Things to say...

...during sex (link to image).

Created by this guy.  Who also does this.  I've decided I wantto know this person.

And this is dedicated to someone who knows who they are.

(via Boing Boing)

This Is How The World Ends #9

(Off the suggestion of "blackboard" from Nicole)

THE TALK

The chalk dust always made her cough.  Well, cough more.  Everyone coughed now.  The filters left the air stale and rife with particles.  The ever present stench of bodies and sweat.  And of course the radiation.  She didn't like to think about what her RAD count was over the last twelve years even though she knew it by heart.  They all did, just as they knew their white blood cell counts and what their last chest x-rays looked like.  But the chalk made it worse.

Silvia finished erasing the blackboard and wiped the yellow dust on her jeans.  Picking out a fresh piece of chalk, she turn back to the classroom and the children's attentive faces.  Thirty boys and girls, ages seven to ten.  This was a lesson she was dreading.

"Okay, class.  I need you all to pay attention and take this seriously.  I know it is an uncomfortable topic.  That's okay.  But it's important and that we don't get distracted by giggles."

She turned back to the board and wrote three letters, large and clear.  S. E. X.  She expected giggling to erupt behind her but there was only silence.

"Sex," Silvia announced towards the class.  There was little recognition from most of them, as if she was speaking a foreign language.  "So, does anyone know what 'sex' means?"

The class shifted uncomfortably and exchanged nervous glances.  The lights flickered and went off, plunging the room into black.  A few second later there was a thump and a hum as the back up generators shifted on.  The lights sputtered back on.  When she had been a child, a moment like that would have frightened her.  Hell, when they first moved into the vaults, it scared her.  But not anymore.  Nor did it frighten the children.  Fear of the dark is the fear of the unknown.  They had always known the dark and took it as a given of daily life.

Timothy, sitting near the front, cautiously raised his hand.  Silvia noticed it was bandaged and assumed that he had lost another finger.  The phrase "ten heathy fingers and tenhealthy toes" flashed through Silvia's mind and she forced it out.

"Yes, Timothy?"

"It's when a man and a woman get naked and touch each other."  There as a small wave of giggling which filled Silvia with joy.  It was a sound she so rarely heard and reassured her.

"Yes and no.  It doesn't have to be a man and a woman.  It can be two women or two men.  And it can be between more than two people." More giggles.  She remembered when there was a time that speaking those words would have started a flood of controversy.  Not any more.  There were too few of them left to care anymore.  And all the arguments for only same sex relationships had disappeared.  It was hard to defend those sort of moral judgments these days.

"We're going to spend the rest of the day talking about sex.  You can ask any thing that you want.  It can be confusing, I know.  But you are all getting older and soon you will begin to want to experiment and experience sex.  I would guess some of you have already begun to experiment."

She noticed a quick exchange of nervous looks between Amber and Benjamin, both aged ten.  She made a mental note to approach both of them privately.  And to notify medical for them to both be checked again.  Just to be safe.

"First, the important thing for you all to know is that your body is your body.  No one has the right to make you do things that you don't want to.  It is your choice.  That is very important.  We can talk about that in more detail later.  But, please, know that if you ever feeling like someone is forcing you, even if only with words, tell me or your parents or a doctor or an enforcer.  Tell an adult, okay? I repeat: your body is your body."  Even if it is rebelling against you and slowly dying.  She thought of her own body and its pains and sores that never seemed to heal.

They nodded, most of them probably not understanding.

"Sex can, if done with people you feel comfortable with and trust, be wonderful and pleasurable.  I am going to tell you about some of the things people can do with each other and ways that might help it be more pleasurable.  But each person is different.  But let's start small."

She turned back to the board and wrote KISSING.

"Kissing isn't sex!" a voice said loudly.  Turning back, she saw that it was Bradley.  "My mommy kisses me before I go to bed.  And I don't think that is sex."

"You're right, Billy.  There are different types of kissing."

