Mark Allen

I recently sent Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish an email about his post “Culture War Gasoline,” which dealt with The Folsom Street Fair’s specious advertising image (above). He never got back to me about my ideas, personally or on site (he gets zillions a day), but rather than create my own post, I just thought I’d just put the email I sent him here. As a whole, it kind of sums up perfectly everything I felt:

Andrew –

As an avid reader, I was taken aback by your response to the Folsom Street Fair poster, which I thought seemed reactionary and unnecessary. But then I saw the poster was getting a lot of attention in other, similar places – negative attention – and certainly was on people’s minds. While I’m no expert on cultural politics, as a simple observer I find it fascinating how unpredictably some artist’s DIY marketing techniques have changed. Ten or twenty years ago, one could easily create work like this – and then sit back and watch the religious right fall into the trap of drumming up loads of attention for it, by protesting “that’s blasphemous!” Today that can’t always be counted on to work.

However, it seems that today one thing you CAN count on is are middle-aged hipsters and politi-think gays going onto the internet and giving it much, much MORE attention by protesting; “That’s not cool, that’s stupid!” or even “you’re ruining the next election for us!” A tactical shift? Not that I would credit such a tired and played out group as the Folsom Street Fair crowd with being so savvy…oops, did it again.

Ten or twenty years ago, such dissenters on the “left” found themselves alienated and silenced. I don’t know if today they have more of an organized voice, or the group-think as a whole has changed – but it’s created a very different playing field. No?

Sincerely,
Mark Allen

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This is the prize-winning “Chisai Benjo” (‘Small Toilet’), by Takahashi Kaito of SSI Nanotechnology, Inc. The object is magnified ~15,000X, using an SMI2050MS2 (of course). It recently won an award at The 49th International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photo Beam Technology and Nanofabrication Bizarre/Beautiful Micrograph Contest, all of which can be seen here.

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Personally, it’s one of my favorite boob tube moments. Farrah Fawcett’s June 6th, 1997 appearance on The David Letterman Show. Go on over to DDY’s Letterman Video Archives (doesn’t allow hotlinking – scroll down to Farrah’s name and click). Jim and I have viewed my tape of this so many times, we’ve now worked many of her awkward catchphrases from it into our everyday conversation. Watch it all, the best parts come out of nowhere. Her spokespeople later blamed her cringesterical behavior on panic attacks, and a last-second glass of wine backstage (on an obviously empty stomach). I think it’s also safe to assume she probably wasn’t feeling overly self confident when she walked out. Who knows. This batty appearance made the news, and single-handedly landed her a reality show a few years later (which unfortunately aired post-Anna Nicole Smith Show). This classic television un-moment doesn’t even come close to one of Andy Kaufman’s notorious talk show spectacles, but at least Farrah is in the same dimension. Wow, and here’s a whole transcript.

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It appeared without warning – smothering a 200-yard area of land and trees, and eventually creating a kind of tunnel – in a remote area of a state park in Wills Point, Texas. Entomologists claim several species of spider have mysteriously converged to create it, and say the phenomenon is incredibly rare. When she first discovered it, park superintendent Donna Garde claimed it was “fairyland white,” but later became brownish after millions of mosquitoes began collecting in it’s trap. “There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.” Garde told the Fort Worth Star Telegram in late August. The natural construction has changed it’s massive shape a few times, and appears to keep regenerating, after being destroyed by weather, and now gawkers. Here is a link to a growing page that keeps up with the spider web’s history, print and TV news stories (video), photos, information, etc.

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The U-Haul facility where the devices were stored in Primer (click for larger, scroll down for more)

I’ve probably watched the film Primer (2004, director: Shane Carruth) twenty times and counting. I’m not into “solving” the plot, as much as I’m just into the mood of the whole film. The picture stars Shane Carruth and David Sullivan, playing two 9-to-5 engineer suburbanites who inadvertently construct a crude device that allows them to travel backwards in time at six-hour intervals, and who gradually become entangled in the complexities the device causes in their friendship. The film’s mind-bending storyline uses no real special effects, and is portrayed in a weirdly calm, minimal style. At times it almost seems like a documentary, but also has a kind of menacing, poetic glow – similar to the best by Kubrik or Polanski. One reason I like the film so much is that it was conceived and shot in my hometown of Dallas, Texas (by people who really live there). Actually, many of the locations used were built after I moved away in 1991, so when I watch the movie, it’s an odd mix of old and new. It’s the film’s little background details – mostly architecture and urban design ones – that have codifiability for me. Watching the whole thing is like witnessing real, dangerous magic unravel out of my childhood bedroom. I was recently in Dallas, and shot pictures of some of the locations used in the movie, along with comparison stills from the film itself. These pictures were taken in July of 2007, which is the same time of year the film was shot (July 2001). The following contains “spoilers.”

The Fountain:
Here’s the nighttime fountain where Aaron and Abe confront each other about growing tensions, while looking for Aaron’s cat with flashlights. The “park” that it’s part of is a kind of glorified office/apartment complex area (I didn’t see another soul around the whole time I was there) and is located a bit north of Addison Circle. The fountain is much smaller than I thought it would be. Also, you can’t tell it’s sunken into the ground from the film. It was obviously under maintenance or something when I visited. For bigger versions of the above shots: here is is now, and here it is in the film. Here it is from another angle, where you can see the pyramid-topped building (Dallas is full of them!) way in the background, which appears lit in background of this same angle in the film.

The Bench:
This is the bench in the plaza at Addison Circle where Aaron is sitting (wearing the earpiece) when Abe comes to speak to him. Addison Circle is a planned living/apartment village cluster in North Dallas that is quite new, and very large. The area has a lot of little parks like this, but this is the bench. If you’re familiar with Primer, you’ll see how much the trees and bushes have grown since this scene was shot in 2001. Personally, I find this bench in this cramped little urban plaza to be as significant a film location as Maryon Park from Antonioni’s Blow Up. But that’s just me. For bigger versions of the above shots: here it is now, and here it is in the film. Here is what you see when you’re sitting in the bench, as comparable to this shot in the film. Here is a shot from the right, as comparable to this shot of Aaron in the film. I was in town for just two days, and had to quickly locate and photograph all these locations in one rushed afternoon – so I didn’t have time to arrange to get on the roof at this spot so I could take a shot from this angle. I actually did try to get up there, but a security guy came out of nowhere and asked what I was doing. I tried turning on the charm, but he wasn’t impressed. The pizza place that Aaron and Abe walk into (Pastazios) when Aaron’s cell phone rings and they think it might be his double – is also right down at the west end of this little plaza.

The U-Haul facility:
Here is the U-Haul facility – a central location for the story – where Aaron and Abe store the devices. It’s right on Dallas North Tollway (which is to the left of this shot), in Addison. It obviously hasn’t changed a bit. There is now a car dealership covering most of the empty field where they parked their cars and looked through binoculars in the film, but as you can see from the panorama shot up at the very top, a lot of the field is still there. To the west (to the right of the U-Haul in this shot) there is still lots and lots of empty field, which I stood in the middle of to take this shot (that’s the U-Haul on the right). The storage unit they used in the film in really is in this facility (see the little red doors in the upper left window?) I would have loved to have gone in there to try and find it, but it was this whole nightmare mess just to get in the front door. Plus, how would I have located the actual one? For bigger versions of the above shots: here is is now, and here it is in the film.

Here’s a closer shot of the U-Haul front door, to match this shot in the film where Abe is loading up oxygen tanks and supplies alone at night. Here are larger versions of the above, now, and in the film.

The Red Column:
Here’s the place with the red column that Aaron and Abe are sitting outside of while making plans on the first day they’ll use the devices together. You’d never guess they were sitting outside a Sonic Drive-In unless you’ve listened to the DVD commentary. It’s located literally right next to Addison Airport – excellent if you’re into plane-watching. Apparently this brief shot was done very early in the morning. I’m pretty sure they were sitting at the table on the left in my photo. The railing in the foreground of the film shot is over to the left of that menu sign, with another table or two between them. For bigger versions of the above shots: here it is now, and here it is in the film.

The Library:
Here is the Richardson Public Library, where Aaron and Abe are often shown researching day trading on the stock market, or walking around. Richardson is a suburb of Dallas, one of the older ones (this library has been there practically forever). According to the DVD commentary, this is where Shane Carruth wrote a lot of the script, and where he and David Sullivan did a lot of their dialogue rehearsing. This particular location has weird significance for me because, when I was a very small child, my mother used to bring me to this library weekly and leave me in the art book section, where I would spend uncountable hours sitting on the floor looking at books about Andy Warhol, the Dada movement or even Charles Addams cartoon collections. The art book section used to be directly to the right of where Aaron and Abe are sitting in this film shot (you can see it’s a wall now, as it probably was when Primer was shot in 2001). The inside of this library has changed drastically since I was a kid. Now, there are a lot of elaborate, Disney-ish, children’s decorations hogging most of interior spaces (obviously a recent addition), but the 70’s modern shell of the building still stands. It’s not a good mix. For bigger versions of the above shots: here is is now, and here it is in the film. Here’s a more pulled-back shot of the room now, and in the film. If you looked directly over the balcony behind where they are sitting, you would see this overhead shot, and here’s how it was used in the film (the carpet has changed) and here’s a shot taken down on the first level, looking left towards that wooden door thing they walk through in that overhead shot. Here’s a shot I took from outside, right next to that fountain (the one you can see outside the back window in that scene, remember the guy with the giant lawnmower?) looking back up at the building – you can see where Aaron and Abe were sitting in the middle second level lit window. Do you think I was thorough enough?

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I fell into a bad scene in college. My introduction to it was a guy named Trey. Trey Angles to be precise. Unbeknownst to me, Trey had a reputation for agitating other people in the art department with earnest, no-nonsense watercolor portraits of his favorite football players. During painting workshop critiques, the students and faculty gathered around each other’s work and recited interchangeable debates about their creations being appropriations, not copies, of David Salle or Sherrie Levine. Trey’s work was something they all wanted to skip over, but couldn’t. There lacked a context within which to hate Trey’s giant football paintings. “I think football is really great,� he would repeat blank-faced during critiques, while those around him drowned in whirl-puddles of quotes they’d memorized incorrectly from Artforum. Trey was a prolific artist in the infinitesimal cosmos that was the college art scene in Denton, Texas during the late 80’s. The other art students hated Trey. Trey loved football. We became good friends.

Trey was straight. I, like a lot of gay males, could pretend to pay attention to football only through flat eyes and a paralyzed brain. But one component of our friendship was my secret fascination with Trey’s effortless, reckless, overindulgence in this taboo subject. For me, the world of sports was like a whole new culture on another planet.

Trey’s biggest fix was the Dallas Cowboys. His obsession with the team reached the kind of sharp, knowledgeable clarity that can only be gleaned from enslaving one’s unwavering support to an entity that’s reputation as a winner unpredictably fluctuates in the eyes of others. The team was his ego.

During moments in our friendship, I would sometimes ask him certain questions. Trey would talk a lot of answers. My curiosity with his obsession eventually became insatiable, if only because no matter how much I tried to learn about it – nothing stuck. There was always room for more sports talk in my ears, because once it went through them and into my gay brain, it ceased to exist. And Trey loved to sermonize about sports. My mind became a black hole that he could ecstatically throw facts and trivia into, never worrying that he’d gone to far. I felt the same way about being the receptor. Through our mutual feeding, we each made the other feel smarter, and important.

This relationship reached its apex one Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1988. A mob of people had gathered at Trey’s overcrowded apartment – a central meeting place. There were no girls in the mixed crowd. The requisite football pre-game show blared out of the TV. Trey was centered on the couch, transfixed, breaking his trance only to talk to the TV or other people who were in the same trance. Me? I was distracting myself on the other side of the room with other non-sports types, haggling about the song order on Robyn Hitchcock mix tapes.

Something clicked inside of me, and I had a change of mind. I left my routine pals, and waded across the room through crumpled Whataburger wrappers and empty Schaffer beer cans. I sat next to Trey on the couch.

I told him there was something I wanted to try with him that neither of us had ever done. For once in my life I wanted to watch an entire football game intently, from beginning to end, and know exactly what was happening in terms my brain could understand. That had always been the problem; I possessed the correct equipment, but the wrong drive. I wanted him to walk me through it all and show me what to do. He snapped out of his trance and looked at me with resignation. He’d been expecting this. I told him I wanted him to give me live, real-time knowledge of the opening babble between the commentators on the pre-show, all the way to the victory shouting in the locker room at game’s end, and everything in-between – all while it was happening. I needed every player’s name, number and history, every rule, call, reason for rule, reason for call, fumble, score, reason for score. I wanted to know what “penaltyâ€? and “three yards passâ€? meant, and why everyone was on the field at one point, and why they all left it at another. I wanted him to show me everything.

I had no idea how thrilled he was. We had tried this before, but it has always ended up in awkward fumbling. This was the day it was going to happen for real. Trey tried to hide a smile that spread across his face.

So, when the game started, Trey leaned over and began speaking in my left ear. I kept my eyes on the screen. As the action unfolded, he showed me. The hours became frozen. With deep concentration, I was able to follow every single pass, tackle and instant replay. I strained towards the television screen, almost yearning. It was all so fascinating, like entering someone’s secret garden. Trey would push me back onto the couch, telling me to stay with him. The words oozed out of his mouth and fell onto my now statue-like frame, which occasionally moved only slightly enough to give the faintest indication of a nod. What we were doing felt perverse, extreme. The crowd, the room… everything within our circumference except the television and the two of us, ceased to exist. People tried to interrupt us with offers of more beer or conversation, but we would robotically extend an arm to shoo them away with a shaking hand.

My simultaneous focus on the action and Trey’s mouth reached a finite point, and I began to finally appreciate what he liked so much. My concentration even bled through into the commercials, and even the half-time show, both of which I experienced with remarkable clarity and perception. It was a fascinating new world, but it was hard work. The suppression, the obstacle, had always been there – but Trey had carved a glorious hole in the wall separating us! In those hours, we were the same man. One hour… two hours… three… with overtime the game went well over four hours.

At the end… everyone in the room was growling and leaping up and down in the room, flinging food like primates. The Cowboys had won. As everyone howled and punched each other, Trey was still sitting at my ear, speaking. Wrapping it up. We both remained there for a good ten minutes, contemplating what had just happened.

Trey eventually snapped out of it and jumped up, causing the needle on the Replacements LP that had just been put on to skip and make everyone go “AHHwwwooohhh-lame!� I was still. Facing the screen. My posture had grown horrific, my brow was scrunched nearly below my nostrils, my eyes were pins. I realized I had not moved a muscle in four hours. I had remained motionless on that couch, every molecule of my being tuned to the screen and Trey’s voice. I think I had forgotten I even had a body.

Did I enjoy the game? No. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I could now describe – probably even today – the game’s chronological events and the players involved, like reciting the unfolding plot of my favorite film or play. I felt like I could have a conversation with someone else who had seen it, and talk – really talk, not lie-talk – about it with them. What a feeling, a first… a personal best. I had punched through.

I stood up – finally moved, really – for the first time in four hours. Trey’s living room looked different than it had before. It was bigger. No, wait, smaller. I realized I had the same feeling one gets after hours of meditation, that post-void one attains from time spent being something they’re not. I was looking at the world through new eyes. Dizzy ones. Suddenly I realized I had sat back down on the couch without remembering doing so.

“Mark do you want another beer? Are you OK?� Trey’s brother Ward came up and asked me.

I must have responded – there was a small gap there – because eventually Ward said
“Wha-a-a-t?� to whatever was spoken by me. He also noted that I looked pale.

I felt pale. And I felt the need to go home. But I felt the need to stand up – for real this time – and also noticed something hovering about five feet above my cranium. Oh yea, it was searing, piercing pain. I had a numb, mystified feeling, a consciousness of being badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense. I hadn’t had one beer, or anything, but I felt very odd.

Trey, who had been distracted, turned and walloped my shoulder really hard with a hearty smile, thanking me for the experience. Halfway through his words, his face dropped with concern.

“You blew my circuits.� I said to him with the wrong tone, through insane eyes.

Then I stood up (oh, I was sitting down yet again?) and attempted to walk through the sound-less, over-exposed white light chamber that Trey’s living room had magically transformed into.

All the sounds around me seemed farther away that they should have been. I noticed the walls were rotating, and also beginning to sort of itch. As I was parting through the squawking mob, I looked down and noticed that Trey was holding my hand as I walked through the crowd.

“Whatever… Tom Landry.� I weirdly growled as he lead me to the front door. When we accomplished reaching the door, I nimbly raised my arms, turned around and yelled “Touchdown!� Nobody got it. I went outside. A crisp autumn breeze brushed against my face, and I inhaled deeply. It felt bad.

