So, I got a letter from my mom–adopt-a-mom, that is, not bio-mom. It sounds mundane enough, but considering I haven’t spoken to the woman in about six years, it’s pretty surprising. (Well, to be fair, my brothers and I did see her briefly at Christmas in 2003, but it was for, like, 5 minutes, and I wouldn’t call what we did “talking.”)

Mom and I used to get along great. For most of my childhood, I was way closer to her than I was to dad, but around the time I was getting ready to leave for college, things changed. I think it might’ve had something to do with mom’s clinical schizophrenia and her heavy boozing (now that’s a party, ladies and gentlemen), but whatever the cause, she and I stopped communicating. Even when we talked, we weren’t communicating–we were just speaking in the other’s general direction. Eventually, mom went through a string of failed marriages, financial difficulties, medical and mental woes, and I treated her like I’ve treated friends in similar situations: I completely forgot about her.

I know that sounds harsh, but honestly, it wasn’t a big deal. Contrary to what you might imagine, I didn’t feel any of that hackneyed, soap-operaesque inner-conflict: “Dammit, Carlos, she’s my mother, and I just can’t bear the fact that I’ve had to cut her out of my life!” Fuck that noise. I didn’t even feel guilty. I still don’t. Mom’s become a different person, and like everyone else on the face of the freaking planet, I’ve learned that people sometimes grow into other people–people you may not want to be friends with anymore. I kept up with her via my father and brothers, who still live near her, and that was enough for me.

So, this letter. It was striking for several reasons. It was long. It was handwritten. There were no grammatical errors. (Trust me: half my life has been spent proofreading.) It was earnest–sometimes embarrassingly so, like a sappy acoustic guitar played by a latent lesbian beside a campfire at church youth retreat. But most of all, it sounded kinda like the mom I used to get along with. Well, except for the Jesusfreak stuff at the end. I mean, mom was always a devout Southern Baptist, but now I think she’s gone, like, totally Jan Crouch and shit–a side effect of the twelve step program that helped her kick the bottle, I imagine.

Regardless of the holyrolling, I’m kinda happy to hear from mom again. Well, happier than I’d thought. She’s poor, and she’s living in TheMiddleOfNowhere Mississippi (no, that’s not redundant), but she sounds happy, which is more than I can say of the woman I’ve seen over the past couple of decades. If she had a phone (she doesn’t), I’d call her, but as it is, I guess that sometime over the next couple of weeks, I’ll sit down and write her a letter in return. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Astronomers have found a new world orbiting the Sun. The giant lump of rock and ice is larger than the planet Pluto and is now the farthest known object in the solar system.

The discovery was announced by US scientists yesterday and the object has unofficially been named Xena, after the TV series starring Lucy Lawless. “We have always wanted to name something Xena,” said Michael Brown, a member of the team that made the discovery using telescopes at the Palomar Observatory, outside San Diego, California.

— The Observer

For shame, Mr. Brown. Perpetuating the stereotype of the geeked-out, fantasy-loving astronomer is bad enough, but appropriating lesbian icons for cheap scientific thrills is quite another.

The Iranian government may be hunting more gay teens after publicly executing two boys for having sex with each other last week.

According to human rights activists, police officials are searching for three boys connected with the “crimes” of Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, who were hanged last week.

— PlanetOut.com

That’s not exactly news to wake up to.

It’s shocking, isn’t it? I mean, really, truly shocking. Teens jailed, beaten, tortured, executed? For fooling around? And there’s likely more to come? I don’t even know where to begin. For something to knock the words out of me these days–well, that’s pretty rare.

