B-I-N-G-O!

For now, that is all.

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Occupy, Resist, and Produce

"There's only so much protesting can accomplish. At a certain point, you have to talk about what you're fighting for."

While at work tonight (tending a mostly dead-bar: amidst the occasional dance-party, I was essentially paid to read essays -- my kind of salary), I read this essay: Are We Addicted to Rioting?

I think this essay makes a lot of good points and, more importantly, asks a lot of really vital questions that some of us aren't asking.

If you roll a dumpster at the police, why are you doing it? To prove a point? To block a street? To open a street? To cause a diversion to pull off another action? To impress the media? To impress your friends? To get it out of the way? To get it in the way? These are relevant questions, far more relevant than whether or not it's morally acceptable to roll a dumpster around. But then you must ask yourself why you are trying to achieve that tactical goal. Are you blockading a meeting? Are you causing chaos to make the summit look bad? Are you trying to get media attention? Do you want revenge on the police? Then you must ask yourself why you are blockading the meeting or causing chaos or trying to get on TV. Who are you trying to effect? Who's your base? If you want media attention, who are you trying to reach out to? What is your message for them? If you are trying to cause chaos, what is the purpose? Who is it serving? How is it advancing your goals? What effect will it have on your movement next week, next month, next year? What is the follow-up to all of this?

I think these are the kind of things we need to be asking ourselves. As individuals, as comrades, as we gather up arms in solidarity, I think we need to be thinking about why we're doing what we are doing. How our actions will ricochet and what effects and after effects those actions will have. We need to take good, hard looks at ourselves and really ponder our own motivations, what pushes us to fight, and how hard we are willing to do the grit in the teeth, backbreaking, hair pulling, tedious day to day work. The work that makes us feel like our tongues are bleeding and our fingers are breaking. The work that makes us feel like, sometimes, we're taking two steps backward with every step forward. The work that is bleary-eyed and anything but glamorous.

So, while writing this blog entry, I'm watching this:

The Take

There's a slogan that comes from this video: Occupy, Resist, and Produce. Just recently, I was talking with a comrade about the state of modern literature about anarchism. I mentioned how disheartening it is to me that so much of the language we use to articulate the struggle is entrenched in negativity, in destruction, in "smashing the state". There is nowhere near enough literature out there based in positivity, in creation, in joy and wonder. Where is the joyous outpouring? The sense of hope? I know it's out there, and I find it saturated in many of the late-night conversations we have with one another, shoulders tense with passion, leaning toward one another like parentheses holding tight a well guarded secret, stumbling over our words and shaking with fever and the possibility of what-could-be. But where is it in our literature? It is a sprinkling, an echo.

While I understand that criticism is necessary, that serious inquiry and investigation are of crucial import, I think we need to take more time to revel in the glorious madness we call life. We need to dance in the streets, to embrace with earnestness and without fear, and to come to live with both a tenderness and a fire. That's the only way we're going to win: it's love, not hate, that will get us through this.

"It's a dignified struggle, full of beautiful experiences. But we have a big obstacle. The same people who dragged us into misery and unemployment, those who took everything from us, are now trying to come back."

We can't fucking let them.

Breaking the Spell

Do I even need to explain the absurdity of this?

"Men's" and "Women's" bathrooms have always bothered me. I think all restrooms should be gender and sex neutral. Making the assumption that there are only males and females is, alone, pretty fucking insulting (where do the intersexed people use the bathroom, the fucking hallway?). But the entire massive scale of gender, from transpeople to androgynes to non-gender specific people -- how and where do they apply?

I say we all start pissing in hallways. If I were more comfortable with showing my ass in public, I probably would.

In other news:

Might I say that this image is positively fucking bad ass?


Seriously, I'm making a petition for this now: MORE FUCKING NINJAS ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE REVOLUTION. Seeing shit like this makes me want to get back in the habit of lifting weights and running. I want my body to be in the utmost of physical strength endurance for the fight that will come.

I intend on carving out time in my (admittedly ungodly hectic) schedule to start physical training. Between work, drag, DJing, and the novel (which I've begun again -- I've even got myself an editor now: Hi, Mike!), I must admit I don't have much time. But I'm going to need to make it. Admittedly, I could be lifting weights right now, but I'm killing time before dealing with the Evil Entity of Regions Bank. Besides, I did promise to start writing in this little thing more.

I've been listening/watching this while writing this blog post:



I recommend it. Go watch it, and let it put the fire under your ass.

