The Legend of the Kuzins

Oh Lord, you know I’ve been good! Six weeks, seven weeks… Why, it might’a been nearly so much as eight.

I’ve been brushing my teeth. Flossing. Sometimes every day and once in a blue moon twice on Sunday. Washing behind my ears. No unladylike scratching in public.

No gloating over the misfortunes of my enemies, tempting as that might be. No obscenities across t-shirts that could cause a minor scandal down at the school PTA. No smoke entering these lungs cepting the smoke you, my Lord, hath put in the Houston sky by means of your most holy corporations.

And Lord, I know you’ve seen me around, now. You can admit this, just between Great Big You and Little Old Me.  I’ve been bright-eyed and bushytailed. A mother. A wife. A role model to children. A helper of old ladies across streets. A retriever for dwarves of the last box of Cap’n Crunch from the top shelf at Kroger. A giver of the properly calculated amount of change to customers – even to those customers who cannot or will not ever count it later on anyways.

That’s all over now, though, Lord. Katy turned over a new leaf, but the new leaf upped and died on the vine. You see, I have learned my lesson about new leaves. This here is the Story of How.

This here’s the story of a monster most terrible that was known as the Kuzins. And it was the Kuzins that killed my new leaf.

The Universal Brotherhood of the Experts on Everything

They say a lot of things, and one of the things they say is that there exists a species of hominid known as The Expert. Maybe it’s more of a tribe, really. An eternal secret society.

I picture them now – The Experts, I mean – standing around somewhere, experting. They’re wearing woolen hoods. Dark, woolen robes. The robes are tied at the waist with long golden ropes. You can’t see their faces, and if you did see their faces, you’d probably turn to stone for all the wisdom coming at you. And the eyes, the eyes sparkle with the knowledge that is full to bursting in the space behind them.

There might be nimbuses involved.  

These Experts, we don’t ever really see them, of course. You don’t and I don’t, that is. It’s probably because we don’t hang out in the right places – we don’t hang out in ivory towers, on mountain tops, or wherever it is The Expertsin those aforementioned long, dark woolen robes, with their hidden eyes, wherever it is they all hang out.

Would you… could you… ever deign to join their ranks?

Moondance Pie

Alright. C’mon. Let’s get started, shall we?

Take your seats, please. We are trying something new tonight. It is a first tonight for “Lesbians in My Soup.”

We’re experimenting with heterosexual men tonight. Specifically, with a fellow who goes by the name of Mooner Johnson. He is our GUEST. We are honored to have him!

Please give him your undivided attention. There will be a quiz at the end of the blog, and counselors will be available if you should feel you need to talk to one.

So with that, I give you our Guest Blogger, Mooner Johnson…

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So.  Whenever I pay a visit to a buddy blogger's place of business, like what I'm doing here, I don't ever know how to start things off.  You guys don't know me, I don't know you, so I have no credibility whatsoever.  Not that knowing me would grant credibilities, but as a full disclosure kind of guy I want you to always have everything you need to judge the truths and accuracies contained in my words.  I owe it to Katy to not fuck things up too badly. 

It's like with my good buddy BJ, who loaned his chain saw to a neighbor for a few hours' use.  Being a thoughtful and appreciative sort, the neighbor decided to perform some routine maintenance on BJ's chainsaw before returning the saw as a gift for its use.  He got on the INTERNET and found a volume of maintenance instructions posted by the saw's manufacturer with pictures and graphs, and even some videos for instruction.  Long story short, the nice neighbor totally fucked the chainsaw all the way up. 

Like BJ's neighbor, my native habit is to use my good intentions as tools of destruction.  I wrote some stories for this one buddy when he went to vacation last year, and The US Department of Defense shut his site down.  It wasn't my fault, mind you, but it was my doings.  So, your having a frame of reference through which to process what follows is vital.

Having said all of that, my name is Butcher Einstein “Mooner” Johnson, I'm an environmentalist who leans quite far to the left, I think Texas Governor Rick “The Pompadoured Prick” Perry is an asshole, and I am returning a favor to my beloved Katy wherein I will provide her with content for her website.  Katy's said favor was to produce a Public Service Announcement that she made for me when evil right-wing Christian conservative religious fuckballs spread rumors that I was having a big “open bar” party out to my place, and everyone was invited.

