Foil Pencils, Hate Crimes, and Judy Blume.

I went to elementary school with a boy named Jesse. I never met him. I never spoke to him. I'll never forget him. It was early one morning in our school's library that Jesse crossed my path. Historically low performing, Please Please Fund Us Elementary School adopted a rigorous language arts program that pitted students in competition to read the most books and earn the most points on comprehension quizes. At the end of each report card period our points could be cashed in for foil wrapped pencils or erasers that smelled faugely of fruit. The finest remuneration, earned only by the most bibliophile fifthgraders, included full-size stale candy bars and a Babysitter's Club calendar only 2 years out of date. Pursuits of such wonders, and desire to meet the minimum point requirements to avoid "silent lunch" brought many students to the library to find books and take their quizzes. Brought a few more to find trouble. On a rainy day in 1994, I was browsing the Judy Blume's when the trouble began. Jesse was in a huddle around a Where's Waldo.

I'm tellin ya. One of'ums nekkid.
Ain't niether! They wont put a nekkid lady is a kids book
Whatcher on the mountain page fer. The nekkid lady gone be on tha beach one.

I giggled overhearing them because I knew the pornographic picture book had been removed from the shelves long ago, and I had found the offending illustration on a dogeared page in a pediatrician's office. Our librarian was having none of it. Deftly she scattered the boys with scoldings and threats of silent lunch and they slunk in different directions. Jesse, DJ and Bubba (I wish I was kidding) Made their way to a bank of Apple 2Es to pad their foil pencil savings accounts.

Taking the quiz on the computer required logging in with our "real actual names." In a Southern farm town that couldn't fill the visitors side of a football stadium, getting kids to spell their "real actual names" was difficult. Bethanne logged in as Elizabeth Anne and Maybeth typed Mary Elizabeth. DJ became Daniel James, and JD was John David. Bubba had Robert E Lee Foote written on the inside band of his Fruit of the Looms. Jesse typed Jesus Lopez Junior. Billy Ray / William saw Jesse' s real actual name on the screen and called another huddle.

Billy Ray/William -- Whatcha type JeeZus for, Jesse?
Jesse / HaySoos -- That's my name. That's what they call me Jesse for.
DJ/Daniel James -- Lemme see that! Jesse! Yer name aint JeeZus! Ain't nobody named JeeZus but JeeZus!
JD / John David -- Only the devil call hisself JeeZus and not be JeZus.
Bubba / Robert E Lee Foote -- You gone go to the devil, Jesse

Jesse/HaySoos was eight. He was third generation in our shitty backwoods town, and ate far more boiled peanuts than black beans. He couldn't explain the distinct cultural differences between his family from Mexico and their families from South Carolina dirt farms. They didn't give him time to try.

A hand grasped a shirt collar.
A shirt collar ripped as Jesse/Jesus was pulled up from his chair.
A chair tumbled and hit the floor sideways.
So did Jesse.
Fists and feet and slurs fell from all directions. I ran farther into the stacks to hide and felt guilty for not knowing how to help him. Maybe it was a couple of minutes, or maybe it was 2000 years, but eventually the double-named Judases were pulled off.

"He says he's JeeZus! He caint just call hisself JeeZus! He's going to the devil sayin his Jeezus!"
Billy Ray/William, DJ / Daniel James, and Bubba / Robert E Lee Foote, howled in chorus.
I saw the blood on Jesse/Jesus's face. I shrank further and prayed I'd become invisible as he walked passed to the nurse.

The passion played before me in my school's library sat in my stomach like stale bread and sour grape juice. I'd seen boys beat each other up before. I'd seen them turn on their own. But I never saw a boy beat that badly unprovoked. I never saw a boy named Jesus. I was grappling to understand how a literacy quiz became a hate crime that I watched from behind Tales of a Fourthgrade Nothing. After school I asked my mama, "Why would somebody name their baby Jesus?"
"That's silly,"she told me. "Nobody names their baby Jesus. "

Gay Marriage Will Destroy Society, as told in musical theater

I really am my most insightful at 0100. Late last night, or early this morning, as I was brushing my teeth, a song from Fiddler on the Roof was playing in my head. Figuring how it got there was futile, so I moved on to thinking about the theme of the musical play. That's when my mind made the crazy pants, midnight jump from musical theater to Gay marriage. I know, right. Musicals to Gays? How do those connect? That’s about the time my wandering mind fell upon an upsetting but undeniable truth. This schmaltzy community theater staple holds a stern warning about just what a real and dangerous threat to traditional marriage Homosexual matrimony truly is.

