Role Models

"Well, obviously we're not supposed to buttfuck these kids." -- Wheeler

Earlier today, I was sitting with a friend in his attic bedroom discussing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Really, we were discussing drugs, alcohol, anonymous sex, and the price of tea in China, but life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness just sounded like a better way to start out a post about being a role model and specifically growing up gay in Omaha, Nebraska without any real male role model to speak of, and especially no gay role model. This came up because while discussing the less-than-savory aspects of my life with this friend, he brought up setting a good example for our younger siblings. He was speaking metaphorically because he has no younger siblings as of now, and it got us to thinking about how we grew up, and how we learned to be the us that we are today, and I thought it would make a good blog post. I should mention as a preemptive warning that I haven't really slept, and I'm running on caffeine so this post may suck monumental

Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

"I'd have to put a 'feeble-mind'spell on myself to make me want to take *you* home" -- Marina Pretensa

Dear Blogbuddy,

Let me tell you a tale about my day so far. Keep in mind that as of typing these words, it is only 9:30 in the morning. Waking up at 1:30 on Tuesdays has its benefits, among them would be the opportunity to experience outrageousness early and frequently, which will only become more entertaining and outrageous as the day progresses, I assure you. I should explain that Tuesdays are an extra-long day for me. Specifically, because I need to be at the warehouse by 2am in order to process your DVDs that you send in on Saturday, because as Harry would say, "There's no post on Sunday." HP reference FTW. I wonder if I can make that a new thing, in addition to only using movie titles as the titles of my posts, I can sneak in an HP reference every blog post, I'd say I'd try, but I would no doubt fail, so I won't even think about it anymore.

At any rate, I never get enough sleep on Monday night, so I set aside a couple dollars every week to stop by the gas station and pick up a soda before work on Tuesdays. Lately, this has been ... rough. As I'm sure you read in [Katrina's Previous Post] we have some interesting characters to spend time at this gas station. If you ever want to meet them, it's the one on the corner of 84^th(Washington) and Cedardale Road. Luckily, Katrina only has to deal with crazed customers. I get to deal with the person who is so socially inept that he is banished to working the overnight shift at a gas station rather than hold down a real job. To describe this man as any one of the characters from 'Freaks n' Geeks' would be inadequate. Thankfully, my experiences with him have always involved a third person wanting desperately to get through the line and on with their life, and they've always been far less patient and infinitely less polite than myself. Regrettably, today, while already ten minutes behind schedule, was not so lucky.

I entered the empty gas station. I immediately bolted to the coolers to get my Mountain Dew, also known as the drink of the Gods, and grabbed the breakfast meat of champions, a slim jim. Placing my items on the counter and preemptively handing him my cash to speed the process, I tried to muster all of the non-eye-contacty-silent-urgency that I possible could, when he asked, "How's the weather."

How's the weather. HOW'S THE WEATHER?! It's 2 am on a Tuesday and you ask me, "How's the weather?"?!?!?!

"Cold," I respond.

"Lol," yes, he said those three letters, "Well, at least you get a few seconds to warm up."

He rings up my items and gives me a total and while holding my change he says, "I got accused of God-modding in my RPG group last night."

PAUSE. Feel that? That sinking shit feeling you just got. That overwhelming rush of sympathy? Yeah. Yeah. That's the feeling I would have liked to get. Instead, I went into panic mode. Let me make something very clear, I have played DnD. I still do sometimes. Not with any frequency to call myself a gamer, but enough to understand core rule sets, and to grasp the concept of the words he just spoke. Before I can stop him by exiting smoothly, he goes into a 15 minute diatribe about his character in ... wait for it ... a Star Wars Pen & Paper RPG. DnD is bad enough, but now you have to add a whole new level of geek to it by incorporating Star Wars, the next thing I know he's going to have his Magic: The Gathering cards and I'll be in high school all over again.

I strain to act interested, my soul dying bit by bit inside, when he finally says, "Oh geez, it's been a while. You have a nice day, buddy."

So, I go to work. You know. No. Star Wars PnP RPG is enough outrageousness for one post. I at least know that I am never going to that gas station overnight again. nope. No way. Not gonna happen. I'll never leave. I'll be stuck forever listening to him talk about his 'friends' and his character sheets. *shudder* I'll say this much, my shift at the warehouse, which normally lasts 5 hours went for 7.5 today. I nearly cried by the time I left. I've got shit to do.

