I have a new goal. Remember how I made that generic fitness New Year’s Resolution, like everyone does every year? I’ve made it more specific.

By the end of this year, I am going to meet the recommended minimum entrance requirements for the French Foreign Legion, according to random guy on the internet who claims to have been a Legionnaire.

You probably assume, as I did, that the minimum physical requirements for anything French were “Eat a wedge of brie in one minute without throwing up, successfully make love to a woman who hasn’t bathed in ten days, and run away from a threat.” Turns out that’s for the regular French Army. The Legion is more hardcore, probably because it’s full of foreigners. Here are the recommended minimum physical entry requirements, according to Dude Who Was In It And Wrote A Book:

- 30 pushups.
- 50 situps.
- Climb a 20 foot rope without using your feet.
- Run 8 kilometres with a 12 kilogram rucksack in less than one hour.
- 8 chinups with your palms away from you as you grip the bar.

This will be incredibly difficult, but at the end I will be a titan. A juggernaut. A terrifying war god. An avatar of virility. And I will get mad tail. I refuse to allow a French person to be stronger than me. I want it to be a conscious decision that I’m not in the Foreign Legion, breaking up riots in French Whateveria, every day.

Also, the tail.

I will inform you of my progress, or Mikeleh will inform you of my hospitalization.

We arrived at the house to see Aunt and Cousin’s Fiance wrestling (rassling, really) the dogs into the back of Aunt’s pickup. Cousin came over to the car and said, “Well, a lot of terrible things happened just now.” So, of course, my mind flipped through Arabs, Communists, drug-resistant staph, tornadoes, a Hilarity Clinton win in… anything, cancer, famine…

“That dog you found got into the chicken yard and killed all the chickens.”

Michael stared fixedly into space. I covered my mouth like a matron interrupting a hand job after lights-out. We held these poses as Cousin went through the body count (70% mortality rate among hens) and a lurid description of a wheelbarrow full of dead chickens. “Anyway. we’re taking the dogs to the other house and putting them in the yard. You should… not be here. Aunt’s Boyfriend is… y’all should not be here.”

So we drive to the other house.

Me: I am so embarrassed.

Kike: Oh, my God.

Me: I am so embarrassed.

Kike: Does Aunt’s Boyfriend have a gun?

Me: I am so embarrassed.

Kike: This is terrible. Oh, God.

Me: I am so embarrassed.

Kike: That was a serious question about the gun.

At the other house, Cousin and Cousin’s Fiance had a talk about how gross the blood on the dog is. Aunt shared some dog training tips: “I’ve been too busy. Boyfriend has had plenty of time to take that dog to the chicken yard, show him a chicken, and tell him ‘no.’ That’s all you have to do. I’d've done it, but I’m too busy. Anyway, it’ll blow over. Boyfriend will start drinking in two or three hours and he’ll calm down. We should all stay away from the house until then.”

So we dorve to Nearby Town and bought Aunt and Aunt’s Boyfriend a gift. Then we go drunk with Cousin and Cousin’s Fiance. Then we snuck back into Aunt’s house, c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y and q-u-i-e-t-l-y. Aunt heard us, of course, and got up up to tell us that “peace reigned in thouse house once more,” and they had had a chicken funeral earlier.

Then, today, a wildfire nearly burned down part of town (really,) marking the fifth time somewhere I live has been wholly or partly evacuated for a natural disaster. (Jarrell tornado outbreak, Ivan, Katrina, Rita, and random wildfire.) There’s never a dull moment out here.

Faithful readers of this erratically updated blog will recall that I have, at best, a deeply ambiguous relationship with what has chosen to anoint itself “the gay community.” On the one hand, boys and the Scissor Sisters. On the other hand, grown men calling each other “girl,” Sex on the Beaches (Sexes on the Beach?), Madonna, organizations with the words “lavender” and “pink” in the titles, gay drama, “condom fatigue” (are you fucking kidding me?), being lumped in with transsexuals and the intersexed for no real reason at all except that it’s easy to have all the freaks in one place, strangers asking me if I “pitch” or “catch,” strangers touching me, coconut rum, and “Queer As Folk.” My friend Nora says I’m one of only two actual, factual gay people she knows who complains about “faggots” - the other is her officemate from Houma, Louisiana, who explained to her that “you know, there are gay people and there are faggots. Like how there are niggers and black people.”