Of course, if I were a better informed fag, I’d have heard about this last week when the story first broke. As it is, I’m sitting here before 7:00am, before my second cup of coffee, trying to make sense of it alongside a dozen other week-old headlines. And all I keep coming up with are questions:

• In Death of a Princess, it’s said that to carry out a conviction of adultery under Islamic law, a defendant has to admit his/her crime three times in court. Apparently, a conviction for sodomy is just as difficult to obtain, since the defendant must confess his crime to authorities four times, or it must be documented by four righteous men. So were these boys coerced into confessions? Or did they blithely admit their acts, unaware of the consequences? Or were their admissions an act of defiance? Or were they blindsided by four former friends?
• If the boys were convicted on the word of others, what could they have done to merit such retribution? Did they piss off the wrong person by doing something kinda cruel, as teenagers are often wont to do?
• Could the execution have been simply a way of saving face? The boys were initially charged with raping a 13-year-old boy, but all sources seem to agree that those were false accusations intended to make the conviction more palatable to the public. What if the rape conviction came first, and then, when proven baseless, the authorities found themselves needing a way out?
• The relatively small chorus of protests–which has included the European Union and Iran’s own Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi but not the US or, as far as I can tell, even Amnesty International –has relied almost exclusively on the argument that children under 18 shouldn’t be executed. Apart from gay rights groups, no one has mentioned the issue of homosexuality and human rights. That’s probably a tactical thing, done with the understanding that people are more likely to feel sympathy for innocent children than innocent sodomites. But still, you’d think someone might mention it.
• What’s the rationale behind making Iran’s age of “criminal responsibility” (i.e. the age at which individuals can be tried and sentenced as adults) 15 for boys but only 9 for girls?
• How many right wingers are going to take the opportunity to say, “See what you’d be facing over there, you dirty fag? Shut up and be happy with what you’ve got.”
• Given my childhood (and adult) penchant for precocity, how long would I have lasted in Iran (or Saudi Arabia or Sudan or Jordan)?

Anyone?

So I’m humming along this morning, doing my thing, when I stumble across this petit morceau, dating from way back in January:

The U.S. army considered building a “gay bomb”, which could make enemy troops “sexually irresistible” to each other, government papers say.

— Al Jazeera.com

And I think, “How the hell did I miss that, Mabel?” (I sometimes refer to myself as Mabel in the course of internal dialogues.)

Then I pause to consider the source of the story. I mean, yes, to many folks, Al Jazeera is a respected news outlet, but its website also features a section devoted entirely to conspiracy theories–most of which would be hilarious, if they were intended as fake news gags. (They’re not.) So I assume this “gay bomb” stuff is another bunch of hooey designed to entertain a readership with a cultural affinity for stories of subterfuge.

Wrong.

A quick check of the source materials, reveals that, lo-and-behold, Al Jazeera isn’t kidding. A declassified document from 1994 details the project, as well as many others, including chemical weapons that would make enemy combatants attractive to rodents, give them chronic bad breath, and cause hypersensitivity to sunlight.

All of which makes me wonder:

(A) Which of Al Jazeera’s other conspiracy theories are grounded in truth?

(B) Did Wright Labs build a prototype of the “love bomb”?

(C) If so, how can I get it to Edirne for the 2006 Kirkpinar?

Queer illustrators, rejoice:

• G-Project has finally seen fit to post new wallpaper!
• Prism has set up a grant fund to encourage new work among queer comic strip artistes!
• Inside sources tell me that Mary Worth and Margo from across the hall are having a hot summer fling!

Five Reasons I Died a Little Inside
While Stuck in Traffic on I-10 Inbound This Afternoon

All I’m sayin’ is, mushrooms are some weird shit, yo.

Hey, Democrats:

Forget about it.

Please, please, please, just forget about it. Knock it off. Throw in the towel.

Yes, I know he isn’t quite what you were hoping for. And I agree, she’s kinda creepy. But let it go. It’s a lost cause.

Americans have already fallen for his boyish charm, his cherubic smile, and his ADD-addled son. Pundits across the political spectrum have noted his remarkably uncontroversial record, his fair-mindedness, his demonstrated willingness to respect the law above ideology. I mean, hell, given the extremist tendencies of this particular administration, Roberts is about as middle-of-the-road as you could’ve hoped for. He’s the political equivalent of Midwestern gumbo: probably substantial, but very, very bland.

