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The Public Blogging of Pomosexuality, Homotextuality, Homophobiaphilia, and Drear Theory (aka Career Theory) [aka Gay4Pay]. We also read the Corner and OpJournal so the right buttock will be punished as well.
All comments subject to publication. Or dismissal. Or Both.
If you are gay and occasionally leave the house you will eventually meet a David Hampton. Or several. I know there are straight versions of David as well, but I do wonder if the syndrome is more common among gays. A hunger for the supposed fabulousness of a royal birth and a purple (or at least deep blue) bloodline so overwhelming that a glittering heritage is simply conjured up and then lived as real every waking second.
Adam Smith's insight from The Theory of Moral Sentiments that no person with a moral core can ever receive praise that isn't their due without feeling shame provides a good practical test of someone's operative ethics. Praise someone for something you know they didn't do and see how they respond. Do they quickly point out to you that it was none of their doing? Do they thank you for the praise yet protest they don't deserve it--but in a way that makes them look only modest and still more praiseworthy? Or do they just glow with the false flattery and then explain how they accomplished the wonderful thing they had no hand in at all? The first and third response are the most rare.
How much more unmoored (damn, cool overtone there) is someone who is thrilled by, and seeks out, the doubly undue praise arising from their imaginary ties to someone else's achievements.
They're (hyper) con men who fall for the (meta) con themselves. David Hampton claimed at times he was a self-aware trickster, but the record seems to indicate otherwise.
Read a guy's profile at gay.com that hooked me from the start. He described himself as a whiteboy, kracker, pale faced, green eyed, whetto devil. Whetto was new to me, so he got big points for that immediately. He included a link to his personal page in the profile. I went. I stayed. I may never leave.
He's a 19 year old gay kid (and not particularly happy about it) who lives in Nashville Tennessee. He was born with a cleft palate. He's had a lifetime of operations to correct it. Still, his early years were happy enough:
As far as I can remember, my early childhood wasn't too shabby. Well except for a few things. Academically, I was doing great. I remember being in a statewide spelling bee tournament back in 6th grade. I used to will all kind of awards. Everyone liked me. I was into wrestling and basketball cards. I was a country music fanatic. My teachers loved me. I was in love with a girl from 3rd grade up until about 8th. I was obsessed with her. I don't think I've ever talked about that to ANYONE I know now. HMMMMM I guess I just let you in on some secret stuff! Yep yep, the early years were pretty damn good! Then my perfect little world went to Hell after 6th grade.
He went through terrible depression and some sort of criminality during his teens. He's now reformed himself, though the depression lingers. He works as a rent-a-cop (his own description) with the ambition of becoming a Federal Drug Enforcement Agent. Perhaps a book or a record deal would save him from that fate.
Or you could join his site, send him 5 bucks for a lifetime membership and see his naked pics too. I haven't done that yet, but I will.
As his says in his apologia:
This is my life. I'm non-fiction like the History Channel.
Oh, he's way better than the History Channel.
I'm in awe. Bravo dude.
( I should make you find the title to this post on Quanic's page. But hell, it's here.)
11:02 PM
Chewed Substance: A Tale of Science Foretold
I paid a quarter a piece for my copies of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam and Woman in the Shadow of Islam. They're distributed for free, but I figured that there's at least a quarter's worth of high gloss shellac shielding the covers of both books, so my 50 cents total seemed like a reasonable investment. You can read them for yourselves here. You won't be able feel their sleek waterproofed exteriors, but all the text and candyland illustrations are there.
I haven't gotten far, but I was struck by one image they used to illustrate the contention that modern day scientific knowledge was clearly anticipated by the Koran. You should read the argument in all its subtlety for yourself, but I'll tip you off to the nub (the leech, suspended thing, blood clot--so to speak) of the discussion of koranic embryology. These words appear in the Koran:
We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into an alaqah (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a mudghah (chewed substance)... 1 (Quran, 23:12-14)
I'll leave aside the prescience of the word "alaqah" in its leech, suspended thing, and blood clot meanings and jump right to the clincher, embryos as chewed substance. This picture says it all. Yes, when you contrast and compare a medical illustration of an embryo with a chewed piece of gum the argument pretty much makes itself.
