The One that Got Away

     A year doesn't go by without some shitty "Rom-Com" being released that features the same classic, somewhat cliche key point. A wise voice of reason tells one of the two lovers their story about "the one that got away." This story, that has received little to no revisions since the fucking Elizabethan era, serves as a window into the wise one's soul. They take a moment to ignore their cancer or bullet wound or whatever makes them a tragic character to impart some serious plot-changing wisdom.

"Yur n0t gettin away. Lolz."

      As hard as it is for us idiot moviegoers to believe (according to the film industry), these now "ugly" (old), "clueless" (old) and "lifeless" (dying due to old age) characters once had a moment in which they met their soul mate. Unfortunately for their sorry, old asses, something along the lines of war, segregation or being beaten by another contender got in the way of true love. This, for some reason, gives these characters the right to pass along the lesson (which they fucked up themselves) to one of the movie's star-lovers; don't let them get away!

     We've all seen these movies, and we all know that he/she doesn't get away. They're caught, and before the buzz-killing, real stuff can kick-in, the movie cuts-out. That's probably why our generation sees love in the way that we do; once obtained, nothing in life is ever, ever difficult again. Most of us are inspired to keep our eyes open and our traps set; we can't let our soul mate get away. I, however, look at it in a different way than most.

      A bitter taste can settle in my mouth when I think about high school. The predominant reason for that is my pathetic love life. As a gay man, who has been out since eighth grade, I didn't have as many options. I graduated with not one sexual experience, or even kiss under my belt. Rather than take the high road and consider what I could have done differently, I took advice from all-star fag-hag Grace Adler and blamed those around me.

God.

     Despite the fact that I look back on high school with a little sadness, I won't look at it with regret...well, about my love life at least. The point is, I'm not going to re-think every thing I could have done just to get myself laid. What I will do instead is think of myself as someone else's "one that got away." I'm going to tell myself that I turned heads and that I was the last thing various boys thought of before they fell asleep. Fuck 'em. I'm the catch that wasn't caught.

Self-Portrait

 _GaDing

You Oughta Know

Oh, to be 7 again.

             It’s difficult to pinpoint the time in a person’s life at which they lock into their own, individual taste in music. We all grow up with constant influences, the strongest of which come from parents, older siblings and what’s on television. In my earliest memorable years of education and, well, life, I can recall listening to Phish and Bob Marley in my dad’s car, eves dropping on my brothers quarrel over who gets to carry Blink-182’s Enema of the State that day and, with the rest of the world, watching Britney Spears shake it in her first music video.

            By the time I was entering 4^th grade, the only concert I had seen was the Blue Man Group. Dope, right? It was around the same time that I had inherited (stole) a very, very unattractive CD-player from someone else in my house. I didn’t have a logical reason to snatch it from its dormant place, seeing as I didn’t own any CD’s, but that changed quickly. After hiding my new, prized possession under my pillow, I made my way to my mother’s car, discreetly of course. I flipped through the few CD’s she had, unfazed by most, until I came across Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. Being eight, or whatever, I safely assumed that said pill was a Flintstones' vitamin. I knew the album though, hearing it often in my mother’s car, and knew that I liked it.

Relatable.

           

                A 4^th grade boy listening to “You Oughta Know” on repeat, to and from school, may seem strange, but it also may provide an answer to why I am the way I am. An avid believer in nurture over nature, it only makes sense that I turned out the way I did. Whether or not I was born gay, my perception of men was heavily influenced by this song. I don’t trust them. I partially hate them. The disdain directed towards them, however, comes from jealousy and loneliness. I really have so much love for them. Time went on and Alanis was reduced from a “need to click repeat” artist to an “I used to love this song” artist, but the memory has stayed clear. There once was a time when I couldn’t decipher the meanings of these lyrics, or even recite them, but they spoke nothing but true to me and, as Alanis says, “I thought you should know.”

_GaDing

How Movies Ruined High School

I was born in 1992. My parents were loving, but I remember spending more time with my teenage babysitter, Jackie. Put these two facts together, and it should be easy to assume that a fair amount of my childhood weekends were filled with trips to Blockbuster and visits from Pizza Hut. I welcomed the greasy, sinful heart failure delivered in the form of a PZone and sat happily watching films like 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s All That.

It's no wonder I turned out gay.

Kids of my generation should share my bitterness with the movie industry. How were we supposed to know that high school parties aren’t really like the one that we saw in Can’t Hardly Wait? Was it too much to ask if we could share the hallways with the pseudo-intellectuals from Clueless? Why couldn’t we all have fallen in love with our neighbors/classmates like those definitely-not-eighteen-year-olds from Whatever it Takes or Drive Me Crazy? There isn’t a way to show how sad it makes me to say that there are no answers to these questions. We were lied to.

I like to think of myself as an adaptable person. You could compare me to a chameleon, if you’d like. As a matter of fact, do that. Why not just think of a non-athletic 18-year-old’s body and swap the human head with a chameleon’s head. There. That’s me. “He’s an adaptable freak,” you may say, but that would not be the case for my experience with high school.  The main problem is that my adaptability is conflicted by the occasional surprise visit from stubbornness. So now this chameleon-headed freak is pitted against a menstrual donkey. I wanted to “Macarena,” but was told to “Crank Dat.” I was expecting "Genie In a Bottle," but was given "Disturbia." The donkey stomped Chameleon Boy into a pulp. I was heartbroken, and I couldn’t adapt through the despair. I was anticipating what had been hammered into my head by those asshole producers, but was unfortunately given what a new batch of asshole producers had to offer: Channing Tatum and Ke$ha. Woe is me.

_GaDing