he'd really dig into my pressure points, he'd let out a heavy breath, and that was a little gross. However, he let me bring a CD, so by track three of Radiohead's The Bends, I was in my own little world.

I should explain. This was my Polish immigrant landlord giving me a rub down. Just kidding. Actually, it was a complimentary massage I got after my last session of physical therapy for my pinkie.

So, what else is going on with The Gancer besides deep tissue, homoerotic massages?

1. I'm teaching again, and loving it again.
2. I'm still trying to write whenever I can. I'm really pleased with how my Goofy Rock Names piece came out.
3. This summer I'm going to try to ride my bike and play volleyball* for more hours than I drink.
4. I've been dating the same gal for almost half a year.
5. I went to the Liar's Club last night. The Naked Guy was there, and I really wanted some friends, who were first-timers, to see him flop around for a bit. To get him to do the naked dance, one needs to request his song. It wasn't looking good, because there was some guest DJ who only played techno shit. I tried to put in a request with him, but he pretended not to notice me while he fiddled with his knobs and played shit song after shit song. My buddy said the music sounded like it was made by a robot who had to go to rehab for being a sucky robot. I said to Naked Guy, "Hey, Naked Guy. You going to get good and naked this evening?" To which he replied, "I don't think they have a techno version of my song," his song being It's Getting Hot in Herre by Nelly. Alas, there would be no nakedness.

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*I had to offset the other picture with this one, so everyone can enjoy a butt, except Morrissey, who's asexual, but he doesn't read anymore. The picture reminds me of an Asian Indian gal who was always in the same league that my buddy, HLP, and I played in. When she'd get ready to return opposing serves, she'd bend over, and her rear end would pop up ever so slightly. HLP would say, "she's presenting." I swear we weren't perving on her, much, because everyone would notice this, boys and girls alike.

I've always thought I could write snappy dialog, but I'm not good at formulating a story. Here's a random chunk of dialog I wrote, for which I have no story. Hope you enjoy it.

Scene: The protagonist is out at the bar, horribly drunk. He walks into the bathroom and saddles up at the only available urinal. The man to his left, the only guy in the bar who may be drunker than him, swaying as he pees, pisses slightly outside the allotted space of his urinal. The two have a conversation while they pee, looking straight ahead at the wall behind their respective urinals

Protagonist: Wow, watch where you're pissing there, Foster Brooks.

Stranger In the Men's Room: Who the fuck are you calling Foster Brooks? And just who in the hell is Foster Brooks?

Protagonist: He's the stereotypically drunk guy from the Dean Martin Show, but I wouldn't expect a popped collar beat-off like yourself to know that.

SMR: The Dean Martin Show? Sorry I didn't pick up on your old-ass, old man reference, old man. Fucking old guy at the bar talking the shit and shit. You got the puniest dick I ever saw too.

Protagonist: (never breaking his stare from the tile wall ahead of him) One, why in the hell are you looking at my penis?

Two, I'm a grower not a shower.*

Three I guess sort of relates to one, but didn't anyone ever tell you that you never look anywhere but straight ahead when you're pissing next to someone in the bathroom, whether that person be your father, uncle, step father, long-lost brother, Michael Landon, or a complete stroke with his collar popped, like yourself?

Four, why in the hell are you looking at my penis?

SMR: (laughing and still swaying) Dude, that didn't make any sense. You're all over the place with those numbers and your old man lecturing.

P: You're all over the place with your piss. That's a rule you should have learned way before the Look Dead Ahead at All Times rule, but since you failed that one so horribly, it shouldn't come as a surprise that you never learned the most simple of all urinal rules: Get all your gosh damn pee into the cotton-pickin', fuckin' urinal!

SMR: (shaking his thing and putting it away) I'll piss wherever I please. You plan on doing something about it, old guy at the bar?

Protagonist: (also finishing up, now turning towards SMR) For starters, me and my little peen can give you the mushroom stamp** of a lifetime on that Cro-Magnon five head*** of yours. Not even one of the skanks in this joint could be wooed back to your apartment when you're wearing that little seal of approval.

SMR: You ain't stampin' nothin'. Now, why don't you get back to your seven and seven, or whatever it is you old guys drink.

(The protagonist laughs to his side, and then tries to get in a sucker punch. He misses, but SMR does not, since although piss drunk, he's bigger, stronger, younger, and been in more fights. He hits Protagonist dead in the face, knocking him back into the stall door, and his ass falls down to the piss soaked floor.)

SMR: (Primping himself on the way out the door) I'll take a rain check on that stamp.

Protagonist: (Wiping blood off his lip) Hey, consider that an open invitation, Foster Brooks.

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* Here's a link to that definition.

** Here's a link to a definition of the mushroom stamp.

*** Here's yet another link to the definition of five head. Urban Dictionary should be paying me to link all these. I just got those sick fucks 12 more readers!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Foster Brooks:

The first thing I noticed as the lone white guy at a Black funeral was

. . . that the family all wears white. Some of the suits were kind of cool, like the little seventh grader's, who was the only person in attendance who I knew, while others were more of the pimp-daddy variety. I was picturing a wake situation, where I come in, say who I am, I'm sorry for their loss, shake a few hands, fake like I know how to give a prayer, and be on my way. Instead, everyone was seated, the family was all spread out, so I was standing on the side waiting for a window when a good amount of family members were by the casket. It was then that a woman approached me and asked me to be seated because they would be "beginning" soon. I told her I was all right, but she still yelled at one of the white-suited youths to fetch some more chairs. I remained standing, looking for that window, when the same woman approached me, motioned for me to follow her, and sat me in one of the chairs lined up along the aisles. I'm very pleased to know that this many people came to honor her, but I'd be lying if I said that the aisle seat didn't make me, being the only white guy there, stand out even more.

