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My Name is Travis and Im From Ohio
09/11/00
Ohio Shit-Kicker There are a few rules of thumb when considering Ohio: the girls are buck wild and theres always pig shit in the air. Accepting this early gets you far on the adventure ticket of fun. Ive known this for years, being wise and from Ohio myself, but sodom by the bay has made Travis soft, so I feared. Ive been called a liar and a heartbreaker, but mostly im known as a shit-kicker in Ohio. There was a reputation to uphold. Luckily, some hard liquor reinforced my legendary status on that land-locked lovelorn land.
08/22/00
Beer Bong BlowingAre you from Ohio? Do you do beer bongs on weekends? Do you have any idea what im talking about? Christine is from Ohio and she orchestrated the beer bong party which commenced at 1715 waller, formerly bomb squad, this past Saturday. While there was the occasional stray it was a mostly Ohio romp through the greens of our kitchen and purples of our disco room cum makeout parlor. Ive been around the world people, ive seen some things, and let me tell you, Ohio girls take it to another level. Chrissy Hynde is from Ohio, okay, and so are some other people. Theres even a song called Franklin County Woman. It's about chicks in Columbus Ohio. These same Ohio girls tried to get me to bong some beer but I refuse to stick anything that shape into my mouth.
08/21/00
Rock and RollWednesday promised that my feet would hurt from bad shoes so I skipped the daily jog around Stow Lake here in glorious Golden Gate Park. No worries, I was going roller skating later. I haven't gone roller skating since I dressed up as a bad parody of an imitation of a trannys nightmare of Rollergirl a few Halloweens back. Shameful.
08/18/00
Camp'd Up
And so I return after nearly a week in the clutches of a wilderness untamed, a place where rivers tip canoes on unsuspecting types, and a town chockfull of crips, crooks and fatties, a place where geriatrics on oxygen tanks contemplate poker strategies in front of fabu-less bars. Im talking Russian River and Reno, two disparate lands explored over 5 span-tacular days that Candy and I wont soon forget.
Documenting everything with a camera is both wise and necessary. Wise because memories fade and necessary because drinking causes one to forget what one hasnt yet remembered. Whatever happened the night before our departure, the night at the Pilsner, is lost on me, the photos arent round to explain my confusion. You see folks, there was a lil thing that Candy and I like to call "the accident" which happened to us early into our week of fun, a river "accident" leaving Candys camera crippled in much the same way that the people of Reno are crippled, present in form, but otherwise lifeless. Being younger and wiser than Candy, I decided to leave my camera in the car during all watersport activities of which there were many. My concern for the safety of my Japanese spy camera has left me with over a hundred pictures to remind me of what actually happened over those 5 days spent away from sodom by the bay. "The accident" may have erased Thursday from our minds, but everything thereafter is here.
08/10/00
InbetweenerSo for the past two months ive been willing time to move faster, hoping that id arrive in that somewhere else space that I keep wondering about.*** Now, with only a handful of weeks left before I essentially vanish into Bohemia Im wishing that time would slow itself down. Im excited to get away from my surrogate home, but a touch anxious about the unknown of it all. Yeah, the unknown is scary but I like to be scared. Scared shakes me from complacency. And once the scared is over and all that is behind me, bittersweet kicks in. bittersweet things, fleeting things, nostalgia, these are a few of my favorite things. The closer October 6th gets the more bittersweet life feels. Im talking everything from friendships to napping in my room with the windows open. Already Im seeing bills for shows in early October as I make my way to the bus stop. It's that weird realization that things move on without much care for where you're at.
And there's lots of last time things Im starting to consider. Will this be the last friend I make who isnt a flake, the last time I introduce friends to friends and feel happy when they get all chummy #without# the use of pills, the last time I get photo booth pictures at Musee Mechanique, the last time I wait for a bus on Haight St. and get offered hash while listening to my discman, the last great record I buy at Amoeba that might turn into a Travis favorite****
When you're aware of things as they're happening, when you're aware that it's all about to change, end, start over, that's weird. Nostalgia and wishful thinking are all about places that don't really exist, except in your head. the present is just somewhere in the way lots of the time. Super Furry Animals may have said it best when Gruff sang, "it's not where you go, its not where you're at, its not where you've been, it's where you're between." Gruff smokes a lot of weed, so that might make more sense stoned, Im not sure. Anyway, my point is Im looking around, conscious of what will be absent from me in a short time for a long time. Things are pretty and things are funny and life is swell. Today is my Friday and tomorrow I go on my last roadtrip before Prague.
***taking too many drugs over one weekend may cause one to fall into the melodramatic clutches of insightful introspection which may be masked as enlightenment, all of which may appear on ones webpage.