The big opening number of Fiddler features the full cast, the entirety of the village, singing proudly of the importance of tradition. [I like this version] As the story progresses, the three oldest daughters of the protagonist, Tevye, come of age and marry. Each in ways further challenging the tradition they sang about approximately a half hour before. The lynchpin of this chain of events is the eldest daughter, who defies tradition by eschewing the arrangement to the well off butcher, to live in poverty with the tailor she is mad for. It was marrying for love that rocked the entire community. It set in motion the snowball that led to the youngest of the three committing the unspeakable act of marrying outside the Jewish faith. This defiance found  her wed to her beloved, but divorced from her family. In an hour and a half of adapted for Broadway Klezmer music, a family is torn apart by breaking tradition to marry for love. If bucking tradition simply by marrying without Daddy’s permission can wreck a fictional family, real-life Gay marriage will blow traditional marriage off the map.

It is a tiresome argument that the conservative Right pontificate about preserving traditional marriage, and the liberal Left waste their breath trying to convince the Right that they have no idea what the words traditional marriage mean. Surely Tevye and company can be trusted as the guardians of tradition. The tell us that marriage is a business deal between man and a father, for the privilege of marrying / getting rid of a daughter.

If we take a look and the traditional marriage practices of the last thousands of years or so, a traditional marriage is a transaction of property. Asking for a lady's hand sounded much less "make me the happiest man alive" and much more "I offer a cow for your lovely daughter.  Two goats for the ugly one" Then bargain was signed and sealed. A contract. A marriage contract?  Yes. Such a thing was the bond of matrimony back then and is remains to this day. The Ketubah  is alive and well and an integral piece of a Jewish wedding and marriage. Of course, over time it has stepped far from the exchanging of livestock for women, but despite the PR makeover, it descended from documents signed to close a sale.

Now, let’s step away from all the Jewyness for a second, because marriage as business has never been specifically Hebraic. The royals of Europe were just as without choice in partner, forced to marry for politics’ sake.  The practice of betrothing a child even before birth was common in Asia. In fact, today up to 90 percent of marriages in India arranged*.  

Even in the Land Of The Free marriage is about money, or was until the 1960s. Women often entered college seeking an M.r.s. Degree first and a Bachelor's in something or other as a fall back. It was always hoped by women and their families that they would "marry well" What does it mean to marry well? A woman used whatever charms she had to rope a man who would be a good provider for her and her children. Provider, in this case, is a euphemism for meal ticket.

It wasn't until the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s that marriage started to inch its way toward becoming a partnership of equals. Less than forty years ago marrying for money was the status quo. Marrying for love was the domain of harry legged bra burners, if they chose to marry at all. If the traditional marriage all those law makers are trying to protect are the unions of a man and his property or a financier and his whore then Gay marriage is a terrific threat. When heterosexuals marrying for love challenges traditional marriage, equal marriage rights for Gays will destroy it. It's hard to maintain patriarchy in a same sex relationship, but more than that,  Gays won't marry for money.

The very definition of Gay or Homosexual is loving someone of the same sex. The kind of love that can not be ignored or repressed for long, no matter how deeply it’s shoved to the back of a closet. For heterosexuals, love is a feeling, a state of being, perhaps. For Gays, love is identity. We are who we love. The search for financial security from a partner or hope of finding a sugar daddy exists among us, but these couples aren't the ones standing in line for days to obtain marriage licenses. This is what terrifies the conservative lawmakers who, in their younger days, married a swell gal though she married a cash cow. These older gentleman have come to resent their loveless relationships to the point of tapping feet in airport bathrooms and posting photos of their private parts on Twitter. They want what we have, so they are doing their damnedest not to let us enjoy it.

