coolest muthafucka'

he's ridin' that painted pony across a crested butte. gently stoned and trading swipes at a rattlesnake with jim morrisson. he looks down and discovers my trash talkin, 'downer' stories. and he's kinda pissed. who am i to harsh his afterworld gig? we made our peace before he moved on. stiff hugs were exchanged.

so here's a story. about a girl, who, for one afternoon, thinks her dad is the coolest motherfuckin' dude in the universe.

dad loves the soft girliness of his wife, terry. she's slender and honey skinned and smells like almond lotion. she makes him sandwiches just so and he adores her. he wants to get her a real good birthday gift. a trip to z.c.m.i. (think mormon macy's) is in order.

he chooses a deluxe halston set- eau de parfum, lotion, and powder. dad knows he's found the filly something good. add that to a couple hundred cash and the steak dinner he's swinging her way later tonight and it should be a sweet 28th. since it's common knowledge that i can't 'wrap for shit' and, as a man, he is incapable of doing any job requiring the tying of a festive bow, we decide to pop for professional wrapping.

brightly papered gifts hang on the display wall. white on white. floral patterns with raffia. baby pinks and blues. a warm, chunky lady asks which wrap we'd like. my dad gives each sample its due, looks 'em over real good, and makes his choice.

"gimme that bad boy right there, if ya would, #3."

#3. blue background. teddy bears floating high, chubby cub paws holding yellow and pink balloons. puffy pale yellow bow.

she balks. "that's baby paper. you can't put perfume on babies. they'll get allergic."

"perfume's for the old lady. my wife."

she tilts her head, like you might at a rather dim witted dog. "then you don't want baby paper. you want #2, the one with flowers. that's the one for wives or girlfriends. that's real pretty. okay, hun?"

he looks back, mellow, but unswayed. "no thanks. i think those bears are real cute. terry's gonna think so too."

for some reason, this response makes wrapping gal really miffed. as if cats and dogs are suddenly living together in sin. the people behind us in line are beginning to grumble too. and snicker.

"but you can't! it's not done. you don't get BABY paper for a grown woman."

"i'll take good old #3." he slides her a $20 and lights up an unfiltered marlbrough.

she shrieks. "no smoking in here!"

he takes a long drag and on the exhale says- "and woulya change the bow to pink? terry loves pink."

it's one thing to rebel against the straights, the squares, the rubes. to flash 'em the middle finger and a shit eating grin. but this was something all together different. my dad wasn't actively being a jerk, he wasn't trying to piss this woman off, or fly in the face of convention. it wouldn't occur to him that there was a right or wrong way to pick paper. or to be embarrassed by his choice.

he just really liked those damned teddy bears. and god bless him for it.

cats and rats

flames lick and lap and scorch and seeth. carrie's face is slick and oily. her mother raises the knife in a final death arc. as she swoops- BANG!

i jolt and scream. stare at the t.v. screen to verify. no, carrie's mom didn't suddenly pull out a glock. she stabbed her eerie kid. but i heard a gunshout. a loud retort coming from my living room. scared witless, i whisper call- "terry?"

laughter flows through her voice as she calls back "it's okay, honey, come out here."

a large round hole now resides in the sliding glass door. golden goofily holds a shot gun. my dad and terry drunkenly behold his handiwork. "goddamn if that thing didn't just go off."

i put a finger up to the jagged hole. peer through to the pasture. and spot it. a little calico cat.

"dad, look, there's a cat in the pasture."

he quick grabs the shotgun from golden and tears open the screen door. "BAM BAM BAM" i don't look, but i know the cat got dead for sure.

i give my dad the death stare. the stare reserved for well.. cat killers and puppy stranglers. he squares off his jaw and gives me a hard look back.

"you sent that cat to his grave."

"no."

"oh yeah, you did, kid. you ratted him out. nobody likes a rat. remember that."

i never did quite figure out the lesson in that one. but i never alerted my dad to the presence of barnyard animals again, either.

so there's that.

