Offering myself sexually to Diamanda Galas (!)

(The following is self explanatory. My parents, should they visit this site, might not want to read what follows. I printed this out and sent it to Ms. Galas after posting it -- I have yet to hear back from her. I have updated this entry, so you read exactly what she read).

Dear Ms. Galas –

A rather odd piece of fan mail, this, but, uh, I’m hoping it’s more amusing than dangerously weird.

Read recently in that old Re/Search issue, Angry Women, that you’d always wanted to fuck a man up the ass, but had had, at that point, no volunteers. It seems quite possible that after you said that, a huge queue of willing weird males who craved the distinction of being sodomized by Diamanda Galas formed at your doorstep and that the comment has been one of the few public statements you regret having made (my apologies, in this case, at being so tedious, and so late, too!). In fact I would be shocked (but somewhat proud) to discover that in the 12 years or so since the book was published that I’m the first and only man to speak to this point; I hope you’ll let me know if such is the case. Anyhow, I kinda got this feeling after reading your comment of obligation; and thus –

For the record, I’m not really presently interested in anal play per se, nor do I have a weird celebrity fetish going on, tho’, heh, in the crowd I move in it would make a fun story to tell, far better than my having hugged Damo Suzuki or having given an Ultraman monster to David Byrne; in fact, sexually, you, uh, intimidate the hell out of me. (You’d have to promise to at least make an effort tot be gentle!). However, since I read a fascinating bit of theory (years ago) by Leo Bersani, “Is the Rectum a Grave?” (which I highly recommend – a short version of it appears in an anthology, Reclaiming Sodom), I’ve been inclined to agree with Bersani that a lot of straight men have repressed/denied such sites of pleasure, that homophobia possibly involves a fear of non-phallic sexual pleasure in the male, and that a sort of liberation can come from reclaiming these taboo sites (do you know Robert Duncan’s poem, “The Place Rumor’d to have been Sodom?”). Theory can lead one to odd places at times. In fact, in my intensely autoerotic acidhead 20’s, in addition to other odd things I tried, I bought dildoes and vibrators and did indeed experiment with penetrating myself, learning to take intense pleasure, at the time, from anal stimulation; I eventually got bored of it, dropping it from my own routines, but I did always think it would be interesting to be fucked up the ass by a woman wearing a strap on, and indeed think it probably is an experience every straight man should have (which comment you make in said interview)… It’s come up in conversation with a couple of female lovers, but we never actually went there, alas. I remain an anal virgin.

For the record, tho’ I’m somewhat bright, I am underaccomplished, not particularly powerful, and rather overweight, such that you might think of Ned Beatty in Deliverance in the heat o’ things... Frankly, I, uh, imagine I’m not your type. However, the offer stands: when you’re next in Vancouver, if you want my ass, it’s yours. Uh, I guess we should start with coffee…

Admired your most recent CDs and enjoyed your last Vancouver show. Thought of you on watching Pasolini’s Salo at the Cinematheque this month, too; his identification with the victims in that film, his compassion for them in the face of such cruelty, reminded me very much of your work, and I commented to a friend with me (who’d also been at your concert), “I wonder how many times Diamanda Galas has seen this film?”.

Curious, are you a John Cassavetes fan? It would be interesting to me to know your reactions to his work (I recommend everyone see Faces, at the very least). What about the novels of Cormac McCarthy? I recommend Child of God...

I can be reached at ammacinn@hotmail.com; you can also see my blog, http://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com , wherein one may find pics of me, if you’re curious. If you reply to this, and I am not in fact the first man to offer up his ass to you, do let me know how many (tens? hundreds?) have gone before me, if you took any of them up on it, and if it was an interesting experience, okay? (If I may post this info on my blog, let me know. I’ve posted this letter…). I’m really quite conservative, believe it or not… Heh.