Christina's hand was up and waving for attention and Silvia knew exactly what Christina was going to say.  She was only eight, but Christina was smart and her parents, unlike most parents in the vaults, did not go out of their way to protect her from the truths of the world.  Like any eight year old, her knowledge was incomplete and often mixed up, the old world mixing withe new, but Christina had the awkward, if healthy, habit of shattering lies people often hid behind.

Maybe it would be better to lie, to pretend.  It is not like it matters in the long run.  There was no long run anymore.  Who was Christina or Silvia to force people from fantasies that made it easier to go on day to day?  But Silvia was a teacher and believed in truth.  Even now, making informed choices was a human right.

Silvia point towards Christina who looked like she was about to explode.  "Yes?"

Christina cleared her throat.   "Sex is also how you make babies.  But not kissing.  The other thing.  When a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina."  A mixture of giggles and shifting and mumbling.  Still certain words always bring giggling.  But the mumbling was from the other word, the word no one liked to say any more.  This is what Silvia had dreaded.

"Yes.  It is how we used to make babies."

Babies.  The word that had no more meaning since there were none.  Not for seven years.  In this very room was Eve Mendleson, the youngest person in the vault, probably the world.  Her parents had named her in an obscene hope that Eve would not be the last but a new beginning.  Not the choice had already been made.

The vote had been overwhelming.  The facts were clear.  To have more children was just to extend the suffering of the human race.

Silvia looked across the faces and forced herself to smile, living her own lie.  She wanted to cry and hug them.  She missed her own little girl who had died just weeks after they entered the vault.  Her little girl, dying in incredible pain, coughing up blood and the skin pealing from her flesh.  She forced the memories from her mind, forced the tears to not flood from her eyes and smiled at the children.

"But we don't have babies anymore.  Everyone has had surgeries so that no one can have babies ever again.  So people only have sex for comfort and fun and pleasure now."  Silvia knew that wasn't exactly true.  Sex was still used to hurt and to feel sorrow and anger and any of the thousand reasons people have always had sex.  Just not to make life.  "That's why there are no babies."

The children, no matter what they had been told in their short lives knew what this meant.  But they all already knew and had always known.  Just like darkness, it was all around them.  The concrete corridors and rooms were empty of new life and would some day soon be empty of any life.  

Their lives now would be short.  Her job was to help them find what joy they could.

"So," Silvia said as brightly and cheerfully as she could manage, "let's talk about kissing."  And some of the class leaned forward to listen.

Sarah Connor Chronicles

I am a big fan of the first two Terminator movies and like to pretend the third never happened.  It's a great mythology: time travel, killer robots, destiny, obsession, end of the world.  Great stuff.  I really haven't paid much attention to the Sarah Connor Chronicles.  The early episodes I saw were slow and repetitive.

I have caught some episodes recently.  Usually the tail end of episodes while waiting for Dollhouse to come on.  And, I have to say, they are starting to hit some good points.  I don't really get what's going on in the plot and am going to have to spend sometime watching the entire two seasons before I make any big judgement here.  (Sadly, parts of it are just making me have flashbacks to the flawed main plotline of Buffy season 4.)

But last Friday's episode had one scene which I thought nailed it.  John and Sarah Connor's messed up relationships with their protective Terminators has always been a key factor.  Now that John is 16 and his protector is "female," this is exactly the sort of scene I wanted to see.

A more complete and HD version here.

Green Porno

I just discovered this.  Why did I not know ofthis before now?  It is brillant.

Isabella Rosellini's Green Porno.

What a wonderful science show.  And I love the design.

One Man Show

One man (person, whatever) shows are all the rage now.  Well, that probably isn't true.  They are always being done.  Probably because (1) you can feature yourself and (2) don't have to worry about anyone else's schedule, ego, etc. and (3) a one person short one act feels "full" while a larger cast piece feels "slight."  Whatever the case is, I've been leaning more and more into writing for the stage.

The problem is that I haven't led an extremely interesting life.  Yes, yes.  I know there are those of you who are going to say "Pshaw, Chris!  Your life is interesting!  Everyone has something to say."  I have plenty to say, but let's be fair - I had a great childhood, I have a great family. I am white, financially comfortable and straight.  I haven't traveled tons and when I have it has always been safe.  I've never done more then dabble in narcotics before I discovered that besides occasional drinking, it wasn't for me.  I know a little about a lot of things.  I know coffee.  I know food.  I know science fiction and speculative fiction and story in general.  And god knows the word doesn't need another show about (1) acting, (2) writing, or (3) comedy.