So, yeah, I go on tirades about “Goddamn fairies” that could be lifted from the Fred Phelps Christmas album, “The Only Goddamn Showtune You’ll Ever Hear Me Sing Is ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Dame’ From South Pacific.’” And yeah, I don’t like the cookie-cutter girly squeaky all-I-am-and-ever-shall-be-is-a-big-ol’-mo pansies. But do you know who pisses me off always as much?

Fucking, Goddamn, straight people making a fucking point.

I tried to discuss this at the time, but I was too busy scrambling for my digitalis to do so. Remember when J. K. LGBT. Rowling announced that Dumbledore was family? And there was hue and motherfucking cry? Jesus wept! That was the stupidest goat-ass media storm since that whole flap about “Iraq,” or wherever. A minor character in a series of fucking children’s books, for children, is gay in the author’s mind. There’s not even (apparently) textual evidence for it. And everyone cared. People were happy about it. Over-fucking-joyed. Happy that an imaginary wizard had a very hard life and was stung by unrequited love because of a deeply held secret. Seldom have puerility and insensitivity made such an awkward marriage.

And, fuck. Bareback Mountain? Give me a Goddamn break. Yes, it was a very good movie. Yes, Heath Ledger (God rest his soul) and Jake Gyllelenehyellall and the sweeping vistas of British Columbia were all visual treats. It did not “change the way I thought about film,” in the words of one reviewer, and it certainly didn’t change the way I felt about love. It changed the way I felt about drinking games and Jake Gy….ll. It did not roll the sky up like a scroll. It’s well-acted hot guys on a mountain. Calm down.

And now, even the fucking cartoons are in on it. From Defamer:

The Advocate: Which character do gay fans respond to the most?

Seth McFarlane: Generally they respond to Stewie, because he’s arguably the most complex character. …we delved into the idea of his confused sexuality. We all feel that Stewie is almost certainly gay… we treat him oftentimes as if we were writing a gay character.

The Advocate: If a house party full of America’s gay celebrities literally burst into flames, which one would you run in to save first?

Seth McFarlane: John Travolta. But if he’s not there for some reason, how about David Hyde Pierce? I’m acquainted with him and he’s a good man. And if we ever did a Family Guy Broadway musical, we would need him to play Stewie?

Je. Sus. Wept. Patronizing much? They treat him as if they were writing a gay character… how? I know, I’ve seen the show, I like the show, but how do they treat him like they’re writing a gay character aside from the blatant gay references? Are there pages of Tennessee Williams-esque stage directions including phrases like “After having masturbated to a picture of Andy Roddick, Stewie comes in?” Does the staff take a Gloria Gaynor moment? I’m not even going to get into the “Towering Queenferno” question, because I can’t even articulate why it’s maddening, but it is. What really strips my screw is that people are going to hail this as a “victory” for gay rights. You know what was a victory for gay rights? Lawrence v. Texas. Remember? The Supreme Court case where we got rights? Not a fucking cartoon infant.

And you know who really, really annoy me? The straight couples who refuse to marry until “every American has the right to love!” La-dee-fucking-dah. Don’t do me no favors, kid. What, they think they’re gonna put Justices of the Peace out of business? Las Vegas Elvises lining up for unemployment? Ministers moonlighting at the gas station? IT WON’T DO A FUCKING THING EXCEPT IMPRESS YOUR FUCKING BERKELEY FRIENDS. I feel like these people’s parents insisted on going to the black high school, and that their distant forefathers stole one of the smallpox blankets from the Indians. Useless fucking gestures. Are the stationery companies going to riot and make Congress let the fags wed, because no one is buying first-anniversary paper? Give me a fucking break. You know what my real, actual friends do about my homosexuality?

Treat me like a person, not a sideshow attraction, and occasionally introduce me to a nice boy. Because they’re my friends. And I don’t give a good Goddamn who, if, when, or how they marry.

