1.
Life in an alternate universe
In the midst of the throbbing excitement of a hot and steamy email discussion
about how I thought Jim wanted to see me nude and in a butcher's smock
and rubber pig nose with a German opera 78 rpm blaring on a nearby gramophone
(and he let me know he really wanted to see me in that and a top
hat and chinese braid ponytail, with a tub of festering entrails next to
me, set in a giant Lego diorama recreation of Jerry Garcia dying of a heroin
overdose), Jim sent me this altered photo version of himself. And it got
me thinking.
You know... there comes a time when we need to heed a certain call, when
the world must come together as one. There are people dying! And it's time
to lend a hand ...to life (which is the greatest gift of all). We cant
go on pretending day by day that someone, somewhere will soon make a change.
We are all a part of God's great big family... and you know, the
truth is; love is all we need. I've found that when I'm down and out, and
there seems to be no hope at all... if I just believe... then there's no
way I can fall. We need to realize that a change can only come when all
we stand together as one. As God has shown me... no us, by turning
stones to bread; we all must lend a helping hand. There's a choice we're
making; we're saving out own lives. Its true we'll make a better day, just
you and me. We are the world.
2.
This photo of Amy
Every once in a while... an image of something catches your eye and makes
your day. Kind of like when you first saw the poster for the movie Jaws
as a kid (if you were little in the 1970's) ...or maybe the first time
a sweaty, starving, dehydrated Lewis and Clark pushed an Indian out of
the way and gazed at a real, living ermine for the first time. As you look
at the image, or whatever it is you're looking at ...you marvel!
You realize that everything that has crossed your eyeballs in recent time
has been sub par compared to that image... and you gasp in hiccups of uncontrollable
laughter or amazement at said thing, as it hits a nerve in your brain that
is in perfect contrast to a perceived internal reflection of whatever emotions
you may be going through during that period of your life... but that you
haven't been able to put into words... finally: an answer! Closure!
This photo did that for me. This is my friend Amy (whom I met through Jim).
I did not take this photo... I found it on Amy's Friendster profile. It
was taken in last year's Gay Pride parade, on the float for the famed female-centric
sex toy shop Toys in Babeland. Amy has a very strong personality, and knowing
her is kind of an
...adventure. She is very eventful to hang
around, and she knows everyone. So here she sits in all her glory... just
another day for her. Queen Amy.
I don't think it's the giant vagina costume that's making this image work
so well for me. It's the casual and totally-happy-in-her-own-skin (wrapped
in a giant vagina skin) look on Amy's face... her glasses... her hand devil
horns symbol... the cooler next to her... the back of the person's
head that's driving a giant vagina down 5th Avenue... the fact that the
photo was taken at a moment when there isn't really a crowd behind them
(it is a parade you know)... the bizarre, surreal, ultra-generic sign Amy
is holding that looks like a prop from a TV movie with a pro-dildo demonstration
scene in it...
Thanks Amy.
I guess I write about stuff that makes me optimistic.
3.
How adorable is this?
Am I a total vagina for finding this adorable? Perhaps. I haven't called
yet but I'm trying to think up some good names.
I've always wanted to have a kid one day... I'm set on a boy's name: Thor.
Isn't that a good name? Thor Allen? But a really great girl's name has
eluded me (I think the name Palace is an interesting name... but Palace
Allen as a name that eats sawdust... so no Palace). I haven't called these
people yet to give them my suggestions. It would help to know what their
last name(s) were. Maybe I'll call and ask them that first... then call
back. If you can think of any good names... email them to me and I'll tell
them when I call.
I guess I write about stuff that makes me optimistic.
4.
Mr. Pete
Jim if you're reading this... then please stop reading this.
Speaking of making babies... my new obsession? Heterosexual human fornication!
Particularly of the cinema verite variety, and involving a straight guy
in straight porn named Mr. Pete. In the impossibly dull world of gay(zzzzz)
in porn, my discovery of Mr. Pete keeps things dangerous and exciting for
my starving need for danger and excitement from a safe distance. His presence
in the industry is described as "shadowy" ...and he is notorious for fetishizing
women's asses. He's recently started directing his own films - where he
straps a camera to his body and then plows through orifice after orifice
with a telephoto "point of view" lens. According to some inside porn gossip
websites he has a reputation for getting relentlessly stoned on set and
then plowing through a room full of women's anuses like a madman. His face
lies somewhere between Adam Horovitz and Sean Penn, and he also has this
really cool mole on his right (face) cheek. His body is a perfect temple
of non-gay un-body sculpting, complete with a smattering of mid-quality,
prison-ish tattoos. To be honest he's a little scary. His short gait, zany
cockiness and goof ball facial contortions make him seem like a totally
delicious nightmare dream boat who hangs out in heavy metal concert parking
lots and yells a lot. God... girls are so lucky.
Here's Mr. Pete's massive filmography.
Mmmmm... I bet his breath smells like pussy.
Maybe I should try to contact him! Hmmm, probably not. Jim wouldn't like
it. Plus - whenever I try to hang around porn sets and ask the male stars
questions it always ends in pepper spray, face punching and restraining
orders. *sigh*
...but I can always find solace in the fact that
no one is truly lonely as long as those friendly people at the other end
of the Suicide Hotline are manning the phones 24 hours a day.