5 second woman

something's in the air. something vaguely sexual and fumbling. nostalgia, but with a wince and an afterburn. check out dan or will for excellent examples.

now me, i knew that peeing had no correllation with pregnancy. and i never attempted to fashion a raging penis out of, say, a toilet paper roll and clay. i had a firm bookish knowledge of sex. i started my nightly self-investigations and found them to be good times indeed. one hitch. it felt okay, no great shakes, until the end, then it felt really really tingly awesome for about 5 seconds. then i was sleepy.

i thought that i was only getting it right during that last 5 seconds and that if i could just try harder and do it better, then it would feel really tingly awesome the whole time. when i heard the word 'orgasm' i thought that was some separate dimension of yumminess that i had yet to experience. and i couldn't wait to get there.

maybe only a boy could unlock that level of mind blowing pleasure? well, i'm pleased as punch to say boys have added crazy levels of delight and wonder- warm and honest raunch, dirty talk with someone you love, multiple o's, confessions and kinks and all kinds of adventure, giggles till i burst, sweaty cuddles and confidences.

but at the end of the day (or night) or after the party, or when we start the car back up... i'm still sleepy. and i never have discovered the secret of making the BIG TIME TINGLE last the whole time.

probably only 'call me tantric' sting has the answer to that one.

*this post has been edited from its original form.

a modest plea for decency

i've officially reached the level of nakedness anyone can be expected to endure in a gym locker room setting.

heartened by the musings of a certain lovely snowflake, i'd taken a new approach to the the locker routine. not cover my freshly showered nudiness, not shy away from the other women shedding their sweaty sports bras all around me. find comfort in the delightful variety that is the woman's body. normally i only enjoy nakedness a) alone 2) with a boy of equal nudity, or as you know, x) for SS photoshoots.

but i was ON BOARD the gym flesh train..... then along came anne.

before you even start your dirty minds surmising... yes, she is sixty plus. no, her body is not a greek paradigm. but these are not at issue. the issue is the vast amount of time anne spends, totally nude having long conversations involving chicken soup recipes. she stands, makes eye contact, and rubs bath'nbody shimmer lotion deeply into her upper thighs. you can't look. you can't not look. she goes to work on the breasts...

it becomes a test of wills. how long can i stand here, chattering away with the nude granny? answer? 'a long fucking time because she never shuts up and refuses to even put on a bra and panties. for chrissakes!'

couple that with the fact that i'm not good at cutting someone short if they really want to talk and you've got a recipe for horror. horror i tell you.

yes, the nakedness lasts all the way through hair and makeup. no, there is no escape.

didgeridoo you

you that whole thing where saliere was a second rate musician with the uncanny ability to recoginze musical genuis? his undoing lay in the fact that he knew and loved brilliance, but couldn't reproduce it. thus he became bitter (and some say) homocidal against his rival, the enfante terrible mozart.

i don't want to put the hurt on tom waits or dylan or mike watt or the clash (the living members) et all, but i do feel awed in the presence of music. it's a language i love but can't speak. i'm hopelessly tone deaf. mathematically, i don't understand chord progressions. even lyrically, the structure of popular music eludes me. i adore it blindly, in total faith that what i love is good. and in the knowledge that i can't create it myself.

but wait! now me, the musical muggle, can make the sweet magic of music. and you can too. songs to wear pants to will do it for you. just take that fabulous idea you had for a song, send it to them, and voila! you're in. check out some other budding westerburg's ideas-

"write a song about my wife and how she always lies...it should be in her most hated genre, teen angst rock."

"make a song about baking. possibly the process of making cupcakes. mention something about pink frosting 30 seconds into the song and sprinkles 60 seconds into the song."

"make a song about a polar bear fighting a unicorn, preferably early 80's rap."

the doors to the universe are suddenly wide open. of what shall i write? and you?

i smell bacon

"i hate cows." i didn't hate cows so i marked 'false.' good thing for me because a 'true' answer on that one indicates sociopathic tendencies. "i believe other people can hear my thoughts" paranoid pschyzophrenia. "i want to go steady with young boys" you get the picture.

we were the control group- the "mentally healthy" kids. our scores would be judged against the crazies over at the mowita teen correctional facility. and i did pretty well. until this question. "i feel guilty in the presence of police officers." my answer- "hell yes"

i harbour a deep fear and loathing of utah cops. maybe it's cause they sent my pappy to prison. or maybe it's all the years of pappy calling them alternately 'the pigs' or 'the fuzz' with spitting venom. but everytime i see a roller. even though i am a female, of the milky white variety, driving the speed limit in my mom's '03 dodge stratus, i break into a cold sweat. convinced a kilo of black tar heroin has appeared in my glove box. a dead body in my trunk.

