Television Memories

My boyfriend's pack porch faces three large apartment buildings. It's very "Rear Window." When I'm out there smoking, I like to look in all the windows. Sometimes you can see what people are doing. More often you can see what people are watching on television which is ultimately more revealing. Lots of CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, American Idol, Family Guy. A lot of straght men. This is the north side of Chicago. Another geographic location would undoubtedly produce a different back porch-Nielsen sample, obviously.

Someone watching me watch television through my window would probably deduce that I am gay or female. And they would be at least partially correct. The View, Project Runway and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List. The boob factor on Big Brother 10 might throw them off from guessing my sexuality. I do not watch pornography. On my TV. So my sexual tastes wouldn't show up on this peeping tom report. If there were to be any pornography displayed in my apartment, the shades would be drawn, volume kept to a minimum. Respectable.

The only window I have to peer in, outside of my apartment belongs to "The Man Who Washes the Dishes." He has been given this title because this is all he does. I have no further information on this one. Sometimes the dishes are done in his boxers, sometimes with the shades completely shut or slightly open. I can see him there showing off how he does his dishes, and that's fine. Some people have that kind of time. Jessie, the cocky bodybuilder on Big Brother, has been nominated for eviction this week and I have just learned that there are rumors fllittering around the internet that despite his hetero jock like demeanor he might be gay. So we're researching that. How this applies to my life, how it enriches my human experience I don't know. I haven't begun that research. I am compelled to go from link to link, being told that there are shocking nude pictures just around the corner of the internet. I certainly can't be bothered with dish scrubbing right now.

TV is sometimes used as a babysitter, and that's sad. For me it was more of a best friend. Best Friends. Forever.

My mother's father was a television critic. So excessive television wasn't something that was looked down upon too harshly in my childhood home. Not that I wasn't encouraged to do other things. But when I did go outside, it was time to reenact the television. Like a fifties child reenacting a cowboy show, when I went outside to play I wanted to make a gameshow. On our sundeck, I was Bob Barker on The Price Is Right pulling products out of my mother's pantry for my very unenthusiastic stuffed animal contestants to guess the price. A new car couldn't bring the stuffed bunny and Garfield out of their wide eyed catatonia. This wasn't of great concern. The focus here was on the host.

Continued

some toys i had as a kid

got this from santa. don't think i understood or cared about the tricks i just liked the drama of it all.



i loved this set. the cozy log for the woodsies to live in that velcroed shut. i think i will pretend i am a woodsie tonight. sleeping in my polyester log. i remember chewing on the little chairs and tables. very soft rubbery plastic. good for chewing.
(it is being sold for $124.99 on ebay)


this was probably my favorite toy. i found fifty dollars outside on the street in front of my friends house. my friends parents took me to toys r us and i bought this. i also bought what is below on that trip.


okay maybe this was my favorite toy of all time. a stage with different backdrops and a CURTAIN and costumes (astronaut helmets, cmon). love it. want it now.


i think i got this when i was olderish. i lost the jacket and got permanent marker on his face.

Great site about Billy Baloney!

dragonslayer

How wonderful it is when you discover something you were worried about is nothing to be worried about. A dragon, a demon breathing fire in your face -- you turn your head and it is vanished into dust.

Coming home from school, worried in the carport. Terrified to tell my mother, that yes, I had been reprimanded at school for something. Feeling heavy with dread, lead stomach. Then to tell her and she did not so much as blink. Fixing dinner. Perhaps other things were of more importance. And all that worry for nothing.

How much of my life is this? Worried about demons that do not exist. And most do not, most demons, dragons, rats crawling around my ankles-- they are not real. I would like to say that the dragon is gone. Yes, and I shall live my life without a care and a worry. But this is not the case.

