Brad Walsh

Gawked

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Oh Yara, you’ve come a long way since Oberlin. At least it wasn’t Blue States Lose. Um… several weeks in a row.

Also, it’s unbelievably bizarre to see someone mention The Feve in a Gawker comment.

And P.S…

Monday, November 13th, 2006

Quiz: Maybe Offensive Edition

Monday, November 13th, 2006

Haven’t done one of these in a while. Remember, most of these questions are rhetorical and/or 99% hogwash. Or malarkey, depending on your preference in archaic and possibly culture-specific terms for “poppycock.” Horsefeathers? Balderdash?

At Stolen Transmission on Thursday, was Gurj LOLing because I had just made a real-life typo and called her “Gruj,” or was it because I suggested that what she and I and Anne Frank have in common is the fact that we all end up spending each Thursday in the Annex?

Was Little Man Tate the name of the band, or the name of the midget bobbing his head in the front row and tagging the bathroom walls with “Lohan Likes it Little”?

Is Geneva practicing to be a phrenologist, or a prostitute who specializes in very serious hula?

Did Faran straighten her hair and wear a cap so that she would go unrecognized when she and Shruti robbed a bank, and did Shruti successfully walk away $100,000 richer merely by pointing that finger through her coat at the teller? If these two are the new Thelma and Louise, can somebody siphon their gas tank, because I’d rather they didn’t take the plunge.

How many kicks does it take to get to the tootsie roll smile at the center of Nick Snow’s heart?

How many people do a double take when they see Janelle, wondering whether their eyes have gone 40s on them and started processing everything in black and white?

Was Leigh hiding a letter opener behind her, and did she use it to take out one-fifth of The Horrors?

At my Friday pre-game party, was Caitlyn painting one of her famous hoodies or one of Anna’s famous faces?

Did Hannah appear because I said her name three times into the bathroom mirror by candlelight? Does anyone know the significance of “Nerak” here?

Is this the sort of pinkeye that makes Sinead contagious, or the variety that makes her surrounded by boys?

At what point did Anna and Hannah’s dance of the seven veils turn into a strong man competition?

How long was Ryan sweeping our back yard before we realized he was gone?

Is Ian even old enough to be doing this?

Was Kathy blogging on her bed as Kendra and Lizzi took turns making out with the Virgin Mary nightlight in the next room, or was she typing the phrase “no wire hangers” over and over to speed up the drying of her clear nail polish?

Did Sinead just pluck Sharon’s five-inch single-strand beard, or was she trying to discern the viscosity of her spit?

Which item of Jake’s outfit was actually mine on Saturday at Rated X? I bet you’d never guess…

Was he crouching or did I suddenly grow to seven feet tall?

Was Josh actually wearing an Alexander McQueen scarf covered in skeletons in kama sutra poses, and did Gil know that Kathy has cooties when he got so close?

When Anna hosts, does she refuse or encourage the pouring of her complimentary vodka bottle into open mouths willy-nilly?

Which one of these girls is named Chelsea? Are they both named Chelsea? Does this officially make me a Chelsea gay? Let’s strike this from the record.

They Been Talkin’ ‘Bout the Way I Do What I Do

Friday, November 10th, 2006

I don’t really have anything against him, but I’m sick of seeing Andy Milonakis at the bar. I feel like I should hide my drink or something, set a good example for the impressionable. He’s six years older than I am. He was at Stereo on Wednesday, as was Mickey Avalon, who I didn’t know beforehand. Josh wanted us to see him perform, so we got there a little bit early. When he came out I recognized him as that electro guy that Paris hired on the episode of The Simple Life where she and Nicole had to plan separate lesbian weddings for the same couple. Anna kept saying “he’s so ugly, he’s seriously an ugly man, I seriously can’t take this.” And Josh retorted with “actually, I think he’s kind of hot.” Google Mickey Avalon. Then tell me that’s hot. Just because Paris says it doesn’t make it true, Josh. Josh, I seriously can’t take this.

Melissa has a MySpace now and I’m not even in her top 8. Or 16. Or whatever. Which is fine, because she’s not in mine. She can go bone a donkey, or a hot dog, or a musical Jew with a neck beard for all I care. We’ll see what’s what when the MySpace E-pocalypse occurs and she’s begging me for top 8 status because I’m, like, so totally on point with this social networking thing and she’s stuck with fifteen year old boys who think she’s Cassie posting under a different name for the sake of relative anonymity, and the four horsemen of the MySpace E-pocalypse (Rupert, Jeffree, Emofag, and Tom) bellow her name among the list of the e-damned. We’ll see what’s what then, Princess. Scripture.