So that leaves me at loose ends a bit.  But I have a few ideas.

• For a long time, I've been working on a one man piece about Philip K. Dick's nervous breakdown (or visions or whatever) of the mid 70s.  Great material and I love it but (1) I would be totally miscast in it and (2) it is only funny in parts.  It is dark and weird and emotional.  I just don't have a handy venue to pitch it to right now.

• Depression.  It's not like there aren't a ton of pieces about that, but I think it could be funny/sad.  I just don't know if I have the right angle on it yet.  I think I still need some distance on it.

• Sex.  Again, the world doesn't need tons more on this.  But I have had my share of relationships, stretching across the spectrum of possibilities.  I have tons of stories and thoughts.  Of course, it makes me a bit nervous.  (1) A whole show about "the women I've been involved with" could come off as bragging.  (I'd say it is a sign that it's a sign of my ability to form intense bonds and then not make the final step to fully give myself over to them but it is a fine line.) (2) I am uncomfortable putting my partners' lives up on stage.  Names can be changed and the chance of them actually seeing the show are slim, but I still am protective of those memories/lovers.  (3) If I am totally honest, I will come off as an ass.  Yes.  An ass.

Still, I think I may do it.

"You are making love at a very good pace."

I don't even want to spoil it by talking about it.

The LoveTrainer from Sega Toys.

(via Gizmodo)

 

EDIT: Sadly, a hoax.

Or "Erection doesn't get excited by birth control"

"Contraceptives not the kind of stimulus Boehner can believe in"

Cephalerotica

Brookelynn has a coined a phrase/fetish.

Cephalerotica - images that combine eroticism and octopi.

Here is her Flickr set. (Warning! Most are NSFW.)

Perhaps I need a sex/tentacle subset now.

Update: The comments led to 100 Girls and 100 Octopuses.

(via BoingBoing)

"Well, I blew that resolution..."

Sign at a Duane Reade on Jan. 1st.

(via The Gothamist)

The Cool, Refreshing Tatse of Tentacle Rape

Tentacle Grape, the caffeinated grape soda.  Actual product.

"This new beverage, inspired by the genre of adult Japanese animation called Hentai, is a perfect caffeine rush for gamers, cosplayers, and comic book fans."

I was about to qualify that, while it is a real product, it is also tongue in cheek... but that phrase is too close to the topic.

(via Kotaku via Bent)

Erotic Fiction: The Wizard's Staff

WARNING: Extreme language, visuals, uncomfortable moments, repeated use of the word "c*ck."

This is part of a series.

(via Morrissey and Fist Fighting, Mostly)

A Walt Disney Production through the courtesy of Kotex Products

Gloriously weird 1946 Disney short titled "The Story of Menstruation."


(via Boing Boing)

Issues of Blogging

This is a somewhat pointless post since it is about not posting.

There are a handful of things that I would like to write about but can't. Well, I can but they are personal. Hell, I have no problem sharing things about myself but these are things that, one way or another, involve other people.

This is one eason I don't write 95% of my thoughts on improv. I have TONS of thoughts on shows I done and scene and on classes I'm taking and and on being on teams and on the improv scene in general... but they aren't all positive. In my brain they are interesting thoughts/observations/questions, but other people connected to them could very well fell, well, annoyed. Besides it feels icky to very publicly crap on people who are doing something for zero to negative money but are doing it for just the love of it. Not that I think my thoughts are "crapping on." I just like analyzing things. I like to think about why things work and why they don't.

But the fact is there is no point to blog about them just to hear myself pontificate. (Buy me a drink or two and I share my views pretty openly.)