The next thing I remembered was pressure on the back of my scalp. It was the fingers of Trey, picking me up off the couch (how did I get back inside?) who began to half walk/half carry me from the apartment to my car. It felt like I was wearing roller skates. We shuffled out of the apartment and I tried to push the purple spots away from my eyes, so I could say goodbye to my friends. All I saw were strange gawk-eyed participants at my sports coming-out party. They had closed mouths and weren’t congratulating me. No team spirit.

In the parking lot, he directed me to the passenger’s seat of my car and asked for my keys. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Friends also don’t let friends drive who are suffering from “a-gay-guy-watched-a-whole-sports-game-on-TV-induced-psychotropic-migraine� headaches either. Trey is such a good, good friend.

We turned right on Eagle Drive, passing the cemetery. Trey claimed that after he left me outside, someone eventually found me beside the creek near the apartment complex, wobbling backwards and forwards, half-eyed and white. I checked to see if my wallet was still in my back pocket. I actually couldn’t exactly hear what he was saying because when I looked forward in the road, I was distracted by a warm, embracing white glow coming towards us that made me translucent and also shot laser beams of pain directly into my spinal core.

Trey pulled up to the rambling house I shared with a bunch of art-types, my formal friends, and assisted my stumble to the front door. Everyone was home. States of altered consciousness weren’t only welcome in this house, they were cheered. They helped me to my room. Some of the people in this house hated Trey. “Here hon-neee,� one of my roommates whispered too loudly in dim light, as he gave me two pills from a bottle that he’d stolen from the bathroom at some party. He said he thought they were probably Valium. Taking them made me feel in control again.

I slept for a little under 24 hours. At some point I remember having a very profound dream, about something that wasn’t football. I’ve never had a migraine before, nor since. It’s like a headache that can’t be contained in your whole body so the seams just keep stretching. It makes you crave unconsciousness.

When I awoke it was four in the morning on some day. I walked into the kitchen and drank an entire pitcher of Crystal Light all at once. My roommates were all up, smoking pot. They were looking at a Japanese book about Jeff Koons and listening to a terrible Durutti Column tape. They looked at me and asked what had happened. I looked over. The identity of everyone in the room immediately pressed upon me. I lied and told them that my condition was caused by… mushrooms, bad ones, that we had done too much of. They all burst out laughing and started sharing partially true bad drug trip experiences. I sat down commiseratively, joining in the fraudulent stories.

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I was recently halfway around the planet at a secret location. The place in question is coveted, privately longed for, and relentlessly dreamed about – but rarely visited – by me. I actually get to go there about once every seven years, but I visit it every day in my head. Only Jim and a handful of people in my life even know about it, and when people do hear about it, they usually say “Oh, that sounds… interesting. But why exactly would you want to go there?” I smile, shrug my shoulders and change the subject; its esoteric qualities and my private obsession with them only serve to nourish the symptoms that qualify the location’s value.

Most everyone has a place like that. They mentally picture it when they want to detach. It’s usually a place that’s understood only by them. If they could just magically teleport themselves there right now – they find themselves saying – everything would be fine. You know the mental drill. For many, the location may be a place they’ve never even been to (or in some cases, nonexistent). Which is why locations like that glom most of their voltage from being daydreamed about.

I daydream about this specific place whenever I have the blues, or the mean reds. But since I can’t just hop in a cab and go there. I often call it up on GoogleEarth and stare at its “live” satellite view, which is kept up in a corner window of my computer desktop, just sitting there. I usually keep this electronic view on while in an upstairs room in our house, where I often work at a computer. It’s a way of visiting the place in little tastes, when I need to. I like to keep an eye on it – make sure it’s safe. Knowing that my private utopia still exists often keeps me from screaming at clients on the phone, or babbling at myself to the walls. As long as I know that being able to go is at least a semi-tangible fantasy (or can dream about the spot while falling asleep listening to Brian Eno albums) I’m reminded that there’s a horizon.

The times I’ve been lucky enough to go have been journeys planned spontaneously, all hush-like and underground railroad-y. Once I’m there it’s like a fairy tale, if only because I get downright theological. How could anything but a supreme being create such a perfect place? I feel in debt to the universe for allowing me the honor of least one more visit. My need to control things is relented because everything magically falls into place there. Nothing can go wrong, and if it does, it doesn’t matter because I’m THERE. By the end of the trip, I can suddenly see an “order” to everything outside of that place, an order that’s logic is only viewable from the perspective allowed by being in the place itself. I always return absurdly replenished and clear-headed.

During this recent visit, I had decided to rent a bike. The extended sensory experience that riding openly around on two wheels can sometimes be, was something I hadn’t done there yet.
The third day of my trip had started out blissfully. I had been out since the early morning, but also had misjudged how far away from my hotel some of the places I wanted to see actually were. It was now late afternoon, and I was trying to make my way back to my hotel. I had blisters. It was taking forever, I was exhausted, dehydrated and sun-fried from riding around all day. Whenever I would stop and punch the address of where I was on my route (a dense and endless hive of interconnected streets, like microscopic cracks on the surface of an ancient vase) into Mapquest, I would worry that the sweat dripping off my fingers was seeping into the spaces between the little buttons on my Blackberry and destroying it. Each time I checked, I realized I was still much farther away than I thought. Again. And again, and again. Gosh it was hot.

I kept mentally picturing the thermostat in my hotel room dripping with icicles as my frozen, shivering hand reached to turn it to sub-zero. Ahhh. But the distance to my hotel almost seemed to be taunting me with that thought. Is this what sun stroke feels like? I wonder if I’m dehydrated? If I wanted to call a cab, I’d have to wait forever for them to arrive, if at all, and I don’t know if my bike would fit inside their small cars. I thought to try and hitchhike a ride from one of the kooky locals. But all sweaty and grimy? No, the only logical course was to just press on. I’d be home eventually. After all, what did it matter? I was HERE.

The bike I had rented was a “hybrid bike” (basically, a mountain bike with 10-speed wheels). If you’re familiar with this kind of bike, you know the wheels are quite skinny, too skinny in my opinion. They’re like sideways tin can tops. If you encounter a substantial groove anywhere along your path, the razor-thin wheels will just fall right into it – lock-in really, like a needle on a record – and without warning rapidly throw the bike on a different course, usually smashing your head to the ground in front of you as your newly-liberated teeth bounce all around you. Not smart. I’ve always thought buying a bike with skinny wheels was a bit like signing a death certificate, but… the sales boy at the bike rental shop had been so blindingly handsome.

So, speeding along blindingly in my “kill-me-please” skinny bike wheels, that’s when it happened. There was a cracked groove in the sidewalk that I saw too late, and my wheel of course popped right onto it without me knowing what was happening. The front wheel violently jerked left and the whole bike slammed downward, as I kept floating forward through space (with a slight elevation, as I kind of instinctively ‘jumped’). There was an adobe wall immediately to my right that I was afraid I might slam into it, so I jutted my hand out to keep it away, causing my open palm to scra-a-a-a-p-e along its rough surface as I flew in the air beside it. Microseconds later, I realized I was descending to the ground cranium-first, which might be extremely bad. So (it’s amazing how quick your mind works here), I rapidly jerked my head down to my chest and quickly bent my knees, in the hope that I would roll forward in the air (those two years being mocked as the decided-by-vote worst member of the diving team in college were at least good for something!) I did indeed roll, which meant I lost track of where the ground was. I hoped for the best. In a flash, I felt the pavement smash hard into my ass (yay! my skull is safe!) which caused me to roll again a few times on the concrete until I flopped to a stop. I heard a few car horns – there was a busy road about fifty feet to my left – my stunt must have been quite a acrobat-ical spectacle to see from a car, a moment of “ta-da!” chaos in a serene paradise. But nobody stopped.

Still planted on my now screaming coxix bone, I turned and looked back through my shredded WalMart sunglasses (fashion tip: don’t ever buy expensive sunglasses, you’ll just end up losing them or ruining them when your head bounces off the pavement in a horrible accident!) I could see my bike laying on its side several yards behind me. I stood and looked down at both my arms. There were several big white scrapes that I’m sure would be raspberry in a few seconds. There was also a bad one on my right leg. I instinctively felt my face with my hands to make sure that one of the now-detached arms of my sunglasses hadn’t jutted under my eyelid and given me an instant lobotomy. It hadn’t. I don’t think. Nothing on my body hurt besides the familiar sting of sweat on skin scrapes. Nothing seemed broken. I was lucky. I then looked down at the pavement, and noticed some weird graffiti I hadn’t seen before (weird for this area).

Oh, that was my blood, lots of it, which was now dripping down my forearms, off of my elbows and making a little Jackson Pollock-style drizzles on the sidewalk. Hmm. Maybe I was hurt. But… ahh! Luckily, I had come prepared! I thought there might be the possibility for a bike spill, so in my backpack I had brought BandAids! And Neosporin! (and Jim thinks I’m too anal!)

