Pinocle face

So I'm old now. I have come to terms with the fact that I can in no way relate to anything that is shown on MTV. If I had told my 15 year old self that I had no idea who Lil' Wayne was, my former self would have rolled his eyes, and turned up his latest Tori Amos c.d so as to not be tainted by my un-coolness. Still being me, I of course consider myself much more cool for not knowing. Who has time for that shit when there are jazz singers playing tin cans over a synth track made from cracking ice.  I don't know of anyone doing that, but I'm sure I'd dig it. I feel that if there were music made that could gentrify music... then myself, and most of my friends would be into it.  

So you can imagine my surprise when I slowly (very slowly, being old and un-cool) figured out that Lady Gaga is all the fucking rage.  I had known of Lady Gaga for some time (being cool and all). I knew of her as some underground gay electro diva. Some broad wearing club kid clothes and singing terribly in front of strobe lights. Most fags either have a friend doing this, or are doing this themselves. So I figured she would stay in her comfort zone of playing pride and big electro gigs. Then I saw her on American Idol on top of a glass (plastic) piano singing poker face. The only lyric I know in that song is "poker face", and does anyone over 25 know any more than that? She looked hot, because she is a provocateur. Her look is great, but I have had the (mis)fortune of being a club kid myself. In my days of go-go dancing in san diego I spent way too much time around a lot of Lady Gagas. Hell, when I didn't have a job, I was Lady Gaga. Don't get me wrong, this all may make me sound like I am a Gaga hater, I totally am not. I find her interesting. I find her songs to be endlessly terrible. As my boyfriend was showing me one of her videos I had an epiphany. She is the new Lady Miss Kier! Also know as cat-suit wearing, cocktail ring sporting, wigged out, psy-co-delic Deee-lite.  People may say that the Lady Miss Kier was nothing but a throwback, but she is just as much of one as Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is a 90's club kid. You know she was one gay club venue away from helping some faggy club kid beat his drug dealer to death with a hammer and cut him up and put in a cardboard box. ok... two gay club venues, tops. 

I love this Gaga phenom. I find it so interesting  that a generation that I really cannot relate to at all, loves this broad. I wish her the best, and I look forward to seeing her play pride 2012, god willing. But lets not forget who paved her way. And lets hope that in 5 years she will be on some horrible reality tv show where she has to fight the Lady Miss Kier to death in a glitter and coke strewn stage-cage. cross your fingers poker face.  

A stairway to heaven

I just went camping for the first time in about 18 years. It was amazing! My only experience with camping previously was the annual camping trip I was forced to go on with my parents every summer. As I was driving to this campground a week ago, I had this feeling of "this isn't camping!" because it was only about a 45 minute drive to get to the campsite. Where's the long death defying stretch of highway 70? In order to fully build the right amount of enthusiasm and optimism for a camping trip you need to spend four hours in the middle part of a one seater Chevy Love pickup with a stick shift between your legs. Great way to make a gay kid feel more effeminate. The road to heaven (camping) needs to be paved with deadly winding mountain highways , stick shifts slamming into your groin, and Heart blaring in your ears. At some point stairway to heaven would be played to let you know that you were going to die. There is nothing more thrill seeking than barreling down tiny swerving roads with no guard rail, and, get this....a rickety wooden hand made trailer ( not unlike something the greeks would have built) attached to that janky, old, rickety tomb of a pickup truck. It really  hit home for me that this would someday be the road I died on, was when I was eight years old. I saw a train de-rail on the side of the mountain. I looked at these strewn rail cars thrown along the side of a canyon all the way down to the river (around 800 feet or more)and thought "If they can't maneuver this, then how the hell can my steroided out dad?". All this was to reach the oasis of Antelope lake. A strange,semi-pretty, but obscure bit of the deep Sierra Nevadas. far from where anyone would ever live. Someplace that the x-files would have shot some episode about killer mosquitos or a shack dwelling badger man. So I got to spend the days by myself, chasing ground squirrels and stomping on big black ant hills. Riveting really. Now that I look back, what the fuck where my parents doing most of the time? They had to be getting fucked up. I had to sleep in my own tent, not ok. 7 year old pre-homosexual boys love spending time in the middle of the woods in a little tent waiting to be eaten. I decided that I would rather be eaten by wolves rather than bears. It just seemed more original than most camper deaths. A bear mauling is a dime a dozen, but a good wolf attack is only for those special people like myself. I'd become a campground legend.