I will always find a new dragon, something disgusting and terrible to spend the majority of my time concerning myself with until I learn to become a dragonslayer.

i remember listening to my whoopi goldberg record. she did four or five characters that were funny and really rocked my twelve year old world. i just saw a whoppi goldberg special on bravo, it brought me back to that time. when you would sit and watch or listen to a program and take it all in. no promos, no links to websites, no invitations to interact or vote.

i just hope that kids these days are being inspired and delighted like i was by my whoopi goldberg and joan rivers and bette midler records. it was an adult world that i was exposed to- smart and mysterious. things i didnt understand.

i dont know what im saying. i just think everything is so fast paced and ter

backyard childhood

Palm tree in front
Pretending I was making pancakes with the dried leaves, I called them "cakehots"
Pretending to make ice cream with an overturned big wheel
The railroad ties bordering the back deck with flowers planted in them
The tire swing, rope and tree house in the tree in the back
The sliding glass door to my parents room with sheer white curtains
The large window in the dining area
My grandpa concerned that I was playing with Miss Piggy, having her descend on a rope from the tree
Sandbox I would bury my Millenium Falcon in
The floor to a airplane lavatory I used as a pool
A worn faded Garfield towel
Sleeping outside
Being inspired by amusement park stunt shows and trying to recreate them with the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom soundtrack on tape
Picnic Table on deck
Tropical looking plants and bushes, not found in Illinois
Grey faded wood with rusty nail heads
A consistent sunny day
Being suspicious of neighbors in back and on both sides, not liking unfamiliar people
Rusty metal swing set, with swing, very hot slide, a four person swing that I pretended was a car

Russia is Cold Enough!

I have the oprah winfrey show theme song from the tenth year in my head. it was sung by paul simon.

You are moving on a crowded street
Through various shades of people
In the summers harshest heat
A story in your eye
Well, speak until your minds at ease

Thank you, I will. I am spending a couple days in Crystal Lake, my hometown. I met with my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Casey. She said that I look the same. Sweet Jesus! If you could see what I looked like in sixth grade. I told her that I had jaw surgery, that I couldn't look the same. She said I looked the same.

I also went through some childhood documents. History papers from senior year that had a big fat F on them. Two papers from my senior year in high school-- one on Stalin. I have no memory of writing a paper on Stalin. It was called "Russia is Cold Enough!" and a paper on homosexuality on Greek mythology called, "Hercules had a boyfriend." The note from the teacher on that one suggested that even though there was man love in Greek mythology there is a difference between love love and sexual love. Ok, Mrs. Bartholomew. From what I've seen of those Greek gods, it's clear to me that there was some hot man lovin' going on back then.

So many gays on the buses shooting downtown from their gold coast apartments. What are they doing? Shopping. Keeping up with the gay Jones.' I imagine that there are just huge drug taking, gay orgies in these tall lakefront apartment buildings at night and then during the day these boys go shopping on Michigan Ave. Perhaps they're just going to work.

My iPod died.

I have one cat named Oliver who I named after Oliver Crumz a dancer for Madonna's Blond Ambition tour. He has never beeen interested in me.

Umm, first I'm writing about cats. Second, when I told my dad I wanted to go back to school, he compared me to someone that is one of my biggest nightmares of becoming. This person shall remain nameless. (email me) It's all in good fun.

Knock on computer, I am feeling better. This happened because I am feeling more hopeful about my future, I am more involved with people and taking my medication as prescribed. I forgot about one pill that I was taking and just stopped. Pills, pills, pills. "Stable as a table."

I am not interested in Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears. Pop Culture has become very very boring. I say keep watching QVC. That's what it is all about.

dear diary

I appreciate being able to purchase singles again (via iTunes). For awhile we were forced to buy entire cd's. It sort of takes the fun out of a smartly produced bubblegum pop song when you have to be subjected to other songs that are clearly just there for filler. When you want to hear the deliciously candy coated "Oops!...I Did It Again" but don't want to hear Britney's inner dialogue in a throwaway song like "Dear Diary."

Hooray for cheap fun singles. Hooray for SexyBack. Hooray for Hey Ya! Hooray for Bad Day, the American Idol exit song. These songs will remind me of winter depression or summer drunkeness.

I was thinking about 45's I owned. I played them on my Fisher Price record player and then later, on a stereo system that I got from Santa Claus and lasted me until I was in high school.

