Dead Robot The space between gay and straight, stupid and smart.

The Bag

My brother, the one sorting the financials after my father's passing, is digging around in the closet for any last banker boxes or notes. He comes across a bag.

We all have one. A stash. A personal collective of things too intimate to share with family. Some people keep old emails, or digital photos of themselves in compromising positions. Others hide away pee stained Richie Rich comics. Some people keep illicit underwear. Some people can only manage to hoard the ads for illicit underwear. On one episode of Intervention, I recall a woman who would hide Ziplock bags of vomit from her husband in her walk in closet. For whatever reason we all have secrets.

When we pass, these secrets come into the light, and usually by loved ones.

The bag is a 70s style Puma gym bag (Hi StevieB!), silver vinyl, a pristine monument from my father's days as a shoe salesman. It is stuffed to the brim.

My brother unzips the bag and is greeted by a glass dildo, thankfully still inside it's original packaging. "Dildo" would probably be putting it mildly. More like glass billy-club truncheon, complete with cop-style grip guard and ribbed handle. It's classy and foreboding at the same time, like a Yorkville retail shopworker.

Further in, a smaller, realistic clear gel dildo, of natural proportions, still in it's packaging. I could describe it as "cute" as it is not at full erection, nor is it comically droopy. Since it's not quite as threatening as the truncheon, I speculate that it's for more causal instances, like a pic-nic, not a spring cotillion.

There are other toys, mostly out of their packages (I think the first two were joke gifts or contest prizes for the gay group my dad belonged to). Stuff I've seen before, nothing really shocking to a gay man, but nothing more outrageous than the glass club. If you are gay, these things are pretty much commonplace. These toys are infused into the gay culture either by joke gifts between campy friends or purchased to create a serious ritual of sexual adventure.

My brother stops at the cute dildo. He reseals the bag and hands it to his wife who enters the room shortly after - she's been helping making a list of all the valuables in the apartment. "Can you please include this with the content catalogue?"

She unzips the gym bag and digs in, retrieving the truncheon. After it registers what she is holding, she screams.

Mood Will Improve

Or the beatings will continue.

Seriously, I don't want this place to be a downer. That last post will be the last emotionally charged one for a while. Promise.

Here's a joke: SharkBoy's underpants. HAHAHA!!

Right now…

...I'd love to be in the front cockpit of the Pink monorail pulling into Magic Kingdom.

...I'd love to be at home (despite the non A/C'd apartment) playing with my PS3.

...I'd love to be on my bike, down by the lakeshore.

...I'd love to be setting up an iPad I had just bought (I don't have one yet... soon soon soon).

...I'd love to be in a smart cafe in SoHo, London.

...I'd love to be in line for the Norway ride, EPCOT.

...I'd love to see/hold/coo over my new nieces.

...I'd love to be sewing a fun felt t-shirt.

...I'd love to be taking iPhone 4 product lessons.

...I'd love to be on the deck of Disney's Dream.

...I'd love to be exhausted on a bench at Animal Kingdom. Preferably somewhere in the Asia pavilion

...I'd love to have a laser gun. Pew pew!

Right now... I'm making web forms. Zzzz.

Skreee!

The summer breeze that blows up my shorts and across my face is refreshing. I'm in the shade of a big 7ft canvas umbrella on our company's top floor patio.

What is that smell? I swear it's like onion corn chips. Should I be hungry by it? Why can't I focus on this book? I thought In Secret Service would be cool to read. I mean who wouldn't want to read about a cross over non/fictional with Sir Ian Flemming revealing MI5 and MI6 secrets? I think it was the death of "a popular person" in a Paris tunnel in 1997. I am glad I'm not reading The Passage anymore. Not that I didn't like it - 1000% the opposite. I LOVED it - it's just 700+ pages huge in hard cover, a burden to lug around. It was like reading a remix/reimaging of The Stand but without the StevenKingy melodrama. I love post-apocalyptic books  - I think it's because it would be cool to scavenge for food while I lived on the top floor of the Sutton Place Hotel, safe from the nightly vampyres. Or zombies. I hope he writes more. He certainly left it open for at least 11 more books. Is that smell a deep rich cheese?

Ske.