Any-hooo... Mr. Pete has quite a reputation in the industry, and
recently won a 2004 AVN award for "Most Outrageous Sex Scene" for a bloody
(literally) and "meaty" scene dubbed "Love in an Abattoir" (again... literally)
in a completely twisted porn movie called Perverted
Stories: The Movie. The movie is notorious for having scenes with
Grimm's fairy tale-esque woodland characters, bloody sex in meat lockers,
geriatric weirdoes, penis plants, dildo monsters, sex with dead bodies
in bleach baths, and general bad acid trip type stuff. Sounds like my kind
of film.
Now I wanted to see this film... and my video store has an ample ADULTS
ONLY section. But I found it a little difficult to even use the pornography
section of my local video store for what it's intended for (the renting
of adult films), let alone even enter the section itself! And I'm not talking
about Ned Flanders-esque PORN SHAME! Don't get me wrong. I go look at porn
sections in video stores all the time. But this time was special because
I was on a mission.
So I tried to rent
Perverted
Stories: The Movie from the porn section at my local video store one
recent winter-y evening. but the ENTIRE SECTION was dominated by an enormous
carbon blob. This weird big guy, his ample frame wrapped in a winter down
coat, literally commandeered the entire cubicle. I mean... the section
of the store is very cramped and closet-like... so anyone with more than
an ample frame is gonna make it impossible for anyone else to be in there
without touching them ...a lot. And the thing is... he wouldn't leave!
I mean... he kept looking at box after box after box... over and over.
It must have been at least 20 minutes!
Not only that... he
also had on these headphones that he was listening to really loud salsa
music on... I mean the volume must have been on full blast because the
whole video store could hear it through the phones. I was having such a
hard time with my personal space being psychically raped while I tried
to look at cardboard video boxes of girls getting raped... that I finally
had to bail out of the ADULTS ONLY section and try to come back some time
when this guy wasn't around.
Geeze... what an ordeal!
Sooo... the following
evening I went back (around the same time). And, believe it or don't...
the SAME GUY was in the porn section. What the fuck... does he LIVE there?
I decided to brave it anyway and share the phone booth-size section, once
again, with the salsa music-blaring, porn box-looking at, space-hog. I
entered the cramped quarters and, as my very retinas were seared with the
garish,color photography and fluorescent colored porn boxes... I found
that not brushing up against his ample frame to be, simply, an impossibility.
Plus... as soon as I walked in, the weirdest thing happened... he reached
over and clicked his headphones off!
So now it was so quiet
you could hear every single shuffle of cardboard as he and I took box after
box off the shelves and looked at them. *shuffle* *shuffle* GOD
it was distracting! I was so distracted by this guy's offensive energy
that I couldn't even concentrate to look for the title I had come for.
What was it called again? Pete who?
And it was then...
ugh, that I noticed... his Darth Vader-esque breathing!
*huuummmfff....
pphhhhmmmmffff...*
...he was breathing
really, really, really loud! I mean... was it because he was wearing those
headphones for so long and getting his pulse racing from looking at porn
boxes all night? He just couldn't hear himself because he had damaged his
hearing? Creepy! No wonder he had those headphones on! It was to drown
out the eardrum perforating rumble of his whale lungs! And THEN... if that
wasn't enough... I soon smelled his breath. It smelled like a pile
of a thousand amputated morgue corpse feet and armpits marinated in rotten
garlic for about as zillion years. AAUUUGGGHHH!!!! Could the odor be coming
from him? Could it be possible? I mean... could it be the cardboard porn
boxes themselves that smell like that? Would they have scratch-n-sniff
patches on them that smelled like girls with bad breath (you never know...
some people have some pretty freaky fetishes)? Could this guy's stench
possibly be that overpowering and real? I mean... his physical offensiveness
was approaching super hero power level... it was like a mutation!
So... in a primal moment...
I gave up on seeing Mr. Pete's award winning performance (once again) and
I quickly departed Darth Vader's halitosis porn salsa hell booth and ran
to the NEW FOREIGN FILM ACQUISITIONS section of the store. Stunned and
on the verge of a panic attack... I quickly rented DVDs of Jean-luc Godard's
Band
of Outsiders and Roman Polanki's Knife in the Water instead.
They were good, but
I found them hard to masturbate to.
5.
Rick Bayless' "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" on PBS
I love how I breeze from porn to PBS cooking shows.
I have a weird dependency problem that I should probably admit to all of
you (no, not porn). On PBS, here in New York City, they have a block of
cooking shows on Sunday afternoons that I am totally and dangerously addicted
to. Jim will sometimes call me on Sundays and ask in a granny voice "Are
ya watchin' yer stories!?"