45's I remember enjoying that eventually became unplayable.
Mickey by Toni Basil
Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr.
Physical by Olivia Newton-John
Cold Hearted Snake by Paula Abdul


And B-Sides! Vogue, one of Madonna's most singles was originally going to be a B-Side to "Keep It Together." Can you imagine?

I'm afraid my enthusiasm for this topic has been exhausted. I am officially sick, which is not fair. There were severeal weeks this winter when it was very trendy to be sick. As usual, I jumped on the bandwagon too late.

Just like with music. I was very afraid of Nirvana when they were popular. Kurt Cobain and the rest of them were children of the devil to me. Years later I purchased their albums and bought Kurt Cobain's diary (an innapropriate venture for Courtney Love, but fascinating nonetheless). I am a late bloomer in so many ways.

Call England

At the end of the day in junior high, I felt amazed that I made it through another day and deep dread knowing that I would have to go through it all again. After school, I could go home on the bus or hang around after with Kara and or Heather and then walk to my grandparents house- my dad would stop there on his way home from work and then take me home.

Actually, I think it was Heather and I who would hang around afterschool for a little bit. There was wrestling practice in the little gym behind the bigger gym. I don't remember the goal of hanging around the wrestling practice area. I do remember the smell of what must have been the gym floor or the polish they used to clean the gym floor. There were candy and pop machines which seemed so decadent. If I had change to buy stuff it was like an orgy of cheetohs and snickers and cherry cokes.

There was a payphone there which I would use to call my mother and tell her I didnt take the bus home. The phone was also used to "Call England." There was some 1-800 number that you could call and a british woman would answer and then you would hang up feeling satisfied that you called England.

It was a terrifying time in my life, as junior high is to most kids. Girls getting periods all over white pants...there was a boy in our school that used to say "You beat off" as a casual insult. However, I really thought he had some inside information on me.

the kids from fame

the summer after my sixth grade year, my family and i went to england for two weeks. my sister and i hated every second of it. lots of going to visit "relatives" and staying in guest houses- which was like staying at somebody elses house. which i guess is what a guest house is.

my sister and i ended up getting in a big fight in one of the guest houses. i don't remember what it was about but i know i told her to, "HAVE A HEART, JENNIFER!" I thought this was very dramatic at the time, I wish I knew what it was concerning. It was the only time I remember physically fighting with her. I whipped her with my yellow walkman headset cord.

I remember reading "Petals on The Wind," the sequel to "Flowers In The Attic." I also listened to a lot of my "The Kids From Fame" album.



We flew to Jersey, an island in the English Channel that was occupied by the Nazis. We saw a Nazi hospital and a bunch of other creepy Nazi stuff. I would have been really into this now, but I wasn't having any part of it then. We visited another "relative" who lived in a studio apartment similar to the one I live in now and I thought it was very depressing. Lots of knick knacks. The bed was in the same room as the couch! I turned up my nose at the whole thing.

On the way back from Jersey, my parents decided it would be fun to take a hydroplane back to England, rather than fly. Again my sister and I could have given two shits about anything my parents suggested- we just wanted to be home. We both had our walkmans on. She listened to a "Berlin" album and I listened to my "Kids From Fame" album as we sped across the notoriously rough English Channel in a hydroplane.

The English Channel got rougher and rougher and stormier and stormier as we "floated" across. I think it takes like three hours or something to cross the English Channel. But the hydroplane kept stopping because it was too rough. When we did start up again the hydroplane literally dipped into the ocean and back up again and dipped in again and back up again. We were on the bottom level so at times, the water was completely covering the windows. My parents were visibly nervous and they usually keep a good front up so we knew that this wasn't good.

At that age, I wasn't as neurotic and anxiety ridden as I am now. If I was on that thing now, I would have swallowed my entire bottle of klonopin and probably would have jumped into the English Channel. But at that age I remember listening to a synthesized version of some classical song over and over from my "Kids From Fame" album. We eventually made it out of that boat alive and everyone acted like the trip was totally fine and normal. Whatever.

Anyway, I recently received my "The Kids From Fame: Live From Royal Albert Hall" VHS that I bought on half.com for $3.00. I only got about half way through it before I shut it off. It's still good, I guess you just can't go home again. Does that cliche fit? Anyway, I still like the song "Starmaker" one of the Kids From Fame's big hits.