Zombie Strippers

George W Bush has won his fourth consecutive term as president, taking Florida, which due to a glitch in the Jeb B voting terminals, tallied one single vote for President Bush and Vice President Schwarzenegger. Bush's presidency was unanimously declared legally binding by the Supreme Court as well as "totally cool" by Supreme Justice Jenna Bush who subsequently set in motion another Supreme Kegger. Following the landslide victory, a constitutional amendment banning public nudity was implemented. Shortly thereafter, President Bush dissolved Congress, claiming it was "cramping his style." American Troops continue to be strung thin due to the still raging wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Venezuela, France, Canada, and Alaska.

Let me begin by saying that the previous paragraph is a direct quote. It is the entire exposition of this remarkable, jaw-dropping film, released in 2008. These are, in fact, the opening lines of said film, in a mock-news program that brings to mind parallels with Romeo + Juliet. It is that level of attention to detail that makes me honored to watch, review, and recap the movies of our time. This stands out as a prime example of cinematic genius, the likes of which I am sure won't be seen for at least a hundred years. Why this didn't win every award imaginable is beyond me. I have personally begun a letter-writing campaign to resubmit this film in every category of every award known to mankind for the next fifty years based on pure brilliance alone. I mean, look at some of these headlines, ripped from the news programs of tomorrow:

• There are 54 days left in the year. 
• Gas prices rise to $23 per gallon.
• Brangelina adopts Etheopia.
• Canada dollar triples US Dollar. 

If that isn't genius, I don't know what its, and the base premise of the film is rife with sardonic whimsy that brings memories of film-greats of yore. That said, on with my review/recap. 

The news program introduces us to a sciency lady in front of a warehouselab wearing a lab-coat, like ya do. She informs the world that she and her team have made startling new discoveries in the field of reanimating dead tissue to assist in the growing shortage of soldiers to fight America's ongoing wars. This, surprisingly, cuts to pandemonium. Zombies have taken over what appears to be a warehouselab of some sort, undoubtedly the one seen previously. Zombie-monsters run rampant through the halls devouring unsuspecting research assistants and doctors, while a lone man stands in a window. We'll call him Doctor Calmncool. His assistant, Doctor Tits McGee shows up to inform him that the military has arrived to help contain the problem. 

Chica, Major, Bubbles, Knives, Ke$ha, and Bald-guy

We are introduced to the military representatives, who make it known that, as marines, they drink napalm and piss fire, sir! There is a brief sequence in which each of the people are introduced and their role made clear, the only one not pictured to the left is Lovable-Nerd, who is addressing said group with an intelligent observation of, "You see this? There's fuckin' Zombies out there!" A scientific conclusion if ever I heard one. 

After a briefing from Doctors CnC & TmG, the exposition is explained once again. With the repeated exposition, we also get a few more added bits of wisdom. Among said wisdom is the fact that the virus is based upon the X-chromosome. As such, "The virus remains pure from woman to woman, but, once you get a man in there, like everything else, it all goes to shit." This is now Zombie Lore canon. If you don't know what canon is, then fret not. Kaka and I will be making a post soon in which we discuss Religious, Christmas and Universal canon. Specifically, the birth of Santa. We also discover that a localized EMP, that's electro-magnetic-pulse to you, will knock out the zombies for a short while, making them easier to killsmash. But how do you do that? The doctors suggest surgically removing the Medulla Oblongata, to which the Major responds with the suggestion of shooting them with guns. This appears effective. 

The army dude(tte)s fight through the warehouselab, developed by W Industries, and we get a visual treat as some of the best special effects in the history of mankind are shown time after time. If you haven't seen this film, I encourage you to go and get a Netflix account specifically for this purpose. It's staggering. As our heros continue their quest to kill zombies, they strip down to the most attractive army outfits they can manage, which means a tank top and skin-tight pants for the women and anything that shows off arms for the men. The zombies close in on them in a hallway, and they use the EMP to knock out the zombies. This knocks them on their backs for about thirteen seconds. Then shit commences in getting real. By real, I mean hilarious. There is some biting, which leads to Sassy Chica, deciding to spend this time blaming others, instead of working on shooting her way out of the zombie swarm. 

It goes without saying that Private Byrdflough, literally, that's the name for Lovable-Nerd, has been bitten. In an effort to escape being killed by his fellow armymans, he runs away when nobody is looking and breaks out of the warehouselab, and into the countryside, where he wanders for twenty seconds to find another window, which leads into the basement of an adjoining building. After some mindless wandering, he finds his way to the stage of said establishment, This is Rhino's, a local strip club. The logo of which is seen to the side. It is a Rhino wearing a g-string. Needless to say, Private Byrdflough is ushered off-stage to make way for our main attraction, Kat. In the background, during Kat's dance, a sweet innocent girl appears and we are reminded of the exposition again, when a young man tries to give the bouncer his fake ID, and the bouncer says that "This place is more illegal than that ID."