There is something very soothing about PBS cooking shows that I have never
been able to really identify. It's a weird kind of cathode ray tranquilizer
that the Food Network doesn't seem to be able to capture. There's something
about televised cooking shows that seem to tap into the same comforting
subconscious semiotics that probably have a lot to do with mothers and
the womb... someone should really do a study on them, seriously. One of
the best of the PBS cooking show genre was the early "Frugal Gourmet" show,
hosted by the welcoming, almost gnome-like Jeff Smith... but I'm not sure
if he's even on PBS anymore (I think he's on cable somewhere). The short-lived
and almost revolutionary "Two Fat Ladies," hosted by the two motherly,
brazen preachers of the virtues of delicious fatty and carcinogenic foods
- English chums Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson (Patterson
died a few years ago) was also an noteworthy bookmark of the genre
(taken from BBC). Of course PBS I think only has a partial hand in these
shows... as I often see them popping up on other cable channels... or have
originated from other places. Here in New York, they seem to rotate the
shows in unpredictable shifts. They recently started airing one I had never
seen called "Mexico: One Plate At a Time" hosted by master chef
and entrepreneur Rick Bayless. Here's a link to his website
central, everything you could possibly want to know about Rick Bayless:
(FronteraKitchens.com)
I was born (almost) and raised in Texas and I have a love of Mexican food
that no northeasterner can ever possibly relate to. Mexican food in NYC...
no, in the northeast in general... is a kind of slow, bland, infinite,
disappointment. Texas and the southwest U.S. are rich tapestries of genuine
Mexican cuisine, American-ized TexMex and every possible variation in between.
So boy was I surprised to find a show by a total enthusiast about Mexican
culture and cuisine being aired here on PBS in New York.
The tall, Clark Kent-ish Rick travels all over Mexico via jeep, foot and
boat and talks about the various regions, and the kinds of food you can
find. Then, for the "cathode ray tranqualizer/mother embryo" section of
the show (that I discussed earlier), the camera cuts back to his great
Chicago home kitchen, where he prepares the foods using ingredients and
equipment indigenous to the regions he was just visiting. His preparations
and explanations in his kitchen are casual and unfussy... he doesn't go
on and on about the correct pronunciation of some weird leaf or herb...
he'll gladly explain how you can use Reynold's Wrap and a hammer of you
can't get an antique tortilla press from Oaxaca, or explain how Philadelphia
Cream Cheese Spread with ground pepper is totally fine if you can't get
certain kind of cheese from a specialty market.
But it's not just the subject and food that got me hooked on this program.
It's Rick's totally hypnotic and mesmerizing televised persona that has
me convinced that he may possibly be a robot.
Rick has this fascinating physical grace that is a really interesting combination
of vocal tones and facial and body motions that at times make it look like
he is either really, really passionate about a certain type of corn he
is talking about... or he's been licking psychotropic Sonora toads... or
he's a robot. I mean... seriously, this guy at times has this bizarre hypnotic
way of talking with his hands that makes you want to order extra cheek
and brain meat with your Mexican street goat head tacos (which you can
see him ordering in the upper left shot). He's almost as hypnotic to watch
as Grace Kelly in Rear Window.
He will then eat the goat's cheek/brain head taco right there on the street,
talk with a full mouth about it's significance, how earthy and real it
is, at he will not wince once. This guy really loves Mexico and
it's food. Of course the goat head taco was a rare exception... 99% of
everything else he discovers and prepares is totally mind-blowing-ly delicious
looking. I am now officially a fan of this guy and his show.
I guess I write about stuff that makes me optimistic.
6.
I'm learning the secret, evil, uber-power of telling everyone about how
I'm now shutting up and not telling anyone anything
Speaking of... "Surprise is the most important element of attack..." said
Grace Kelly in Hitchcock's Rear Window, although she was obviously
just quoting Machiavelli or Genghis Khan or someone... probably. And so
it goes... that after a lifetime spent blabbing about every stupid detail
about every little thing I was going to be doing in the next five minutes...
just blabbing away like a crazed hyena to anyone within a three zillion
mile radius of my larynx and brain and ego... I'm learning the AWESOME
MACHIAVELLIAN POWER of not telling a soul about anything at all! And then
letting whatever I'm being secret about roll out into the world like a
Hiroshima bomb ...or maybe the terrorists striking the WTC on September
11th. Remember the impact THAT event had? My friends and acquaintances
(and enemies) then stare in shock and awe, as their faces melt like that
corrupt Nazi torture guy in
Raiders of the Lost Ark at whatever
event it was that I was so slyly secret about. What does this new turn
in behavior say about me a developing person? Have I developed a healthy
attitude towards my "enemies" NOOOOOOO!!!! Have I developed a healthy attitude
towards WAR? YEEEEESSSS!!!! Who needs to hype things up? Not me!!! I'm
evil!!!
Suddenly, to me, every ambitious agent and public relations person in Manhattan
who wants to help me with my career or do PR for me looks like a minuscule,
two dimensional Smurf. You remember Smurfs don't you? They were those miniature
blue high-voiced cartoon characters that were big in the 80's?
It's gotten to the point where I don't even put anything on my webpage
about what I'm doing with my "career"... even after the thing I'm being
so "ssshhh..." about already happens! I mean WHY do I have a webpage? To
BRAG and GET ATTENTION that's why!!! It's like there are two of me!
I haven't figured out if the world is a whore... or if the world is a war,
but I have decided that both comparisons only apply to the outside world.
And it applies to my "enemies" ...those war-ish WHORES!!!
Do you readers of this webpage sometime read my rants and think I'm nuts?
