On 'tagging'.

Now I’m the first to admit that the current crop are doing amazing never before thought of shit with their skateboards and snowboards and surfboards and BMXs. And who’d of thought you could fit so much metal in a face? Or, so many tattoos on a single skin?

The thing with this ‘tagging’ shit though, is that it’s going backward. It’s de-volving. What it used to involve was an individual risking their life in an attempt to leave their 'mark' somewhere dangerous, or at least challenging and hence meaningful, if only to those similarly engaged. Consequently, an acceptably high number were killed hit by a train or having fallen from a great height. Today, and around the world! scribblings done under cover of dark at eye level in easily accessible public places are just pollution pure and simple and so far from being ‘art’. ‘Tags’ are an impotent attempt at a “fuck you” to a society the ‘tagger’ innately knows is destined never to enfranchise them.

The ‘tags’ themselves however, speak ever more eloquently of their authors and interestingly, they all say exactly the same thing. …. “I live with my Mummy and current step Daddy and they don’t know where I are.”

Behind the Pink Curtain- Living with Lesbians

“What does it mean when Lesbians make love?”
“It doesn’t mean dick.” anon

At face value, living with two gorgeous lesbians sounds like fun. Of course there are the obvious gags to be made about vibrators and strap ons and then there are the Sapphic imaginings you can treat yourself to every time you walk passed one their bedrooms and hear giggling coming from behind the closed door.

But it can all come crashing down if one day you catch yourself falling for one of them. Because straight away it’s obvious it could very well end in tears. Yours.

“Hey does this go?”
Seems a simple question.
At face value.
In the first instance.
Uncontextualised.
Somehow though it seems to constitute a moment when we cross “the line”. Her and I. Because the “Hey does this go?” refers to the way she’s dressed to go out tonight and she’s made a point of coming into the room and interrupting the cricket to ask it.

And of course she’s hot. And we both know it. And maybe more importantly, I know that she knows that I know it. And what I also know, what I am also acutely aware of, is that if we were in a court of law, testifying under oath as to whether we’d ever considered ‘intimacy’ with the other, then I having sworn would be forced to concede it. Where as she, as a Lesbian, would not be so compelled. And somehow, that irks me.

Why? Well, because as Steve Martin put it in LA Story, “Because I’m a big dumb male.”

But back to the “Hey does this go?” The “Hey does this go?” is a close cousin of the more forthright “Does this look good?” and is an openly loaded question.

Responding with a “no”, wouldn’t be an option even if that were true
(which would make it even less so), but like I say it isn’t true and everybody already knows it. So the only option is “ways of saying yes”. Of which there are of course many…

And it’s worth noting here that I’ve previously only heard this question, (and its many permutations), from girls that I was sleeping with at the time so I’ve been conditioned to respond to the “Hey does this go?” in a particular way and I’ve also been conditioned, Pavlov’s Doggy Style, to expect certain rewards if my words are well chosen. But there’s no reward to be had here. Only punishment. And potentially pain. And I had been dealing with it. Dealing with it fine. Right up to but not including the “Hey does this go?” because like I say, the “Hey does this go?” crosses a certain boundary. Or at the very least, blurs it…

Dealing with it? Dealing with what? Well…
When I first moved into this share house with two other guys and two lesbian girls I did for a brief time have trouble coming to terms with the fact that there was no chance not ever that she and I would end up in a bed together. No sex. Never. Not break up. Not make up. Not for the sake of it. None.
But my brain seemed to have difficulty computing that. Or it would compute it but then wouldn’t save it. Like it wasn’t programmed or didn’t have the drive to do it. And even though everyday I rebooted, I kept coming across the same glitch. The same near fatal error. It kept telling me that “maybe just maybe, there’s a chance”.
The mind (the male mind at least), is a truly amazing tool. Seemingly incapable of even the most basic computations still it manages such gymnastic rationalisations as the ones that can have it half convinced that trying to hit on this girl, a life long affirmed Lesbian, could actually have a beneficial outcome. It says, “It’ll get it out in the open. It’s better there for everyone. Otherwise, this sexual tension ain’t ever gonna to be resolved.”
Eventually though, it dawned on me. It was only me who was feeling it. She wasn’t. And all the pressure I was experiencing; the anxiety, it was all imagined and of my own making. It was all in my fucking head!

