Well Armed

Like an uncertain Greek God this one is. It's almost as if he was MADE to be worshiped...

via A D M I R E

I Heart the Monster (revised)

I posted an article about the Toxic Avenger a few days ago, but I withdrew it because I realized it was like, synchro raving! So here's a second attempt, with more right brain respect.

I finally watched The Toxic Avenger, "the first super hero from New Jersey!" A 1985 dud that became a midnight movie cult hit. The movie struck me because of it's themes of good and evil and our perceptions of it. The criminals are physically gorgeous, while the hero is a deformed monster, and the only one who sees the hero as a HERO, is a blind woman (and total babe). It's a fabulous morality play, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Plot: Melvin Ferd is a stereotypical 98-pound weakling dork. He works as a janitor at a health club in the town of Tromaville, which is the "Toxic Waste Capitol" of the nation. The corrupt (and corpulent) Mayor Belgoody is also head of the local crime syndicate, which probably describes most towns a little too well.

Melvin is constantly harassed by the health club patrons, His mere EXISTENCE being an affront. The pranks grow meaner and more violent until he's tricked/seduced into wearing a pink tutu and kissing a sheep, with the entire club witnessing his humiliation and emasculation. A ritual castration? He is then chased around the health club by the mob where he eventually leaps from a second story window - landing in a drum of toxic waste. He THEN spontaneously combusts and runs down the street screaming!? And that's the last the wicked clubbers see of Melvin, or so they think.

Unfortunately for them, Melvin is transformed into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, who has a single-minded desire to "clean up" Tromaville (trauma town?). He is much like the Hulk, a creature who descends/ascends into a state of unstoppable rage when confronted with injustice. The 'Berserker'. I believe he represents the Id:

"But the Krell forgot one thing - Monsters John! Monsters from the id!" --Forbidden Planet

Much like the Batman, 'Toxie' has taken on the form of the villain's worst nightmare, which he literally IS - the concretization of their subconscious guilt. The criminal elite of Tromaville have grown fat off poisoning the town, and it's brilliant that the vehicle of their destruction is born from the FRUIT of their OWN wickedness. Karma Smackdown!

The innocent are frightened by Toxie at first, but they soon realize they have nothing to fear from the hideous creature. It only attacks "bad people", as a scientist empirically demonstrates. Toxie (like Santa) "knows" who has been bad or good, because he is the subconscious Id, the Mind that lives within ALL minds. The Monster knows where ALL the bodies are buried.

By the end of the movie, the townspeople realize that the hideous monster is their true Savior, and they come to his rescue at the big stand-off, creating a human shield of protection around him, wearing "I heart the Monster" t-shirts. It was so dorky and so cute and so FIERCE - I may have shed a tear.

The film is notable for it's homophobic attitude - many of the real monsters are outrageous gay stereotypes - and it reminds me how far we've come since 1985. Varen and I are a legal couple now, with (most) of the same rights as straight people. The Gay Monster has been civilized, and that's honestly something I could never have imagined back when I came out in 1982.

In the 'Life Imitates Art' category, I blogged over a year ago (see The Good Shepherd) about a school in Nova Scotia who's student body (thanks to the inspired organizing of two boys) donned pink t-shirts in solidarity with a boy who was bullied and called a faggot because he wore a pink shirt to school. They formed a human shield, and they did it by wearing the equivalent of an 'I Heart the Faggot' t-shirt.

As I'm writing this, the Palestinians are undergoing another bashing from the Israelis, this one worst than the last, but better than the next. Bullies ALWAYS escalate the torment. I'm thinking, ya know, the only reason gay people have a legal RIGHT to the Pursuit of Happiness is because enough straight people somehow saw themselves in this struggle, and even though Prop 8 succeeded in California, honestly, I think that's just a blip - the trend is gay friendly.

Gay people have reached, if not THE Promised Land, at least a meaningful plateau. A place to spread our tents. And I feel like it's time to return the favor. Gay Porn for Palestine? Gay Band-Aid? I heart Palestine!

NOTES:

My most memorable personal episode of gay bashing was actually one of total victory. I had just come out and my hot new boyfriend and I were making out on the hood of my car late one summer night in the parking lot of of a notorious gay bar, and some guy started harassing us because we were doing that. So we stood up, and he quickly realized that he'd chosen to pick on guys bigger and stronger than he was. We fucking CHASED him around the parking lot, cornered him, and told him what a JERK he was to his face, and he had to take it. Beaten by FAGGOTS!!