Then there are juicy topics of sex and relationships and all that steamy jazz. These were easy to blog about when I'm not involved. Heck, there are plenty of times that I have hidden "super secret messages" (to quote Alan K.) in these posts. Messages to women I've had crushes on (from "mild fleeting crushes" to "why can't I get them out of my head crushes"). I try, when I can, to get away from the specifics of any particular situation and post about my feeling on a broader issues. But that's not always possible. For example... actually I can't give a good example with out revealing too much.

So I am stuck with wanting to rant about Sarah Palin... until I remember that I wasn't going to vote Republican anyway and she is just the VP candidate.

A couple of days ago I mentioned a class I wanted to take. Well, I was accepted. It's not a huge deal, but I had a weird hang up since I was rejected from taking the last three advanced classes to which I applied. I am excited though. I'm excited about learning something new and working hard with new people to create something specific. So "yay" for me.

Dreams

The fact is that my subconscious is pretty damn shallow.

I have a very active dream life. I constantly have extremely weird dreams, full of shifting worlds and people, colors and excitement, and, well, sex. A fair amount of sex. Actually I don't know how I compare to other people when it comes to the amount of sex in dreams. It's not like it comes up very often in conversations. "I had sex six times in my dreams." "Really? I only did twice."

When I say sex, I don't just mean Sex. I mean shifting relationships that revolve around sexual attraction. I am counting dreams in which I find myself kissing a good friend as a sex dream.

But I'm on a tangent here. My point is that even though my dreams are weird and crazy it doesn't take Freud to analyze them. They are pretty straight forward. For example, on Friday night I dreamed that my improv team Thank You, Robot was performing on a cruise ship. We were all excited to be basically on a vacation with each other and psyched to be getting paid to do improv. But it was a Disney cruise and we were being forced to do dumbed down improv. (Part of it involved Matt dressing up as Animal from the Muppets and doing stand-up. It sounds a lot funnier than it was.) Later the cruise ship drove across the desert and took us to Iraq were we performed for the troops and had a great show that was super smart. I also spend a large portion of the dream worrying about were one particular girl was.

Simple. TYR had tried to shift our focus on Friday night's show and weren't entirely successful. The audience didn't seem to notice. We all adore each other and are pushing each other. I also watched some Muppet YouTube vids earlier in the day. And I spent some of the day trying to write a short story about the war in Iraq. And I had date coming up with someone I hadn't seen for two weeks. Bim bam boom. Simple.

So it is pretty obvious why I dream about sex. If, during the day, my brain even briefly flitters on the idea of anything romantic with someone, I tend to play it out in my dreams. Which (I am somewhat embarrassed to say) means I have kissed in my dreams 40% of the women I know. I have now made a small portion of my readers feel very awkward. It's not like the next day I see them and suddenly picture the dream (although that does happen). And in my dreams it usually ends at a kiss. Often the kiss is in passing. In my dream I might be with a group of people running from a poisonous gas that will turn us into lemurs and in a break in the action someone will suddenly kiss me for three seconds and then the dream moves on.

I have a fair amount of control over my dreams. I can sometimes nudge myself to dream about specific things if I think about it just before I fall asleep. I am often aware that I am dreaming and can chose to create and control the world. This has backfired at times. One dream which I remember vividly even after 10 years: I was fighting vampires in the house I crew up in. But it was also that Escher etching of the stairs (you know the one... like in the movie Labyrinth... yes, a total dream cliché). I realized I was dreaming so I made my hand into a gun. I pointed it at a vampire and a gun shot rang out. The vampire just laughed and said, "What are you doing? Do you think this is a fucking dream?"

Super Short Stories. Pt 1.

(I've decided to challenge myself this afternoon. Different genres. 100 words or less. Feel free to give suggestions and feel free to be as specific as you want.)

Spot Speaks (horror)
It wasn’t the discovery that, after all these years, Spot could talk the disturb Jack the most. It was that Spot was saying grace over Jack’s half eaten leg.

Answers (sci-fi)
As Alice was led into the starship, she was in awe of the beauty of the moment. All those years wishing to have proof of life beyond the bounds of Earth and here it was. The alien, grey-green skinned, eyeless smooth face, asymmetrical limbs where there should have been limbs.

Alice geared herself. “Please,” she whispered, “I wish to know the answers to the Universe.”