The aforementioned seventh-grader is one of my students. He lost his mother, who is really his aunt, but she's been raising him as his legal guardian since he was eight months old. I gave him a hug when I saw him, and he asked me if Miss So-And-So "and all them" were there. I said I hadn't seen them, but that I'd keep an eye out for them. I actually could say with certainty that they weren't there, because I would have seen them due to their whiteness. I just didn't have the heart to tell him, nor did I think it appropriate to point out just how easy it would have been for him to tell if they were in attendance.

A preacher dude, who was one helluva public speaker, came out to give the introduction, getting it off to a most rocking start, with the organist and drummer punctuating certain key phrases with bombastic flourishes. I really didn't know much about this kid's mother, and I wouldn't really know much more about her until four or five rocking songs into the night. With the funk based guitar and danceable beat, I'd liken this overqualified church band to hey-day, George Clinton's Funkadelic, the more rock oriented counterpart to his more famous Parliament. One particularly rousing number had the melody of Wilson Picket's Land of 1,000 dances with the Na-Na-Na's replaced with "I got a prayer" over-and-over. It was slammin'. Moments later, three of the deceased's sisters got up to the stage to say a few words, but before long they were breaking into song, which I thought odd at first, but then I just couldn't help but be amazed that they were singing it a cappella and very well.

As strange as it sounds to tell you, this funeral was right up my alley, but even with a band as tight as Funkadelic and a pastor as excitable as James Brown was in the church scene of The Blues Brothers*, I still didn't feel compelled to dance down the aisles like some of the folks there. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that they are in the wrong for handling the affair in any way they see fit. Hell, if a toga party helps people get through a tough time, I say pull off those bed sheets, turn on Louie Louie by The Kingsmen, and grab a hold of a bottle of Jack. It's just that I'm not used to that type of funeral, and I didn't feel it right for the rogue white guy no one knew to dance up and down the aisles. Plus, although I did crack a smile a few times watching little kids dance, I was really, really bummed about this poor kid losing his mom. However, as I bobbed my head and allowed the music and the vibes of the room to soak in, I began to feel really, really good, somehow. I may find myself on the west side of Chicago next Sunday for a 5:00 mass. Fuck it.

Maybe all the stuffy white funerals I've been to over the years have it all wrong. Maybe the next funeral I go to I'll put on a pimp suit and turn that mutha' out. Maybe not, but after this experience, I'll certainly be more open to new and interesting ways to approaching the grieving process.

What's the most interesting funeral you've ever been to, be it as a result of the culture of the family or just one that was noteworthy in general.

*As I watched the sermon at the church, I couldn't help but think of that scene in Blues Brothers, and it occurred to me that it really wasn't that far off from the real thing, only without the people doing flips.

Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do

How long does a couple have to be broken up for it to be counted as a break up? I would argue that if it is patched up within 24 hours, then it doesn't count. What do you think?

Kisses To My Favorite Bar

My latest post is at The Liars Club, a Chicago based blog that myself and a few other bloggers contribute towards. Please come by, because readership over there is poor, mostly due to inconsistent posting by all four members, who seem to have drinking, bunsen burners, baseball, and DJ Major Dad, respectively, as their priorities.

The Liar's Club got its name from the best bar in Chicago. It is a watering hole that will always hold a special place in my heart, as well as my liver. I haven't been there in a while, mostly because I've been dating someone seriously for the past four months and so has the Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP)*. It just isn't a good place to take the lady for a cocktail, and it doesn't work as a guys with girlfriends' night out spot, because the music is cranked to such a deafening level, that you can't converse, catch up, etc.** The one time I did bring my girlfriend in there, I almost said to one staff member, pointing to the girlfriend, "This is why you guys haven't been seeing me around lately."

Here's one more bazaar tidbit that speaks to my love affair with that bar: Every time I drive by it, if I happen to get off at the Fullerton exit when the Armitage one is backed up, I do the thing Sammy Sosa did after catching fly balls, kissing two fingers, touching them to my chest, and pointing towards the dirty, LC facade.

span style="font-weight:bold;">*The other day, HLP said to me, "Imagine if just one of us were dating someone for this long? How miserable would that other guy be?" We both had a laugh, because, sadly, it's true.
**If the bar doesn't work well in either of these functions, then I guess you can sort of fill in the blanks as to what capacity it did function for us, and don't say for wooing each other, because I acknowledge that it sort of reads like that.

"Happy Trees" and a Shit-Load of Boats

I just got back from a field trip with my parents to The Art Institute of Chicago to see an Edward Hopper/Winslow Homer exhibit. I have a whole new respect for Hopper because he liked chesty women, cold couples who were indifferent to one another, and he seemed to be a bit of a peeping tom. As for Homer, that guy just really, really liked boats. I was talking about that with Niner, who said the guy must have gotten up in the morning and said, "I'm going to paint me some boats today," and paint boats he did. Lots of 'um. I shot through those boat pictures like crap through a goose, but there were people stopping to study each and every one. I just don't get that . . .


Your turn, seven readers: Do you guys like art? I seem to only like the ones where the people depicted tell a little story, or it allows me to make one up, usually one with espionage and/or kinky shit. A little kinked-out espionage never hurt anybody. I just don't dig on the bowl of fruit or landscape paitings, unless the "happy trees" are being painted by the guy on TV with the white-man afro.