But we do enjoy it, every single day. Every morning we kiss our partners out the door. We read news apps together over coffee. We go to absurd lengths to build our families. We embrace at every opportunity. We fight, and we make up. We nag and we negotiate. We reluctantly take out the garbage. Our tastes in movies and music somehow meld overtime. We become fans-by-marriage of the other's beloved sports team. We warm up to our would-be in laws  We forget which box our Menorahs are stored in and create makeshift ones out of glass bottles. (Okay, maybe that's just my family.) My point is, Gay people are married in their hearts and minds and daily lives all around you. In states where it is legal and in states where it is constitutionally forbidden . And all of us are married in our way, out of love and nothing but love. The traditionalists watch us, green-eyed and fuming. They know that when marriages are bound by heart strings, the tetherings of purse strings are as steady as a fiddler on the roof.

 

TRADITION! 

*Citation - abc 20/20

The Play(ing) is the Thing.

We do not quit playing because we grow old; we grow old because we quit playing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes


Down down baby down down the rollercoaster shimmy shimmy coco pops shimmy shimmy .... Thats all I can remember of the chant I sang daily while clapping my hands in intricate patterns with a friend, sister, or cousin. More of the Crocodilla chant remains in my memory, and maybe some Miss Mary Mac. But I don't recall any of the rules of hopscotch, and I can't remember the last time I laid eyes on a jumprope or hula hoop. Some say these are the trappings of the children and the childish, and are right to be left behind. I disagree. Such are the harborors and hearteners of imagination, and the lack of inhibition to enjoy it freely. It was playing, and when you're little, playing is unlimited supply of happiness carried in your pocket for instant access.

I wonder when I forgot to how to play. When the occupation of my imagination shifted from the elaborate melodramas of Barbie and Ken to poetry and blog posts? When did my bicycle cease being a Kentucky Derby winner and become a clothes rack? When did I trade doll clothes for computer screens? When did the matchbox cars in my palms get replaced by mice? Why are the toys which abound in my apartment silent and still? What happened to me? What happened to all of us?

When I was a kid, playing Barbies was one of my favorite things to do. I never bothered changing her clothes or brushing her hair, and none of my dolls had their shoes anymore. But hours a day, my Barbies, Skippers and Kens were actors in my little mind's grotesque theatre. Skipper was often left to fend for her little brother after Barbie launched herself off the top the Dream House and Step-dad Ken descended into alcoholism. When I figured out I could replace the dolls’ heads after I had ripped them off, bloody revolutions took place in my playroom and the monarchy of the tyranical Queen Barbie was overthrown again and again. Many dolls met their horible demise under the wheels of that hot pink remote control car. Sometimes, Barbie took Little Sister Skipper to the movies, and bought her popcorn.


However they were engaged, my little actors could go on all day. Living, and dying for love or greed, beating the wolves away from the door, or being maimed or eaten by them, and burying Skipper’s dog in the back yard again and again. An endless parade of scenes from the imagination of a young child who probably needed some therapy. My teddy bear, Theodore Edward Behr, became my son and I taught him to dance, cradled him in my arms as we slept behind dumpsters in the rain, and sent him off to his grandmother's to die from everything from chicken pox to AIDS. Yes, I am sure I needed therapy. But as twisted and aberrant as it may have been, it was play. It was imagination. It was escape into a world of my creating that played by my rules. And it was fun.

Along the way our dolls were replaced by dollars. As we went from training wheels to training bras our drive and desire to play relpaced by our desire to drive. Why did it slip away? Was it when the forth grade girls who swung from the monkey bars became the fifth grade girls who climed to sit on top of them and talk about boys? Was that the beginning of the end? Was it because the sixth grade girls and boys had no more recess time at all? Was it because our cutesy cartoon backpacks couldn't carry the burdens of a nineth graders homework, or because high school brings more burdens than books alone? All I know is, by graduation playing anything but hooky was gone for good.