Why would I spend so much time thinking about my "enemies"? Maybe I'm some
narrow-minded, petty, churl who's locked in a maddening fun house of self-loathing...
some creepy, bad skin-ed, self-centered Manhattanite who's never hugged
themselves in front of a mirror while reading Don Miguel Ruiz's "The
Four Agreements". Am I THAT bad?
I mean... my life has turned out pretty good! At least I'm not some porn
star... spending all day gobbling knobs in front of a video camera. Or
some war-crazed military guy back in Vietnam... pushing gooks out of helicopters
all day just for kicks. Or some tapeworm deep in the dark stomach of a
mammal...
It's just that as a human, usually I'm prancing around like a tit... blabbing
to anyone within a three light-year radius about every detail of my life
past, present and future. Perhaps I'm always bragging about stuff before
it happens because I'm trying in vain to fill the void left by my spent
trials of youth. *sigh*
Sometimes I think my greatest desire in life is just to be away from everyone...
lost in my own casualness. Laziness can be a real problem for me. Actually...
sometimes I lay on my couch in my living room and look out into the air.
While laying there doing absolutely nothing, just as the guilt begins to
set in... for a second I think to myself "I really should be doing something
constructive." Then, miraculously... I rationalize that I am actually preserving
all the cells in my body by resting them and not stressing them out...
and therefore; I will live longer and have even MORE TIME to accomplish
things (tomorrow)! And then I sit there like a mannequin in some creepy
episode of The Twilight Zone, for hours and hours and hours and
hours... totally mentally and physically static, and at peace in every
cell of my being with my non-constructive non-activity. So you see? Accomplishments
in life are not about "revenge!" Inner peace is all about lying to yourself!
It's no uphill battle!
So if any of my "enemies" ask.... that's what I do all day. Nothing. I
have no ambition... have nothing exciting coming up on the horizon... and
am procrastinating myself into oblivion...
Good-bye everything.
7.
Japanese machine used to help you control your dreams
Thanks to Robert Crull who sent me a link
to this fascinating device. Could this actually work? Actually I think
it's pretty gimmick-y and would most likely not work. Still it's
an interesting idea. Worthy of further study. Seems like it could be put
to evil uses in the wrong hands too.
Mark Allen's Top One for January 5th, 2004:
A picture of Jim's (and
soon my?) new home in upstate New York and... oh, oops! My nose got in
the way. Oh well...
"I'd Love to Tell You All About My Trip to Jim's New Pink House in Upstate New York, and the Preceding New Year's Party at The Wonderful Blueberry Farm... But My Fantastically New, Amazingly Clean, Vacuumed and Steamed Pore-free Nose is Stealing the Show (...as usual)"
Do you know that I have
been saving a bottle of really nice champagne in my refrigerator for over
a year now? Jim and I have been saving it for a really special occasion.
Actually... Jim and I have it's un-corking reserved for the christening
of his new two-story, pink home in upstate New York (yes he still has the
cabin too - now he has two homes). This new pink house is the home that
I could possibly leave New York City for and live with him in, in a state
of sparkly marital bliss. I'm thinking about all this as I'm placing my
hand right now on the champagne bottle... rocking it back and forth on
my kitchen counter with my outstretched arm. I can't see the bottle because
my head is currently placed over a pot of steaming water... as I am steaming
the pores on my face. I'm really just giving myself a home facial, so my
skin will have a natural, glowing sheen on my first trip up to see the
new house. Vain? Yep.
Although I steam my
face every month or so, I have of late been obsessed with those little
pore-clogging spires of white goo that come out of my nose every time I
squeeze the blackheads. No matter how often I give myself a facial... those
itty bitty logs of white stuff (they kind of look like cooked Ramen Noodles)
just won't come out! I do the whole routine... steaming... hot shower,
cleanse, scrub, cold water rinse, Queen Helene's Mint Julep Masque, clean,
Neutrogena non-comedogenic facial moisturizer. But... after the 24-48 hour
"glow" of my facial has worn off... everything still looks pretty good
save for the white goo in my nose. I can't get rid of it!
And that is
why I have devised a new strategy this time around. Right next to the ready-to-burst
bottle of champagne, is my Eureka Boss Mighty Mite home vacuum cleaner,
plugged in and ready to roll. I have installed (and thoroughly sterilized)
the smallest applicator to the end of the hose and assessed it's ability
to navigate the crevices and curves of my nose and the surrounding "T-zone"
area of my face. Extreme? Perhaps. But I recently saw a documentary on
television about the most exclusive beauty spas in deepest Switzerland...
and I was aghast when the subject of the documentary moved right to the
white goo inside the women's noses that were getting facials at said mountain
spa. The documentary revealed Switzerland's dirty little secret: spa maidens
steaming and then vacuuming the aryan Swiss Miss noses of these fine yodelin'
women. As I watched this program, I thought "Ahhhh.... vacuuming!" as I
pawed the Ramen Noodle-filled pores on my otherwise fine honker.
So, now here I stand,
my train for upstate New York laving in a matter of hours, champagne bottle
at hand waiting to mark the beginning of Jim and I's possible new suburban
destiny, my body poised, slumped over a steaming brine of water and skin
grease, towel over head ...and Eureka cocked and ready to vacuum my pores
at their very moment of steamed-openness. God I can't wait to get up to
Jim's new house and christen our possible new suburban lives with the champagne.
