Sweet Child O'Mine

I write letters to teachers. Click pic to embiggen.

Edited to add: Reading six books in a quarter is for extra credit! No one is shirking his regular schoolwork.

Help me out?

If anyone is getting weird emails with links to my blog, could you please leave a comment and let me know? I seem to have had some kind of security breach and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. Thanks.

Greater love hath no man than this, that he descend into Monkey Hell for his friend.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." — Marcel Proust 

Dear readers—both of you—please bear with me, because I am attempting to take something which may look very silly to the uninitiated and turn it into a big, serious discourse on human interaction. I can do these things, because I am a Very Great Writer Typist. This is a rambling, self-indulgent piece of typing, in two parts. I had to put it here, but you don't have to read it. Honestly. Thanks.

I. The Mighty Boosh: a discursive primer essay cri-de-coeur blog post

I discovered British comedy duo/ensemble The Mighty Boosh just when I needed them most. I was feeling lousy. Struggling to write a book that fought me every step of the way, at a stalemate in both in home and career, and locked into a weird, self-imposed thang* which—let's be honest—I could have just stepped away from at any time. But I believed that this thang was inspiring me, and that if I stepped away, I'd never be able to write again. Ever. (This is romantic horsepoop. I see that now. If something is making you miserable, it is not helping you make Art.)

The Mighty Boosh. Look upon their works and tremble.

Anyway, it was a Sunday, just 'round midnight. I was splayed like Gregor Samsa on the family-room couch, and the TV was tuned (shameface) to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Stay with me now readers, because I was about to have a road-to-Damascus moment.

I awoke to eerie music. The television screen was bathed in the deepest greens and blues, and I was looking into the most ridiculous, beautiful, pointy facsimile of the human countenance I had ever seen. Everything about it was just slightly too too, if you know what I mean. The eyes, the smile, the chin. Even the hair! This face was a brass band under a wig. For it belonged to Noel Fielding.

"Howard," he said to his mustachioed compadre (Julian Barratt), who had been put into a trance by a band of libidinous Yetis. "You've gone wrong!"

A tiny wizard-dude in a turban was involved somehow. Also, a gorilla. I flashed back to the early 70s, Saturday mornings, Sid and Marty Krofft. I was deep in the Honeycomb Hideout. "It's the Bugaloos," I thought. "It's Lidsville!" But it wasn't anything like that, really. I couldn't tell you what it was like. I still can't. There is no simple explanation for the Boosh.

Say hello to Parsley.

Well, things are simple on one level. You've got two English guys, both seriously—if unconventionally—attractive. One is big and strong, a northern jazz-freak, a genre-spanner from Leeds. The other is petite and androgynous, a ragamuffin from the streets, a Shoreditch vampire. Most Boosh fans have a crush/man-crush on one or the other. Or both. We switch back and forth a lot. It's very confusing.

But the geekish amongst us know that Barratt and Fielding are fantastic writers, careful guardians of their characters and their creation. Barratt is an accomplished musician; Fielding is a painter. They have been described as surrealists, but the Booshiverse makes quite a lot of sense within its own parameters, and in fact Noel Fielding has called it "archetypal." Time and again, heroes Vince Noir (Fielding) and Howard Moon (Barratt) betray and save one another. Well, mostly Vince betrays Howard. But he always saves him in the end! They encounter monsters and demons, many of them played, brilliantly, by Barratt and Fielding themselves—see Old Gregg, the Hitcher, and the Crack Fox—as well as mystical helpers who impart wisdom. Their landlord is a wee deadpan shaman. In one episode, Vince descends to hell (monkey hell, but still) to bring Howard back from the dead.

I cried a little bit typing that.

And so, I pursued the Boosh like the compulsive bitch that I am. I found them on Youtube. I researched the cast. I ordered the DVDs and committed entire episodes to memory. The Boosh infected my dreams and my speech patterns, and my response to just about everything became a little bit brighter. I even began to draw pictures again! With colors in them! ("Well skilled." Thanks, Vince.)

Any fangirl or boy will tell you: The Boosh inspire you, and they make you feel happy. Happiness is a rare commodity in modern pop culture, but I think it comes through in the Boosh's work because Fielding and Barratt really love each other. They love each other openly, obviously, and Platonically. The love is evident in the incredible beauty and detail that went into their TV show. It is evident in the way work together on stage. And their joint interviews are a wonder to behold. They tend to sit close together, and mirror one another's gestures. They gaze at one another adoringly. They crack each other up. They're not a couple—both are in longstanding relationships with really, really cool or at least somewhat cool women.** Were they lovers, all this leaning and mirroring and gazing would be boring.