“Fuck” count for this post: 12
“Goddamn” count for this post: 5
Number of dollars I bet you someone comments on this post only to complain about my use of the word “nigger”: 5

As my esteemed compatriot Xanthippe noted in his preceding compendium of anticipated debauchery, we moved a while ago. After several years’ worth of living in often conflict-ridden metropolises, it was decided that we should pool our collective resources and find a nice quiet place to live in the country, a place where we could nurse our misanthropy, a place where nobody would bat an eyelid at downing an eye-opener upon arising in the mid-afternoon. And that’s how we found ourselves in the town we’ve dubbed Givat Chofesh, a Texas hamlet where the grass is brown, the skies blue, the breakfast tacos abundant, and the ratio of gas stations to registered sex offenders two-to-one. Demographic realities in our minuscule burg have allowed us to assume with confidence the mantles of Town Jew and Town Fairy, and between the thrill of once again being novelties and always getting 10% off at the liquor store because the owner’s taken a shine to us, we’re as happy as bivalves.

And since I know our surprisingly faithful readership loves to get a peek at the sordid, gin-soaked affair that is our lives, I’ve compiled a series of snapshots detailing existence as we know it in Givat Chofesh. Read on:

(more…)

I kind of wish I wasn’t talking about going powerwalking with my cousin.

Yeah, yeah, we didn’t post for a while. We moved, it was holidays, and for about a week I couldn’t look at the blog without screeching “SORRY TO RAIN ON YOUR HATE PARADE!” Save me from dour Yiddishists. Anyway, yeah. So Mikeleh, who I’m thinking of calling “This White Man’s Burden” and I have been living in what used to be the stable of my aunt’s house and tripping over piles of detritus since mid-December. There was only one bed in the room when we got there, so we have no idea if my family thinks we’re asshole buddies or not. Mike has already been invited to both family weddings taking place this year, and his birthday is written in the calendar, so… make of this what you will. We’re about to move into Ancestral Home / Bagach, a WONDERFUL and brightly colored house my cousin is vacating to marry her handsome, employed fiance. We may raise chickens. Anyway, to change the subject as rapidly and jarringly as a woman looking up from a blow job and saying “I want to have a baby,” here are my New Year’s Resolutions.

1) I will do that health shit.

Vegetables, fiber, flossing, blah blah blah.

2) I will keep up with my book club.

Because I am a bookish spinster.

3) I will finally beat “Super Castlevania IV.”

I have been trying since I was eight. I could never get past the pterodatyl-skeleton-monster.THINGS ARE GONNA CHANGE THIS YEAR, PTERODACTYL-SKELETON-MONSTER. PRAY TO YOUR FOSSILIZED, 32-BIT GOD, BECAUSE I WITH MY MUSCULAR THIGHS AND WEIRD LONG CHAIN WILL END YOU.

4) I will go to Lourdes.

The pope has apparently offered a SUPER dispensation for visits to Lourdes in this 150th anniversary year, and after a certain incident in an alley in Christchurch last year, I’d like to reset my Purgatory clock. In my defense, he looked like he was at least fifteen.

5 and most important) I will have sex with a Canadian.

Mikeleh, in his more playful moods, likes to call me “a whore.” Apparently, having a blank wall map on which you color in the countries of origin of your conquests, with the goal of amassing a giant contiguous “empire” somehow implies promiscuity. I consider it a perfectly reasonable expression of my inner creative self, which likes to fuck brown dudes.

Anyway. Contiguity. There’s a big blank patch cutting Alaska off from the Lower 48, and that cold, white stretch of the map reminds me of the cold, white stretch of North America I’ve never… sampled.

Seriously, how have I not by now? I feel like I’ve had a reasonably full life: I’ve fled a natural disaster. I’ve slept with a Colombian. I’ve been an “internally displaced person.” I’ve slept with an Italian. I’ve graduated from college. I’ve slept with a Mexican. I’ve lived abroad. I’ve slept with a Greek. I’ve been to the Holy Land. I’ve slept with a New Zealander. I’ve performed at Lincoln Center. I’ve slept with an Englishman.