Maybe we can listen to it sometime when you invite me to go for a romantic trip to England with you. I wouldn't mind going as long as we don't stay at a guest house or ride a hydroplane.

Cannabis also was found in his system

The headline for the newspaper in my hometown of Crystal Lake, Il is "Teen who crashed SUV into home accused of DUI."

It happened in a subdivision known as "Coventry". Once you found yourself driving through Coventry it was very difficult, almost impossible, to find your way out. I can see why someone might just give up and drive their SUV into a house.

According to Wikipedia, "Directly south of downtown Crystal Lake is the Coventry neighborhood, named for the major through street Coventry Lane... Coventry has seen a large increase recently in its Hispanic population. Oral tradition holds that Coventry was originally populated by pilots who fly out of O'Hare Airport."

I had a friend whose father lived in Coventry. His parents were divorced, which seemed very controversial to me at the time. In the summer of seventh or eighth grade I was invited by his family to go to The Taste of Chicago for the fourth of July. Before we left, we all had to sit down for a family meeting about how we were to conduct ourselves in the big city. My friend could be somewhat of a troublemaker so this was understandable.

We took a van to Chicago, and on the way we listened to a Kenny Rogers tape. I must have had my own walkman with me because I also remember listening to Madonna's Till Death Do Us Part from the Like A Prayer album. Or this could have been on my internal soundtrack since that song is about a messy marriage and his parents were divorced.

We had to stake out a spot in what must have been Grant Park (?). I didn't know where the hell I was. There were unfamiliar and lackluster snacks offered. Something like Cheez-Its. Something that didn't appeal to me.

I remember feeling like my friend was embarrassed of his father.

When people ask me when I knew I was gay-- I say that the realization came very late. But looking back, I realize that relationships like this one with my friend, were the first signs of my emotional attachment to men. I didn't know it was "gay."

This friend spent the night at my house, probably about a year later after this trip to Chicago. He brought some cocaine with him, and I remember him rubbing it on his gums, which I thought was peculiar-- knowing nothing about cocaine.

He got further and further into drugs and his mind seemed to disintegrate. He talked about doing strange things. We lost touch.

There is a building that is a law office in Crystal Lake that he said he worked on as a carpenter. Every time I drive by it, I think of him and wonder where he is.

atomic clocks, cassettes and bad grammar

i got an atomic clock for Christmas. actually, it was a present my dad regifted to me because he already had one. it lists the current temperature and humidity in my studiopad. then it, i guess, calculates the two and decides if it's comfortable.

to indicate whether it's comfortable enough it shows a smiley face or a frowny face.

i have never received a smiley face and i fear i never will.


i just downloaded a bunch of erasure songs onto my iPod. the song "la gloria" from the album "wild!" brings back memories of this girl who worked at mcdonalds on and off. i loved her so much. she was an older and bigger girl and i thought she was hilarious. when we had an open house for our families the day before we opened we got to give our parents tours "behind the counter" at mcdonalds. she brought back her family and very dramatically said, "and this is where all the magic happens." at the time i thought this comment was so witty and fabulous.

anyway, i remember her telling me she and her friend were on the way to spring hill mall (the mall to go where we lived) and both of them were so excited by the song "la gloria" by erasure that they got in a car accident.




i failed driver's ed once and my driver's license test twice. kara did not. she was driving, like a year before i. i would always try to, and usually succeeded in dominating the cassette player in her car.

kara refused to let me play madonna's "you can dance" tape. she claimed that the album would cause her to get in a grizzly accident.

but looking back, i think she just detested this lopsided and often annoying album. but i really believed that she had some sort of psychic ability to see into the future or at least knew what madonna albums could cause car accidents. i believed her and didnt push it.

twist of fate

okay. this is such a good song!




when i was a kid this song and video and the outfit she was wearing was the way the future was going to be. in the video, which i wish i could share with you, but cant find it (its available at netflix onj videos #2)-- she's in some sort of purgatory court room pleading her case to a jury. i guess shes trying to stay alive so she can be with john travolta. i didnt get that and i didnt get the movie--"two of a kind," which it came from.

