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THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW

by James Killough

My good friend Shawn Riegsecker, whose unique brand of seductive enthusiasm should be patented, set a goal for me three months ago: I should have one quarter of the amount of comedian Rob Delaney’s followers on Twitter by the end of the year.  After he fixed that target and I set up my Twitter account, he actually looked up how many followers Delaney has: three hundred thousand, which makes seventy-five thousand for me by 2013.  “Hah!” Shawn said.  “You’re fucked!”

Real men use BlackBerry.

I am currently at seventy-five followers, three zeros short.  It will probably drop to seventy-four by the end of today once Twitter’s algorithmic bots sweep through and find out that @CoastalOptometry isn’t so enthralled by surreal, esoteric quips about atheism that it has followed me, but is in fact a spammer. This means I have to increase my base by over one hundred thousand percent in eight months, if my primary-school math still holds.

To the Beat of the Frum Drum

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW

by James Killough

Well, whaddaya know.  No sooner do I publish a diatribe against Andrew Sullivan urging Tina Brown to cut him loose than she runs out and buys herself not-meshuganuts conservative thinker David Frum, with whom I don’t always agree, but who at least doesn’t outrage me with his whacky, sanctimonious claptrap.

Open letter to Tom: Come home soon. Daddy needs you. Contact details in the right margin xoxo

Well done, Tina.  This is the sort of Other Side opinion you need to balance out Newsweek/The Daily Beast.  I knew you could do it.  Guys like Frum are the best hope we have for a rational, civilized, reasonably intelligent dialogue between left and right.

The Swish Inquisition

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

There comes a time in every gay writer-director-producer-bloggueur’s career when he must decide if he ever wants a knighthood, which he is eligible for thanks to his dual citizenship with Australia, or an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).  Just the fact I have been calling them “the Swish Inquisition” for a while now means that forswearing such a coveted prize is a foregone conclusion.

I don't think Adam Lambert is fixin' to do a Gillette commercial any time soon.

As for the knighthood, I have a Groucho Marx attitude toward all awards: I don’t want anything that would be handed out to someone like me.  Rewards, on the other hand, I’m all for.

Enthralled with Thiel?

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

There are so many challenges looming before the Modern Ghey: actually asking a guy’s name before you have sex with him, maybe even going on a few dates before it happens; whether to enlist your mother’s help in planning the wedding, even though you will never fit into her dress (not like you did as a child, anyway); what to do about the Christian conservatives in our midst, the pariahs of a subculture that has been a pariah itself for so long.

Either 44-year-old Peter Thiel is already taking advantage of anti-aging technologies, or the retouchers at Condé Nast are just doing their job.

I am not talking about one of my favorite soft targets, my evil twin, Andrew Sullivan.  As my Republican brother once said in disgust, “He’s not even right wing!”  Indeed, as smart as he is, Sullivan’s politics seem to vacillate throughout the day, so much so his profile on the online hookup site Bareback City lists him as “versatile,” when we all know he’s a big ol’ bottom.  While Sullivan describes himself on The Daily Beast as being of no particular political party, I think he has simply mastered the art of being controversial in order to drive up page views.  And in that he has been very successful.

…Is Good For The Gander

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | INDIA FILES

by James Killough

This is a part two of yesterday’s musings, so you’d best read that first if you’re going to try to follow my ramblings here.

My fellow contributor Eric Baker, a man I have tremendous respect for even though we have never met in person or even spoken on the phone, left a very sweet comment to yesterday’s post saying something to the effect of being proud of being associated with someone so “erudite.”  The reason I have so much respect for Eric is not just that he writes superbly, with honesty and a great deal of un-cheap humor, it’s also because he’s like me, utterly dependable and delivers on time.  And people who are, like, real mensches and stuff, are few and far between.

That's right: infrastructure comes from heaven. Says so right there in the Good Book, Mark 6:31-44, when the Lord divided the loaves and the fishes.

Erudite to me means academic, but Eric is probably right in using it in the context of my writing in this blog because it actually means “to show great learning,” which is distinct from academic, or specifically well read.

In honor of the hopeful revolution sweeping this country, let me digress a bit to talk about my own rebellion, which I consider more of a pilgrimage to my Self than a deliberate act of defiance.

Some Bottom Bitches Scream Too Loud

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

It’s been a while now since I’ve taken a potshot or two at my evil twin Andrew Sullivan.  In truth, I’ve become sort of ambivalent about him, as opposed to hostile; his position on cannabis usage—that making a plant which grows naturally illegal, but letting alcoholic beverages, which are manmade, be not only legal but socially acceptable and an integral part of many religious ceremonies is hypocritical—is a laudable one.  I take a further libertarian view towards all drugs: if you are old enough to know what you want and can make an informed decision, and provided you don’t harm others—i.e., by getting slaughtered on legal ethanol and causing a lethal traffic accident—then nobody should tell you what to do.  Let’s not go into the safety issues of having drugs manufactured in dodgy labs by pseudo-chemists with no regulation; hardcore drugs users are people too, and deserve FDA protection as much as any alcohol drinker or anxiety-riddled pill-popping suburban soccer mom.

Proto-douche Andrew Sullivan has some decent points, but they are wiped out by other nonsense he stands for and spews forth. And, Andrew, what is that shirt? Moiré? Snicker.

But the sensible cannabis stance is outweighed by Sullivan’s other more insensible positions, like his advocacy of unprotected sex, for himself in particular because he’s Poz; the AIDS crisis is apparently over, according to him.  Well, it would be, now that he has—forgive my French—taken so many infected loads up his ass that he has surrendered to the disease.  But that doesn’t make the crisis any where near over for the vast majority of people, especially the young ‘uns, people who don’t sit on a sanctimonious high horse during the day, only to get off it and behave like a total bottom pig slut at night.