I look up from my book. The breeze makes the canvas flap on the umbrella like a lazy moray eel.

What was that? And that smell keeps on coming and going. I'm glad I'm only working a couple nights a week now. More time to get things done. Note to self, must get artist's profile page templates done for ArtWithHeart.ca and let them know they're ready for proof. Is that a hint of sour cream I smell?

Skreee...

The pole to the umbrella spins a bit in its weighted base.

I'm so square. Like, not nerdy cool square. When I was doing greeting at the Apple store, I overheard two guys talking about their mutual friend saying rather disgustedly that he was wearing "Old Navy" from head to toe. I wear Old Navy from head to toe. I couldn't be more squarer if I had dissident students and tanks living in my chest hair. I'm drinking fucking Crystal Light at my desk job, for godssake. I wonder why my 30s raced by me so fast. I'm literally half way through my life, if I had been taking care of myself as a kid. I wonder if I'll become famous. Is that smell ...onion and cheese?

SKREEEE!

In the wind, the umbrella rises slowly at first, then faster, the pole leaving its moorings.

Holy fuck! And that smell!

I reach out for the umbrella pole and grab it with less than 2 ft left before releasing itself from the table hole. I'm struggling with the whole thing wanting to fly away in the breeze when a second pair of hands shoot past my shoulder. A co-worker had seen the umbrella rise up and came to my aid.

Dude! Thanks!

We wrestle the umbrella back into it's base. As the bottom of the pole hits the base, a splash of rusty red gunk splashes up and hits my glasses, forehead, shirt. I feel the warm rustwater slide down my head, my cheek like fresh blood.

Christ! What the fuck!? Ugh! Is that where the smell was coming from?!

I fold the umbrella up and head into the office loo to clean the rust from my face. As I pass the good samaratan co-worker, I notice his shoes are off. It is the source of the onion, cheese, warm ham smell. I gag slightly.

Not Gone

Hey readers and readettes. I'm just past the midway point on a grueling 2 weeks of a horrific work scheduling accident where I'm working 60hrs each week. Yeah. I'm tired. SharkBoy's face has become a memory and I come home to a sleeping/sleepy husband. With the heat I've been sleepless and wake only feeling partially rested. I can't wait for this to be over.

Last night saw me hauling a 275lbs computer into the Apple store at the Eaton Centre. It's amazing the kinds of looks you get when you drag one of the Mac Pros through a crowd. All aluminum and grill venting. And sweat - those fuckers are heavy. People were staring like I was carrying a time machine or a machine that warps time or a big aluminum box that keeps time correct. Worry not, though, the problem was only a Kernel Panic Attack, which was deftly repaired within minutes at the Genius Bar. The taxi fare was 100% more expensive than the repair.

On top of that, work has greatly hindered my internet access (go figure - the internet guy can't see the internet) due to the World Cup, so I can't bring you the latest cutting edge of interwebs memes. This too shall pass.

I'd promise myself that I'd never apologize for blogging/not blogging but I fear that after these two weeks I may just do that. Meanwhile please enjoy the latest mission from Improv Everywhere: Star Wars Subway Car (via superpunch)

Vintage Cronenberg

I hatched up a movie idea while talking to JTree the other day. As we wandered the cobbled paths at Canada's Wonderland*, we watched two brave souls trying the Xtreme Skyflyer, their prone bodies being hauled up 150ft into the sky, just to be dropped like a pendulum back to earth.

I mused aloud: "I wonder if someone would get bored of that?"

JTree: "How so?"

"Like if they did these rides enough that the thrill is utterly drained from it." After thinking about it for a second I said: "It would be a classic vintage Cronenberg movie if a couple discovered that the only way they could get the thrill back in their marriage and these rides, is if they went on these rides and fingered each other's anus as they did."

JTree looked at me like I was a typewriter bug with a puckering pooper under my wings.

*Expect pictures soon.

Continuing Education

Sense a theme? Here are a couple animated GIFS I made too. I swear if Angelfire/Geocities ever become trendy again, I have a budding career!

err...

I know, right? I made this one in 1997. Creepy ominous!

Hisssss!

Hisss pt.2

Pointy

poot! Clicking on it runs the animation

And my favorite:

Student Union