Allan MacInnis

No Fun at Christmas

Just saw No Fun play the Railway Club and all I can say is, Jeezus, they still do Gorgo ads. I first saw them doing Gorgo ads when I was a teenager watching Soundproof on cable-access latenite TV in Maple Fuckin' Ridge. Who put the "U" in Underachiever? No Fun, is who -- an apparent 30 years into their musical career and they are no better (and no worse) than they ever were. They still don't have a record contract, they still play to tiny crowds, they still make fun of themselves and they still seem to be enjoying what they're doing. They even look the same -- Leahy's lost a little more hair and David M. is slimmer, but they remain No Fun, and their set remains 80% toss-offs and things that are cute for about a minute (like the ditty where Marlon Brando replaces Rudolph in towing Santa's sleigh), 10% moments of near brilliance (a Christmasized version of "Major Tom," say), and 10% as-close-to-genius-as-doggerel-and-pop-tunes can come. (There were always two or three songs on every cassette that seemed essential: "Work Drink Fuck Die," "Be Like Us"... some of you must know what I mean...). Their Christmas-themed rewritten set-closer of "I'm not taking Suzy to the Be-in" aside, tho', they never really transcended their opening number tonight. As I slouched depressed over my beer, wondering about current relationship issues and the advice of a counsellor I'm seeing, wondering if I'll ever meet a woman I can be with, and generally feeling totally sorry for myself and glad for the alcohol, they launched into a carol to the tune of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful": "Oh come all ye faithless, cynical and joyless..." I didn't get it all down but their chorus was "Oh come let us be morbid, oh come let us be morbid, oh come let us be morbid, Chrii-ist my head." Truly delightful. I loved it, it cheered me up almost instantly, for a few minutes anyhow, just enough to keep me drinking and hanging in for more, which seems to be pretty much the whole of No Fun's ambition. I'm glad they're still out there, but they hold the record in my book for neither shitting nor getting off the pot. In a way, there's something quite impressive about it. On the other hand... Well, why say it, it is what it is. I wonder if they'll do No Fun on Drugs anytime soon?

Now I'm gonna go see if I can find "I'm not taking Suzy to the Be-in" on Soulseek. You never know, I found the Spores "Narcs in my Pants" the other day. Whattaya mean, you don't know who the Spores were?

Random Noise

The other night at my bookstore job I picked a blues album at random from the section and listened to a side: Son Seals. I discovered today that Seals died on that very day. Oo-ee-oo.

Counselling is irritating. It ain't quite what I expected. Perceptive guy, anyhow.

Bergman retrospective at the Cinematheque soon! The Passion of Anna on the screen (my favourite Bergman, tho' it's nice to see Shame and his other island dramas will be playing. I'd like to see Through a Glass Darkly on the screen, too. And maybe The Silence, tho' I think I saw that once before at the Cinematheque, years ago).

Gonna go lie in bed and read Nicolson Baker's Checkpoint, the only imaginative work as yet to deal with the un-publicly spoken (but oft-privately spoken) thought of assassinating G.W. Bush.

Heard from the big frizzy haired guy at the Granville Book Company that there's a new Cormac McCarthy novel due out this spring or maybe summer, which I've confirmed online... It's called No Country for Old Men and the days to the release are being counted down on the Cormac McCarthy fan site. Discussed fave McCarthy imitations. He suggested James Carlos Blake and I recommended Niall Griffith's Sheepshagger and then I bought my book and left...

Missing Man Finds Himself

It's amazing what the internet can do. A man suffering from a sort of amnesia went online and discovered he was missing and had a family who were looking for him. He still doesn't recognize them, but they've been reunited... Found the story linked off the Fortean Times website -- the "Breaking News" section is an excellent source o' daily amusement.

What is this thing called Sponge Bob?

I know nothing at all about Sponge Bob, but I like this story.

The Lady in MY Radiator

...the lady in my radiator appears to be an avant-garde percussionist. And here I was, hopin' for Kim Deal. Damn.

Seven; Fishing

Stayin' home watchin' Seven and smokin' pot a bit, hoping to cheer myself up after a long day. So fun to THINK about the relationship between the pieces of that film, to regard Mills and Somerset and Doe as archetypal figures and to play with the opposites the tale constructs itself around, setting cold, firm self-control against vice and corruption; and the desire to engage with the world, to try to make a difference, to FEEL about it against the desire to retreat, surrender, observe without passion or concern. Four poles on which my soul is sometimes stretched, and hey, it all coheres so nicely, too -- a finely crafted machine, perfectly in line with its themes (how can my friend Liz hold narrative-driven stuff in such disregard?). Kevin Spacey -- more of a figure of the director-within-the-film than Somerset, despire the closing aphorism -- even explicitly invites people to think about the "meaning" of what he is doing, to read into it. It's bravura cleverness, to be sure, and it does pat itself on the back a bit, but it's still a rich little text. Helluva term paper to be written about it, at least; if anyone out there (all three of you who might read this) actually knows if anyone has done it, pass it on to me.