Everyone on the entire worldwide web.

Not that I don't like parties, it's just that I like to limit the percentages of evil right-wing Christian conservative religious fuckballs allowed entry out to my ranch.  I find that it takes but a small number of those assholes to reach critical mass and create circumstances under which I end up in jail.  Not that I mind jail all that much, but if I get jailed one more time before Halloween, my psycho therapist has promised to lock me up over to the Loony Bin and forget me.

I hate that fucking Loony Bin.

Every party I throw begins its guest list with at least one evil right-wing Christian conservative fuckball attending on a pre-confirmed RSVP.  That reservation would be made in the name of Mother Johnson, my mother, and mother likewise to my lesbian sister, Sister.  Which brings up a point.  Mother is my mother, Sister my sister, my grandmother is Gram, my father was Daddy and his father was Granddad.

Whythefuck am I Mooner?  I mean other than the fact that I'll drop my pants to my ankles and show you my ass for no apparent reason.  Then again, Brother would be a name that I wouldn't like and Sonny simply doesn't fit.  I'm many things, but I'm not your fucking Sonny.

Did I tell you I have a serious case of the dreaded ADHD and that fuck is my favorite word?  That little fact is likely the second thing I should have told you up there when I started.  I should have said, “My name is Mooner Johnson and I have the ADHD and blah, blah, and blah.” 

You could buy my silly fucking book, Full Rising Mooner, to get a full low-down on my world, or you could go over to my bloggie site and get confused for free.  The linkster stuff for the book is on the Bloggie Roller dealie.  I don't really give a shit either way because this isn't about me.  This is about social justice. 

Or is it about social injustice?  See what I mean about perspectives?

Probably not Mooner's house.
But how Katy pictures Mooner's house.

Since I've already introduced you to Mother and Sister, I'll use those two of the many strong women in my family to demonstrate my points.  When my sister exited my mother's womb, she came out feet first and shopping for Birkenstocks.  Sister was born lesbian and never had a closet to shed.  She was accepted as such by our entire family, including Mother, and she grew into a highly productive adult—even a model citizen.

Me, while I was always ready to defend her against any attackers, it was usually Sister who came to my defense.  Now, Sister is married to my third ex-wife, Anna the Amazon.  At six foot one, Anna is but three inches my junior and I'm stopping myself from telling you all sorts of stuff that you don't need to hear about my brief marriage to the blond goddess.  Let me summarize for you by saying that my sister is a typical American woman in every way except that her chosen life mate is another, mostly typical, woman.  I love them both and admire them as well.

My mother is likewise a typical American woman in every way, just so long as you like your typicals to be prejudiced, bigoted, and filled with the dogmatic religious idiocy of the Southern Baptist Convention.  I'm certain that my mother loves both my sister and me, but I'm just as certain that she doesn't like or approve of us. 

The certainty of her love is assumed.  Knowing that she dislikes and disapproves of us is rock-solid first-hand knowledge.

“I don't know what I have done to deserve having such an ungrateful heathen for a son and a homo-sex-u-al for a daughter.  God must think I've the shoulders of Atlas,” was Mother's martyred lament at breakfast a couple hours ago.  She always says the word homosexual like that, as if she's saying the word around a mouthful of dog shit.

Sister and Anna were out to the ranch this morning because today is “Pig Day” in my kitchen.  Every meal will feature fresh pork products carved from the carcass of a hog named Sweet Willie who was raised on a neighbor's farm.  As I am a terrific cooker of all things pork, Pig Day draws a crowd.  If I was to actually have a party this weekend, I would serve pig meat.

“What you have done to deserve us, dear Mother, is you've grown to become a bigoted, close-minded asshole who has forgotten how to think for herself,” I answered.  “You've gone from being a loving, gracious woman and turned into something unpleasant.  You and your Tea Bagger buddies have steeped your brew too long.  You're a bitter old bag with no love in your heart, and I think a major disappointment to Jesus.  You want some more bacon?  Smoked pig face?”