Nevertheless, "Noelian" inspires a great deal of slash fiction, whether in character or out. We Booshists sort of want them to be lovers. But obviously we don't, because that would mess up the tension. But we do, because the human imagination works like that. But we don't, because it just doesn't seem right.

To quote Amanda, the very lovely keeper of a Boosh Tumblr site:

"I love them too much to imagine them as these completely different people that the authors of the stories [...] have turned them into [...] I’ve peeked at some slash, and its just painful [...] I just don't believe that they are lovers in any capacity. And therefore I can’t imagine it and get no pleasure out of doing so. I do believe, however, that they are soul mates. In the most intimately non-sexual and loving way [...] They complete each other. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It's magic, plain and simple."

How freakin' sweet is that? She's probably about twelve years old, but she's right.


 II. My Friend Tricia (a pseudonym)

And thank you, Amanda, for naming the dynamic between these two men—the dynamic that draws us all in—so well.

See, I've done a lot of thinking about romantic love. Specifically, the kind in which the lovers collaborate in art and work. I don't have that in my life, that John-and-Yoko thing. Never have. I used to want it more than anything. But I wonder now: were John and Yoko really John and Yoko? And if life had taken a less tragic turn, would they have been able to sustain that all-consuming partnership? In retrospect, I think John's utter dependence on Yoko was a bit sad and creepy. And, I think it takes a lot of effort to keep that dyad narrative going, which is why most couples end up staying together happily enough, but pursuing their separate interests.

Julian Barratt once compared his partnership with Noel Fielding to a marriage. But I think it's something better than that.

And you know what? I had a friendship like that once.

I was about fifteen when I "met" Tricia, although she had been lurking around the perimeter of my small group of friends for some time. We were at another friend's house, watching Eddie Murphy's HBO special (I'm old.) Eddie set the tone for what was to come in my friendship with Tricia, I think. Anyway, we just paired off for some reason. We sat side by side on the floor, a bag of chips between us that no one else could get at.

I seem to recall we kept up a running commentary about pretty much everything, as if we'd been inside one another's minds all along.

We began to write each other elaborate multi-page notes. I think Tricia started it. I remember the feel of those notes: looseleaf paper absolutely dented by the manic pressure of a ballpoint pen. Tricia Scotchtaped a quarter to one of these missives, eagle-side out, and labeled it "Super Cock." Super Cock was a deity of some kind. And I was smitten.

Over the next decade we formed the habit of withdrawing together into corners. We had our own way of speaking, like twins. It was very formal, sort of backwards and all stuck together, like High German. People stayed out of our way.

Tricia was beautiful. But goofy. But beautiful. Her hair was like a hat. An enormous chestnut hat. Her smile was huge. She was gorgeous and awkward, like the offspring of Mary Tyler Moore and Bill The Cat.

We laughed so hard when we were together. I have never laughed like that since. Not with anyone. We had tension. We would meet up between classes at college, and start laughing the second we saw each other. We made up tons of shit. I mean, we generated material. It was definitely material. And here's something I know now: had we been boys, we would have definitely done something with it. (I blame the patriarchy.) I think I was smarter, but I was a little bit in her shadow. She was the Vince, I was the Howard. We were in love, I think. I really do.

But we couldn't sustain it into adulthood. And again, I blame the patriarchy. Actually, I blame Tricia's parents, because they were insane. They acted like she was a cow they had to auction off. So Tricia was competitive, and quite devious, when it came to guys. And she got the guys. Because she was the Vince. It got ugly after a while and I had to detach. It's a shame, because had I given myself some time to become the mature Howard ("confident, at ease with myself") I think I could have shrugged it all off.

Tricia was with me when my father got sick, and when he died. She drove me the length and breadth of Nassau county in the snow, and we played our favorite music. She alone understood my need to be stoic and suck everything up, because I hated (still hate) being pitied and fussed over. "We're just made of stronger stuff," she said. "We're going to do amazing things together." She was right. For the longest time, I felt that Tricia and I could do anything we wanted. Blow stuff up just by looking at it, you know?

Probably she was like that with everybody—drawing them in, making them feel specially privileged. I don't know. I could contact her easily enough now, but I haven't and I probably won't. Terrifying notion. But I still dream about her all the time. My friend. The Super Cock. The Vince.

"She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind." — Toni Morrison

*Insert your own thang (Pepperidge Farm cookie, methamphetamine, fruitless crush) here.
**I'm still on Team Dee Plume.