How have I not had a Canadian? I have not mounted a mountie, tapped for maple syrup, or scored a goalie. Nor have I… that’s all I know about Canada. It’s cold and they have the Queen. It’s… up there. Laughing at me. But you wait, Canada. I’ll get you yet. It might be a tall, expressionless mountie. It might be a prim, cheese-smelling Quebecois. It might be a dour Maritime lobsterman, or even - although, God, I hope not - a stoned, filthy, dreadlocked, hackey-sacked British Columbia hippie. But it will happen, Canada. By 2009, one of your boys will have a warm, itchy memory of me, and I’ll have a big red colored-in space above home.

Kind of Blue; August 17, 1959
Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb
RIAA-certified triple platinum; top-selling jazz album of all time.

Noël; October 9, 2007
Josh Groban
RIAA-certified quadruple platinum; top-selling album of 2007.

‘Twas on this day in 1933, 74 years ago, when the government realized that the best way to combat the malaise gripping America, with Depression and Dust Bowl ravaging the heartland, was to allow the poor and downtrodden to forget their sorrows with their first drink in 14 years guaranteed not to contain turpentine.

It was, save for (eventually) entering World War II, arguably the last good decision the federal government ever made.

So celebrate your constitutional right to cirrhosis with a frosty one, and on your way home from the bar, don’t forget to urinate on your local chapter of MADD.

And don’t drive home, tembel.

Chris: We must never marry.

What if we married and had Couple Dates?

“If we invite the Lastnames, we’ll have to invite the Other-Lastnames.”

Us, our wives, and two other couples. Around the table. Talking about tapas and our wonderful trips to Helsinki.

Michael: Oh…oh God.

Chris: We are standing in the front yard with beer.

Your wife and my “Wife” are making Arugula Yam Compote, failing, and calling Boston Market.

Thanksgiving, 2014.

A bungalow for four is rented in Oaxaca.

One wife spends the whole time crying.

Michael: The other spends the whole time insecure about her bathing suit.

Chris: An elaborate lie is constructed so we have a weekend in Atlantic City.

Michael: I almost want to cry.

Chris: This is so terrifying.

One of the marriages fails.

The strain of “Trying to be friends with them both” causes the other to collapse.

Michael: “We brought you here today because we love you very much, and we’re worried about you, and we want to talk to you about your drinking.”

Chris: Screaming recriminations.

“It’s Chris’ fault. Any MAN who cheats is an asshole.”

“It’s Carlos’ fault. I don’t like him.”

AA.

“Hello, Michael.”

Tokens.

Michael: Muffled sobs coming from the bedroom.

Chris: A divorce lawyer.

Michael: “Your honor, is there any way that I could not have visiting rights?”

Chris: Children.

Syler if it’s a boy, and Skylar if it’s a girl.

“Chris, I want to consider moving to state with more liberal adoption laws.”

Imagine that phrase.

Michael: “Michael, we’re late for Lamaze.”

“Michael, you’re not breathing with me.”

Chris: “Chris, your lovemaking is distant recently.”

Michael: “Michael, I think this is a good time to bring up my feelings on circumcision.”

Chris: “Chris, I want my mother to move in with us.”

“Chris, I want your mother to move in with us.”

“Chris, I want you to hold me. No, not like that.”

Michael:”Michael, I’ve been reading about the macrobiotic diet, and…”

Chris: “Chris, I’ve booked us a package tour to Ibiza.”

Michael: “Michael, let’s spend a year in an old villa in Tuscany.”

Chris: “Chris, I’ve been learning about Eastern religions.”

“Chris, let’s spend some time at a commune in the Pacific Northwest, so we can really reconnect.”

Michael: “Michael, I want the children to be raised in both faiths.”

“So they can choose for themselves.”

Chris: “Chris, I want us to be secular humanists.”

“Chris, I love you forever.”

Michael: “Michael, kiss me like you did in Jerusalem.”

“Michael, look me in the eyes.”

Chris: “Chris, I want you to fall asleep inside me.”

Michael: And finally, they arrive at the nuclear option.

Chris: Let’s post this one.

They want drunk conversation logs, they’ll fucking get them.