As a pre-school teacher, I watched my four-year-olds engage in elaborate stories of home and harth in the dramatic play center. Laughing uproariously as they dressed in ridiculous ensembles of donated clothes, and found fanciful occupations for mundane items, like tiny dented pans and plastic carrots. I watched them from behind glass. Their's was a land to which I had no passport.

Across the room at the Leggo table, odd assemblage of squares and rectangles were cars for superheros, or superheros themselves. Evil monsters who shot lasers out of their armpits battled T-rex dinosaurs that could fly and devour Monster trucks in one bite. At least that's what their makers told me. All I could see was bright colored blocks, stuck together seemingly at random. I walked the room an outsider. I observed their play, monitored their safety and waited for the teacher who would be my relief, because center time was just so boring. One can only watch birds at a feeder for so long, knowing they themselves have forgotten how to fly.

Wanting so badly to reconnect with my floor sitting, doll playing, imagination of past, I conducted an experiment today. I took out the box of toys I keep for the children I babysit, and tried to play with them. I dumped them on the floor and let my imagination go, hoping I could tap into that childhood bank of playtime memories with ease. The most I could come up with was a Beanie Babies Basset Hound protecting a stuffed chicken from a hungry alligator puppet. This lasted approximately fourteen seconds. I was better with the matchbox cars, racing and crashing into each other, and I made a half hearted Potato Head Picasso. I turned circles and waved my arm to make Buzz Lightyear soar through the galaxy, and bounced him and Woody up and down, having a conversation to which i could put no words. My attempts at play were empty. Forced and void of imagination. Going through motions. All a shallow hull of what used to be purest joy that filled my days and my young spirit. Frustrated, I gave up on playtime, and turned to the computer. At the very least I could enjoy a few rounds of Candy Crush Saga, or shoot a few zombies. That's playing, right? Kind of? Maybe? That's when I remembered the old copy of The Sims I came accross when clearing out some boxes a few weeks ago. I loaded it up and created a few characters. I turned on god-mode, the setting that removes the characters' free will and makes their every move up to you, and whatever your imagination deems. They aren't Barbie Dolls exactly, but I'm sure I can think of some kind of dramtics for them to portray. Maybe I will even let them live.

VIDEO POST - Poetry Live In Austin -

Mouse With A Machete goes officially multimedia! Woot! Huzzah! Hot Damn! Fabulous!

And various other exclamations of excitement and joy.

I started writing poetry and 8, and performing it at 18. For an number of years I held a high place among the denizens of the Austin open mic scene, even taking home some cash for featured performances. After a hiatus of enjoying a brand new marriage and seeking a degree, I hit the stage with poetry taken to a whole new level of bare honesty and craft.  This video was taken and a live performance in Austin, TX. 

Austin Hot - Mouse

For more videos of poetry and other performances, go like our Facebook page.

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The Higher Callings of Flowers and Chocolate

It’s Valentine’s Day and Facebook and Twitter are blowing up with statuses, images, tweets, and memes expressing more vehement oppositions than we saw through the entire election season. Single people are out in droves protesting the grave elitism of chocolate and flowers, baring their jealousy with fangs and herbicide  Sympathetic couples declare that it’s “just another day” and “show your partner you love them everyday.” More romantic couples are trying to convince such V-day haters to stop peeing on their Poptarts. Or in this case, Russel Stovers. It’s war out there people. Perhaps that’s why Cupid is depicted as an archer. But there’s much more to this holiday than the joining lips of lovers, and spitting mouths of singles. It appears that no one seems to get the point of the love potion tipped arrows.
Like most holidays, St Valentine’s Day begins with a legend. We like our legends here. It gives us the power of shouting ‘It’s just a made up bogus tradition” around any holiday or festival we are not fond of. Still, the legend of St. Valentine is one we should all consider carefully, before setting any Hallmark stores ablaze. As it is told, In third century Rome, Emperor Claudius Gothicus set many laws oppressing the Christian minority in his state. One of these edicts was that Christians were not allowed to marry. A minority group denied the right to marry by the government? Rings familiar doesn’t it?