____

Bonus Boosh: from Series 2, the "Nanageddon" episode. Look at the set. Look at the love, and work, and art, that went into each and every shot.

I wrote this in July, 2010 and never posted it. I'm posting it now because it made me laugh.

Blog note: The book referenced below has now been written. Thank you.

Regarding the unborn novel: I've got a bit of the "why bothers" right now. I think what I need is an alter ego. Yes, and I shall call him Jonathan Saffron Monsoon.* Because a three-named guy named Jonathan would just get it done, and while it would be no better than if I wrote it myself, people would think it was.

So now I'm Jonathan. And I’m going to become a vegan and buy a co-op in, um, Bushwick, and then bitch that it’s getting all gentrified. And I’m going to have a dog and write essays about it. And these essays will be published everywhere, because I'm Jonathan Saffron Monsoon.

Oh, and I’m going to be 29-and-a-half, because that will give me another decade to make it into The New Yorker's "Thirty Under Forty." (Did you know that you only need your left hand to type "decade?")

And I will have a girlfriend named Vida Silt. No, she has to have three names because everyone under 35 has three names. Um, Vida Tracey Silt. She's an underwear model who also plays bass in a band called The Underwear Models. Because she actually thinks that modeling underwear is really stupid, but whatever.


And despite the fact that we rescued our dog from a shelter, he happens to be a purebred puggle.** He was abandoned somewhere in Red Hook for being out of style. We feed him organic vegan food and can’t figure out why he’s depressed. His name is Vajayjay, which is not sexist at all! I love Vajayjay. I'm Jonathan Saffron Monsoon.

And now I can go write. Bye.

*Ten points if you know who Saffron Monsoon is without googling
**Obviously, puggles are goddamned cute

Blog Note!

This is the blog of P.J. DeGenaro. I'm a writer and a liberal. I am NOT a gun-lover or a white supremacist. If you come here expecting to find anything like that, you are so much in the wrong place that it's ludicrous.

The post below this one delineates my deep antipathy toward firearms. "Antipathy toward firearms" means "I hate guns."

If you wish to communicate with me, leave a comment here. If you seem reasonable I'll make it visible and I'll respond. DO NOT email me. I will block you.

What We Don't Talk About When We Don't Talk About Guns

I hate guns. If I had one, I’d probably find a reason to use it, and no one needs that.

But I’m not afraid to talk about guns or gun culture, or the NRA. Of course, I’m not running for office, and I don’t work for a media company, so I've got nothing to worry about.

So... hey, let’s talk school-shootings. Our latest one, in Chardon, Ohio, fits the usual pattern. Male loner/weirdo is bullied, snaps, obtains gun, brings it to school and either targets specific people or else shoots randomly into the crowd.

Or, to distill it even further: TROUBLED CHILD OBTAINS GUN; TAKES IT TO SCHOOL, SHOOTS OTHER CHILDREN.

And the outcome is that children end up being shot to death. In their school. I don’t think much more can be said about that.

Let’s talk about bullying, since everyone else is. Is bullying worse now than it used to be? I don’t know. I know that children have more access to each other during non-school hours than they once did, and that small incidents can become huge when they're spread via technology.

But let’s really talk about bullying. Let’s reach back into our souls and remember our own experiences of bullying, of being bullied, or of standing by -- or even joining in -- out of fear for our own safety.

I was bullied consistently in eighth grade, September through June. I won’t go into great detail here, because to do so would require about twelve more blog entries and a level of analysis (of family dynamics, money, religion, and other issues) that would prevent me from talking about GUNS.

My bully and her cohorts did not physically injure me (much) but they pretty well shattered my sense of self, my sense of safety, and my sense of freedom. I was terrified to go anywhere alone. I don’t even want to consider how many years it took me to shed the feeling of being watched, assessed, and mocked by others everywhere I went.

The weird thing is, I didn’t even feel angry at the time. I suppressed my anger. It took me a long time to realize I needn’t have. I don’t suppress anger now, and if that bothers anyone, I invite you to get in my face and tell me about my lack of enlightenment or whatever.

What I didn’t do then and what I won’t ever do is shoot anyone. Oh, I fantasized about it. Years later, when we were all lined up in the high school gym in our caps and gowns about to go outside for our graduation ceremony, I thought how neat it would be if I could swing down on one of the gym ropes and spray everyone with gunfire (sparing the ten or twelve people I liked or respected.)

But of course I didn't do it! I don’t even kill spiders!