Side Effects

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

People who speak of themselves with such
apocalyptic grandiosity and self-importance
scare me.

Self-deprecation is ego, too.
Belittle to Bebiggen.

I’m guilty of course, but not so
drastically as this. Family,
work, sleep and love can account
for my late emotional edge definitions.
You’re lucky.

Maybe the ink would be best laid out:
GRANDIOSE.

I won’t try so hard to walk lightly;
You don’t even have to hear me
stepping anymore.

On Asiaphiles

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Now, I don’t refer here to the kind of men that lust after Asian women simply because they’re Asian, but rather, the kind of gay man who is obsessed with anime and/or Asian culture to the point that they major in Japanese or Chinese in college and then end up living in China or Japan or Korea soon after graduating. I’m not sure if there is a large number of these men in existence, or if I just happen to know them all. But it’s fairly certain that I will be drunk-messaged in the morning at least once a week by a man from my past who’s currently leaving a film of American gauche on some Asian country or another. Chronologically, there’s A, E, N, and J.

I was A’s RA his freshman year in college, my sophomore. Lots of tension for three years until it culminated in a stairwell conversation where everything came out. We initially bonded over some not-so-anime anime films, like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. He threw a stuffed Totoro at me when we drank wine in his room before one of my three-hour writing workshops. He now lives in Beijing and talked to me on instant messenger this morning. Two of my first songs were written about him, and he knows this, but he doesn’t know which ones they were. He was always bringing up Chinese culture, and once had me sit with him at a Chinese-speaking dinner table [the people spoke Chinese, not the table].

E was sort of a hippie but not really, quiet around me, didn’t understand me as I didn’t understand him. I don’t remember how we met, but we had a sort of secret thing on and off for almost four years. We’d see each other between relationships and over the summers. Somehow I think he inadvertently became my defining college boyfriend. Several times we teetered on the edge of becoming serious, I think, but then we’d always fight and not talk for three months. He, too, moved to China after graduating, and every now and then comes back into my life via the internet at a most inappropriate time. He’s the only one of these four that I would be very excited to see again, but he’s moved his entire life to China and I doubt he’ll return to America.

N was a friend of a friend who I thought had a thing for me, and that sort of negatively colored my interactions with him, but on hindsight I think maybe he didn’t. He is a graphic artist and moved to Japan, where he ran into my ex-boyfriend J once. They drank together and N later asked me about him, which was perhaps the most surreal thing ever. He now draws a regular anime comic.

J, the ex-boyfriend, used to get drunk in Ohio when I was in New York and call me to leave slurred voicemails professing to love me, which I knew was not true. J now lives in Japan after spending a year in Korea, teaches English, gets drunk, and sometimes talks to me online. He’s seeing someone now, I think, and I feel bad for the person he’s seeing, because dating J was like dating a 7 year old. I don’t have any bad feelings toward him, but he’s stuck as a mental child and it sucks to be an adult with an adult romantic mindset who’s paired with someone who thinks sex is funny. It’s one thing to think sex is funny, because it is, but it’s another to think sex is only funny. J often blogs about Japan and I doubt he, either, will return to America for good.

I’ve constructed this as some sort of thesis or something, but I don’t really have any conclusion or epiphany. It’s just strange. Or maybe the real lesson here is that I know an alarming number of people, and maybe my ratio of gay Asiaphile men-to-nons is average but exaggerated by the number of silly gay men in my life?

And if it’s not Asia, it’s Italy. Or South America. Or London. Why must they all be obsessed with some foreign location to the point of strange culture adoption and/or a long-term move? I like other places, too, but I’m perfectly happy being a gauche American who occasionally yells at people on the street and doesn’t shave his chest.

Whattya on A Marathon?

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

Jake: I borrowed a coat today and everyone loves it!
Me: damn you which coat? and i hope you gave me credit.
Jake: haha you’re khaki fur with all the pockets from h&m
[Note: it is not khaki, it is a much darker tan, perhaps the color of damp but not dry mud. I would never wear khaki. And the fur is fake and only on the lapel. And by "all the pockets" he means "there are pockets in the normal places." And by "you're" he meant "your." And I'm positive he didn't give me credit. And why do all my clothes look better on him than on me?]

Emily, Diana, Samantha, and Alyssa had a theme party at their place the night before the big traffic-stopping, anger-inducing, five-borough marathon that prevented me from leaving the city as I had planned. Some wore sweatbands,

Some wore spandex,

Brandon wore my glasses,

And this girl wore fabulous earrings.