Oh, I forgot to mention
the New Year's party at an adjacent town's blueberry farm farmhouse and
estate, which is also today. Lots of Jim's friends are going to be there...
it should be a nice something "different" thing to do on New Years. We
are going straight to the party after Jim and a friend pick me up at the
train station. In case you haven't figured it out... today is New Year's
Eve.
So, since there's a
lot of important stuff occuring in the next six hours, let's get on with
it...
Okay... my pores seem
about as open as they are gonna get. I reach over and click the on switch
on the Eureka. I plunge the hissing black tube into my dark towel tent.
It immediately sucks out the hot steam and turns the air to a crisp temperature.
But that ends as soon as press the sucking end egainst the skin on my cheeck...
which it clicks to like a powerful magnet (turning the hissing sound into
a low, whizzing groan). I run the slurping tube over my nose... the sounds
I hear inside my steam towel tent are fascinating... *S-L-U-U-U-U-R-R-R-P-P-P-!-!-!*
*S-S-S-W-W-W-A-A-A-R-R-R-T-T-T-H-H-H-E-E-E-E-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-P-P-P-!-!-!*
*S-Q-Q-Q-U-U-U-W-E-E-E-E-E-E-!-!-!*
Ahhhhhhhh!!! Bliss!
Not only could I feel my pores on my nose and "T-zone" emptying
the tired white goo load that had been lurking under my nasal epidermis
for God knows how long... I could feel a slight sting way under the surface
of the later of skin... meaning a change had taken place. It felt like
getting a huge load off my mind... like going to confession and finally
telling someone about a secret murder you commited years ago but never
got caught and that's guilt has clogged your nose pores and eaten away
at them forever. That's exactly what it felt like! A release. I
stopped after one pass with the vacuum tube over each surface... I didn't
want to do any damage... the skin is a delicate organ you know! My nose
felt... emptier.
I kept the towel around
my face and rushed to the waiting shower. I cleaned and scrubbed in the
steaming shower, and then coated my face at the end with a shocking waterfall
of near-icy water. I hopped out and ran to the mirror and gazed at myself.
Holy crap...
My... ...God! Christ
Joseph and Mary in a manger why the FUCK didn't I do this before? Why?
Why oh why had I waited so long to do this? The pores on my nose! Were...
invisible! It was as if they were sucked up by the vacuum itself! The skin
on my nose looked as smooth as a new sheet of typing paper right out of
the box! It was down-right embryo-like! I looked in the mirror... I realized
I didn't need a mirror. My nose was so smooth and pore and balckhead-free
that it seemed to be reflecting the mirror itself! You know when
you stand in a hotel lobby that has a hallway with mirrors both facing
each other and it does that cool infinity tunnel trick? And you can look
at a million "you's" all facing alternately back to front to back to front
and you watch them all repeat your every move off into the curvy distance
into infinity? Well my smooth-skinned nose seemed to be doing that into
my bathroom mirror! Before things got too weird... I moisurized, got dressed,
grabbed my bag (with the bottle of champagne tucked safely inside), and
strolled out of my apartment... heading for Grand Central Station... my
gloriously youthful and pore-free nose leading the way like a beacon of
pore-free light.
I found that with my
beautiful new, blemish-free nose... hailing a taxi was no problem at all.
Everyone on the street was staring and gawking at me like I was a prince!
Upon arriving at the station, I hopped out of my cab into the New Year's
Eve mob that was Grand Central at 8pm. I saw heads turning in all directions
towards mine. People were all staring at my nose! They were in awe of it's
otherworldly fine-ness. I just parted through the crowd to my train...
my nose leading the way like Harriet Tubman's lamp through the Underground
Railroad... transporting me safely past the injustice of thousands of Grand
Central Station gawkers with hideous blackhead-clogged pores on their pale
noses. Everyone's nose looked like a Jackson Pollack painting compared
to mine! Even the mannequin noses in the store windows inside Grand Central
had nose pore problems compared to me! Even the babies being held by mothers
in the station had blemished noses compared to my sheen-y smooth shnoz
skin! I bet the fetuses in pregnant women's wombs had blackheads on their
undeveloped noses compared to me! In fact... I bet the non-nosed but soon
to possibly be humans with noses sperm swimming in the balls of all the
men in... oh never mind, you get the idea.
The ride on the train
was less of a mob scene about my nose thanks to a slumped back me in my
seat and a strategically placed Learning Annex magazine over my face (I
pretended to be reading it ...clever, no?)
When I got out of the
train at the upstate station... Jim and his friend met me in a state of
stunned awe. It was my nose. I was beginning to piece together what life
must be like for the divine... and I couldn't think of a better way to
ring in a new year.
On the way to the party
from the train station... the car was hushed silent. Everyone wanted to
say something about my nose but they couldn't... they couldn't give in
to my beauty. No one could even say a word about my unbelievably young-looking
and blemish-free and proportionally perfect nose. Period. My nose was so
flawless that it defied the very need for the concept of proportion and
perfection... it rendered both concepts to the square root of nothing...
zero, and henceforth any and all rational conversation about such a topic
followed suit, and was humanly impossible. Even making small talk around
the subject of my pore-free, smooth nose was an impossibility! The
conversation would inevitably swing to me back there in the back seat and
my great nose... my nose was a strange attractor for the attention of every
living creature on the planet (a mind-blowing phenomenon I know) encapsulated
right there in the little SUV quickly speeding through the Catskill mountains
on New Year's Eve 2003. So what did I do? Well... I just sat back and casually
soaked in all the opulent ego reinforcement... trying not to get too big
a head about the whole situation.