I've got thirty minutes before the bank opens. I think I'm going to talk with my coworker for a bit, and try to get some editing done on the novel.

Until then, comrades, beauties, harlots and heroes: I'll see you in the streets.

Tango

Hello, internet. I'm back again.

That picture was lifted from the website of my current place of employment. Kajun's Pub has just put up a website, and it's totally unfinished, but whatever. It's rare that I find a picture of myself that doesn't make me want to set fire to the world (Aleks is far more photogenic than I, the bastard), so there you go.

Story of my life right now:

I'm on the prowl for a new place. I'm crashing with a friend for a while (I lent him $250 towards the deposit for his place, so it's not like I'm abusing his generosity). There's a place in the works I should be looking at tomorrow. It's in the ghetttooooo, but I'm down with that. Makes the 7th ward I just left look like the fucking Garden District, but hey, I'm a big alien. I can handle myself.

I've started DJing with Corrosion now every other Wednesday (or, at least, it seems like every other Wednesday). I'm still doing drag show at the Bourbon Pub. I've amassed quite the collection of glitter. I also work in lingerie once a week at the bar, so for the first time in my life, I've got quite an assortment of frilly, girly underthings. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. This is coming from a person who knows more about sporting a shirt and tie than a well accessorized cocktail dress. My version of accessories tends to be random stuff assembled from craft stores and street corners. I never said I was classy.

I've got some goals in my head now. I'm going to spell them out here, so I can be held accountable by the Iron Hand of the Internets:

o1]: Pay off debt. I've only got about $700 left, then I can start chipping away at what I owe UWF.
o2]: Get my sorry ass back in school. I'm so close to being done with my undergrad, it'd be ridiculous not to.
o3]: Start working on the novel again. I've left it untouched for so long, it's pathetic. I really need to get cracking on that.

There are other goals I am going to be working towards, like lifting my body weight (I want to take aerial circus classes), learning to tango (because every android in a three piece suit should have an ace up its sleeve), and getting my license unsuspended (because who knows when I'll need to drive someone's car in a pinch).

I've been so busy lately, I feel like I have no time to sit still. I'm going to invent time. I'm going to take a fucking bath for the first time in years (there's a claw footed bathtub at my friend's house, and I figure the new house could likely have one as well). I'm going to buy a bottle of nice Spanish wine and get a quart of raspberries and sit on the porch and read comic books. I'm going to have picnics. I'm going to get a warm jacket and ride my bike in the middle of the night when it gets cold.

I'm going to create time for the holy moments, because god damnit, life is too short to stay out of breath. But there's always time to be made breathless.

Apples?!

I have, in the past, been accused of stealing $17K from an anonymous someone (who probably doesn't exist) who was "using that money for rehab" by a boy who claimed to hop from roof top to roof top wielding a missile launcher and shooting people in alleys in broad daylight to "protect my honor." I've been accused of stealing kazillion dollar heirloom diamond rings from grandmothers who died in the Holocaust. I've been accused of stealing wives, husbands, senses of moral dignity. I've been accused of stealing cars, motorcycles, heavy artillery, and once I was accused of kidnapping a child (not including all of the women I supposedly impregnated. Yes, I know. I don't get it, either). So, pray tell, why would I want to steal your shit? With a track record like that, I can already fund a small sized country, and even support a harem to boot. What could I possibly want with your things?

Also, I've garnered a shiny new insult to add to my record: predator. Now, I've got quite a roster list of insults under my belt. I've been called everything from heartless to heartbreaker, cocktease to slut, bitch to bimbo to ball breaker. I've been called an ice queen, a heathen, a harlot, a cunt, a psycho, a homewrecker, a prude. In the public's defense, I've also been called a lot of really nice things, but let's stick to the subject here. Predator? Really? I mean, I'm certainly not a pushover, but a predator? Predators are those people who stake out the badly lit areas of bars and wait for the first signs of someone getting just a tad-too-drunk. Predators drive windowless white vans and dangle candy from the locking slide-open door. Contrary to (apparent) popular belief, I don't need to engage in stake outs for human company. I'm quite content with the average, run-of-the-mill, "Hi, how are you?"

A friend of mine told me that I should wear Predator like a badge. He said, "Predator is a much better title than cocktease!" And, okay, I can see his point -- it's original (it's not every day you get to be called and entirely new derogatory term!) and it removes that whole heteronormative thing that ticks me off (just because I have a cunt doesn't mean I only like cock, you silly sex fascists of the world).

