MUGWUMP

Pu-ber-ty

Kerry recommends

I love reading Bill Bryson's books. The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America and A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail are funny and insightful, and his A Short History of Nearly Everything is a must read for my fellow adults out there who might not have paid the best attention in science class growing up (or for those of you who had lack-luster teachers). He nearly always comes across like the most reasonable and rational fellow you'd ever hope to meet and you end up wondering why everybody in your life can't be that way.

Last week I picked up Made In America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States and it's really fascinating. He sort of blows everything I believe to be true about early American history out of the water. Here are a couple of typical passages:

The Mayflower, like Plymouth Rock, appears to have made no sentimental impression on the colonists. Not once in the History of Plimouth Plantation, William Bradford’s history of the colony, did he mention the ship by name. Just three years after its epochal crossing, the Mayflower was broken up and unceremoniously sold for salvage.

and

It wasn’t until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his romantic and widely inaccurate poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” (from Tales of a Wayside Inn) in 1863 that Revere became known as anything other than an engraver and silversmith. Among the inaccuracies, Revere didn’t hang the lanterns in the old North Church, because it wasn’t called that until later, and at the time of the Revolution it was Christchurch; he made two rides, not one; and he never made it to Concord, as Longfellow has it, but in fact was arrested along the way.

and

Equally mistaken is the idea that the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was announced to a breathless Philadelphia on July 4 by the ringing of the Liberty Bell. For one thing, the Declaration was not read out in Philadelphia until July 8, and there is no record of any bells being rung. Indeed, though the Liberty Bell was there, it was not so called until 1847, when the whole inspiring episode was recounted in a book titled Washington and His Generals, written by one George Lippard, whose previous literary efforts had been confinded almost exclusively to producing mildly pornographic novels. He made the whole thing up.

There are scads of other examples that are certainly more striking than these three, but those were just the ones that happened to catch my eye as I was flipping back through the pages I'd already read (plus, they weren't extremely long examples... since I was typing them out.) A lot of the book is devoted to the evolution of words we use today and where they are derived from... interesting enough, but man, the background setting that Bryson gives us in which these etymological changes are taking place is amazing. Check it out if you're curious to discover how inaccurate our American history classes were. It really is a bit mindblowing.

Look back to look ahead

My friend Gregg and I were talking about how gay men of our generation can sometimes feel overwhelmed by a sort of floundering in regards to our stations in life. We speculated that perhaps it's because the generation of gay men that came before us, the one the we should have been able to look to to set an example for us, or to lead the way and give us a little direction, well... they were sort of wiped out en masse by the AIDS epidemic. I know a few gay men older than me but only a handful... and it's a little odd to go out to a gay pride festival and see how many more people there are my age and younger proportionally to those generations older than me.

Anyway... I'm going somewhere with this. I read a tribute today to a 19-year old gay-games participant who died recently in a car crash. It's sad... but I'm somehow heartened that he was out and that he had so many mentors.

Mr. T sings

I don't know if this has already made the rounds but I just saw it for the first time yesterday. So bad in so many ways.

Random

I was having a dream about Tammy Faye Baker when I woke up this morning. Not sure what made her pop into my subconscious, but if you've never seen the documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, it's a real hoot.

Faith

Here's a story you've probably heard before that I decided to get cute with.

Once upon a time, a man sat on his porch as a flood warning was beginning. His neigbor was pulling out of the driveway following the evacuation order from the community officials. The neigbor said, "Hey. Jump in. We can ride out together to avoid the flood." The man responded, "I have faith. God will save me from the impending flood."

A little while later, the water covered the street, and an SUV cut it's way through the flood. A stranger rolled down the window and said, "Hey fellow. Jump in, this flood is going to get worse." The man responded, "I have faith. God will save me from the impending flood."

As time passed, the water became high enough that the man had to move inside and look out his second floor window. A boat came by, and the man in the boat yelled out, "Jump in. This flood is going to get worse." The man responded, "I have faith. God will save me from the impending flood."

The man was forced to climb to the roof as the flood entered his second floor. A rescue helicopter whirled overhead and a voice came from a bull-horn yelling, "Grab this rope ladder. we'll save you." The man yelled back, "I have faith. God will save me from the impending flood."

The man drowned.

When he reached the pearly gates, the man said to Saint Peter, "I had faith. Why did God let me drown?"

Saint Peter responded, "We sent you a car, an SUV, a boat, and a helicopter. What else were we supposed to do?"