So we rode through
the night in silence. But that all changed when we arrived at the evening's
festivities. Jim and crew and I finally arrived at the blueberry farm New
Year's party... carrying in bottles of champagne, food... and of course
my beyond-embryonic nose (which might as well have been carried in by Egyptian
slaves on a sedan chair covered with feathers and gold asps). When everyone
at the blueberry farmhouse party saw the unbelievable smoothness and pore-free
sheen of my nose skin, they all gasped and screamed until they're larynxes
snapped. Then they asked me endless, gasping questions about my pore-less
nose all night, through their raspy, bloody larynxes. You know you're nose
is beautiful when it's mere presence at a party ends up drawing blood in
the first five minutes.
I went to bed on the
third floor bedroom of the farmhouse, sharing a bed with Jim. With time
alone in the safety of darkness, without the power of light to shine on
my transcendentally clean nose and cause chaos all around me... I finally
had time to think. How could I possibly live with such an imperfect body
and a perfect nose? Could I possibly detach my nose and segregate it from
the rest of my body? What am I supposed to do? Put up a little velvet rope
around the parameter of my nose... to prevent the rest of my body from
having access to it? But wait... no matter what I do... my body is still
connected to my nose... way more deeply than can be divided by a mere miniature
red velvet rope construction that I could make and super glue to my face!
Ahhh... the mysteries of humanity and the class system. What a cruel fate
integration of the perfect and imperfect can un-weave... would my nose
rebel? Detach itself in a fit of segregationist snobbery? Oh why... why
must I be faced with the burden of a perfectly clean nose?
I went to sleep and
dreamed a cloudy, silvery dream of my nose being featured in a fantastic,
red-hot fashion shoot camera session, on a blinding white iceberg in Antarctica...
photographed by some famous Russian fashion photographer. My nose was centered
on the iceberg... and sitting indian-style in a circle around me were twelve
gazelle-like Slovenia supermodels... each wearing stiletto heals, white
straight jackets (fastened), black shiny motorcycle helmets and bright
red lipstick adorned with ruby glitter... pouting into oblivion. It was
cold! But we all battled the elements in the name of the latest in photo-styling
outrageousness!
As I awoke in the morning...
the sunlight coming in the windows of the country farmhouse and hitting
my perfectly smooth nose and henceforth illuminating the entire room in
rich, winter sunlight, I realized that I had made a choice... and I was
going to have to live with it. It's kind of like one of those moments where
you realize you've made a good or maybe a bad choice... but you don't do
anything about it because you're so exhausted. Like when you're at the
airport very late at night and you're trying to sleep on a row of chairs
in the empty gate waiting area, and you lean to one side and lay down on
the polyester green cushions of the seats and your face lands right at
a spot where someone sat that must have farted a lot, or maybe was a kid
who might have pooped his pants a little... or an old person with a bowel
problem... because you can smell the faintest of faint human foulness through
the green material, right where there butt was... and it hits your brain
and grosses you out and you should get up and scream in horror and run
to the men's room and wash your face like an obsessive germophobe... but
you just lay there because you are s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o tired and it's 3:30AM
and no one is around and henceforth you rationalize it by saying to yourself
"New parents get poop all over themselves by changing babies diapers all
day long..." as you drift into slumber next to the olfactory run-off from
someone's hairy, unclean crack... and the gap between you and animal gets
just a little bit slimmer at that moment.
Where was I?
Oh yea... I had time
to realize that I had chosen to clean the pores on my nose so perfectly
as to create nose skin that was heavenly beyond measure... and I was just
going to have to live with the tremendous responsibility and consequences
of such perfection. So I went downstairs to breakfast with the rest of
the blueberry farm post-partiers and, thanks to their bandaged larynxes...
I heard not so much as a peep from the crowded kitchen. Just stares, stares,
stares. I was able to eat my bagels, cream cheese, eggs and bacon in peace...
but with so many eyes on my flawless nose... I felt a bit like Tippi Hedren
walking outside the house at the end of "The Birds" ...a million beady
little eyes following her every move. God my nose is so great.
Then, after everyone
had recovered from my pore-free nose splendor silent breakfast... Jim's
friend finally drove Jim and I to Jim's new home. I sat in the back seat,
wearing a surgical mask over my nose like Michael Jackson. It didn't do
any good though... the fantastic smoothness of my nose and it's universal
importance might as well have been a shining hood ornament... a foghorn
lighting our way through the misty New Year's Day mountains... a masthead
on a pirate ship searching for golden treasure (my nose) ...a north star
guiding three wise men with gifts for the Christ child (ditto).