Uh... what else? All the big ocean fish are almost dead. I guess I ought to give up cod -- I'll be muttering to myself as an old man about how ashamed I am to have eaten the stuff, knowing they're extinct, which is lookin' like it might be comin' up unless fishing is pretty much stopped in much of the world. I dunno -- don't tell my vegetarian friends who eat fish, tho', okay?

Some entertaining science stories to cheer you up after that here. Scroll down til you learn about herring farts. Intrusive (but I guess cute) polar bear ad may pop up, look for the X to close it.

Bush and the Environment

It's too depressing to write much about, but here's a link.

Articulate US soldier writing about the battle of Fallujah and guerilla warfare here.

Toys for Bob Ostertag

Having seen Mr. Ostertag perform with Pierre Hebert this fall, as part of their Living Cinema project, I am well-aware of the importance of wind-up toys to his compositions. I had a funky battery operated toy from Japan, a Skull Ball, which I barely ever used. After a brief e-mail exchange, I mailed it to him as a gift and today just got the following e-mail from him: the skull is awesome! THANK YOU!!! - bob ostertag .

I have given Bob Ostertag skull, I guess one could say. I have officially added this to my roster of anecdotes involving encounters with quirky celebrities, alongside hugging (or rather being hugged by) Damo Suzuki, telling David Thomas that his beard makes him looks like Philip K. Dick, recommending the films of Dusan Makavejev to Annie Sprinkle, and giving an Ultraman monster to David Byrne. (For obvious reasons, I leave my bathroom stall encounter with Doug Bennett off the list -- see October's "Bummed About Doug" for that). Ahh, the conveyed grace, the joy of basking in the warm aura of celebrity... tho' it's a fairly eccentric notion of celebrity I'm pursuing. Oh, and I've collected autographs from Otomo Yoshihide, Umezu Kazutoki, Makigami Koichi, Hal Niedzviecki, and Ruth Ozeki, too.

Napalm in Fallujah?

It doesn't seem possible but there are stories spreading on the net about the use of the banned weapon, napalm, in Fallujah. There are also tales of armed drones -- robot warriors -- being used. Is this Vietnam or Robocop?

The rally in Vancouver was of minimal interest. 200 or so people, a few chants of "Go home Bush" and "1-2-3-4 We don't want your racist war," and a comedian in a Richard Nixon mask pretending to be GW Bush and justifying his policies, while using garbled pseudoBushisms (misunderstandardize, things like that). I left as the union singers came on -- I don't chant and I'm not much into acapella folk songs at rallies, what can I say. Later in the night we toppled a statue of Bush, just like the one in Ottawa. I wonder how many statues of Bush got toppled, across Canada?

Napalm. I don't fuckin' believe it.

Edited to add: the US has admitted to using napalm in Iraq, except it's not actually called napalm; it's a similar substance, the Mark 77 firebomb. It's still a gasoline-gel weapon that melts people -- fire dropped from the sky.

Bush comes to Canada

Occasionally things happen in Canada that pique ones curiosity. Hell, I'd go so far as to say I'm VERY INTERESTED in what's going to happen in my country this Tuesday.

Lawyers Against the War are an international protest movement that I first became aware of when I saw their banner during an anti-war march last spring (the one which Noam Chomsky spoke at). They're declaring GWB a war criminal and are taking a two-pronged course of action, on the one hand by trying to get the Canadian government to bar Bush from entering the country, and on the other, considering trying to press charges against him when he comes. Given a pattern of complicity by the Canadian government in American politics, a general lack of political self-assertiveness that comes with the territory of being Canadian, and our economic dependency on the United States, of which Canadians are well aware, it seems fairly unlikely that anything too dramatic is going to happen.