speaking of trunks. i took a certain boy up on his offer to 'tempt fat' and well, the rough trade went slightly astray. he ended up naked, bound and gagged in my mom's trunk with nothing but a box of ho hos and nudie pics of chloris leachman for company. luckily he discovered the 'child safety latch' and was able to escape to safety.

i eluded the pigs and am now back in the bosom of my loving l.a. and no-one sent me any porn. fie on you!

dispatches from zion

i'll be spending the next week behind the zion curtain. (that's utah for the uninitiated).

i'm all a tingle just pondering it. so much jello with shredded carrots. so many white people. so much opportunity to convert to a religion which seriously believes black people were descended from cain. squeaky clean chain restaurants. mom. three sets of grandparents, all of whom, though much beloved are basically sitting quietly in their coffins waiting for the end.

it's gonna be a wild ride. look forward to some nice, juicy, potentially angst ridden messages from the other side.

oh and wish me luck. and be afraid. be very afraid..

(and if you have any porn to send along, you know just to get me through till i'm back in the land of sin and skin)

li'l punkins

his mom made us matching pumpkin costumes. fat and ripe and boldly orange with green stem hats and tights. but, then i went to thrifty's with my mom and they had this cute kitty cat mask. i badgered her until she bought it for me.

when he opened the door, in all is pumpkiny glory, and saw me.. black leotard, black tights, cat mask... he burst into tears. bitter, bereft tears. i never saw anyone look so sad. but i refused to let it penetrate. because i felt so cute as a black cat. and because he wasn't the boss of me. i tossed my head and pretended like he was being ridiculous.

i loved shane more than anyone. when our moms said we were too big to go to the bathroom together, i would hide in the shower while he peed. then we'd switch places. we couldn't stand to be apart. we shared the same birthday and countless matching cakes. raggedy ann and andy. cinderella and her prince. we even pledged to get married when we were old, like 19.

i didn't let myself feel bad at the time. but years later, after the call came. the 3 a.m. call. the one where his mom says "he's gone." and i say "where?" before it hits. i kept thinking about breaking the boy's heart on our 5th halloween.

i wish i had a 'way before' machine and could go back and wear that damned pumpkin costume. or at least offer him an apology.

or maybe i'll just work harder on keeping my word true and my heart soft.

shillin' for the luftwaffe

frau pornmistress
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

i step out of the yummyhot shower onto cold tile. rush over to stoke up the old fashioned thermodore heater. watch the little coils burn red. i heart thermodores.

it's real cold so i stand really close. drop my towel. turn around and... is that steak frying? no. it's my ass. singed onto the damned heater. i jump around. squealing. swatting at my booty as if it's actually on fire.

i quick call the badass cowboy and demand that he look at it. stat. he checks it over and confirms.

i have a nazi swastika branded on my ass. the grill work of the thermodore has betrayed my person and singed itself into the symbol of facist hate.

now, there's nothing left for me to do but take up a lucrative career as an ss porn model.

teacher's pride

i've got the kinda depth that can only be measured in a charge. that's why i don't bother with the likes of harper's, atlantic monthly, even people. no. i'm strictly a disney adventures gal.

this month features the spread- "Stars pick their top tunes and we say 'rock on'!" *note. stars is a term used veery loosely and includes the girl from spy kids and an animated naked mole rat. (and oddly, fidel castro) i know this ain't my crowd. and i'm not expecting aaron carter to leave off busting up paris hilton long enough to vote for 'pixies, gouge away.' but, i say 'bring it.'

charmingly, lindsay (look, boobs!) lohan votes for madonna's holiday. avril lavigne postures with CCR's bad moon rising. stitch makes a good call with elvis costello's almost blue.

then, there's christy carlson romano (don't ask, doesn't matter). she choses "teacher's pet." "the send up number done to backwater perfection by parker posey in waiting for guffman?" you ask. no. teacher's pet by christy muthafuckin carlson romano. she dug her bony little fingers into the rich gorgeous crushing ore of rock music and could only retrieve... her own song.

good god. i don't put myself in the top three of any all time list. including my own 'top three sexual partners.' and i'm really good.