Since it was the first
time daylight had hit my nose... or course there was a physical weather
anomaly in the immediate area... I'm still getting phone calls from weathermen
and soothsayers, who are still trying to figure it out (I keep telling
them it's the awesome power of my nose). We finally arrived at Jim's new
place. As I stood in the front yard of the three-story, pink house (my
possible future home)... the light reflecting off of the scientifically
impossible smoothness of my nose mixed with the sunlight and turned every
person in the town's skin into a translucent sheathe that you could see
through ...see through right into their muscles and veins and bones and.
Black, white, brown, yellow... all skin colors were irradiated by the burning
supernova of my mega-wattage glowing nose... erasing the very concept of
racial purity and racism from the consciousness of the town forever. The
will of my nose had triumphed over humanity's racism... eliminating a world
problem forever. Hitler would have hated my smooth, pore-free nose... he
would have had his Nazi goons shoot me on the spot because of my nose and
it's awesome power of ultimate human freedom-giving properties. He probably
would have Leni Riefenstahl make a movie about how my nose wasn't really
that good anyway. You know you're beautiful when Nazi superpowers create
propaganda films trying to get the world to think that you aren't.
After that unbelievable
event... me and Jim (who both had translucent skin now) entered Jim's fantastic
new home. It's a real nice place. It has front door that sits atop a welcoming
little shrine of steps and columns... which opens onto a chandelier-ed
foyer and hallway... the stairs are on your left, on your right a doorway
opens up to a huge living room (with fireplace)... which connects to a
huge dining room via some giant sliding doors dining room (again with a
fireplace). Both rooms have chandeliers and all that sculpted plaster stuff
on the ceilings. The kitchen is immense... brick walls and modern kitchen
appliances. The back door opens to a nice backyard with green grass. The
upstairs has two immense bedrooms and an office. The whole place is thoroughly
winter-ized.
What can I say? It's
a home that's almost perfect! At a steal of a price... and living there
with Jim forever and ever would be, well... bliss. And a very big decision.
Yep... yep yep yep... life in this home with Jim would be Heaven indeed.
I wonder if the unbelievable
smoothness of my pore-free nose could cut diamonds?
I spent several dreamy
days in Jim's new house with him. We spent nights cooking dinner and curled
up on the couch in the living room watching movies, and days talking about
how we would decorate the inside... and strolling around the fantastically
quirky town enjoying all it's eccentricities (I wore a rubber lamb head
halloween mask over my nose so as not to cause a commotion). Yep... yep
yep yep... life in this town with Jim would be Nirvana indeed.
After those few days,
the train ride home from upstate was uneventful if you don't count all
the people on the train gasping and clawing at my nose and trying to take
pictures of it. God... to have a nose this perfect can be such a velvet
cage. Can't you people leave me and my interstellar-ly pore-free nose alone?
Can't I just sit here pensively and look at the countryside go by the window
and contemplate my future with Jim?
Just as I had had enough
mob-ery, and was about to grab a ball-point pen from my breast pocket and
use it to chop and stab at my beautiful burden of a nose until I had amputated
it from my face and then hurl the bloody, splatty thing onto the train
floor and scream "Here people! IS THIS WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT YOU HUMAN
PARASITES!!!" ...something happened.
The train began to
weave and bob... a horrible screeching metal sound was heard outside...
the inner train lights began to flicker and sparks began to shoot past
the windows outside. Oh my God! It's one of those horrible train wrecks
you see on the TV news sometimes! Happening right here! To us and me and
my mind-blowing nose!!! Noooooooo!!! People began to run around the
car like inmates in an insane asylum.... some people dropped to their knees
and began to pray... I think I saw someone having sex with their dog...
one obnoxious churl whipped out a pocket knife and made a grab for my divine
nose, perhaps seeing it as a kind of metaphysical talisman to use in a
final act of contrition that might carry him safely into a peaceful afterlife
despite a life of sin... but I kicked him in the teeth with my boot. To
Hell with you demon!
I stood up in my seat
as the train car rocked wildly... I HAD TO DO SOMETHING. I flung my train
window open... and leaned out... the winter wind and violent sparks whipped
past my wincing face and past and over my aerodynamically flawless nose.
It was then that I did it... I placed my face hard against the grinding,
hot steel train track... wedging my head between the careening train and
the strip of the track that was quickly proving unreliable. The train resisted
at first... but nothing... not man nor machine shall deny the perfection
of my aerodynamically smooth, steamed, vacuumed and pore-free embryonically
young nose skin!!! NOTHING I SAY!!!
The train began to
steady... it wobbled back to place as it sped forward... inside the train,
people stopped praying on their knees and fornicating in the aisles...
the conductor let out a sigh of relief. My face stayed pressed against
the track, my body leaning out the window. On the right side of my nose...
the train, on the left... the track glided effortlessly against my nose's
beyond-scientific smoothness... causing great heat and friction... which
my nose naturally absorbed and prevented from overheating my body. My awesome
nose had saved the day... and me (to save itself?) As the train sped
along even more smoothly than before, the passengers applauded wildly and
chanted my name as if they were calling out Christ himself. With my face
still in position, guiding the train along... I merely smiled. How could
the passengers I had just saved from death really know what it was
like having a nose as perfect as mine? For them to imagine having a nose
like mine is like them dreaming about imagining themselves reading a book
about drawing a picture of themselves sitting in a movie theater watching
a movie about Mark's nose. Their naivety and meekness has then ten times
removed from the complex and unimaginable glory that is me and my nose...
and that naivety and meekness shall let them inherit the earth. Bless them.