Saint Valentine, who was Valentinus at the time, defied the Emperor by committing the brash crime of showing empathy and kindness and performing marriages of gay .. I mean Christian couples. For his troubles he was arrested and eventually beheaded. All for the sake of equal rights for those whom the law of the land prohibited their marriage.

Kind of a different perspective from let’s all eat chocolate and have sex while we point and laugh and single people, right? Saint Valentine worked in direct opposition of the government performing marriages the state had banned. Then he lost his life for it.


What would our reactions be if such occurred today? How would we feel if a pastor was arrested and beaten, and hanged all for the crime of acting on the belief that marriage is a human right and not a heterosexual privilege? How much would we, gay or ally, appreciate his sacrifice? Would we begrudge this modern martyr the honor of smelling a few roses and eating a piece of chocolate? Would we even accept that we picked the coconut one, because we celebrate the life and work of a person so important to ending our struggles? Do the Whites bitterly continue to clock in while only the Blacks take Martin Luther King Jr day off? Should single people curse such contributions and acts of love for those prohibited from marrying? Or do we all salute the overcoming of barriers to equality and those who worked and died for it?

It is my hope and plea, to all of those who decry Valentine’s Day to consider it’s deeper meaning. To understand how the actions of one man 18 centuries ago, apply so directly to the struggles of right now. Rights now. For all who hate or celebrate, remember too look beyond the pink and red, and perhaps see the rainbow waiting behind it. Look past smoochy couples, and perhaps see how that kiss will not seal a wedding ceremony for so many of your friends, or for yourself.
We have come far. We have so much further to go. Single or in a relationship, If you believe in equal rights, smell a flower, eat a chocolate, and remember the man who started this fight.

Daddy's Girl On Board

Prompted by the book 642 Things to Write About, San Francisco Writers Grotto - "Your Father’s Car"


Let there be no mistake about it, I am a daddy’s girl. It’s rather strange actually, as I spent much of my formative years rarely seeing him, but he always fought to maintain as close of a relationship with me as he possibly could. That grew harder when my mother moved me to Texas just before I entered high school. He really came through for me after a bit (understatement) of drama between myself and my homophobic step-dad. On 10 hours notice, my dad drove 1,200 miles to pick me up and take me home with him. He did it in a red Ford Ranger.

In fact the red Ford Ranger, a secession of them actually, is the only vehicle I’ve ever known him to drive, It was the truck he taught me to drive in. It was the truck I crashed into a tree. It was the truck he drove me to middle school in every day, just to squeeze in 20 more minutes with me. It was the truck I rode around in the bed of surveying his family’s farm, or driving out to our favorite fishing hole. It was the truck I lost all bed riding privileges in when I jumped out at 25 mph to see what would happen. What happened was my first concussion. .

Most important, it was that truck we drove around in rather aimlessly to look at cows or houses or other things that didn’t really matter, while we had our deepest and most important conversations. I came out to him in that truck, and he accepted me. We talked about options for dealing with my teenage pregnancy in that truck, and he didn’t look down on me.  He explained things to me and assuaged my fears in that truck, and he promised not to tell anyone when I cried. When times were really hard, it was the truck where we talked baseball and checkers strategies Where we debated politics for fun, and he told me stories of his reckless teen years to get me to laugh. It was while riding around in that red Ford Ranger that it was the most abundantly clear how much my daddy loved me.

It’s been a long time since I rode in that truck. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my dad. Texas to South Carolina is a long and expensive trip, and he drives a much bigger truck for a living without much time off. I am perpetually cycling between taking college classes or working to pay for college classes, so a cross-country trip isn't for me either. I guess I am lucky to live in an environmentally friendly city with less than efficient but very affordable public transit, but it means I haven't driven a thing since the last time I drove that Ranger. It's been about ten years. 

But a warmer sun is rising now. I am finishing college and en route to my professional career. Daddy is getting closer to retirement and joining his daughters in Texas. He's also getting closer to Granddaddy; my partner and I are preparing  to become parents. I know I'll never be anybody's daddy, but I hope I can be to my kids what my daddy is to me. Not highly educated, but very wise. A checkerboard psychologist, who knows all he needs to know about a man by the way he moves his kings. A man who never stops believing in me, especially when I stop believing in myself. A hanger of stars and a deeply flawed saint. As if there were any other way to start treading his footsteps, I'm saving up for a down payment on my own red Ford Ranger.