How can you not love the Monster!? Chris Rockway via Unnatural Devotions

Rare 1937 Bugatti supercar found in English garage

LONDON – It was the equivalent of finding an old Picasso or an unknown Beatles tape hidden away in your uncle's attic. Relatives of Dr. Harold Carr found an extremely rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante — a HOLY GRAIL for car collectors — as they were going through his belongings after his death. -Yahoo

Bugatti is the bluest of automotive blue bloods, and this example, of which only SEVENTEEN were made, suddenly appears like a ghost from the past - in virtually perfect condition except for some dust.

Curiously, Atalante appears in the Tolkien universe as another name for Akallabêth (The Downfallen). It is the fourth part of The Silmarillion, and is the story of the violent destruction of the island Kingdom of Númenor, written by Elendil (elves).

"As the Quenya name makes obvious, this is a retelling of the story of Atlantis in the Middle-earth cadre. "Atalantë" is Quenya for "Downfallen". This has led some to jest that Akallabêth is one very long setup for what Tolkien would have considered a delightful pun, but Tolkien described it as merely a happy coincidence." -wikipedia

The Return of Atalanta.

The Culture is Returning

Christopher Knowles has been building a catalog of the mega (tron) towers being constructed all over the globe right now. The towers make little economic sense and are an affront to ideas of sustainability (though they often pay lip service with a wind generator or two), or any pretense of an egalitarian social order, being the literal concretization of feudal hierarchy. Yet a building they are, and at a frenzied pace, one almost might suspect there's a deadline!?

It has finally dawned on me that they're DOCKING TOWERS, like for zeppelins. Really, really ginormous zeppelins... with landing lights "bright enough to be seen from space".

The Culture is returning.

Finding the Pillars

Yesterday was a big day! Var and I signed a Domestic Partnership Declaration in Washington State, which is not such a big deal for us since we've been domesticated for 10 years, but on the other hand it was a nice feeling to be "official" - I felt like the tin woodsman who was given a heart by the Wiz, something I already had, but hey, it's nice to have it recognized. It was very low-key and just paperwork, mostly. We toasted the Union, and that was about it.

We had to get the document notarized, so we went to the bank, which is a U.S. Bank (luckily not collapsing just yet) which also uses a red shield in their logo. Var joked about being carried across the bank threshold, and how we got married in a BANK... etc.

I've also had lots of Superman synchs goin' on this month, with that S shield poking up in the oddest places, and of course, the S is the dollar sign, of which banks are so fond.

Last night I had a short but memorable dream: I was scrambling down a small, tunnel-like rocky canyon or creek bed (strange, white, pointy egg shaped rocks, "dragon's teeth" maybe?) and eventually the bed opened up to a sandy beach on the ocean that held two pillars. I can't tell you what they looked like except they were very old and made of stone, but not a ruin.

And I knew that I'd found the Pillars of Heracles!

The googoracle reveals:

The Spanish coat of arms has two columns, which represent the Pillars of Hercules and an “S”-shaped ribbon around each, with the motto “Non Plus Ultra” originally, and later “Plus Ultra”.

The original dollar sign "derives from the Spanish coat of arms engraved on the Spanish colonial silver coins “Real de a Ocho” (”piece of eight”) or Spanish dollar under circulation in the Spanish colonies of America and Asia, as well as in the English Thirteen Colonies and later the U.S. and Canada." --Mike Tomlinson

America: Tin Man

Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have...

Anyway... Happy New Year! I have to say I won't miss 2008 even a little bit, so I'm partying a little extra hard.

The Bucks Top Here

Ben Fairhall posted this interesting pic of twin white stags at the Daily Behemoth, which has since gone missing. White stags have some kind of English symbolism attached to them (of which I remain oblivious), but to me they're simply beautiful masculine icons.

Here's a pic from the latest gay porn brand: Stag Homme, the child of my golden jockstrapped muse Francesco D'Macho and his latest BF: Damien Crosse (is that possibly the most Hollywood antichrist name ever devised?).

Just so we don't forget what branding means:

We also have a stag at home, because Var brought home the CUTEST stag centerpiece for the dining table last month. It's a terra cotta figurine of some masculine deer-like figure, though by inspection of the underside, it's apparent the deer is a doe, or perhaps a eunuch? Anyway, the stag's name is ALFREDO. Varen is big on names, and thus we have names for various plants around the house, as well as terra cotta figurines. Aelfraed is "elf counsel". He's also Batman's faithful butler.

As luck would have it, we had pasta with ALFREDO SAUCE a few days ago, which gave me pause, but then I dove in with bon gusto!