So like that, the train
arrived into Grand Central Station... my nose carrying in the train and
it's inhabitants safely into a non-terrorist-blown-up New York City (which
probably had something to do with my perfect nose and it's radiating a
white, protecting light... but I don't want to make a big deal about that
fact). As the train pulled right into the middle of Grand Central's grand
hall... all of New York stood up and applauded my nose for saving the day.
Unlike those supposedly heroic firemen and policemen from 9/11... those
fakers. The real hero (my nose) was greeted by throngs of gasping
adoration. I leapt off the tracks (my nose unscathed of course) and strolled
through the cheering crowd, parting them in two like Carrie White walking
through the applauding crowd at her prom after being declared queen. Mayor
Bloomberg was supposedly going to show up in a few minutes to give me the
key to the city and present me with plans to re-configure the WTC memorial
downtown to be a giant sculpture of my wonderful nose instead of the recently
revealed plans. But I couldn't stay... I had just been through a wonderful
weekend and really wanted to get home. I continued walking through the
adoring throngs, past women and children fainting at the site of my wonderful
nose. Religious types fell to their knees and started speaking in tongues...
or holy rolling. Sigh... I approached the south exit and realized that
I had my bags in both hands and wouldn't be able to open the doors. Even
though Fox News had quickly arranged for the Radio City Rockettes to stand
in a line against the doors to kick them open with their legs as they threw
glitter and confetti out into the air, welcoming my nose to Park Avenue
and in turn Manhattan and the world (a hokey photo-op, but you know how
Fox News in NYC is)... I nevertheless didn't have time to boost Fox News'
ratings with my prized nose. Instead... I shot a laser beam of pure white
light (out of my nostrils) into the south wall of Grand Central, and blew
it to smithereens. Rubble, dust and dismembered Rockettes legs fell to
the ground in an violent orgy of sacrifice to my beautiful nose. The mobs
of people cheering for me inside Grand Central (and waiting outside) gasped
in shock and awe. Even a half-alive Rockette reached out a bloody, sequined
arm to gasp one last "...hoo-rah!" in my direction. Some rubble even fell
on me... but it didn't hurt... nothing hurts... as long as I have my perfect,
pore-less nose. Everyone loves my perfect nose. Even the people that died
because of it loved it! How could they not if they were going to be part
of such an event as my nose?
Throngs of taxis and
limousines and even helicopters ran over some people in the the cheering
crowds outside... chaos everywhere... all trying to push each other out
of the way and offering to give me and my flawless nose a ride home. But
I didn't need them... I didn't need any of my nose fans willing to commit
hari kari just to get within a ten foot radius of me and my nose.
It didn't matter anyway...
because, before I knew it... my nose emitted an orb of white, pure light...
a laser beam bubble if you will... it lifted me up over Park avenue and
over the screaming throngs... and shot me like a lightning bolt towards
the Lower East Side and my apartment. I looked down on the nighttime Manhattan
zooming below me, and the millions of people waving at me and trying to
get to their windows... all to catch a glimpse of the perfect nose they
had just heard all about on Fox News. I looked southward... the wind rushed
through my hair and around my aerodynamically perfectly smooth nose. I
clasped my bag as the white light from my nose neared me to my apartment.
I began to think...
Did you know that the
earth (roughly 197 million square miles of land and water surface) completes
a turn around it's axis every 24 hours, and that it also, while doing this
speeding, makes a complete wide circle around the sun in 365 days (256
sideral orbital period)... and that, in addition to all this, the sun (holding
the earth with it) is moving constantly towards a constellation named Hercules,
in addition to also moving with the entire spiral arm around the
center of the Milky Way galaxy at God knows what speeds... and that this
whole configuration is all also moving towards yet another galaxy?
Did you also know both
hemispheres of the human brain are made up of jumbly, slimy bunches of
mass that contain zillions of neurons that pass information at gooey connections
called synapses? The speed of one of these information passes (called axions
if they are transmitting information and dendrites if they are receiving...
kind of like 'top' and 'bottom' in gay sex) is inestimable... but just
trying to imagine how fast a synapse is (there are 100 billion neurons
in a human brain and 60 trillion synapses) really makes you wonder if research
scientists trying to program artificially intelligent androids program
them to have an understanding of how binary codes work inside themselves
(and does this make the androids sad?). Taking all the spinning speed of
the universe and then the speed of the internal workings of the human mind
and "soul" ...that's a lot of speed and motion and distance covered...
It almost makes the
distance from Grand Central Station to the Lower East Side that my nose
is magically speeding me through the Manhattan night sky seem infinitesimal
in comparison. I wonder what my nose thinks? I don't know if it has it's
own will, independent of mine... but it certainly seems to be in control,
I must say!
I contemplated all
this as my supersonically perfect and pore-free nose laser-transported
me nearer to my street. As my nose began to slow it's acceleration and
slowly hover me to the ground... I reached into my bag for my keys. My
hand hit something hard and cold. It was the bottle of champagne... Jim
and I forgot to open it.
Copyright 2004 Mark Allen