Smoked pig face is my favorite part of freshly cooked fresh hog.  I love the crunchy skin and ears and snout.  Most people turn all squeamish and shit just hearing about it.  And before you start on me about disrespecting my mother, stop.  Our current relationship is the result of decades of me bashing my head on the good son wall.  My mother is mean and vindictive and self centered.  And she lives in my home and eats my food, and she shits all over me and the people/things I love.  It has been only in the last month that I have allowed abrasiveness to enter my side of our relationship.  And I must tell you that it feels really fucking good!

OK, wait.  Maybe it feels really fucking well.  Hell, it feels good and well too.

“Answer me this, dear Mother, if you will.  If you Tea Baggers are all about small government and staying out of peoples' lives, why do you keep attacking homosexual people on every front?”

A germane question in these prickly times for American politics if I do say so myself.

“What part of 'God hates homosexuals' is so very difficult for you to understand, Mooner?  Are you so heretical a heathen that you deny God's word?”  Mother asked.

Now here my mother had set a trap for me and stepped into it her very ownself.  God has been making routine visits to see me and to tell me shit. “Well, Mommy Dearest, God came to visit me out to the dock just a few days ago and the Big Guy/Girl/Thing told me that you are full of shit.  His precise words were, 'Those silly assholes are full of shit.  Some of the best among you are homosexual.'  Then God and I discussed some of those gay people, like Lloyd and Katy and John Travolta.”

And don't you Katy readers even start on me about Johnny T.  That dog's done shed its hair.

“John Travolta is not a homo-sex-u-al, dummy, he's married and has a pilot's license and all of those big jet airplanes.”  My mother has interesting logic—the same logic used in many cases by right-wing bigots nationwide.

“But he is a devil worshiper, so you might have a point,” Mother added.  “Anybody who believes that some guy from outer space is God is a coo-coo if you ask me.”

Exactly.

“Well, Mother, my God is better than your God.  My Big He/She/It is loving and inclusive and only wishes that we earthlings learn to appreciate and care about one and another.  Your God is, in all truth and actuality, a narrow minded, bigoted asshole.”

Have you ever been around a narrow minded and bigoted fine Christian lady when somebody calls their God a narrow minded, bigoted asshole?

Anyway, I had a point when I started this but I don't even know what it was.  That's one of the frustrating things about the ADHD, you know, getting off track and then tracking off into the wilderness.  Oh, did I tell you about the three-way sex dream I had with Hilary Clinton and the Governor of New Mexico?  I love sex dreams.  I've met some incredible women in my dreams.

OK, I just hit 1,750 words and I haven't said squat.  So let me give you something to think about.  Whenever God comes to see me, we drink a few icy-cold Carta Blanca beers and shoot the shit awhile.  He calls me “Dude” sometimes, and sometimes He lets me ask Him questions.  I asked God this one question on his last visit, but he would neither confirm nor deny the veracity of my hypothesis. 

Here's what I presented to God.  I think that the Pope is Queen Elizabeth's maternal twin and they were separated at birth.  What do you think? 

Manana, y'all.

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QUIZ:

1. If Mooner’s sister, Sister, were to have a daughter, what would that daughter’s name be?

2. What was the symbolic significance of John Travolta in this blog post?

3. How would you describe the level of vulgar language in this blog post?

            a. Too much

            b. Too little

            c. Just about right

            d. What was vulgar about it?

4. What effect has reading this blog had on your likeliness to buy Mooner’s book?

            a. More likely to buy

            b. Less likely to buy

            c. No difference

            d. Been hearing good things about Finnegans Wake

Children & Priests & Lesbians... Oh My!

The re-Catholicization of Dana continues.

I don’t know how much I’ve already told you about this, but I am telling you now. There is a Bible on our nightstand. There is a Crucifix in the den. Not a Cross, mind you. No, a Crucifix, which is like the Cross that you would expect Christians to place in prominent locations in their homes, in their courts, and in their classrooms, except that a Crucifix comes with a little something extra.