So cut it out already. Sure, you can ask a couple of good questions during the confirmation hearings. And by all means, look into his tax records. See if he’s hired an illegal immigrant as a maid or a gardener or something–that’s brought down more than a few otherwise respectable folks in the past. Just don’t drag it out. Don’t look like obstructionist sticks in the mud. And above all, don’t put his wife on trial.

Move through this as quickly as possible, and you’ll come out smelling like roses. Then you can get back to persecuting that obese, blondined, vaguely pedophilic youth minister otherwise known as Karl Rove. When it comes to placing eggs, ladies and gentlemen, that’s the basket in which to put them.

Capisce?

Sincerely,

Sturtle for the Democratic Way

Remember New Orleans in the early 1990s?

Remember the filming of JFK? The erstwhile glory of Trent Reznor? The Utne Reader‘s declaration that the Lower Garden District was the coolest place to live in the USofA?

Well, in case you missed it, it was…interesting. I’m still not sure what started the boom, but suddenly, celebs were flocking to the city–some, like the ill-omened Kevin Costner, even bought homes here. Spokespeople for the tourism industry were calling New Orleans the “Third Coast,” despite the fact that we’re at least an hour’s drive from the Gulf of Mexico. Locals, in their predictably provincial, genteel way, were terrified that New Orleans would become a playground for the nouveau riche–conveniently forgetting, of course, that their own “old money” had disappeared before World War II.

In the end, it was kind of a non-event. The glitz and glamour levels ticked steadily upward, and then just as we achieved superstar supersaturation, it was all over. One day, I glimpsed Courtney Love’s pasty ass entering the tanning salon, and the next, nothing but Duck Girls and Bead Ladies for as far as the eye could see.

Now I’m wondering if we’re on the upswing again. Spokespeople for the tourism industry are calling New Orleans “Hollywood South” (and I thought “Third Coast” was as bad as it could get). TV dweebs like Frankie Muniz are sinking their claws into beloved local hipsters. And of course, Lenny’s making noise again. Can velveteen ropes at Acme Oyster House be far behind?

Somewhere in this house, beneath layers of dust and dog hair, is a photo of me dressed as Aeon Flux.

Well, kinda.

If you’re old enough to remember the animated series on MTV, you know how insane her costumes were. To call them “extreme” would be an understatement: they were little more than cleverly positioned webs of leatherette. Of course, she was able to wear such things because she was a cartoon and not bound to the conventions of three-dimensional human physique.

When I decided to recreate that look for Carnival in 1995, I was faced with two serious problems. First, I had to find the costume–I mean, you don’t find that kind of stuff lying around Banana Republic (or Frederick’s of Hollywood, for that matter). And second, I had to tailor the costume to my own body: whereas Aeon was tall and sinewy, with broad shoulders, zero body fat, and crazy, crazy hair, I’m of average height, average build, and prone to chunkiness. And I think I had a crew cut at the time. Clearly, I had to adapt. Either that, or I’d come off looking like Comic Book Guy dressed for a Star Trek convention.

By the time I was done, I looked nothing like the bitch. I’d gone for a black meshy top that clung to my body but still managed to hide a lot. On the bottom, I had some good over-the-knee tights, but I didn’t have the cash to spend on a pair of thigh-high boots, so I went with my usual Doc Martens–practical, but so clearly not the look. The hair proved hardest: in the end, I was stuck with a very thick, very hot wig that reminded me of Jackie O in the 1970s. And for reasons I can’t recall, I topped the whole thing off with a Hello Kitty umbrella.

Ah, to be young, dumb, and full of drugs.

I mention all this because I recently stumbled across the site for the impending Aeon Flux big-screen blockbuster, which will be released in conjunction with a videogame for Xbox and a new comic book. Both the video game and the comic book feature a revamped, younger, more pop star-esque heroine–presumably to reinforce the image of Charlize Theron in the title role of the film. But most important is Aeon’s revised wardrobe: that strappy stuff is gone, and Charlize-cum-Aeon is wearing nothing but sheaths. So apparently, I’m not the only person who’s been forced to adpat the Aeon look to fit my needs. And hey, if Hollywood can’t pull it off, I don’t feel so bad.