Mullah science, gotta love it. From a safe distance. If there is such a thing.
Which reminds me of my early contribution to the war effort. The poster I designed about a month after 9/11. I was out da loop for that Iranian blog freedom day, so I make up for that with this. Recycled crap from 2 years ago. How thoughtful of me. And courageous. To the PhotoShop barricades!
The sufferer, who already has a penchant for sub-vocalized commentary on everyone and everything he encounters during the day, loses control of his sub-vocalization volume while wearing headphones. Consequently he can be clearly heard throughout the day, in every situation--from crowded streets to restful parks to elevators to dollar stores, saying "stupid motherfucker", "nice hat", " damn, I would--anytime" "thanks, genius", "stupid motherfucker", and "ka-yute!".
The next support group meeting is scheduled for, well, whenever we can all agree on a time. Lazy motherfuckers.
This is dumb in a subtle way. The Billboard Liberation Front "improved' a Banana Republic billboard in San Francisco that features two women resting in each others arms piggy back style after a grueling croquet match. (And haven't we all found ourselves, of a summer's late afternoon and at the end of rough day with the wooden balls and mallets, facing a sunset in the identical companionable pose?)
The models faces are quite similar so it is possible that they are sisters, even perhaps a mother and daughter (they might even be Kennedys). The twinning effect is heightened by the white skirts and red sweaters they both wear. But whatever their blood ties might be, the imagery is soft glow lesbian, sans doute. Perhaps Banana R. is trying to do for the girlz what Abercrombie & F. have been doing for the boiz, build a brand image around après exertion samesex touching, intimate lazing and generalized hanging the fuck all over each other. Fine with me.
The BLF's enhancement of this matter-of-fact corporate promotion of overt womanly affection is to add the words THE SAPPHO COLLECTION to the sign in smaller typeface just below the Banana Republic name. They don't deface the ad in an obvious way, but alter it so that their addition to it replicates the overall look. This is certainly a step up from painted on mustaches, beards, devil horns, blacked (or whited) out vampire eyes and the obscene thought bubbles favored by less sophisticated detournists, aka 5th graders.
But exactly what culture are they jamming and subverting with their grad school smirkery? Yeah, the flush-faced chix on the billboard are in each others arms in a loving way. Who exactly needs the scary wit of the THE SAPPHO COLLECTION tag to understand what is so plainly before their eyes? In San Francisco no less. Or are they spitting the lesbianism implicit in the sign back at the corporate stooges who, uhm, actually seem pretty cool with implicit lesbianism. Yeah, that will show them. Make them thing twice about using same sex affection in such an everyday way in their advertising.
Maybe the BLF bad boys are bothered by the croquet girls in ways they just don't understand. Maybe they are prey to assumptions and prejudices that are invisible to them, captives of false consciousness. Walking gingerbread men who don't understand that they were cookie cut and assembly line decorated and baked. Maybe their under-the-counter-culture could use a little jamming, enhancement, and improvement itself.
Cinema verité shortcut: find passionate and strange people. Turn on the camera. Follow them around. Edit. Repeat. And so your body of work will grow and your legacy as genius documentarian be assured.
This would have made for a perfect art-house/Sundance doc. Literally perfect, since not only are the ingredients here quintessential, but the preposterousness of the passionate action would reinforce perfectly the prejudices of the likely audience. Can't the Academy just give me the Oscar for best feature length documentary without putting me to the trouble and expense of making the movie?
I will even go so far as to provide a title and catalogue specs for my masterpiece:
Bylaws (director--A. Bender, USA 2003) 103 minutes color. An E-Z 1,2,3 Films Production.
(link via Blogdex--probably a movie in that crew, too)
2:58 PM
Who Killed the Squibbs?
From a tombstone in a Quaker graveyard:
Mary, Wife Of George Squibb
Died June, 25 1867
George Squibb
Died June, 12, 1867
And beneath these two names, and the oddly close death dates, these words are inscribed:
