Recovery

For almost 10 years I have engaged in a terrible and destructive addiction that has controlled my life. I've fits when I can't get it. I've lashed out at loved-ones when they get in my way. When I'm not using it I can't stop thinking about it. And for the last day I've tried to stop, but I've had awful physical withdrawal symptoms.

But I just can't live without Chapstick (or the generic name lip balm). It all started when I wanted to look cool and beautiful like everyone else: free of acne. After battling pretty bad acne for a few years, I got put on accutane. That little pill of modified vitamin A that clears out acne also dried out every pore in my body. When my regime started, so started my lip balm addiction.

In the beginning, I tried things like Carmex which my friend Paul swore by. It was this strange, thick jelly you smeared out of a little tub and applied liberally to your lips. It had a faint mint tinge and tingled my lips. I think I was under the impression it was somehow healthier than Chapstick. But my Carmex always ended up full of tobacco, since I had taken up smoking at the time.

I eventually opted for the chapstick, but only because I could get the delicious cherry. I didn't mind that it made my lips slightly pinker, I thought of it and cigarette dangling from my mouth as saying "Come hither." Eventually, I made my way to the black tube, then settled on the very expensive and bourgeois blue moisturizer stick. I was paying almost $2 a stick to support the habit.

Now chapstick had some downsides pretty early on. The most ironic downside was that my fight against acne got me on chapstick, but it was the chapstick that eventually exacerbated the growth of my acne. The creamy goodness clogged my pores and in the worst spot: the edge of my lips. This wasn't the occasional pimple, no these were the monstrous and repetitive lip zits that screamed "Herpes!" to any passing person. I popped them as often as possible and always ended up with deep red sores with the freshest hint of blood. Other than my inability to dress myself, nothing was more damaging to my dating life.

Over the last few years the problem has been that I started wearing tighter pants. I carry cigarettes, a lighter, keys and chapstick: the four most necessary things in my life. And despite the fact that the bulge of the chapstick makes me look like I have a very small, tubular penis, I was so addicted to it that I couldn't let it go.

For ten years, I smeared the stick on my lips and barely even considered the physical ramifications of the nasty habit. What if I got lip cancer? What if my body stopped being able to care for my lips?

Yesterday, my lip balm disappeared. Vanished. It was no where to be found in my pockets. I imagine it got tangled in something and fell on the street. Since I was too drunk for most of the day to go and get any more, I decided to go cold turkey.

I'm happy to say I've gone my first full day without chapstick. I can now look forward to each morning feeling the real freedom from addiction that comes after the first cigarette of the day and not having to apply that lip balm.

Praise.

Story of My Life: Sexually Antagonistic Selection

This image has something to do with genetics and being gay

Slate has a really interesting article on a study out about male homosexuality. According to the theory, it seems we are not necessarily choosing to be gay (duh):

The theory is called "sexually antagonistic selection." It holds that a gene can be reproductively harmful to one sex as long as it's helpful to the other. The gene for male homosexuality persists because it promotes—and is passed down through—high rates of procreation among gay men's mothers, sisters, and aunts.

As a way to control rampant procreation, you get fabulous gays. Basically, women's bodies start to recognize somehow that your family is too damn big and you get a bunch of 'mos. It curious that this happens instead of simply just getting sterile men.

Anyway, I totally agree with the conclusions in the article:

First, it implies natural limits to homosexuality. You don't need to worry that gay teachers or television characters will "convert" hordes of boys. Sexually antagonistic selection is self-limiting and impervious to postnatal cultural factors. The authors' computations show no scenario in which male homosexuality spreads throughout a population.

Second, by the same token, you can't culturally eradicate the gay minority. It's sustained by genetics and natural selection.

I love imagining a time when people accept that sexuality is not, in both extremes, some choice we make to do freak people out or a weird disease we secrete through our mouths and then vomit into others (like something out of the x-files).