I didn’t have access to a gun then, and I don't now. I don’t like guns and I don’t believe that anyone outside the military or law-enforcement needs one. Not in America, not anywhere. Angry people with guns kill people!

BUT WE MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT THE GUNS!

We are permitted to ask where TJ Lane's parents were. We are permitted to wonder why no one saw this coming. That's fine. Just don't ask WHERE THE HELL HE GOT THE GUN, because it wasn't the gun's fault that he shot it.

But PJ, you’re thinking. You were bullied. I was bullied. Everyone we know was bullied. And some of us did have access to guns. Why didn’t we go to school and shoot everyone?

—

Do you remember the first school shooting? Or, more accurately, do you remember the first school shooting that didn’t involve ethnic minorities in an inner city? Columbine was the first pre-meditated mass shooting carried out by troubled white boys in a white suburban high school.

But it wasn’t anything new. Not exactly. Terror at the hands of troubled people with firearms has been part of the American landscape since at least 1966, when a gunman climbed into the bell tower at the University of Texas in Austin and shot 15 people dead.

But the numbing frequency with which mass shootings now occur didn’t begin until the 1980s.

Here’s an incomplete timeline:

21 people at a McDonald’s in San Diego, 1984.

14 people in an Oklahoma post office, by an ex-coworker, 1986.

“Going Postal” enters our lexicon, late 1980s.

7 people at a laboratory in Sunnyvale, California, by an ex-coworker, 1988.

23 people at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, 1991.

Let’s throw the Oklahoma City bombing onto this list, because I believe it’s relevant. 168 people, including children at a daycare center, 1995.

And then Columbine.

And now several incidents every year. College campuses, high schools, middle schools. Companies from which someone has been let go. Beauty shops at which someone’s custody dispute ends in a hail of bullets.

BUT GUN CONTROL IS NOT THE SOLUTION, AND WE MUST NOT EVEN TALK ABOUT IT.

Is bullying worse than ever? I don’t know. Are we more resentful after being unfairly fired from a job than we were in 1950, or in 1930? I can’t answer that. Are people’s divorces any more painful than they were in 1970? Probably not. Life is sometimes very difficult, very painful, almost too much to bear. This has always been the case. If anything, a lot of us have it easier than anyone living at any other time in human history could possibly have imagined.

So why are we shooting each other?

Because we are awash, every hour and every day, in violent, paranoiac rhetoric. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that mass shootings have become commonplace since the advent of the modern Republican Party, with its enablers in the world of Talk Radio, and its adherents in the most geographically or psychologically insular corners of the country.

And let us not forget the deep pockets of untouchable National Rifle Association and its extremely powerful Political Victory Fund.

The fact is, we live in a society in which for the last thirty years the paranoia and fear of the white working class has been intentionally ratcheted-up by opportunistic politicians, organizations, and media outlets. Fox News was launched in 1996. Think about how the tone of our political discourse has changed since then.

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly will tell you that if you're white, male, and just barely squeaking by, there's always someone to blame. The feminazis are coming to take your job. The "illegals" are coming to take your job. And the Black people? Let’s face it, they get everything handed to them. (Even the presidency.)

The “jack-booted thugs of the federal government” are coming to take your guns away. The college-educated elites on both coasts are laughing at you. The abortionists didn't even want you to be born. And the Muslims? Don’t even look at them cross-eyed. They get everything. (Even the presidency.)

Add to all this persistent myth that America is the last great frontier, and that the descendents of the original white settlers all pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without the slightest bit of help from anyone. And now all these newcomers and women and gay people and non-Christians want to get all that good stuff for free? On your dime?

White guy, you’re being bullied. You gotta protect your stuff.

Sharron Angle, the delightful former assemblywoman who lost the Nevada Senate race to Harry Reid in 2010, said the following on Bill Manders’ radio show:

You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.

I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.

Yes, that’s the way to deal with people we don’t like. “Second Amendment remedies.”

This attitude is the source from which adults in small-town America -- whether geographically small, like Chardon, Ohio, or small like Staten Island, New York City’s most conservative outpost -- take their cues. And children take cues from the adults around them.

If the adults are frightened, angry, and arming themselves to the teeth, what should the children do?

So wring your hands at each new school shooting. Blame the school, the parents, the therapists, the people who should have noticed that something was wrong.

BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE, DO NOT SPEAK OF THE GUNS.

We're Back!

Back from the SOPA/PIPA protest. Still no real content. Sorry. In the meantime, I leave you all with the following image.