dosoevsky, who had the actual cred. who was roulette adled, and vodka soaked, and an epileptic bastard. still, never heard him listing "oh, let's see, ana karenina and... brothers karamozov, now that's a great book." because he wasn't a total fucking jerkoff.

or maybe she's just a gal. with a dream. and a whole lot of pride in her work.

oedipus no more

the greeks sought fit to outfit all their really good tragic heros with the flaw of hubris. excessive pride. and i'm pretty sure the other book, you know, the one from hotels? warns sternly about how 'great pride goeth before a fall.'

and then you have gary coleman. at one point, mid-seventies, he was aflush with pride. rolling in cash. giving it but good to the ladies (i'm not sure about that one) but then, the intervening years. the cartoonish 'cameos' on bad shows. the stint as a securty guard. the failed bid for governor. his pride has been chipped away to the point where it don't even enter the picture.

gary coleman has entered some kind of zen like, pride free zone. he openly does commercials about how he 'used to make millions of dollars' but that recently he found himself in 'a bit of financial trouble' and turned to cash quick for help. they wired 3,000 to his bank account. THE NEXT DAY. he urges us to do the same.

gary ain't gonna be gouging out his eyes with a brooche anytime soon. no, gary's just happy to make a buck and maybe help out the rest of us with some sound finanancial advice.

lesson learned. free self from pride. live happily in shame.

studio rock city

star dog
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

one through-the-looking-glass-element of having a child in l.a. is that she might resonably be expected to attend school with, say, paul stanley's(KISS, aw yeah) kid.

if you disregard the large mane of dyed black hair. the coiffed, archy eyebrows. the overly heeled boots. and the tricked out mercedes he rolls.... paul is just a guy playing at being a parent, like the rest of us.

we all conduct this intricate, victorian manners play around him. paul plays like we don't know that he's a "nominal hair rock god" and we pretend that he doesn't know that we really know. you try ignoring the 300 pound star child in the room. it's weird.

a surprising amount of folks have a KISS story in their childhood vaults. one dad told me that he dressed up as paul every halloween from ages 6-12. try swallowing that one while chatting about school beautification with the man.

i was too little when they were really big. even when they made the 'lick it up' comeback, sans makeup, i was a kid. and a bratty, punk rock kid at that.

but then i spent a summer in utah with dana and her big sisters. they thought it would be 'fun' to dress us up, get us plastered, and take us to a KISS concert.

dana's big sister drove a nissan nx with the vanity plate TART. we drove the whole way with open beers and motley crue blasting. my brain and lipstick felt sloppy. i warbled on plastic heels.

the last thing i remember was standing on a metal folding chair while gene simmons told a story about some 'sleaze bag' claiming that he was the father of his baby and-
"that baby had the longest tongue i ever seen!"

the crowd cheered with wild approval. yay for getting chicks pregnant! yay for your big tongue!

i woozed and fell over, striking my head on the chair. i slept comfortably until dana found me sometime after the show.

i'm tellin' that one to paul next time we work lunch line together.

miss scarlet, in the billiard room, with a...

since we’re on the subject. i have a friend who worked as ‘making with the sexy talk’ phone girl. Kegan’s the first woman I ever met who pegged her boyfriend. a born actress and smut peddler, she actually found the job kind of fun and kicky. even felt like she was doing some good, spreading some love, without having to spread her legs. and forget what you’ve heard about phone sex operators, she’s hotty hot hot.

why did she give up the gig? just plum ran out of story ideas. if only she had harpers. she could still be making lonely men come for pennies on the dollar.

***surefire formula for hot phone sex relations:

“ONE TYPICAL THING/PLACE+ ONE SEXUAL ACT+ ONE SEXY CHARACTER= SEXY STORY

TYPICAL THINGS
Going to the bank
Shopping
On an airplane
In the bookstore
In your parents basement
Visiting the doctor/dentist/therapist

SEXUAL ACTS
Gave hand job/fingered
Fucked
Had people watch
Had anal sex
Had an orgy
Was in a gang bang

TYPICAL CHARACTERS
Landlord
Little brother’s nerdy friend
Boyfriend’s dad
Delivery guy
Total stranger from bus/train/gym/coffee shop
Cop that pulled you over
Dog or animal of choice”

try it out for yourselves. It’s fun! like clue, only with a happy ending. i’ll take an airplane, having an orgy, with the landlord from three’s company and erkel.