Of course, there will be protests -- angry people in the streets, waving signs. I'll be among them, but I guess I shouldn't let myself hope for anything more. It's like the buildup to last year's general strike in Vancouver -- the one that was cancelled at the last minute; all the grafitti heralding the action lingered for awhile, adding a what-if-we-had flavour to our workdays, but it was like we knew all along that nothing would come of it, knew we'd be too afraid to put the matter to the test. In the end, all the hospital workers at the center of the strike were laid off, their jobs contracted out as planned, replaced by part-timers and huge indifferent corporations; I was told by one of the doctors (who no longer eats at the hospital) that a cook who had worked at St. Pauls for 27 years, devoting himself to the well being of the staff, was replaced, pensionless, by a megacorporation mentioned in Super Size Me. We can wonder, now that the moment has passed, why we just rolled over, why we didn't strike, what weakness kept us from going the distance. Much as some of us would like to see some changes to the current world order, no doubt the same weakness will surface on Tuesday.

It's sad to see, really: even Jack Layton, the alleged voice of the left, is gearing up to kiss Bush's ass, which is pretty disgusting to some of us. Politicians who aren't towing that line are getting pushed aside. Protest marches are more a sign of our political disenfranchisement than anything else -- our politicians don't represent us, we have no access to the corridors of power, so we have to just brace ourselves for anticlimax and head out into the streets.

One can dream, tho'. Of course, it'll be in Ottawa that things will happen, if anywhere. Still, for those of us off to the side of things, Stopwar.ca have organized rallies around lunch on Tuesday in front of the American consulate in Vancouver and a gathering/march at 5PM (for us workin' folk) in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The posters, glued up around the city, have the message "war criminals not welcome here" across Bush's forehead. Probably he'll get a warmer reception than he got in Chile, but... it's Canada, for God sake. Doing things you feel proud of is practically taboo.

The Brown Bunny vs. the War in Iraq

...two things that are competing for my attention, these days (along with this rather intense Australian John Cassavetes fan... more on that later): Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny and the war in Iraq. I'm sure they're connected somehow -- Gallo is a Republican, after all.

I have very little to say about The Brown Bunny. The film felt shorter and faster than I expected it to be-- with the number of reviewers who talked about how long and boring it was, I was shocked at how quickly the film finished -- I actually had to check the clock to see if it had really clocked in at 90 minutes. It was interesting to watch, but left me without thoughts or insight into anything much outside the confines of the film itself -- the only new thing that I left the theatre knowing was how big Gallo's cock actually is (it's not John Holmes-long but it has girth, for those "girth girls" out there. It's a very masculine cock). (Note: were you disappointed that neither of those links lead to a picture of Gallo's penis? Why?). Despite being a bit underwhelmed, I am almost curious about seeing the long version, the alleged "working cut" that was trashed at Cannes and generated all that huff; and not just because I can gain some odd filmsnob status by claiming to prefer it to the "second version." There's one scene in particular where Gallo gets on his bike and drives off into the distance across salt flats; in the longer cut, the shot continued to show Gallo riding back. It sounds better, cooler that way.

By the way, does anyone else but me get disturbed by blowjobs where the man is towering over the woman, hands on her head, while she kneels in front of him? In porn, in art, in life -- it's kind of disturbing to see men who need that sort of reassurance of their power. So many of the blowjobs one sees in porn, in particular, seem to be all about that -- the woman reassuring the man of his masculine strength, praising his penis and semen, assuring him that (as she struggles not to gag) that she really loves doing this, really. I felt kinda sorry for Chloe Sevigny during the blowjob scene in The Brown Bunny (and I began to understand why some women have issues with swallowing). It's a fairly humiliating moment. Gallo does undercut his own assertion of masculinity, afterwards -- but the scene itself is a little disturbing, hardly arousing. IMHO. (In a way, that's a testament to the success of the scene, I guess -- tho' the number of people Googling +"Chloe Sevigny" +blowjob must be astronomical these days (See The Biggest Blowjob Since Monica Lewinsky!).