Daddy and Me

Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, Columbia SC, 2006

(The tortoise behind us is 100 years old.)

To The Geekier Go The Spoils

          Let me state right of the bat this one point, You're Welcome. If you are wondering just what Mouse With A Machete, can do for you that is wondrous and amazing at this time, I bring you a post that not timely, nor topical. The results of the election, and the up coming month of madness are not featured or discussed herein. As a point, that should be made, I have already written too much about these topics in telling you I will not mention them further. So anyway, without another syllable of prologue, enjoy. 

Versus The Wall

They called him The Wall, because he always seemed to disappear into blank white space as you stared into his empty gray eyes.  He sat, straight backed with his hands clasped in front of him, on the Champion’s Table. This man had never been defeated and he was all that stood between me and victory, glory, and women.  It had been a long hard road since I signed my name on the competitors list at noon. It was now almost one and I left behind me a wake of steady-eyed carnage. I had taken out Lazy-eye Joe in an instant. The Conjunctivator was a worse challenge. The oozing pink goo made keeping eye contact difficult. After a long struggle of more than a minute the affliction that turned my stomach ended the engagement when the pink-eyed freak was forced to blink. It was a Pyrrhic victory. I had to reject the half-time hot-dogs because my stomach was still unsettled by the disgusting eye disease.

All that was behind me as I climbed the steps of the stage for my final contest. I nodded a greeting to my competitor which was not returned, and took my seat across from him. We both removed our glasses in preparation for the  battle. He sat motionless as I tensed and relaxed my hands, and rubbed my knuckles into my eyelids. His hands remained gently folded, and I placed mine flat on the table between us and leaned forward. The referee spoke.

“Ok boys, I wanna see a good clean fight, now.There’ll be no speaking, no making faces of any kind. This is the big show now so there’ll be no time limit, no ties. This is a battle to the blink!” We nodded our ready and the ref raised the indexes of both his hands and counted down “2...1...stare”

The first thing I was ever taught about staring contests, beside don’t look away, was too keep your breathing even. I counted my breaths, four in and four out, and locked my eyes on the gray pools before me. A true contender knows that looking at something and placing your eyes on it are very different actions, and the latter is the key to victory. The Wall knew this, too,  because I watched his eyes glaze over as mine did. He wasn’t seeing me at all, and less than a second later I wasn’t seeing him.  I felt a bead of sweat of my neck as I became aware of the judges watching us, two on each of us and one on the table. It’s an awful lot of people to be hanging around when you are doing your level best not to be distracted. I tried to return my thoughts to my breath in-2-3-4 out-2-3-4, but it was no use. The cloth on the table began to darken at the edges of my hands. I was a goner.
Silence is required during preliminary matches, though there is always a few minutes of loud celebration after each one. This is not the case at the final bout. After the starers pass the one minute mark anything goes from the audience. There are bets laid between fans on who will distract the players first, and by what means. It is, with certainty, a beautiful woman who takes home that prize. Once a man lost his concentration at the flashing of the side of a small but lovely breast. This year’s victor was chosen when his competition was distracted by a woman’s scent. Just a spritz of perfume was added to air near our platform. I enjoyed the familiar smell but my opponent, The Wall, was allergic. Not a second after the olfactory assault his nose wrinkled, his eyes teared, and yes, yes, he sneezed! The judges called it. I was the winner! I searched the crowd for the lady, my savior who sprayed the perfume. It was impossible to find her, there must have been ten people in that room. I shouted “Who was she? Where did she go!” as grabbed and shook the shoulders of my friend and coach. “Where is the girl with the perfume?” He just looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“There was no girl, dude. It was the Febreze Ninjas. They sprayed the whole crowd.” I hung my head. My deliverer was not a fair and lovely maiden, sure to join me in the hentai viewing room, but a small group of bandits who roam all Geek-Cons spraying air freshener at groups who are lacking in their hygiene. I took the trophy when my name was announced, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.