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Now replace "man" with "George W. Bush", "flood" with "Iraq", and "a car, an SUV, a boat, and a helicopter" with "insurgency, WMD report, James Baker, and a Democratic Congress".

Dating: All the cool kids are doing it

So I've decided that I suck at dating. I'm terrible at it. I can never relax, which means it's hard to be myself, and the entire time I'm trying to figure out what I think of the other person while trying to make the best possible impression. As I said to my roommate Mike, "It's like interviewing for a job that I'm not even sure I want."

I was on a self-imposed exile from dating for the past year. After I got bit by the dog in December 2005 I just lost any sort of confidence in the area of attractiveness and now, three surgeries later, I'm just starting to get it back -- enough to put myself in an awkward situation with a stranger anyway. (Friends tell me the damage was mostly in my head... but perhaps they're just making some dark, brain-damage joke at my expense.)

I went out the other night... and it wasn't a "Date" date... just a 'getting to know you' thing at a free show... but still... I couldn't get comfortable enough to enjoy myself and at first I thought, "Well jeez, Kerry... you haven't been in this type of situation for a REALLY long time so chill out." But then I remembered, I've NEVER been good at dating. I hate it. I much prefer going out with friends and then meeting someone new in their circle. And then seeing that person with those same people over and over and over again until we know each other well enough to venture out on our own without the mutual friends.

I guess what I really want is for one of those people to come up to me and say, "Hey, I read your blog. I think we'd really get on well with each other. Want to go out?"

Actually, that's not true.

What I REALLY want is for Will Kemp to come up to me and say, "Hey, I read your blog. I think we'd really get on well with each other. Want to go out?"

And the promotional blitz continues...

...with MIKA's "Grace Kelly" video.

MIKA

So I went to the MIKA (pronounced mee-ka) show last night at the Roxy and you can't not love the sound of this guy. It's a little Freddy Mercury, a little Sissor Sisters, a little Rupert Wainwright. A lot gay, I suppose. I used the event to try to get to know a new friend last night, and as Josh commented during the performance, "It's infectious."
















































I can't wait for this album to come out, although they did give us a goodie bag with a 3-song disc in it as we exited last night (along with some lollipops and a hacky-sack, since the music is very playful... get it??)

As Josh and I waited outside along Sunset Blvd. to get into the club, he commented on the clowns that Universal Music had hired to work the crowd, to get us in that 'playful' mood before we were ushered inside. One was on stilts, one was a juggler, and one made balloon animals and Josh said something like, "Clowning is very hard work. It's hard to get people to interact with you." and then I off-handedly said something like, "I'm not really fond of clowns. If one of those guys comes over here you're going to have to talk with him." He asked me what I had against clowns and I answered something to the effect of, "I'd just rather know the real person than the character I was being held hostage by until he felt I'd been thoroughly amused by his antics."

I am a clown snob. There, I said it.

As the balloon-animal clown got closer to us, working his way down the line, I sort of turned my back to him hoping he'd bypass us but then, and not without some appreciation from me for the instant karma, he said, "KERRY??"

Turns out I knew the guy. His name is Gilford. I never knew he was a clown though. You might recognize him as that second guy in the Jack in the Box milkshake commercials where they're shaking the cows.

I felt bad for dissing on clowns. I'd like them all if they were all like Gil. He made me a balloon sword and a balloon belt to hold it and I worely it proudly and awkwardly inside like a big badge that said, "Ask me about my clown issues".

Tulsarama

On June 15, 1957, a new gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe was buried in a time capsule in downtown Tulsa, OK. The time capsule was part of Golden Jubilee Week: Tulsa's celebration of Oklahoma's semi-centennial.

In a contest, citizens of Tulsa were asked to guess what the city's population would be in the year 2007. The guesses were then recorded on microfilm and sealed in a steel container buried within the car. When the car and artifacts are excavated on June 15th of this year during the city's centennial celebration Tulsarama, the person whose guess is closest to the actual current population will win the car. If that person is dead, the car is to be awarded to his or her heirs.

City organizers are worried that they might not be able to name a winner or that the car might just be a big pile of rust.

Choice bit:

Added to the glove compartment of the car shortly before its burial were the contents of a women's purse, including bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, cigarettes and an unpaid parking ticket.

How much do you think that woman regretted putting her unpaid parking ticket in the glove compartment when she realized what the fines would be on a 50-year-old ticket? The realization probably hit her once her tranqs wore off... and then she remembered she was out of those now too! And then she didn't even have her cigarettes to try to calm down. I'm guessing it was a real scene.