Meantime, as interesting as such piece of American narcissism is -- and what better narcissism is there than American narcissism? -- I find I'm following the war in Iraq again, and much more interested in the news than film. I'd stopped paying attention, for awhile -- I didn't really want to know. Now I figure with Bush re-elected I need to know what form the oncoming apocalypse is likely to take. Been reading some excellent articles online -- thank God for the internet as a news source. Apparently malnutrition among children has increased since the American invasion -- quite an accomplishment, given the state Iraq was in under sanctions. Interesting to read, too, that Chile came very close to snubbing Bush during his rather heavy handed little visit there -- there were oblique, awkward stories in the press about Chilean security guards refusing to let Bush's thugs into one conference and about a dinner being cancelled because the Chilean government thought Bush's insistence on metal detectors at the door was an insult to other invited diplomats and political figures. Chile, of course, has its own September 11th to remember, which likely leaves Chileans with little warmth in their hearts for the United States.

I wonder if Canada will show Bush as warm a reception? Justin Podur put something very articulate about it all on Znet -- I've already (ironically) chastised him via email for leaving Vancouver out (Vancouver is becoming Quebec West in terms of the amount o' bitching we do about our position in Canada). I assume there'll be a protest organized before the end of the month -- I wouldn't want to walk over the Burrard Street bridge all by myself.

Walked out of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion gig at Richards on Richards tonight. The band didn't look like they were havin' much fun -- it was like watchin' people do a job. They were professional about it, but I just didn't care. Time to stop thinkin' about these guys altogether so I can still listen to my Pussy Galore discs.

One good thing came of the night: saw (the?) Gossip perform, a Portland trio fronted by a really passionate female singer. Really cute, too, and just my type -- dark hair, pale skin, slightly heavy -- but quite possibly, given the dedications she kept makin', a lesbian. Wonder if I was the only guy there with salacious thoughts? She was very sexy, but I figure that big women have a limited (albeit elite) appeal...

Wonder if I'm gonna be able to make the Nomeansno show in Langley tomorrow... I somehow doubt it.

The First Hollywood Action Movie about the War in Iraq

...the first Hollywood action movie about the current war in Iraq has, to my knowledge, not been made. I'm thinkin' TONY Scott, not Ridley, for this one. George Clooney, of Three Kings fame, can be President Bush (they can use computer animation to make him look shorter, like they did with them hobbits) and Clint Eastwood can be his Dad, the former president. George can fly in with a turkey for a special Thanksgiving for the troops (maybe after the heroic rescue of a female soldier), be kidnapped, and slated to be beheaded, until he's rescued by Marines in the Battle of Fallujah. His Dad (ol' Dirty Harry himself) can fly the plane in that blows up the evil terrorist masterminds, rescues his kid, saves America, and makes Iraq safe for democracy. They can have some fat bearded guy in a baseball cap as some sort of cowardly liberal-type who gets in their way and sells them out to Iraq or such. Better a no-name actor for that role -- maybe by the time the film gets made I'll be fat enough to audition myself. I could be pretty convincing as a pissed-off liberal.

Sickened about Margaret Hassan being killed (still hopin' as I write this that it wasn't her). Wonder if they eschewed the use of a knife out of some sort of respect or mercy... Much as I feel bad for her, tho', it's Andrew Veal whose death is really lingering with me these days.

Naughty Origami!

A book of naughty origami projects! What a great idea!

Miscellany, plus Funny Language learnin’ errors

Smokin’ a bowl, downloadin’ bootlegs o’ Tom Waits for this hot little redhead I know on a wet Friday nite at 2:05 AM. Listenin’ to him singin’ “Chocolate Jesus” from a 1999 live show in Oregon. I love bootlegs.

I been away. I had a great night at the all-night Nightwatch event at the Western Front last weekend – the highlight being Ellen McIlwane playing slide guitar at 3 AM and tellin’ us stories about her childhood with missionary parents in Japan. (She told us she “always scats in Japanese because it sounds cooler than scoobie doobie.”) What a raconteur! Her stories are almost as cool as her guitar playing. (I like it when musicians tell stories, usually). She tells me via e-mail that she doesn't know Tomokawa Kazuki or Mikami Kan, outsider folkies from the '70's. Gonna mail her a package of CDRs. Tomokawa recently appeared in Miike Takashi's Izo, a sprawling, bizarrely philosophical samurai action film with surrealist moments -- Tomokawa sorta serves as a chorus, his bleakly passionate ballads commenting on the action, his screams lingering after he's off screen.