“Crap,” squished the alien. “I was hoping you’d know.”

Subway Choice (romance)
They stood in the rain at the subway entrance. He shifted uncomfortably in the silence that had settled on them. She stared at their feet on the wet sidewalk. What was in her head, he thought. What is she thinking? All he wanted to do was kiss her. That was all that was in his mind. No thoughts of today or tomorrow, just the moment.

Without looking up, she gently touch a button on his coat. “I should go home.”

Damn. “Yeah. So should I.”

She tilted her head up, grinning. “Yeah. You should come home with me.”

Pandora

So I finally got around to really playing around with Pandora this week. I'm not a big music guy. I like music. (Really. Who doesn't like music? Saying you "like music" is like writing on your online dating profile that you "like kissing." Is there honestly anyone out there who doesn't like kissing? If so, THAT would be important to put on a profile. "I like deep discussions, dogs, and the Mets. Oh, I also hate kissing. Ick.") I just don't pay much attention to music. I hear something I like and I bop along to it. I don't really follow artists and their careers. I have a horrible memory for lyrics. I let a song hit me, wash through me and go out the other side. Or I will play one song over and over for two hours. So up to now Pandora has been a bit difficult. I just couldn't think of something to type into the field.

But Abra of Thank You, Robot discovered what we refer to as the "Phil Collins Hack." And, yes, Phil Collins radio is pretty darn sweet. It as if Mr. Collins is a nexus of awesomeness, a vortex of 80's/early 90's kick ass.

Pandora also has the band Pooka which I have been unable to find for years. They were a two women group from the early 80's. I first heard them as a barista at a coffeehouse/record store in Minneapolis. They came through town and played a set there. I believe there were three people in the audience counting me, the woman at the record counter and my friend Matt who was therw to play gin rummy with me. They were, um, über-cute and weird. Matt and I played their album tons in '93-'95 (often as background for roleplaying). Sadly their second album is all electronica and their Pandora station bores me.

But I mainly find myself listening to Liz Phair radio. I honestly don't want to know what that says about me. Actually I have a theory: I listen to music not as if I were the singer but as if it is being sung to me. And I like women with an edge and a sweetness and a sense of humor. And who swear.

Here's a fantasy I'm willing to share with the internets:

A smoky cabaret. I sit at a table over to the side, drinking a beer (even though there are people crowded up to the stage, dancing). The lead singer is tight on the mic stand, cupping the mic with both hands, holding it tight to her face. She's sweaty and has slightly running black eyeliner. Through most of the song her eyes are closed, the emotion of the song channeled through her hands and face. Until the last verse. Then she opens her eyes, locks them with me, and just sings. It's the sort of look you can't break away from for anything. Her band is wailing away, tearing up the night. The crowd a fury of dance and bodies. But across that void of chaos, there is a cord that attaches us to each other, her words shooting down it straight into me.

Yep.

(Yes. We later have sex in the bathroom, but that's not the point.)

Bubble

When I first moved to NYC I was shocked by how many couples you see making out in the street, in bars, on subways. Just so much public displays of affection! Why didn't these people find somewhere private?

Of course because there really isn't somewhere private. This isn't Los Angeles where you can go make-out in your car. This isn't Minneapolis where... well, where there just isn't that much displays of affection. (I kid, Minneapolis! ... sort of.) Personal private spaces just don't exist outside of folks apartments... and often not outside of one's room. Yes, everyone could hold off until they got to their apartments before they kissed, but then you are suddenly in a place where you have the option to do more than just kiss... and sometimes you just want to kiss and not go beyond. At that moment at least.

We spend a lo of time creating personal bubbles in NYC, private zones where the rest of the your is not allowed to intrude. It is entirely imaginary but it is how we survive ALWAYS being surround by other humans. That whole ignore-the-outside-chaos-while-on-the-subway thing. It's healthy (in moderation, of course).

There are are special moments when you create a bubble with someone else. Suddenly you find yourself in a very private and intense space with one other person in the middle of the masses of New York. Everything else just melts away and and it is just you and them, deep in conversation or eyes or whatever. I think New Yorkers are particularly good at this skill and it is no surprise that they can slip into the intimate right then and there.