Yesterday I didn’t feel like going home. I tried calling a couple people but they were all still working. As I was about to go down into the subway, defeated, Richie called and wanted me to join him at Otto’s Shrunken Head (which, by the way, is absolutely dead at six pm on a Monday save for a talkative guy in a wheelchair perpetually searching for his missing Fox News cap). The photo booth at Otto’s is not cheap – $4 for a token that makes the thing work – and even then it’s “use at your own risk” because the machine breaks all the time. Which I think should/might be illegal, right? “Here’s $4 for a metal disc so that I can use your machine, and then if your machine breaks and I don’t get anything, you keep my $4. Okay?” You don’t go into a restaurant, give them your money first, and then accept an empty plate because there was a sign on the wall that said “dine at your own risk.” Anyway, I must have good juju because the thing worked.

I haven’t taken a shower in a couple of days and though I don’t smell funny (I rarely do), I feel really gross. My skin feels dry and dusty, my hair is depressed, and no amount of Purell will mask the fact that my fingernails are three-toned. Today for lunch I have penang curry with chicken and sticky rice, and my trusted cheap chai tea. My shoes are about to die, but luckily I have a new pair waiting for me in the mailbox at home. What else can I say that’s either disgusting or boring? I bit my right thumbnail too low and now it hurts.

The Horror

Monday, November 6th, 2006

Have you ever stood over somebody writing an e-mail who wanted your opinion, and they couldn’t type for shit, and they misspelled every other word and fought with the spell-check function, and then left all the misspelled words misspelled because they were sure they were right, and then disregarded everything you said and left ridiculous grammar and pointless sentences in, even though they asked for your help and it was apparent to both of you that you were the one with the better grasp of the language? Isn’t that the most frustrating thing ever?

This morning for breakfast I had a slice of pumpkin bread from Kathy’s mom and a cup of peppermint tea from Geneva. I made turkey and provolone sandwiches for lunch and wrapped them in tin foil and put them in my bag. They got squished on the train, but I secretly kind of like that.

I was listening to an NPR story on how black clothing styles are being appropriated by white people and black designers/trendsetters are upset that nobody’s remembering the roots of the styles. I think it was Beverly Johnson who said that they should sew “remember this comes from black people” into the seams of certain styles, and I couldn’t help but think that while that’s clearly true, isn’t that mostly true of every clothing style? I see plenty of black teenage girls on the subway wearing skinny black jeans from the Gap, and while you can probably trace Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe back further to black styles prior (and other styles before that), those jeans today are based on Audrey Hepburn’s look in Funny Face. What about the entire history of Tommy Hilfiger? Maybe I’m wrong, but I imagine you can find just as many items of “white style” on black people as you can “black style” on white people. Not to mention all the idiots out there in Harajuku Lovers t-shirts. I guess I was just surprised that there are people out there who are actively trying to educate the world on the fact that white people appropriate black style. As if this is news. We all know where rock & roll came from.

So after all the excitement of last week, I did remarkably little this weekend. Friday night I stayed in (I think, I don’t actually remember Friday at all; I just know I didn’t go to the usuals). Saturday Brandon came with me and survived the spandex fiasco that was the twins’ Marathon party (pictures tk). We only stayed out until two. Then Sunday Anna was back from Mexico and we did all that outdoor and domestic stuff below. Jake is back from Idahohiowa, and when he arrived I hugged him for a very long time. Somewhere in there I managed to buy the slimiest, drippiest, most disgusting fried rice on the planet. Since when can rice be gamey? It left a film on my tongue. I threw most of it away.

Last Thursday The Horrors played the Stolen Transmission CMJ showcase at Annex, and they were soooo good.

As were The Photo Atlas.

Brandon couldn’t finish the magnetic sentence on the wall outside,

Janelle proudly displayed her marks,

and I even managed to get Geneva and Caitlyn kissed.

Also, please think some good thoughts for/about my brother.

Sunday with Brad and Anna

Monday, November 6th, 2006

It was Anna’s first time in Greenwood Cemetery, in which we saw maybe six other people over the course of several hours despite it being bigger than Central Park.

We looked into a few mausoleums (mausolea? mausolopodes?),

and this is what we saw.

We wondered if this guy was buried beneath the oxidated copper thing or inside of it,

and these five watched as Anna fell out of the tree when a branch broke.

We found long acorns like in Totoro,

and I bit into one.

I found lots of new stones that I liked:

Then we went home and Anna began to cut up a leftover pumpkin.

She went out back and threw away the excess,

then blended her pieces with spices to make into a pumpkin pie.

While it was cooking we danced to Cyndi Lauper,

and then when it came out,

we ate until we exploded.

I Still Love This Song

Sunday, November 5th, 2006

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