I grabbed the tube of Neosporin and fussed over its infinitesimal cap with blood-mottled fingers. Neosporin is usually pretty thick stuff but – and I hadn’t realized this – it had heated up while in the outermost pocked of my sun-roasted backpack, and was now quite thin and runny. I squeezed with the usual pressure, and the entire contents of the tube jetted straight outward to my left, in a line, landing in the grass. Shit. Oh well, there was still enough left, if I twisted and folded the tube really hard (so fun to do with cut, bloody, screeching-with-pain fingers). It was then that I realized most of the blood was coming from the knuckles on seven of my ten fingers, which had all been sliced pretty bad, probably while I was skidding along the ground. The palm of my right hand had also been thoroughly cheese-grated by the adobe wall. So instead, I just took my t-shirt off, and wrapped it around my right hand. Then I took a small-ish white towel I had brought from my hotel room (to wrap around cold bottles of water to control the condensation) and wrapped that around my left hand – the tips of fingers exposed on both.

Oh how perfect! More passersby honked. I stood there – now shaking for some reason – trying to peel the miniscule tabs off of individually wrapped BandAids, which I then assembled chaotically on my other wounds.

I stepped back into the grass and squinted as I looked over at my prostrate bike again. It was still far away from me. The orange sun was shining hard on the beige-colored wall, casting an elongated shadow from the bike, which kind of pointed in the direction of where I had flown off. Looking up at the wall, you could literally see a squiggly, white-ish line, a warped kind of arc, where my hand had scraped as I flew alongside it. The top of the arc was probably ten feet high. In front of where the line ended, on the sidewalk, was the now large collection of dark blood spatters and bloody shoe prints – contrasted on the bright white sidewalk (with sparkles!) – where I’d stood and bandaged myself. I thought the whole thing would make a great photograph. It looked like one of those “solve-the-crime” picture puzzles (‘Can you tell what happened here based on the visual clues?’) With my cloth covered, giant Q-Tip-like fists, I reached into my pack and got out my camera. Hmm… wait. Suddenly I remembered that when I’d landed on my ass, I had basically also landed on my backpack, which held stuff like my digital camera. I couldn’t get the power to turn on at all, even if I rearranged the batteries. Well isn’t that just shit-my-pants fantastic. Suddenly I wondered what was on the other side of that adobe wall. Had it been people? Did they hear my cursing? I put the dead camera away. I decided to just get home. I put everything in my bag and walked over to my bike. I stood it up and moved it along. The wheels were fine. It seemed just fine. Good. I got on, put one foot on a pedal, and CRUNK – I looked down.

Not only was the chain off the tracks, but it was bunched up and dangling like a drop earring near the back wheel spokes. Groan. I turned the bike upside down and started to try and get it back in place. It was really badly twisted. Could I fix it right here with no tools, and bloody stump hands? Would I have no choice but hitchhike a ride with one of the locals? Get in some family’s car, covered in gore? The black, gritty grease from the chain was now getting all over my brown-with-blood fingers, and my left towel bandage kept coming off. More cars honked as they went by. I mumbled stuff under my breath as though I had to keep them from hearing what I was saying. Sweat was stinging my eyes, which I hardly noticed because everything else hurt so much. The whole front of me was quickly caked in black grease as I kept trying to untangle the chain, which wouldn’t do what I wanted. It was like demented macrame. I put the bike upright and tried to move it along while pressing down on the pedal, which sometimes helps a chain pop back in. I noticed that my nose was now running a lot for some reason (I checked, it wasn’t brains). I was really getting angry at this point. Nothing was working. I got the little L-wrench out of the bike’s minimal tool pack, and it fell out of my wet hands and into the grass somewhere, then I couldn’t find it. Just as I was about to transform into the Incredible Hulk, the chain on the bike suddenly popped right into place. Without stopping to contemplate, I just grabbed my pack, and hopped right on the bike, peeling off towards home. I was again going the full speed I’d been traveling when I’d wiped out earlier. I didn’t care. It occurred to me what a really, really black mood I was in.

I pressed down on the bike pedals like a child stomps up stairs to his room in a tantrum. I couldn’t go fast enough. Had my nice digital camera just broken? Had I lost the hundreds of photos I had already take on this rare, special trip? Did I need medical assistance? Was my coxix bone broken? Since I didn’t have any more adrenaline left, I used the energy of sheer rage. I couldn’t believe how long it was taking to get back to my hotel room. It was the worst mood I think I’d ever been in, in a long, long time. It’s the kind of psychosis that visits everyone every couple of years, or maybe once or twice in life – it’s the mood you’re most willing to volunteer manslaughter in.

I zoomed past everything I cherished in this place, mentally scowling at lightening bugs to get the hell out of my way. I tried to run over geese. There was a gorgeous sunset, but I told the sky to kiss my ass. I was actually angrily babbling to myself. My head was like a bubbling tumor ready to gleefully ass-plode all over everything around me. If my mood had been any blacker, the very Earth beneath my wheels would have split open.

A bit tragi-larious, because, on the route back to my hotel I had to pass right through one very particular spot in this faraway place. It’s my “favorite” single place there. Whenever I gaze at this general location on GoogleEarth, and daydream of going, it’s this particular spot’s address I punch in to bring it up. How many hours had I spent gazing at this very spot on my computer from my home a million miles away? A square inch on my screen, and barely an acre in real life; my most cherished small space on the whole planet, where nothing can go wrong and everything seems eternal. So doing a whole “Firestarter” thing while riding through it wouldn’t have been wise, but there I was, annihilated-ly inclined.

I rode right through it like I was raping it. Oh how I wish GoogleEarth had snapped an image at that particular moment; me, as a little blurry blip, ripping through that spot like a bullet through a skull. Oh what a pretty little satellite picture that would have made!

Talk about a brat. Jesus Christ, I felt a retard. The only way I could have turned my feelings off at that moment would have been to steer my bike right into an oncoming truck. Bad moods are complicated, and don’t have on and off switches. They have rudders. You can steer them in a certain direction, and that’s it. I was in the most perfect place I can possibly imagine in the world, in quite possibly the worst state of being I’ve ever felt in my life. Was the place causing it?

When I returned to my hotel, I looked in the mirror. The cloth blobs on my hands looked like cotton candy. My right sock was the color of sashimi tuna. I didn’t realize I’d wiped so much blood on my face, and also bike grease – it looked like war paint, or a self-tanning kit gone horribly wrong. I must have looked like Carrie White bicycling home from her prom. In contrast, I noticed my eyes looked more content than I’ve ever seen them. I tossed all my bloody rags in the trash for the maid.

Days later, I was changing my bandages at 30,000 feet in an airplane bathroom – if for no other reason than leaving little spots of blood everywhere your elbows touch doesn’t go over well in the overcrowded coach class of a twelve-hour flight home. My wounds really weren’t that bad after all, just a lot of bleeding initially. Also, after some tinkering – my camera was fixed, and all my pictures saved.

When I was home and unpacking. I was amazed to find the hotel towel I had wrapped around my left hand. It was crumbled up in a plastic bag. In my rush of post-rage confusion, I must’ve inadvertently thrown it near my luggage instead of the trash, and packed it later thinking it was something important. Crunchily un-crumpling it, I held it up and looked. It was rank, stained with blood, sweat and bike grease.

Immediately, I took it and hung it in one of the empty rooms of our house where I sometimes go with my computer to work (and where GoogleEarth is always available). I just tacked it up it right above the mantle, a perfect spot. Jim said it looks like a dirty diaper. What a trophy! I love looking at it. It’s a reminder that there’s no such place as Heaven, or Hell.

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At our giganternormousmegacropolisupermarket out here in “the hills,” Jim and I recently ran across a stellar display in the bakery department; tables covered with about 50 identical and freshly baked “hamburger cakes.” Each was sealed in its own clear plastic cake cover, and they were on sale for $6 a pop. The things you see when you don’t have a camera. We had to buy one. About one foot across, the meat and bun are made alternately out of vanilla and chocolate cakes, and the butter icing is colored and formed to look like lettuce, tomato, mustard, cheese and bread. It even has real sesame seeds sprinkled all over the top. We expected it to be awful, but it was surprisingly good. I thought I had run across some new, hidden supermarket bakery trend out here in the gaseous swamplands, but alas found out that the hamburger cake is a tried and true suburban mom tradition.