Backstage, we learn that everybody either hates or worships the star of the club, Kat, and we are introduced to the young woman from earlier. We learn that her name is Jessie. She was born and raised in Sartre, Nebraska, on a farm. She eats a lot of corn and loves her some Jesus. She's doing this to raise money to help pay for her Nana's colostomy. In this reality, every stripper on the planet was a Philosophy major at UNK, we know this because they spend the entirety of the film making philosophical observations about their place in the world. I say, 'in this reality' as if this weren't the truth in the real world, but we'll just glaze over that.

Likewise, in this universe, Freddy Kreuger, instead of molesting little children, opened a strip-club and is terrified of the girls, whom he has dubbed, Walking Herpes. 

On stage, a goth dancer performs for the huddled Nebraskan masses. Oh, did I forget to mention that this entire thing takes place in Nebraska? Yeah. Speaks volumes to what people think of Nebraska and the people who live here. The next hour of so of the film is primarily scenes of women stripping. As this is a family blog, filled with wholesome goodness, I have chosen not to include shots of such things. That would be a violation of my ethical code, to which I adhere very tightly. You'll find no boobies here, nope, none at all. Just know that eventually, one of the strippers, Kat, gets bit by Private Byrdflough, and she quickly becomes a zombie, who goes back on stage to perform for the assembled crowd. 

Apparently, they really like it, and she takes one of the men to the private booths for what he can only hope will be a really amazing lap-dance. Regrettably, all is not as it seems. She quickly devours said gentleman, and leaves quite the mess for our hispanic janitor to take care of. There is a charming exchange between the Madame of this establishment, Freddy and the janitor. The suggestion is made that they use badgers to clean up the mess, as they eat flesh, to which the janitor replies, "Badgers? Badgers?! We don't need no stinkin' Badgers!" He then does his fucking job and cleans up the mess and finds a still-animated head of the unfortunate gentleman who was Kat's first meal. 

The assembled masses are entertained by non-zombie dancers for a few minutes, while we adjourn to Freddy's office. They discuss the unfortunate situation in which they've found themselves. They make several tough decisions. Of them, none is to kill the zombies. They decide that they're going to let the girls do as they please, which leads to goth-girl getting zombified, and a number of other patrons being killed/eated and then being relocated to a cage in the basement, because all strip clubs in Nebraska are required by law to have a cage in the basement. It's truth. I read it in a multi-sourced Wikipedia article. 

Robert Englund is the number one performer in this movie in my mind. Seriously, he makes some of the most fantastic faces ever. He carries himself so convincingly, and manages to keep a straight face and serious delivery through every line of abysmal dialogue. He is probably the funniest man I've ever had the pleasure of meeting in person. Yes, I met Robert Englund in person several years ago. He was at Mystery Manor one year, signing autographs and being generally kick ass. Loved it. 

Zombie goth-girl performs on stage. Did I mention that this speaks volumes about Nebraskan men? We must be seriously repressed to be this turned on by zombie strippers. In the following scene, an un-turned stripper is booed off stage for not being as sexy as zombies. I feel like, even if I did like boobies, i wouldn't pay to watch dead boobies. I might pay a zombie stripper tax to keep said zombies inside of zombie strip clubs and limit their exposure to the general populace, but that's about it. It's about this time that we discover that nobody much cares for not-dead strippers anymore, and if the girls want to make money, they'll need to zombify, which is a word according to Chrome's spellcheck. 

At about this point, we get a series of zombification, devouring, and lockup scenes. Boobies galore, and zombie humor ensues.  Did I say humor, I meant horror, yeah, that's it. This movie was terrifying. Oh who am I kidding, this was probably the funniest thing I've watched in a damn long time. Certainly funnier than Tombstone. 

Come on! We even get this great image of the beaner giving the dobule-bird to a zombie! (i'm a racist, did I mention that earlier?) If that isn't cinematic/comedic-gold, I don't know what is. I will say that the zombie makeup effects are actually pretty sensational in some parts. While the blood effects fail at life time and time again, there are a few scenes where the effects team really excelled, and in color, which is difficult as anybody with any real makeup experience will tell you. When it comes to low-budget films, you are pretty restricted when it comes to effects, and somehow, the team for this film really took their trade to a new level that I genuinely appreciated when it came to make up. Don't get me wrong though, some of the green-screening in this film is something out of freshman film class, but still...