It used to shock me. Now I see a couple kissing under a street light, in front of a stoop, on the subway, I find it sweet. Yes, sweet.

And, yet again, I sing about sex

Veal was in CageMatch at UCB last night. Damn good fun. CageMatch audiences are pretty darn good. They want to have fun. Which is slightly weird because you'd think the competition thing would undercut the fun. I think kudos should go to Charlie Todd and all of UCBW. Comedy professional wrestling, with all of it's over-the-top-ness and riling up the crowd both gets the audience excited and makes the whole competition portion of the "improv division" just that much sillier. It's a good combo. Like cheddar cheese and cracker Combos (and not like the pizza ones... those are disgusting).

I'm pretty proud of Veal. We put on a good show. I can nitpick (because it is my nature to nitpick... I love to nitpick) but won't. I am particularly proud that we did a musical harold. They're tricky, especially to get in at 25 minutes. A lot of the editing is taken out of the hands of the backline. Once a song starts, there's not a lot that can be done until the song is done... and that's up to the singers and the accompanist. You an help and support the song but the singers have to find their own end. Luckily (if done well) song naturally end on a heightened note. The audience will clap after a song and things natural edit there.

(I would never say musical improv is full of cheats – there is a whole set of skills and instincts you must learn to do it well – but by the very structure it fits naturally into a lot of the "rules" of long form improv. In fact, it has informed a lot of my non-singing improv. Heighten like a song. Get to what really matters. Find the game and play it.)

Anywhozits, we managed to do a musical harold and one I'm very happy with. I think I played to my a lot my strengths. More and more I've realized that I'm pretty good and playing games once they've been established. I love structure and patterns and finding unexpected ways to follow those patterns. I had a few last night. One was particularly meta. (I love meta when done well and it doesn't take over the show.) We had a game of an echo in a cave coming from the backline. The echo kept being more and more irregular, sometimes repeating the last word said and sometimes calling back to a line 30 seconds before. In the 2nd beat, I was about to do an echo of the chorus from the 1st beat ("jackpot") but just as I was about to do it, Doug said it. (Man, I love those moments when you and a teammate are thinking the exact same thing and they beat you to it. Often it feels better than doing it yourself.) I tossed in "Why didn't you do the dishes," echoing a scene we never saw. It was a fun heightening from the first scene. My meta move came when I called out "Can we have a suggestion of a location... location... location," calling back to before are show even started. The improvisors in the audience seemed pleased. (I love that a lot of my closest friends have distinctive laughs. When I hear them laugh I feel supported. It's nice to have people who "get you.")

I did fall back on my standard of singing about sex. Man, why is that? (Nevermind. Please don't answer that.) I ended up with the tagline "...jack me off." I feel like I found an interesting take on the subject... and an audience loves a heartfelt hand job song... but I need to broaden my topics. Not everything is a metaphor for sex. Yes, it can be but it doesn't have to be. I would say that if it was happening to me I might not sing about it as often... but I know me better than that. I think about as much if not more when it is actually happening. Perhaps I need to thing about baseball or dead puppies before I perform.

There were really only two people I wanted to impress yesterday: Veal's coach/director Stuart and my musical improv teacher Eliza. Those were the two people (beyond my fellow Veal-ies) that I was playing to. They both seemed to enjoy it so I'm glad I did well by them.

Oh, Veal lost to Death By Roo Roo, 79 to 109. That actually puts us in 6th place since it is the most votes by a team that did not actually win. We are very very unlikely to stay in 6th unless Roo Roo manages to continue winning all the way through October. But it's nice to be there for now.

(Note: If you missed Veal last night, shame on you. You'll have more opportunities. We are in the Del Close Marathon... of course our show is at 11:15am on Saturday, Aug. 9th. We will have other shows in the near future. You can also catch my 201 Musical Improv class at UCB this Sunday at 5:30pm. It should be a magical musical la ronde.)

What my mom sent me this morning

(by Mark Jackson)

Thanks, Mom!

Seaman... See man... and um...