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Subject: Derek Douglas
Occupation: construction management
Disability: lost right hand and part of forearm in accident

Derek: I work for a construction management company out of Atlanta. I was on a job-site in Miami in 1996 inspecting a construction job – about 9:00 in the morning. I had just completed the inspection and was heading away from the site. A lift transferring a load of I-beams became off-balanced and dumped a load of I-beams right where I was standing. I couldn’t react quickly enough and one of the I-beams struck me, pinning me against a concrete abutment. The angle of force crushed my lower right arm. I knew my arm was fucked, but strangely enough there was not much pain. It took the paramedics about 20 minutes to arrive. When they finally freed my arm, it was only hanging by some skin. They put a tourniquet around the stump and took the amputated arm to the hospital, but it was way too FUBAR (fucked-up beyond all recognition) to re-attach. I never lost consciousness throughout the whole scene. My most vivid memory was riding to the hospital in the ambulance looking at my bandaged stump soaked in blood. You know, my most immediate thoughts were – will I bleed to death? I could have cared less about the severed hand at that moment in time. There was a really cute hottie intern in the emergency room. Incredibly I can remember thinking how cute he was. How’s that for a gay man thinking with the wrong head – pretty powerful drive, huh? I remember asking him if they were going to re-attach my arm. He was really sweet and got really close to me and told me that he didn’t think so, but that I was going to be OK. I’ll always remember that. They took me into surgery where they cleaned up the smashed bone and sewed it up nice and neat. The original amputation was just a few inches above the wrist, but they had to take off my arm about 4 inches below my elbow because the bone was crushed. They also discovered that the upper bone in my arm was fractured; so the arm had to be in a cast in addition to having my hand amputated. The surgery took about 2 hours. I woke up about 5:00 pm in recovery. Because I was out of town, no one was there – no friends, family, or anybody. It took me about 30 minutes to piece together the scene. My arm was one big bandage and cast, but I could tell that it was clearly cut-off somewhere around the elbow. I spent 4 days in the hospital in Miami. By the third day, I was feeling pretty good and was up and around. I carried my bandaged arm in a sling. I spend another week in Miami in an outpatient facility just to make sure everything was stable and then flew home to Atlanta. The trip back to Atlanta was the hardest part. The anxiety was intense about meeting my friends – now that I had one arm! That was about as hard as getting used to the amputation functionally. How do you walk up to someone and start the conversation about your amputated arm? Fortunately – my friends made it very easy. Quickly they learned to kid me about it. They literally drug me out to the local gay strip club my first weekend home. There I was with my bandaged stump in a sling – getting off on naked men. I got all of the bandages and cast off in about 5 weeks. I remember the first time looked at my arm with no bandages and rubbed the end of my stump. It was in incredibly weird feeling. I did special therapy to get my elbow joint mobile. Now have have complete flexibility in my elbow. I can even hold small objects – like a pencil. I was back to work about 6 weeks after the accident. I indented to take more time off – but was getting way to antsy to get going again.

Before the accident, were you right handed or left handed?

As (bad) luck would have it. I was right-handed. I had to learn how to do everything with my left hand. The first few weeks were horrific – just try switching from your dominant hand to do some simple things! One thing about it, when you have no choice, you have to get on with it. Just simple things like washing my left arm and hand. It took about a year before my stump had toughened-up enough to use it effectively.

How do you handle shaking hands?

That’s really funny. Invariably when I meet somebody new, they sometimes do not notice I have one hand. When they extend their right hand, I just extend my left hand and shake in reverse. I usually extend my right stump so they can see the reason for the awkwardness.

Is hugging people awkward?

Not really. I’m a great hugger. I use my right stump just like a regular arm in that regard.

I assume you drive a car with automatic transmission.

My car is an automatic, but I can drive a straight shit with no problem. Actually I had a stick-shift car when I first lost my hand; so this was another chapter in the inventiveness that all amputees go through. Actually, my level of amputation below the elbow leaves me with considerable dexterity. To be more specific, I have about 4 inches of good stump below the elbow and my elbow joint is quite flexible. This enables me to use my stump to grip and even carry things very effectively. It is actually more useful than if my stump were longer. For instance, I can carry several grocery bags on my flexed stump with no problem. So back to the driving scenario, I just grip the lower portion of the steering wheel with my stump and steer quite well. Then I reach over with my left hand and shift! Its a little awkward, but hey, it works just fine. I use the same driving technique when using a cell phone, adjusting the radio, or any other conventional two-handed situation.

How do you handle typing (like now)?

Actually I can type pretty well. I have an elastic band I wear around my stump with a pointer to work the shift and return keys. No problems really.

How do you handle applause?

There you have me! Whenever I am at a performance that applause is called for, I usually just sit. Occasionally I find myself clapping with my left hand and right stump. It makes no noise, but the symbolism is appreciated.

How do you ride a bike? Do you?

I do ride. I have a mountain bike. My buddies and I go biking quite frequently. I use my split-hook prosthesis to ride my bike. It helps me steady the handle bars and makes for a safer ride, all in all.
Your mechanical arm does look kind of complex. What does it actually do?

I have a prosthetic split-hook arm. While there have been great advances in bionic limbs, the hand is still way too complex to replicate very well. The technology for the split-hook is quite old. It works quite well to pick up and grasp things, but it is fundamentally a tool – sort of like a hammer or pliers. I use is for certain things, but 90% of the time I don’t. I go for weeks at a time without putting it on. I almost never wear it to work – and never when I go out to party or play.

What was done with the remains of your lost arm? Do you ever think about where it is now, or what state it’s in?

It was cremated. I authorized the procedure the day after the accident. I remember the charge on my hospital bill – something like $800 for cremation of amputated arm. In retrospect, I should have just asked for a take-out bag and and put it in the nearest dumpster! Really. You would be amazed how may times I’m asked that question. I often wonder why people seem to be hung up on detached body parts. I don’t think it would occur to me to walk up to a one-legged guy and asked him what they did with his leg when they cut it off! On the other hand (excuse the pun) I don’t think I would want to keep my hand in a jar of formaldehyde on the mantle. That would not be cool either.

One time some friends and I were compiling a list of the most horrible ways to die. There were the usual listings like “being eaten alive by a shark” and “drowning in a sealed room that was slowly filling with water” and “tortured to death.” But what was weird is that almost all of us included “amputation” on the list, even though we didn’t necessarily mean that it would kill us. It’s just that the thought of having a major limb suddenly amputated was something that we imagined would be so traumatic that it was almost akin to death. Loosing like a leg or something… it in a way is almost having part of you “die.” Any thoughts on this?

Obviously I never thought about having my arm cut off in an accident before it happened. But, it is certainly a very intense experience. The term out-of-body is quite appropriate. I remember for days afterwards thinking that I would wake up from this terrible dream – that I really could not be one-armed. My biggest fear – as a gay man – was how this would impact my attractiveness to other guys. Would my sex life me over for good? There’s that sex drive over and above all other realities. Actually I have discussed the subject with straight amputees. I can report in a very non-scientific way that their anxiety over sexual attractiveness is nowhere close to my experience. (I’m also happy to report that my fears were unfounded – being an amputee has considerably expanded my sexual horizons – keep reading.)

Do you feel like you shop for clothes any different now that you have one arm?

Oh definitely. Since I don’t wear my prosthetic very much. I have to gear my wardrobe to my “short arm.” Since I actively use my stump, it has to be exposed. Coats are also troublesome. I haven’t figured out how to deal with a dress coat or suit. A floppy empty sleeve is a real pain in the ass. I have a couple of nice jackets that I have had the sleeve cut off and stitched up. I have a really sharp leather bomber jacket that I had the right sleeve cut off and sewn up just to fit my stump. It’s great for cold weather. I also have a pea-coat with the sleeve cut off and sewn up. My boyfriend loves the pea-coat. One nice thing about it – you don’t have to worry about other people borrowing your coats when one sleeve is cut off and stitched-up! I have the sleeve cut off and stitched up on almost all of my long sleeve shirts. I keep a couple of good shirts with both sleeves for when I wear my split-hook.

Have you ever bought any kind of gloves and thought “what a rip off for me?”

Definitely. I love snow skiing – and as you know ski gloves are very pricey. Last year I bought a new ski glove and paid $70 for one glove. I left the right glove in the store. I guess one-legged guys say the same about boots and shoes!

When you weigh yourself do you think “OK, add a few pounds for my missing arm?” Do you think about how much your missing arm weighs? Do you ever think you are “cheating” when you think about what your typical weight should be for your height and build?

No.

Do you ever think about the day of the accident? Like “Oh if only I hadn’t been standing there at that moment” or “If only I had paused for a few more seconds before entering that room?”