It is at about this point, that, through the idiocy of my least favorite type of person, namely grown men who wear letter jackets, the military learns of the existence of zombie strippers. That is hardly the best part of the following scenes. Let me see if I have the right words to express what happens next. One of the skanks who hates the lead skank, the skank who first became a zombie skank, is pissed about the spotlight hogging, and decides that the best way to defeat her is to fight fire with fire. So, skank2 becomes a zombie, and we have what I have dubbed a Zombitch-off. That is a dance-off between Zombie stripper sluts. Please see the following photographs for a better explanation of what I mean. 

Skank1

The beginning of the duel.

The gloves come off.

First blood.

Using a man's arm as a weapon.

Using a man as a weapon, and killing him in the process.

This would be the use of centrifugal force to blow away skank1.

The end result of shooting billiard balls from skank1's vagina.

Choke fight.

Skank2, rips the flesh from skank1.

Yeah... yeah.... Yeah.

During this fight, the zombies downstairs get loose and start to invade the club, at the same time as the military showing up to save everybody, and effectively end this Zombitch-off. After some needless titty-bouncing and some outrageous special-effects, we learn than Doc CnC was behind the whole thing! GASP! The military has effectively eliminated the threat, and we learn from Doc CalmnCool that it took months of planning for him to get a hold of a sample of the virus which he then released into the populace of the warehouselab. Why would he do such a thing? Money. We learn that terrorist attacks, bird flu, and the like makes money, lots of it. In fact, he says he's making enough money to make Solomon blush. He also indicates that the war in Iraq is making enough money to make God cream in his jeans. Which establishes new universal canon in my world. God wears jeans, that robe was getting a bit ripe methinks. 

Eventually, everything non-wraps with a non-conclusion that features somebody finding the still-animated head of a zombie thrashing in a plastic bag, hinting at the possibility of a sequel. We can only hope the world is that awesome. Aside from the obviously thinly-veiled attacks on GW Bush, and the american government, I have to admit that I was genuinely entertained by this film for the entire two hours. If you have the chance, I really do suggest you watch it. Hell, if you want to, I can set it up and we can all watch it together at my place. Included below are even more awesome pictures for you to enjoy from this film, which I did not download illegally to share said screencaps. 

Edge of Seventeen

"It hurts"

 This is the first of a series of posts I intend to make. The series theme? Things I Have Learned from Boys I Have Kissed. Please note the distinction that I have made here, a kiss does not imply dating, and specifically, I mention boys, as the bulk of these will have taken place prior to my triumphant return to Omaha in 2008. I started thinking of this about a week ago while I was sorting DVDs, the movie, Edge of Seventeen showed up and it intrigued me, because the only people who watch films like this are gay kids who are sick and tired of John Hughes being such a douche bag. Well, and creepy straight girls who spend their lives attached to gay men an can't find any real passion in their own lives. 

I'll admit that being the only out guy in high school meant that I got a lot of play from young men who would later become the proud homosexuals of Omaha North High School. It got me a lot more play from boys who would never come out ever in their entire life, and to this day will probably deny that they ever did anything with a man. I've been the tester for numerous guys and I think I'm kind of satisfied with that. Each experience taught me a lot about who I am, what I like, and what my limits, standards and expectations are. Aside from being an introductory post, this is also about one of the first boys I kissed. I'm pretty sure he falls into the second category of toe-dipper, but I'll freely admit, he had the biggest impact on my development as a man. 

His name was Zach. He wasn't the first boy I kissed, not by a longshot. He was actually somewhere in the middle. It was my senior year of high school, and I couldn't tell you what grade he was in if I tried. I do know that we only started talking via email at school. He was dating an obnoxious little mousey girl with an attitude. I asked him to homecoming. When he said he had a date already, I was disappointed, but we kept talking, and actually became pretty good friends. It wasn't until a few weeks later, via phone-call that he asked me to be his boyfriend. It was cute. This was important because up until this moment, I had always been the aggressor in any sort of interaction with men. He was a pretty fantastic guy, one of the few that I continued to talk to after departing Nebraska for Arizona. He loves ducks. He's a whole lotta punk-rock. He bites when he kisses, which has stuck with me ever since. He came to my school play on opening night and brought me a carnation, something nobody has ever done since. He would walk me from class to class and we'd sneak a kiss before disappearing into our classrooms. He wore black lipstick that left cute little marks that I wore with pride. 

I haven't spoken to him directly since 2005. We're friends on facebook, but I never know what to say to him to let him know just how formative he was in my youth. I won't go so far as to say I love him, but I definitely enjoyed him and adore the parts of him I find in others I meet on a daily basis. There is rarely a day that passes that I don't meet somebody who reminds me of him in some way, shape or form.