One of the Top 1000 Pop Hits of the 1980's, 3

I've been making my way through the Top 1000 Pop Hits of the 1980's. This post explains a bit about this 4.3 GB collection of music. Every so often I'm going to pick one out and feature one of the best and unexpected songs and post it on my blog so you don't have to dig through it.

This song is not something that I've discovered as much as "re-discovered."  I have extremely vivid memories of this video growing up.  Not the future predicting specifics of the video, like the rainbow shooting across the Brooklyn Bridge (which I guess metaphorically predicted the faggot migration to Brooklyn) or the Jackson's spreading "magic" powders on to young boys. 

No, I remember the Jacksons as the freaky Roman-esque gods.  This instilled in my subconscious that these guys were really really important.  And this video was fucking cool as hell.  It was so ahead of it's time!  I forgot how crazy-happy us New Yorkers are about their presence, though I don't really know any time other the gay pride people are okay with glitter anthrax-like stuff falling from the sky in New York.   Anyway, this song is pretty good.  The video is the best encapsulation of 80's stereotypes, like using Star Wars sound effects and heavy handily trying to integrate some sort of "message."

Gay Pride!

This Sunday is Gay Pride in Manhattan!

Google Maps Street View in Brooklyn!

I don't know when exactly this happened, but Google Maps Street View now has Greenpoint and Williamsburg Brooklyn! Neat!


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Calendars of Free New York City Events

I think the most important thing about new york city in the summer is air conditioning. Besides the fact that I smell like B.O. all day and sweat in new and undiscovered places, summer in the city is also about free stuff.

But what free stuff to do? You could read the L Magazine and suffer through its insufferable writing. You could comb through asian massage/prostitution ads in the Village Voice. I'm also lazy and generally spur of the moment, so this cuts out all of these things.

The solution is Google Calendars and its auto-magically telling me what free stuff is happening. All you have to do is activate google calendars and subscribe to these calendars below. You can subscribe by clicking "+ Google Calendar" in the bottom right.

This is also selfish. When you find free things to do, invite me along. Otherwise I will spend the whole summer alone with my crouch open to my A/C.

"Free Summer In New York 2008" is a calendar anyone can add to. It's the most comprehensive I've seen so far and includes a lot of random stuff like Yoga in Bryant Park or the thing i'm excited about, "Drag Shoe Video Verite" this Thursday. It also includes the impossibly crowded Bryant Park movies and the impossibly hip McCarren Pool movies.


This next one is basically the same thing, and considering how packed that last one is, they surprisingly don't overlap that much. This is called Free New York City Summer and seems to be slightly more "upscale" free, emphasizing Jazz, classical and ballet events around the city.


Free NYC Museums is more of a repetitive calendar just reminding you that you should never pay for museums (or ever pay for the MEt, which is "donation" only and means you only have to pay to get that clippy pen thing and you can pay-- and I always pay with-- a penny to get two people in). Anyway, look at Fridays: MOMA, Museum of Moving Images, Asia Society, Bronx Museum, Met Opera, Guggenheim, Whitney, NY Historical Society, Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the American Folk museum are all free. Let's take Friday off!


Is there a good one I'm missing? Post a comment and let me know.

Vote Republican!

More reasons to love radiohead

Readiohead did a remix contest for their song Nude. This is the great stuff that happens when people let their creations be open to the public (really starts about a minute in):


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

One of the Top 1000 Pop Hits of the 1980's, 2

I've been making my way through the Top 1000 Pop Hits of the 1980's. This post explains a bit about this 4.3 GB collection of music. Every so often I'm going to pick one out and feature one of the best and unexpected songs and post it on my blog so you don't have to dig through it.

This song has kind of changed my life. Not only is it kind of racist but the beat is so danceable! I wish 80's dance nights would cool it on the 'Rio' and pick up on some 'Japanese Boy' by Aneka! Wikipedia tells us she is a Scottish one hit wonder. Really, pay attention to how she pretends to have an asian accent. AMAZING!