Our Outhouse

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | THE INDIA FILES

by James Killough

Perhaps my relentless optimism has finally driven me to a completely delusional state, but I feel there’s a tangible change in the air, a change for the better, like we’re finally turning this old rusted tankard we all live on around.

The Magical Weekend began once upon a time last Friday, when the fairy princess dressed by a dead queen stepped into her carriage and the world smiled in the reflection of her happiness.  Princess Kate waved her magic wand, which unfroze our hitherto Fearful Leader from over two years of slumber.  As he rose from his sepulcher amidst the briars and shook off the cobwebs, King Barack seized his vorpal sword, strode into the banquet and slew the fruminous Donaldsnatch, after which, with what seemed to be the same stroke, he felled the elusive Osama Bin Jabberwocky.

This is the bit when, after the witch is killed, eternal winter melts away and Narnia kicks into bloom in an explosion of time-lapse foliage.  Prancing satyrs like me, until now locked in stone, surge forth once again to roam the hills, making sweet music, drinking wine and chasing other satyrs instead of nymphs.

The Tired, Lame Religiosity Of Some Conservative Catholic Homo Bloggers (Who Are Also Bottom Bitches)

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

Before I start eviscerating my evil twitty twin Andrew Sullivan, I wanted to point out something I buried at the end of a previous post, thinking that everyone slogged through the overstuffed, slow-cooked Belgian meal that my posts are and devoured every word, clinked on every link.

Lest you think I have been slacking and leaving all the PFC blogging work to Tuttle and Baker, I have started a serialized fiction piece called Render The Savage on Diane Pernet’s site, A Shaded View on Fashion.  The first chapter is here, the second here.  I also post links to the left of this column.  I’m having great fun with Savage.  If it rings true in some places, I’m denying everything so you can make up your own mind.

My publisher Diane Pernet is some sort of fabulous, ain't she? And she has this raspy whisper voice that makes every conversation seem like it's in church.

And I always have great fun taking potshots at Sullivan.  The title of this post is a reworking of one of his, The Tired, Lame Bigotry of Some Homosexuals, in which he bemoans a Hunky Jesus contest held in San Francisco over Easter. I thought the contest was kinda funny, one of those things that are more enjoyable in real life than in video, like almost all stand-up comedy.  But what makes me chuckle most is this quote from Sullivan:

“You want to grow some balls? Hold a Hunky Mohammed Contest on Ramadan. And, by the way, thanks for doing your bit to empower every religious right prejudice about gays.”

Oh, Miss Thing! You got yourself into a lather of this one, haven’t you?  What sort of noodle-brained, banana split logic is that? 

God On A Wheel!

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | THE INDIA FILES

by James Killough

Dear Easter Bunny,

You’ve always been my favorite of the fictional characters I was asked to believe in without question from childhood.  As an adult, I admire how humbly and stoically you have endured under the shadow of that fat bitch Santa Claus over the centuries.  You are a testament to how cute ultimately triumphs over gluttony with the right amount of tenacity.

I had the strangest dream this morning.  Betty White was married to my father or some other amorphous patriarchal member of my family, and we belonged to some hyper-conservative, super-slick country club.  Betty got very drunk and loud, so I admonished her for making a fool of the family in front of the rest of the club and threw her glass of champagne in the pool.  I woke up full of remorse for how I’d treated her, for being so bourgeois in my dreams when I am so not in waking life.  I felt like writing her an apology note and sending it to her agent.  The truth is I rather like drunk, loud, bat-shit-crazy old women, like Royce and Marilyn. Royce’s favorite exclamation is from whence comes the title of this post:

They say that every character in your dreams is really a variation on you.  Obviously I need to get in touch with my inner Betty White and ask her forgiveness instead of sending an apology note.

Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Italiano

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

I’m not a big reality TV person.  In fact, that’s Tuttle’s purview, so I won’t encroach on his turf too much other than to say that I caught a couple of episodes of Jerseylicious the other night.  At one point I realized I was sitting on the edge of my seat with my mouth hanging open in awe, as if I were witnessing some spectacular natural disaster, or a dramatization of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

An apparent spin-off of Jersey Shore, this particular reality show focuses on a clutch of “glamour” cosmetologists from a hair and makeup salon called Gatsby’s in Green Brook, New Jersey.  This is very much Reality TV 2.0: most of the show is set up and staged.  There are too many over-the-shoulder reaction shots with no second camera behind the person being spoken to for it to be completely impromptu, and there always seems to be a camera on the other end of the phone to record the person being called in an “unexpected” emergency.  However, just in terms of the styling and the lifestyle, there is little doubt that this is slice-of-life; in other words, these caricatures really do dress and talk like a version of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean set in Jersey starring Fran Drescher in all of the roles.

Olivia and Tracey from "Jerseylicious" don't just redefine glamour, they take it out back and beat it to a pulp with a spiked club.

Even though I’m a native New Yorker, and Green Brook is near the City, I’ve had very little contact with these outlandish creatures.  They must be all at least fourth generation Italo-Americans, but like almost everyone from that ethnic group they identify as Italians, as if they’re all here on extended work visas and plan to return once they’ve saved enough money to fix up the old farm in Reggio Calabria.  Every so often they use some word that sounds Italianate, which is probably some mash up between southern dialect and English, but I can’t make out what it is.