I wonder what kind of predator I would be, in the natural kingdom. And if you say black window, you deserve to sit through the Spice Girls discography on loop until your ears bleed.

And for something completely different: I have Apples to Apples. Who wants to drink whiskey and come play?

Written on the Body

I have always been intrigued by the idea of the body as a text. How memories, actions, accidents, are reflected and translated by skin. Through scars, through body modification, through wrinkles and blemishes. How a sleepless night inscribes itself beneath your eyelids, how joy and sorrow are carved along the brow, the lips, the corners of the eye.

I've entertained the notion of having script tattooed all over my body. But what would it say? I am both aesthetically and erotically invested in the idea of language written upon my skin. The way desire is transmitted in the idle tracings over fingertips across my back, in the crook of my elbow, the palms of my hands. Heat pressed hard into my cheekbones, firm against my thigh, cradled softly and possessively along the sharp line of my jaw. There are certain types of touch that will stop my heart, steal my breath, and leave me dizzy and wanting.

I like the idea of Henna. Markings that are beautiful because they are temporary. The idea of messages being painted along the dark, secret places of my body that are only shown in moments of intimacy. Brands of desire in red, brown, and black. Or paint, something that smudges and smears as the body grows damp and hot with sweat. Gold, silver, bronze -- liquid metal that grows illegible, an analog to the loss of control and logic.

Not to mention, I like the way words look.

This picture was taken over five years ago (I know, I haven't aged a bit. Call it dumb luck, call it the blood of virgins, whatever). I had just come back from a three hour drive after staying up for two days after working an eight hour shift after writing a term paper. And all of that without cocaine, or meth, or magic fairy dust that flits me off to Never Never Land. I don't think I've ever been that exhausted.

Except perhaps right about now.

It's been, yet again, well over a month since I've last posted on this blog. How stupid of me. Why even carve out your own little piece of the internet if you aren't going to use it? Well, let's see kiddos:

[ 1 ]

I work four days a week as a bartender in a 24-hour St Claude bar. If you don't know anything about New Orleans, let's just say that St Claude, and the surrounding neighborhood, is home to sleazy prostitutes, crackheads, and demanding dickwads who don't know how to leave a tip. Sure, we get our fair share of artists, interesting characters (remind me to tell you about Sir Leningrad), fellow service industry slaves, dancers, swingers, preachers, refined call girls, rambling packs of fetishists, travelers, anarchists, scholars, and all around fun people. But when you work the graveyard shift like me, more often than not, you're going to deal with crackheads.

If I were paid a dollar for the amount of times I've been proposed to, propositioned (was offered $100 just to take my shirt off, once; an all expenses trip overseas to let this bloke to put his face in my cunt), cat-called, offered drugs, got in a fight, kicked someone out, or played match-maker to a hook-up just to get some douche bag to leave me alone, I'd pay for a fucking Ivy League education within a month.

For now, I'll deal with the crumpled bra-dollars and the paltry cigarette cellophane as a tip.

[ 2 ]

I'm typically performing in two different shows each week, sometimes three. One show is on Bourbon Street, the other on Rampart. Both bars have their ups and their downs; on Bourbon, there's a bigger crowd, which is always fun: on Rampart, I never have to worry about appeasing anyone.

I'm still becoming accustomed to queer women's society here in New Orleans. It's far different than any other I've seen -- the gay bars here in NOLA are, of course, overwhelmingly geared toward gay men. It's been like that in every place I've ever been. But the gay women here in NOLA don't seem to really have a presence of their own, though there are some women trying to carve out a place for a queer women's culture. There are three different drag king troupes in this town (which, trust me, is a lot), but no real feeling of community. Everyone fights, everyone's a rival, an everyone's got to sign their allegiance somewhere. It's silly, and I'm not really sure how to deal with it, so I don't, and I stay out of it. Hence the Rampart show: I'm the first king to perform with them, and I can't say that I'm not proud of it, because I damned well am, but it's not a king thing -- it's a queen show that just so happened to let me hop on board.

Aside from those two main points, there are a million other things in my day to day life that drag me away from coming to this blog, but I intend to put a stop to that. I might not post every day, or every other day, but I'm going to make it a point to come back here. Treat it like meditation, maybe.

'Cause hell, I've got to do something other than sling drinks, scheme, and prance about on stage. At least every once in a while.