i just wanted to be her in that black leather skirt with black leather gloves. i had a huge crush on her and also wanted to be her.

if you want the song i will email it to you. i am that serious about it.

good, now i feel like i've said something meaningful for the day.

jukebox hero

There was an a old woman named connie who smoked menthols and had blue hair and would give me money for the jukebox at the Moose Lodge. I must have been about seven or eight. She would help me pick out songs- not that I needed her help. I could read at that age, or at least I could read important words like Elvis Presley, and Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton. She would dance with me and hold me the way that old ladies hold little boys, with cold fingers and cheap rings. She'd tell me I was a good dancer and I would believe her.

if your not there already, please post comments at www.thejeremyshow.com

Regressing

About once a year or so, I go through a pretty intense Madonna Truth or Dare fixation. It's not like I start deep throating Evian bottles or anything. I just develop a renewed interest in this movie that was so magical for me when I was about seventeen. Maybe I'm feeling lonely or scared with being an adult and want something comfortable.

When I'm watching it I try to pretend that it's the first time I'm watching it. I try to trick my brain into thinking I'm back at the Woodfield Mall theatres. My sister drove me and Kara there to see it for the first time. I think I was out of the closet by then, or at least telling people that I was "bisexual". Of course, everyone else knew I was gay.

I could barely breathe. It was going too fast. I couldn't take it all in. The gritty black and white, the purpley blue pink music numbers, the (from today's standards pretty tame) sexual titillation, seeing two hot guys kiss for the first time, etc. Madonna had me in the palm of her hand. I felt like I was the only one, that this movie was all for me, wanting everyone else to leave the theater please.

About six years later, my friend Cory (YROC), even drove me to the IMAX theatre at Navy Pier to see it. We were running late and he almost got us killed, speeding and dodging traffic on I90 so I could see three stories of Madonna. That was one of the best nights of my life.

Since then I've played it for every new friend I've ever let into my life. I try to resist. I try to not put it in my backpack when we plan a casual DVD night. But it never fails, "Oh..oh..what's this? How'd this get in here." I guess I want to see it, vicariously, through their eyes for the first time. That's a little sick I guess. Some form of forced one sided intimacy or DVD Rape.

Of course, it's never the same. With each viewing and as each year passes away from 1991, the movie gets a little sillier.

It's still a really important movie for me. Like Star Wars for a Star Wars fan or The Lord of The Rings or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or whatever. I guess everyone has these things, these movies or books or albums that had an impact on them- very important, not to be sniffed at no matter how ridiculous they seem.

I'm sorry. I got all caught up in myself there for a second. That happens from time to time. Carry on.

Click here for the trailer. (You don't have to if you don't want to)

Mister Rogers recap

For those of you that missed it because of whatever the hell it is you're doing at eleven o'clock am-- I thought I'd recap today's episode of Mister Rogers.

Today's episode was called "Noisy and Quiet." After Mister Rogers came home and changed his jacket, shoes, etc-- he said that he had some noisemakers in his bag. He took the noisemakers out of the bag and demonstrated them all one by one. Then he posed the question, "Can you imagine what a quietmaker would look like?" He gave some time to think about that.

Then he pulled a tape recorder out of the bag and said that he thought it would be fun to record the noisemakers (I thought this would be a waste of time, but whatever). Then he said he had a tape of different sounds and he played it. He thought the last sound on the tape was a knock on the door-- but it REALLY WAS a knock on his door. It was Chuck Aber. He acted like we should know who Chuck Aber was.


I guess Chuck Aber heard that Mister Rogers had some noisemakers at his house (word travels fast in Mister Rogers Neighborhood). Chuck said he was going to be in a parade and needed to borrow a noisemaker (from the looks of Chuck, I think I know what kind of parade he was going to be in).

After Chuck left, Mister Rogers played some parade music on his piano and I kind of zoned out. Then he said that it was time to go to the Neighborhood of Make Believe (I always hated this part of the show, made me nervous, talking cats, etc.)