No – not really. I’m not into metaphysical shit. Like it really matters!

Are you religious?

No. Not at all.

When it first happened, did you feel any need to hide the fact that you were missing an arm?

Oh yes. I remember for about a year after my accident, I would wear long sleeve shirts and pin the sleeve over my stump trying to hide my amputation. I was very self-conscious about showing my stump as I thought it might really turn people off. I eventually just got over it as it was too much trouble to hide. Later on, I began to realize that it was frequently an advantage – even a major turn on in certain situations. Now I have no problem. When I go out to bars, I always wear short sleeve shirts.

I imagine your missing limb is a conversation piece, but with some obvious awkwardness. Have you ever gauged how long it takes in getting to know someone, like a new friend or coworker, before they ask you “So what happened to your arm?” Does that normal time period change in different settings? Like I would think coworkers in an office might take like a week of being around you before they might ask. But at a bar, like where people are drinking and being friendly and letting go of social inhibitions, some stranger might just literally walk up and drunkenly say “So what’s the story on your arm?”

Oh yeah that’s interesting and also very irritating. After ten years as a amputee – I would really like to get over being the “one-armed guy” – like being one-armed is the defining aspect of my being. But let’s face it, I will invariably be the “one-armed guy.” The scenario varies: Frequently in social situations, it’s the logical ice breaker. Alternatively in professional situations, people almost never bring it up – especially when I am in the field with my work.

Have you ever felt the need to lie about the facts on how you lost your arm to impress anyone? Like turn the story into some kind of wild adventure?

Yeah I have this long list of dramatic occurrences. Like it was bitten off by a shark. Seriously though, not really. The actual accident was dramatic enough for me – and most others. Along the same lines, I have had some terrific fun over time pretending I just got my arm cut off. One my best Halloween get-ups is to paint fake blood on my stump like it has just been severed and shock the shit out of people. Everyone always want so know now I make it look so real! But my friends got tired of that shtick.

Do you ever feel like you’ve gotten special treatment as a result of your missing arm?

Yes – and I hate it. When someone starts deferring to me because of my arm, I usually set the record straight. I don’t need any special treatment. Like I need it!

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like if you made your missing arm visible, you would get preferential treatment?

Well now you’re getting to the social aspects of being an amputee – more to the point a gay amputee. I guess your readers are waiting for this. There is no concealing the fact that an amputee is a major turn-on to lots of guys. Whether its a latent fascination or a out-right sexual attraction, it makes life very interesting and challenging some times. There is no doubt that amputees are a major turn-on to certain people. While some amputees find this disgusting and a turn-off, I have never been particularly alarmed by the phenomenon. Hey, everyone is attracted to something: Blue eyes. Red Hair. Large breasts. Bubble buts. You get the point. So what’s so particularly shocking about an attraction to amputees. Once in while I hook up with a guy that is really obsessed with my arm in a twisted sort of way. If it’s too kinky, I usually just back off. I’m not interested in totally objectifying my arm. They best way to explain it is ó I don’t want to be with anyone who just wants my arm. If they find my arm attractive in a holistic sort of way, that’s cool by me. Bottom line – being an amputee is fundamentally a plus, rather than a minus, when it comes to sexual attraction. Go figure. I’ve learned to play it for what it’s worth!

Of course I have to ask you… have you ever used your amputated arm sexually in any way, like in bed with a partner?

Oh yes. An amputated arm can be a major turn on to certain people. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to leap to a phallic context. My friends kid me about having a super dick. It’s not unusual for a partner to want to lick or suck my stump. Actually, the end of my stump is quite sensitive and erotic in certain situations. And yes when lubed-up – well you get the picture. The concept is fisting without a fist. In answer to your question: Yes I have on numerous occasions. And yes it puts them on the ceiling. Not to get into too much level of detail, but the end of my stump is naturally extremely sensitive, logically because of the severed nerve endings. The only other natural extremity with similar amount of nerve endings is the head of the penis – quite literally. Is it erotic in same sense of the penis? No, not exactly, but stroking it directly along the line of the scar (where the skin and muscle tissue was stitched over the bone) does produce a very unique sensation. When we sit and watch TV or relax, my boyfriend frequently massages my stump and it is very pleasurable. This same sensitivity also enables me to develop a keen sense of ìtouchî with my stump – so I can exert pressure (as in tying my shoes) quite precisely on a specific point.

Actually, do you ever get annoyed with people bringing up that subject? I was actually rolling my eyes as I was typing it. Do you ever feel like maybe people ask you sexually-oriented questions about your amputated arm and all they are really doing is trying to impress you with how shocking or uninhibited they are trying to seem? I guess there’s a psychological thing at play there, that I’m trying to figure out as I type this question… do you think there is? Do you think some people feel like maybe people are always treating you with kid gloves and maybe they want to “shock” you or “blow your mind” by bluntly asking you a question like that, in a kind of self-centered way? Any thoughts on that?

Occasionally in a bar someone feels the need to make a snide comment about my arm – in a sexual context. It depends what kind of mood I am in – whether I play it up or not. It also depends on how attractive the commentator is!

Have you ever been in a fight since you lost your arm?

Well sort of. I was at a major league football game a couple of years ago with some guy-friends. A couple of drunked-up rednecks felt the need to make some fag comments in a boisterous sort of way. Much to their surprise, my group of “fags” are predominately buffed-up jocks. After exchanging a few insults, we ended up kicking their asses – making a quick exit before the cops came. I was right there in the thick of things – throwing some good punches with my good arm. It was a real rush.

If people refer to you as “having lost an arm” do you feel the need to correct them, because in actuality you’ve only lost part of one arm? Do you feel the need to clarify?

No not really. I usually don’t indulge in that level of minutiae.

Do you ever think about wishing you’d lost a different limb or something else, like an eye, instead of one arm and hand? Do you ever weigh the value of different things you might have lost… the pros and cons?

No, not much. Actually, I think losing my arm is better than losing a leg. I can’t imagine not being able to walk or run normally. After almost ten years, I rarely think about having only one hand. I have forgotten what it is like to have two.

From looking at your mechanical arm in the photos, it seems like all it does is pinch or clasp around an object. This seems practical, but then when I thought about it, I wonder if this actually has any real-life benefits? What can you actually pick up with that thing? And do you think it’s worth it?

I sort of touched on this earlier. A split-hook has some very practical uses. From raking leaves to slicing tomatoes, you can really put it to practical use. Lots of arm amps wear their split-hooks all of the time. I just don’t like to deal with it.

I’ve done some research on robotics and I was amazed at some of the advances in artificial limb technology and bionics. Do you keep abreast of such fields or topics? Do you ever feel the need to save money so one day you can afford like a really expensive, high-tech bionic hand?

No. I’m OK the way I am. I don’t obsess over prosthetic advances. Maybe one day they will produce a prosthetic arm indistinguishable from a real arm. I doubt that will happen in my lifetime. Frankly I have a lot more investment priorities with my money.

I actually knew this guy in college that lived in my dorm my freshman year, I never met him but I used to see him all the time. He was missing his left arm below the elbow. He had this very odd way of kind of “hiding” his handicap. He carried with him, at all times, a large black leather shoulder tote bag that was kind of this big square. The bag’s strap/handle was just long enough in length to where when he carried the bag, with the strap over his left shoulder, the top of the bag, the opening, would come just to where his left arm was amputated. So if you didn’t look closely, it looked like a guy walking around with a large bag that he kept his arm inside for some reason. Also, he almost always wore a jacket, even in the very warm Texas months. But in weather where it was obviously ridiculous to wear a jacket of any kind, he would always wear the exact same kind of button-down, short sleeve shirt, and the sleeves would actually be kind of big and billowy for a short sleeve shirt. The ends of the large short sleeves would reach pretty much to where his nub started, and where the top of the bag begun – they would just almost meet. And he would carry the bag over his shoulder with the amputated arm pointed down, again, like he has carrying his arm in a bag – but of course if you looked closely you saw what was going on. He also dressed very, very conservatively… well, not conservatively as much as innocuous. It looked like he wanted to fade into the background as much as possible. Almost painfully boring attire and hairstyle. I saw this guy for years and he always had this bag, carrying it like that. I never met him, but me and my friends had all kind of theories about him… like that he was actually kind of mentally addicted to the weird kind of passive-aggressive attention he received from doing this. Because after a short while everyone was onto what he was doing with the bag, you know, he was around the same people for years. Like the reality was that he was actually this very sly attention hog. But I never got his story because I never met him or knew anyone that knew him or saw him in any situation where he didn’t have the bag, like sitting in a class or the eating hall or whatever. Any thoughts on this?