A Crucifix comes with a tiny dying man-god nailed to it.

He might already be dead. It is sort of difficult to tell.

Don’t Call Us Cannibals!

Now, first you’ve got your zombies, and of course they get all the attention these days, don’t they? All of the glory.

It used to be your vampires, but then your vampires sort of… jumped the shark. Got all glittery. It’s like what happened with KISS and with Green Day: Once the prepubescent girls start digging something, it’s only a matter of time.

And I have to say that it’s not all bad, anyway, even with the zombies getting all the press time and what have you. It is always nice to have someone to blame. Someone to keep the heat off of you.

Off of me.

But still, the misconceptions can pile up pretty fast and furious, and after a week like last week, feelings tend to get hurt. Egos bruised.

So now I have been chosen as the one who gets to come out of the proverbial closet and clarify a few things. I have been selected – to the extent that people like us are ever organized enough in our thoughts and our actions to speak in a single voice – to speak on behalf of the group.

We do agree on one thing, and I’ll lead with it. If you remember nothing else that I say today, remember this: DON’T CALL US CANNIBALS!

Because here’s the thing. A quick history lesson before I move on to the heart of the matter. The word “cannibal”? It comes from “Canibales” which was the Spanish word for some people in the West Indies who (you guessed it!) consumed other people. And, well, if you know anything about the 16^th century Spanish Caribbean, you have already jumped far enough ahead that you know what it is that I am going to say next.

I am going to say don’t call us cannibals. I am going to say “Cannibal”  is our slave name.

It’s an insult. It’s a slur. We don’t even call each other that. Not even in our hip hop songs. You can confuse us with zombies. You can confuse us with vampires. You can say that we need to be tracked down and locked away and starved where we cannot hurt anyone else. But if you have any interest in holding a serious conversation with any of us, please don’t drop the C word (I’m looking at you, New York Times!).

These days, most of us prefer to be called “homophages”. Now, this word is not without problems of its own, and if you were to point out that “anthropophage”  is actually more… linguistically correct, you’d be right. But we’ve tried anthropophage – mostly as an elitist trend on the university level – and it’s never really stuck.

 So homophages it is. We eat things like ourselves.

When something like the Miami story breaks, all Hell breaks loose in homophage circles. Because of the dubious legality of what it is we do, we try to keep a low profile. Pop culture starts shouting about the Zombie Apocalypse. The media starts investigating some new street drug.

But we know. How could we not know?

Look at the guy who did the eating. He is the one on the left. Now look at the guy whose face was eaten. He is the one on the right.

As a general rule of thumb, if this had been a zombie attack, the roles would have been reversed. The guy on the right would have eaten the guy on the left. Zombies don’t look like the guy on the left. Zombies have bad skin. Sometimes no skin.

And zombies don’t seek out an old homeless dude whose own family did not even know he was still alive. Zombies start gnawing on whoever is convenient. This is the reason there is no zombie underground. It is hard to be subtle in your tactics when half your brain is putrefied.

A homophage is not going to eat your mother. You can invite a homophage to your wedding reception and be reasonably certain that the guests will all leave in one piece. We even know which utensil is the salad fork and our hand will not fall off while we’re reaching for it.

Homophages perform an invaluable service to society, a service comparable to houseflies or earthworms or grubs. We only eat the folks that nobody wants, anyway. Homeless people and anarchists and atheists and boy bands. We clean out the dregs.

Hollywood might not be doing flips over us. There aren’t going to be video games series and books and adaptations of great literature incorporating us.

But still.

You’re welcome, America.

Here is the thing: We homophages choose to live as we live. We are not a dead, buried and then resurrected people who, through some strange, never-quite-explained infection are compelled to feast on human flesh in order to remain reanimated.

We are not zombies. We are not vampires. We are not bath salt addicts.

We are homophages. We are your mothers. Your daughters. Your neighbors. We are even your ministers and your bosses and your elected officials.

We are just people who enjoy eating other people. We chose this life and, as the Catholics say, without free will there is no merit.

We’re here. You’re dinner. Get used to it.