In the Neighborhood of Make Believe they were planning a parade where everyone either dressed up as different animals or space aliens (even the trolley was dressed up as an alien trolley). The space aliens part freaked out X the Owl and Henrietta Pussycat so they were hiding in Lady Elaine's Museum-Go-Round in the "S room." "S for Scared and Safe," Lady Elaine remarked. Lady Aberlin told X and Henrietta that although people were dressing up in animal and space alien costumes, it didn't really mean that they really were animals and space aliens. This explanation seemed to calm everyone down a little.

Back to Mister Rogers house. Mister Rogers said he had a book of smiles, it was basically pictures of people from his neighborhood smiling. He went on about how when you see people smile it can make you want to smile. He thought it would be a good idea if we practiced smiling for a little bit, which was actually pretty cool.

Then there was a knock at the door and it was Marilyn Barnett (Mister Rogers again assumed that we knew who this was). Marilyn asked Mister Rogers if he had some time to exercise. They went out on the porch and started doing jumping jacks and tried to balance on one foot. Mister Rogers said it would be easier if they held on to each other while they tried to balance (which is cheating, but it's his show).

After Marilyn left, Mister Rogers fed the fish and before he wrapped things up he said that, "There are all kinds of ways to remember people, by their sounds, by the way they look and by the way you feel about them."

It was a pretty good episode except for the extended parade music segment. The highlight was the smile practicing. I'll try to keep you posted.

vhs memories

-The first movie I saw on a video tape (as fas as i know) was Return of the Jedi. We were visiting one of my dad's good friends from work. They lived in a dome home, which they built. I remember my dad and his friend talking about what they thought the future would be for this new crazy invention.

-Foggy memories of the movies people had at that time: Jane Fonda's Workout, 9 to 5, Grease and Grease 2.

-My dad taking me and my sister to rent at Family Video in San Jose. My dad encouraged me to "get something you haven't seen." I usually rented something with Dolly Parton. Always a safe bet, still is.

-I remember the boxcover to Ants - a horror movie with Suzanne Somers, the box had a picture of breasts covered in ants. Lots of sexual confusion in the video store.

-Wondering what was behind that shower curtain that men quickly walked in and out of, but kind of knowing.

-I wanted to rent the making of We Are The World, my dad compared the prices of renting it vs. buying it. He bought it for me.

-My parents talking about how they passed up the chance to own a video store, thinking it was a fad, too risky.

Years later, Dollar Video became a hangout in Crystal Lake, where I went to high school. By that time you could rent five movies for five dollars for five days. You would walk out of there feeling like you got such a steal! There were tons of older cute boys that worked there.

I would dress up to go there. I would try to push the limits, wear makeup and crazy clothes and just walk around the store. I don't know what I was trying to do. Seduce them? Freak them out? Have them notice me?

Then Blockbuster Video kind of took over, it was never the same after that.

4/24/00 Favorite Things

-the fact that I fainted in 6th grade signing "Do You Hear What I Hear?" because I was wearing two sweaters
-my nephew saying that I was bothering him because I wasn't playing Star Wars right (I was sitting in a chair smoking pretending to be Darth Maul)
-the upcoming tribute song for Columbine High School by Kathie Lee Gifford and Dolly Parton (never happened!!)
-french roast coffee
-the picture of Madonna looking depressed from her Sex book
-A Corona with lime and a fresh pack of Camel Lights
-Las Vega$

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!!

When I was living in Lakemoor, Illinois with my friend Heather I had a volkswagen bug. I was working at McDonalds in Crystal Lake and I had to drive thirty minutes to get to work. There was a huge hole in the floorboard of the car which made the car freezing in the winter.

I was always running out of gas because I would wait until the last second to fill up the tank. Or I would spend my gas money on cigarettes or food or who knows what. I called my parents, like, every other day from gas stations telling them my car was on the side of the road. My dad would come and rescue with his little red gas tank.

Driving between McDonalds and my apartment in the dead of winter on a dangerously low tank of gas with a hole in my floorboard I listened to Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill over and over. I loved it so much.