Sounds like this guy needed some major therapy. I have no idea what his hang-ups were.

Do you look at things in movies and TV differently? Like certain unreal characters or horror movies or science fiction, now that you are missing a hand? I guess I’m thinking specifically of “Hand” from The Addams Family.

Sometimes. Mentioning “Hand” from Addams Family is really funny. My boyfriend bought me a working replica of “Hand” last year for Halloween. The card was really cute – something like: “Here’s an emergency hand; handle with care!”

How do you feel about parents scolding their children not to “stare” at you in public, which I’m sure you’ve probably experienced quite a lot?

Kids are really great – especially younger ones. Usually when I catch a kid staring at my arm, I walk over and ask them if they have any questions. I show them how I can move my stump at the elbow joint and pick up things. I let them touch it if they want to. I think this is important so that they accept people with disabilities as perfectly mainstream.

How do you feel about the word “stump?”

That’s what it is: a stump, isn’t it? I laugh when I hear PC terms like “residual limb.” I just cut to the chase and call it my stump.

Do you look at other people with handicaps any differently, like before your accident, and after?

Oh yes. I’m not stuffy about it, but I definitely advocate for people with disabilities.

How do you feel about people who dislike certain words, like insisting on using “handicap-able ” instead of “handicapped” or “mobility challenged” or whatever instead of “wheelchair bound.”

I laugh.

What do you think of catch phrases like “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and it was also the best thing that ever happened to me” or “everything happens for a reason” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”

I think it’s for people with a lot of time on their hands. What nonsense. Since I am not religious, those sort of mind games are really boring. I didn’t set out to become an amputee – and I would not wish it on anyone. But that’s what happened to me and it’s who I am now. I don’t know that my life would be substantially different – and that’s really an honest answer.

Anything else I haven’t asked that you thought I might?

I can’t believe you forgot to ask about tying my shoes (similar line of questioning)! As I really like lace-up shoes, one of my best ìtricksî is tying my shoelaces – a technique I have developed all on my own. While it’s difficult to describe, I can actually tie the lace with my left hand, using my stump to hold the knot in place while I tighten it. It’s a real crowd pleaser!

Any thoughts on one-armed celebrities? I guess I’m thinking of Rick Allen, the drummer for Def Leppard who lost an arm and still continued to be the band’s drummer to much acclaim… but then later was arrested for beating his wife… so things go kind of weird. Any thoughts?

Actually, I am not aware of too many one-armed celebrities. Rick Allen, of course, is sort of iconoclastic in gimp circles. But, yeah, I hear all sorts of stories about his social dysfunctionality. That being said, it’s hard not to feel profound empathy with Rick up there on the stage. It’s a one-armed thing; you wouldn’t understand. [:>}

Go here for more disability interviews.

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Illustrations by Basil Wolverton, from “Meet Miss Potgold,” Mad magazine #17 (1954):

Famed cartoonist Basil Wolverton, who was a vaudeville performer during his teen years, went through several art career permutations during the 1930’s and 40’s, creating and inking several strips and comic books with titles like Marco of Mars, Disk-Eyes the Detective and Powerhouse Pepper. His massive-audience big break happened in 1946, when he won a competition to depict the appearance of “Lena the Hyena, the world’s ugliest woman,” from a highly popular running gag in the Li’l Abner newspaper strip. The contest, which ran in Life magazine as well, was judged by the likes of Boris Karloff, Frank Sinatra and Salvador Dali – and out of 500,000 entries, Basil’s was chosen. Thus, Lena’s apperance began the “spaghetti and meatballs” style Wolverton became so renowned for. It was considered outrageous for the 1940’s and 50’s, but his ingeniously surreal depictions of grotesque people (women, mostly), done in smiling portrait style, remained highly popular. He continued to be the “Producer of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet” (as he dubbed it) for several decades, doing a large variety of popular work in humor, horror and science fiction, and worked steadily for publications like Mad, and later Plop! Today, his style is of course considered a trail-blazing classic – an entire school of thought unto it’s own – by most important comic artists. A religious man, Wolverton illustrated a large collection of biblical stories and religious tomes for evangelist Herbert Armstrong, and continued such work later in life. He is survived by his son, Monte Wolverton, who continues to run the company, and can draw in a style almost indistinguishable from his father’s.

Here is a Basil Wolverton website. Here is his Wikipedia entry. Here is a lengthy biography with illustrations. Here is an excellent collection of his Plop! covers. Here is an entire issue of Powerhouse Pepper. Here are some of Wolverton’s religious illustrations, depicting the biblical apocalypse, done in the 1950’s. There are several recent books which collect his work and life. Much more on the life and work of Basil Wolverton can be found Googling his name here.

Click below for more of Basil Wolverton’s “Meet Miss Potgold” from Mad magazine #17 (1954):

continue reading

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From: Andrea Xxxxx
To: xxxx@wfmu.org
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007
Subject: Request a Tribute Song

My name is Andrea Xxxxx. I am one of many in this country whose minds and bodies are being attacked with the Government’s Mind Control Weapons using satellites, radar, microwaves, radio frequencies, ELF waves, etc. I am asking radio stations to simultaneously play the following song on Saturday, May 19th at 7pm as a dedication to all the Americans who are being attacked with these weapons without their consent. Also, I ask that you email me a response indicating whether or not your station will participate. Dedication Song: “Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parsons Project Dedication to be Read on Air: “This song is dedicated to those who are being targeted with the Government’s Mind Control Weapons. Stay strong; God is with you and there are those who believe in freedom who are working on your behalf to stop this torture.

God Bless Us All,
Andrea Xxxxx

*For more information on these Mind Control Weapons, I refer you to Dr. Nick Begich is an expert in these weapons systems and has material and archives of radio shows he has done regarding this subject which can be obtained at www.earthpulse.com. Dr. Begich can be heard weekdays on http://www.gcnlive.com/listenlive.htm 5pm-7pm Eastern.

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Attention all latte-sipping elites! Brian Turner has unearthed some clips from one of the greatest films ever made; Ron Ormand’s propagan-tastic 1971 flick If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? I would fill you in on the film’s history, but these guys have already done a good job of it. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it enough – as it’s relevance and humor springs eternal, in all the right places. It’s not officially available on DVD, but bootleg copies can be found. By all means go look at the four clips of the film Brian has put up on WFMU’s blog (note: a commentator on Brian’s post has discovered the entire 52 minute film on GoogleVideo: here) – you’ll be hooked. Here is the film’s imdb.com listing. Here is some more info on director Ron Ormond. *sigh* …I remember when I was a small child, I used to sit in church for hours and hours every week and praaaaaay that a group of heros just like this would come and rescue me forever.

Watch the entire film here.

(via Brian Turner)

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About a month ago, I posted photos and a story about a missionary in Eastern Europe who is caring for a man who has keratin-like matter growing out of the skin on hands and feet (see part one of the story here). A month later, I can report that man’s strange condition is improving – but what is causing the condition has yet to be exactly identified, it seems. The man is also getting the full attention of the medical and research communities in the region (rather mysteriously, as you’ll see below). As you can see from the recent photos the missionary sent me, the growths have been reduced through chemical treatments, soakings, and whittling down (a dremel saw was used). While the research and treatments are still being conducted, the man and his family seem to be in for the long haul (scroll down for more photos). The missionary told me…

“I have looked at the blog link, and I found some of the responses very helpful. I passed it onto the Romanian people in charge of the man. I will try to flesh this out a bit more for you. The man is on the eastern side of Romania, and I am on the western side, though the country is not so big (about the size of Oregon) it takes 16 hrs to get from here to there. There are no interstates, and every time you come to a new town or village you slow down to 25 miles per hour. I went by train to avoid the wintery road conditions. I saw him on a Monday, and worked on him for 2 hours cutting and cleaning and applying Compound W-type acid in areas. Approximately 90% of the growths do not have blood circulation or pain associated with cutting them. About 10% do bleed slightly and seem to hurt. After 2 hours he became very fidgety and I decided to stop. After 2 hours of work there was not much to show for it by way of a noticeable difference, though there were a lot of growths cut off. I would have needed to work on him a month or more at the rate we were going. I returned home on Tuesday having treated several areas with the acid to see what would happen with them, and I wrapped one foot with a Una boot, to see if that helped (some one on the blog suggested that). My Romanian contact there was going to return in a week and check on things. When he returned the next week, he found the man was gone. His mother said that on the previous Friday, an ambulance had come to their home (they live in a rural area) and said they had come for him. They loaded him up and took him away. Neither he nor his family had called for an ambulance. He was gone about a month. He is back home now (he returned home just before Easter). He was in a hospital in Bucharest where they mainly did tests, as far as he knew they did not diagnose anything. The medical system here is not very forthcoming with information in general, not just in this case. He thinks that he will be going back in May. They did cut many more of the growths off his hands and they look much better. They did nothing to his feet. I think it is a great improvement. I think what you did on the web sight was very good and helpful, I was impressed. I will send you my newest pictures.�

“As far as sending money, I left money with my contact there. So far, none of it has been spent. I would be concerned about giving him or his family money directly. I don’t think that would be a good idea. If money was needed for the medical treatment, I could see that it reached the right hands, but at this time there does not seem to be a need for additional money for them. It does not appear that any of the anti viral drugs mentioned [in the blog post’s comments] have been used and do not appear to be readily available here, I would like to have them and be able to offer them to the doctors treating him, but currently do not have a source for that. If someone was able to get them in the US, I could give you an address in the US [email me for address and info] to send them to, and the next person that I knew of would be coming to Romania could hand carry them to us here. The Romanian postal system is very unreliable, so I would not trust it with the meds. If someone wanted to donate for medical needs (in Romania) we would happily administer the funds, but at this time there does not seem to be a need for additional money for Ioan. Please feel free to write and ask more questions if you have any or ask for updates in the future.�

When I first posted this story, I kept names, faces and even locations out of it as requested. Although now it appears now that the man’s plight has made a few Romanian news outlets. You can see those stories (with some great additional photos) here, here and here (a very rough Romanian text translation program can be found here – if anyone else can provide an exact translation, please do). The man is under the primary care of Dr. Carmen Madeleine Curea, the primary dermatologist at Spitalului Clinic Colentina (in Bucharest), as well as some other specialists. Although they aren’t saying much about what they have discovered, or even if his condition is precedented at all, at the very least he appears to be being cared for, and his condition is being kept under control.

(click each photo for larger view)

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The “Uncanny Valley” describes an area of human perception where something is perceived as familiar, yet contains enough unfamiliar, unresolvable characteristics to also be classified as foreign – and the back-and-forth one’s mind performs as it ping-pongs between the two categorizations of what is being seen, produces an uneasy feeling. This applies particularly to the identification of other living things with identifiable characteristics; facial features, limbs, skin, hair, etc. When a living thing contradicts or strays vastly from it’s expected appearance in an obvious way, our perception is okay because the distance between what it is, and what is isn’t, creates a solid boundary (a person with a hook in place of a missing hand… a child dressed up in adult clothing… a person wearing an animal mask). However, when something is either too subtle in it’s altercation, or overcompensates in trying to appear as something else (a realistic, flesh-colored, rubber artificial hand in place of a missing hand… a child suffering from Progeria dressed in colorful children’s clothes… a life-like human mask draped over the head of an animal, where you can still see it’s eyes), it falls into the realm of the “uncanny valley.” If something attempts to appear or mimic a human or other living creature but stops just short of achieving that goal, we tend to focus on minute flaws, almost subconsciously, and the category of “flaw” becomes our perception of the whole.

Although he didn’t invent the concept, the term “uncanny valley” was resurrected by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in his 1970 essay “The Uncanny Valley” (translated from Japanese), where he described in detail the alienated reactions that humans have to robots or androids who look too human-like (artificial skin, hair, animatronic faces and limbs), as opposed to human reactions to robots that do not try to appear human at all, and posses no human-like features, which are often instantly positive, empathetic and warm. Mori’s theories have become more and more important as robot science and robotic engineering have become acceleratingly widespread, particularly in Japan.

Mori actually commandeered the term from Ernst Jentsch, who coined it in his 1906 essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (‘Ãœber die Psychologie des Unheimlichen’), which explored the thought processes humans go through within the boundary line that divides the familiar and the unfamiliar. These ideas were more famously expanded upon by Sigmund Freud, who wrote of them in his 1916 essay “The Uncanny” (‘Das Unheimliche’).

Of course, these days, things are a bit different. Once exposed to the uncanny, it eventually ceases to be so. And in our age of overly-developed communication technology and sensory exposure and overload, the instance of truly contradicting semiotics seems less and less likely. Today, fewer things seem genuinely “alien.”

Two years ago, while doing research for an article I wrote about living with a Japanese home robot, I had a fascinating phone conversation with Sara Kiesler, Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon. A bit of a celebrity within the field of robotics on this side of the globe, Kiesler has, amongst other things, spent years in research with this exact topic. She spoke about how human characteristics in robots can often have a simple communicative purpose. A robot who extends an arm-like appendage to hand you something acts as information, you know what it is trying to do. Robots with no human features at all (something that is just a sphere or cylinder on wheels, something with no head, or even a typical home computer design), that interact with people in human-like ways can be just as disturbing as robots that try too hard to appear human. But the territory of either-or is not so black and white. The simple addition of human features onto a robot that otherwise appears to be a machine, initially thought of as positive in the design of robots, can be disturbing for many. A very mechanical looking robot that has added-on a human hand-like extension on it’s arm, or spherical eyes with pupils that correlate to move in the direction of what the robot is looking at, or human-like lips that move as the robot speaks, can sometimes remind people of disfigurement, strange disease, or death… mostly on a subconscious level. Conceivably, the emotional state and the complex variety of stimulus that cause the “uncanny valley” could be traced back evolutionarily to animals who developed an acute sense to identify other living things that were slightly diseased or mutated from the norm, and needed to be avoided.

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My most emailed question. Here you go. Taken today.

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Listeners of my WFMU radio show are no doubt well aware of the illustrious Francis E. Dec, Esq. and his chimerical rants. Peter Branting and friends have continued the ongoing effort to document, preserve and study the man’s work, and created a rather impressive, unofficial, official Francis E. Dec, Esq. fan club/resource site. Heavily researched and chock full ‘o info, the site includes all of Mr. Dec’s writings (including a handful of brand new works, unearthed for the first time – some of them just angry letters), a massive glossary of terms he used in his writings (with theories and definitions, and also tie-ins to real events in his topsy-turvy life), and a FAQ and heartily-populated forum (about 100 ongoing threads). Plus a bunch of other stuff. Perhaps most impressive about the site is a lovingly crafted timeline of Mr. Dec’s life, which begins with the birth of his mother and father in Poland in the 1800’s, and ends with his death in 1996.

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Rube Goldberg main website, links to galleries of his work, Wikipedia entry, list of Rube Goldberg Machines in cartoons, television and films, overview of what it means to be a “pataphysicist”, Rube’s Toonpedia entry, the “W. Heath Robinson” resemblance, a 1970 interview with Rube, Purdue University’s annual “Rube Goldberg Contest”, another annual Goldberg contest, overview of a Goldberg-inspired computer concept, the board game Mouse Trap, 1987 film The Way Things Go (and a clip on YouTube), The Honda commercial that copied The Way Things Go, video clip of Goldberg-inspired voting machine, video of Goldberg-inspired ramen noodle-cooking machine in Japan, Rube Goldberg machines on YouTube, the concept of “shrinking technology”.

H.

H.

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Do you suffer from Asperger’s syndrome? Do you have an obsessive hatred of continuity errors in movies and TV shows? Well dear Viking of mistake-pointing-out, your Valhalla has arrived! NitPickers.com is a massive, anybody-can-contribute database filled with documentation of the kinds of mistakes that most people don’t care about, or giggle over. But not you! Justice can finally be served as you bitch proudly for the world to see! In excrutiating detail! Here’s a random heading of one of the site’s entries, in the TV section:

“The Munsters: special effects: I SEE MORE WIRES!!! C’MON PEOPLE!!!”

GRRRR!! One can imagine that the members of this site take this kind of thing very seriously. Popular movies like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have zillions of entries (which can also be refuted by members – often by those which occupy the site’s ‘Top Ten Nitpickers’ list… *shudder*). Often, much less popular fare gets massive attention, especially if the film’s subject is of historical importance, whether directly like Pearl Harbor;

“Rosevelt’s eyeglasses have a reflection that is tinted green. The green tint is caused by an anti-glare coating on the eyeglasses. Anti-glare coating for eye glasses was not invented until recently, and should NOT have been in a movie that took place at the beginning of World War II!”

…or indirectly, like The Mummy

“…the pyramids were not stuccoed!”

There’s the occasional surprise; Showgirls only has only four complaints, Plan 9 From Outer Space has only 35. So if you’re boiling mad after being up late and watching a 2:30 AM rerun of Designing Women where you saw a character’s coffee cup on a counter change color after the camera cut away, don’t let that abomination go unchastened!

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