Then one day, after my brain had finally found the right application and finally had it filed, she came home from work with a story about some guy who was a friend of hers and who had taken to showing up at closing time, hanging around, asking her out. And I could see the genuine frustration she was experiencing. I said, ”Did you tell him you’re not interested?” “Yes,” she said. “I told him I was a lesbian.” And I thought, “well maybe that isn’t enough.” But I said, “What a dick.” And quietly I gave thanks that ‘Dick’ and I were different people.

So there she is standing and there I am sitting in our loungeroom. Stuey Marto and Mo doing a pretty nice job of commentating another lamentable Ashes test match and the “Hey does this go?” still hanging suspended in the air.
“S’pose,” I say. Then as if an afterthought, “but that top you’re wearing is about a decade out of date.” And I’m teasing her because well, because as it turns out she’s just a girl. And girls are meant to be teased. It’s a Golden Rule.
So she says, “You’re a straight male! What the fuck would you know?” And I think, “then what the fuck did you ask me for?” so I say, “Then what the fuck did you ask me for?” and she walks out having said nothing. Because the fact is that being a hot girl she’d only entered the room trawling for compliments anyhow. So ‘nothing’ was all that she had.

Moral.

Girls are girls and it’s not what they lick that matters.
It’s what they’re like.

And excuse the pun but sex can fuck things too.
And friends are better than foes.
I’m just very glad to have her as a punting buddy and ping pong opponent. Glad that in the end I was able to save it. Glad that I never tried to pull it back. Never tried to find out what exactly it is, behind the Pink Curtain.


Next week. Lesbian expose: What really makes them lick?

Megapixelitis- The digital disease

It can happen in a flash..
Megapixelitis.
The digital disease.

I’m at this party chatting (as you do), and I’m engrossed. The guy, whatever his name, is making complete sense and both our female companion and I are intent.
And then: flash!
Time slows down, condensed to that single brilliant blinding strobe which often but not always announces the onset of this most insidious disease.
Immediately, we’ve lost the girl… checking herself out… and the guy and I are left standing smiling awkwardly through the “Hellos”, and all the “Nice night” exchanges which ensue. And even though he recovers sufficiently to eventually make his point, I can’t help the feeling that in our pre-flash world, he may have gone further. Maybe made a different point. Reached additional conclusions. Conveyed them to me.
But he’s lost it. Lost the impetus. Lost his momentum.
And all of a sudden, we’ve got it. ..

Megapixelitis.

The condition was first identified in mice during a series of experiments conducted by scientists in Belgium in the last decade of the 20th century. Scientists took a sample group of ordinary white mice and at random intervals snuck up on them and took their photo. The scientists then took the recorded image and shoved it in the faces of the mice and demanded that they offer an appraisal of it. The scientists found that within months the mice need only catch a glimpse of a digital device to begin to behave erratically and start searching for a place to hide.

In humans the condition was initially confined to the social elite and the more photogenic among Society Circles but the modern ubiquity of digital cameras means Megapixelitis can now strike anyone at anytime and in any place.

Those who spread the disease, known as ‘Posters’ are often not themselves sufferers and many don’t even realise that their “posting” is one of the key modes by which the condition is spread.

Hence the great tragedy of Megapixelitis is that ‘posters” can often be loved ones, family members or friends of those whom they affect.

It’s now believed that by changing the course of billions of conversations around the globe, Megapixelitis is beginning to have a retarding effect on human evolution. Scientists have dubbed this phenomena “Digital Devolution” because each instance of infection marks a glitch in our natural evolutionary path. The advent of social networking sites such as Facespace and the unchecked posting activities of millions of people world wide means that hundreds and even thousands can be exposed months or even years after the initial incident takes place. Megapixelitis has become the glitch that keeps on giving.


At time of writing there is no prospect of a cure.

There's no Muscat in future.

"Good riddance from our game you blight on my nation's pride."