I got into trading language learning stories with one of the percussionists, I think he was, from Gamelan Alligator Joy (featuring two Javanese guests and Western Front curator D.B. Boyko). He told the audience earlier in the evening that he’d walked around Java telling people a phrase that transliterates from Javanese as “sweet dreams,” having learned the word for “sweet” and the word for “dreams,” and assuming they would, when smacked together, mean the same thing. He in fact was wishing people wet dreams, not sweet ones. Or just asserting “wet dreams” without it being clear it was an item of well-wishing, which, in a way, would be stranger. I approached him later while waiting for the sitar player to come on and told him that I had liked the story. I then explained that I spent weeks in Japan, mistaking “furo” (bath) for “fukuro” (bag), and thus telling shopkeepers that I didn’t need a bath, or, worse, asking them to give me one.

This led to a fun segue to a story about travelling in Vietnam, I think it was, where the tonal aspects of the language make it very easy to say, when you want to be sayin’ “Is this meal vegetarian?”, the far-more loaded phrase, “I intend to leave without paying.” Leading to such great conversations as:

“What would you like, sir?”
“This looks good, but I intend to leave without paying. Is that okay? I intend to leave without paying. There's no meat in this, right? Do you understand?”

I played the final card – my best, a possibly apocryphal tale off (a forum for expats-and-teachers-in-Japan) Big Daikon (where I ride again as Pemmican): A young man wanted to ask his coworker, “Shuumatsu ni, nani o shimashita ka,” which translates as “weekend on, what (object marker) did you do?” He approached his coworker’s desk and smiled and said instead "shuumatsu ni, onani shimashita ka?" -- becoming indignant when his coworker looked at him in shock and horror. The Japanese, you see, have this flexible little syllable “o,” which can move around in sentences – this is a very easily-made error. By putting the “o” in the wrong place, the young man had unconsciously stumbled into the Japanese borrowing from the English word, onanism, meaning he’d asked his coworker, in very polite tones, if he had masturbated on the weekend:

"Excuse me, did you masturbate this weekend?”

"Eh!?”

Even more unfortunate, the Japanese-learner got a little frustrated at his coworker’s inability to understand his simple, perfectly grammatical question: so he repeated it louder, so everyone could hear.

It’s easy enough to compile and chuckle at goofy phrases Japanese learners come up with when they attempt to speak English (the “we-play-for-MacArthur’s-erection” syndrome). I’d like to hear more from native English speakers who fuck up when trying to learn Japanese…

Anyhow, I haven’t abandoned the blog, just haven’t had anything I wanted to write here. Plus Big Daikon has been keeping me busy. I’ll have more to say presently – maybe after the Laurie Anderson show on Sunday night.

United States of Canada

Gwynne Dyer speculates on an unusual solution to the current divide in America: about half the US should join Canada. There's a funky little image of a map designed thus that's circulating on the web right now -- the northern half of North America is labelled "the United States of Canada," with most of both coasts of the current US become part of the US-Canada hybrid; there's an area below identified as "Jesusland," incorporating the southern states. Alas, I can't seem to upload it onto my blog. E-mail me if you'd like a copy to send to friends...

Now I know what it's like when the head is cut off from the body

Apparently there's a new wave of beheadings going on worldwide -- terrorists like the shock value that cutting off someone's head has. Three policemen in Haiti were found headless; it's being called Operation Baghdad. Meanwhile, people online are collecting and disseminating these images -- which I personally don't want to see; much as it seems to be one of the defining images of our time (yay!), I'm just not masochistic enough to want this stuff rattling around in my head. I watched the Berg video until they took out the knife -- then I left the room while a friend of mine finished it. The sounds were bad enough.

There's a history of beheadings here, if you like.

I recall somewhere reading that often when heads were cut off by guillotine they would blink and show signs of life for some time after being removed.

Jandek live!

Jandek played a live show! In Glasgow, unannounced! Holy cow! (It's about two weeks old, this news -- but what can I say, I miss stuff sometimes).

John Pilger has a good article on the current state of things immediately pre-election -- check it out. Also a well-written piece by Justin Podur on Znet today. To offer sustenance in a dark time, by clarifying its nature...