now where's the quick and easy equation for the rest of life's woes?

all this hot burlesque

2, 4, 6, 8
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

sweet lord jesus god how i loved the '976' numbers. sunny, the sanders twins, and i discovered the ads in the back of an newspaper my mom brought back from l.a. we took turns calling the 'hot anal', 'kinky sexxxx', and 'high romance' lines. laughing. feeling brutally naughty. (this was the land of zion) all in good fun.

when they went home, i got serious. my favorite parts of these magical, x-rated wonderlands-

*they were pre-recorded messages, so i didn't have to embarrass my 14 yr old self trying to talk nasty to some sweaty dude in his basement

*they were awesome. i learned everything about sexuality, completely wrong, and discovered all sorts of lovely things about my bod while doing it.

BEST PHONE LINE- a group of lusty cheerleaders cheering- "2, 4, 6, 8, kinky sex is really great! press 9!" i always pressed 9.

my good time ride came to an end with the phone phone bill. mom's refused to pay it. i had no job. so we became that really cool 'eccentric' family without a land line.

and it was totally worth it. now where are those cheerleaders? and the sausage delivery guy?

losing the thread

my memory clicks on mid scene. the brown corduroy couch scratches my bare legs. a fancy, cut glass candy dish rests on the coffee table. i’m wondering if i can take some. the kids- donna, john, and james- aren’t having any. so i don’t either. even though i love candy.

it’s quiet. my mom smokes and makes barely audible small talk with the birdlike mother. i think she looks funny next to the dad. who looks like a bear with orange hair.

my mom stands and says- “it’s time to go.”

i’m at the doorway watching her walk to the car. she has to get something. she comes back with my orange and yellow flowered suitcase. i start to feel doomy. “why did you bring my suitcase?”

“i’m going. you’re staying here.” i don’t ask for how long. i don’t ask why. i just stand in the doorway and watch her malibu pull down the drive.

to be six is to have a swiss cheese memory. plenty of holes, dropping out places, spots where the narrative loses its thread. the memories i do have are visceral. i feel them. smell them. like a lit cigarette on skin.

eating my first bowl of captain crunch. it sounds so loud in my ears. i try to chew more quietly but it’s no use. why don’t the others crunch so loud? why do they keep saying ‘frog’ instead of ‘fart?’ why do they sit around a dining room table instead of eating in the living room?

standing in the bedroom i share with donna. john walks in. he says “i think you’re the most beautiful girl i’ve ever seen.”

i don’t love john. i love james because his hair is silky and blond and he can hang upside down from the tree. so i say “we’ll be late for church.”

riding a bike, fast, down the street. i jam back on the pedal breaks and fly over the handlebars. smashing my face into the blacktop. a man waters his lawn with a hose. he says “you look hurt. we better go get your mom.”

i wipe blood from my eyes. i cry. spit blood out to speak. “i don’t know where she is.”

i spent all of first grade at that house in riverside. but my school life is blank. and i never could recall donna, john, and james’ parents’ first names. my last memory is burning up the freeway on the back of the dad’s harley. he tells me we’re going home to my mother.

i’m not sure if I’m happy.

god bless my underwear*

i've always thought of denmark as an erotic, chilly, alcoholic land. a place of cold deer and colder beer. but what i didn't think of was how insane their children are.

a children's song from DENMARK

"if or if not my butt was pointy
and filled with lemonade,
then you my friends could lick it
until my buttocks were flat"

are they advocating the licking of buttocks for procurement of lemonade? do we all secretly have lemonade in our buttocks? or just the danes? did hamlet have lemoney goodness in his booty or was he too busy being moody (sorry, i know)

how does this effect the lemonade stand business in denmark?

can one of my friends of the hebrew persuasion 'splain this one? children's song from ISRAEL

"steve, the fat guy
within his stomach there's a child
what's the child's name?
steve the fat guy!"

huh wah? isn't there an old greek story where some dude eats his babies?

aren't you glad to be an american right now? "the batmobile has lost his wheel and robin laid an egg..."

*collected for the global schoolyard rhyme project check out a full listing