****I plan to compile a list of my favorite records to post, because I have my finger on the pulse of the shit and to keep that to myself is plain selfish*
*as an Aries I am selfish by design and may never post the said list of T Favorites
07/27/00
Candy CoatedI am happy. I will not deny. I am blissed out and it's all due to Candy. Some of you might make mention of my said girl, Beth, in the promised land of Ohio. What about her, you might ask? Good memory. Beth is working her way out of the panty factory into a high profile 'I earned an English degree' gig where she hopes to meet a junior executive worthy of her assets. Plus, she says I'm too 'faggy.' We're breaking free and moving on. Sodom by the bay never looked more postcard perfect than on this cold foggy morning.
So, I've made a new friend and her name is Candy. Candy and I have been conspicuously absent from our respective social circles of late, all in part to the happy thing I was getting at. Candy and I are both of the Aries variety, something that makes us inherently 'fiery' and 'hot for ramming,' as Sean the Friend put it. With our birthdays only four days apart you'd think we might be real similar and stuff, but we're really not. Paula Abdul said it best in her 1990 number one single, Opposites Attract, "it ain't fiction, just a natural fact we come together cuz opposites attract."
Still, Candy and I have racked our brains out over the last few weeks, really we have, in an effort to come up with the common sticky that binds us together. Differences make us a 'fiery' item but what else? There had to be some commonalityÉWhile dancing around to Le Tigre in Candy's living room, which looks suspiciously like a non-homo bachelor pad circa 1982, I got the munchies, ran into the kitchen for a snack of sorts. Folks, Candy doesn't eat. Her cupboards are filled with expired pills and toys and empty boxes of crackers, but no food. Her refrigerator is stock full of fingernail polish, tonic and condiments. Condiments, yos. I was in heaven. Those prithee to my unique take on food preparation will understand, I eat like a freakin retard. The retardation, of which I now embrace, can be traced back to my stint as a latchkey kid (see below) during the mid-eighties.
As a latchkey type I had several hours to kill before mom opened the lid on the crock-pot 'round 6. But I never ate that crap, pork and carrots stewin like poo in an electric box for 12 hours is just nasty anyway you sip it. Instead, I opened up to a world of recipes which only exist inside my magnificent head. In between games of 'the killer is coming' (see below) I prepared haute cuisine that the likes of Ohio hasn't seen since. The only real criteria was that it had to be salty and easy to prepare without the use of an oven or any real kitchen tools/appliances/gadgets. On rare occasions I'd get all elaborate and make something for other latchkeys to munch on, but I'm an Aries remember, and we're selfish and impulsive by design. Now that I'm re-examining my Spartan-like eating habits I think I'd get along real well with the non-homo types in the prison yard during snack hour. They're sort of latchkey bad boys who eat simple foods, aren't they? I'm guessing since I've only been to prison once and that was also in the mid-eighties to visit my uncle who shot somebody in the mid-seventies. We shared a bag of Lays out of the vending machine. But I digress.
Condiments covering bread-type-things were my afternoon diet, and they still are. Favorites are as follows:
1. saltines dipped in tabasco smacked between processed cheese and cold cuts
2. pretzel ties dipped in cottage cheese (small curd) that's been pre-mixed with tabasco, italian spice and taco seasoning
There are many variations on this theme of hot and cheesy breadstuffs, but one thing is apparent, tabasco was and remains the staple to my food life. Tabasco is the condiment king and I like it spicy yos.
So I like it spicy and that brings us full circle as they say, back to the original question over opposite attraction. For no sooner did I discover our mutual love of condiments than I learned how Candy can't take the spice. She likes it on the downtempo mustard tip and mustard just ain't cool. Through all this talk of cheap and imaginative eats we discovered our true connection, the one similarity that binds us with sticky icky goodness, we like things cheap and easy, things like food and each other.
07/16/00 True Tales of a Latchkey Survivor:
Jaime Lee Curtis, My Love, My Mentor I never knew what a latchkey kid was when I was a little boy in rural Ohio. It was just another word for someone who wasnÕt me. but then I saw a WednesdayÕs Child report on some hapless orphan known as a latchkey kid; Geez, I realized, thatÕs me on the TV, that lil boy taking the long bus ride home, opening the front door with his Ôlatchkey,' welcoming the crock-potty smells of stewing pork roast, kickin it solo before mom walked through the door with Diet Rite and woeful tales of workÉmy name is Travis and I am from Ohio, I am also a Latchkey survivor.
When, at 9, I realized how I was living this alternative lifestyle, I went ecstatic because if it was on the TV, it was okay, normal, my life was validated. I could love myself, stop thinking of myself as the different one (my grandma still calls me a free-spirit). But more importantly, playing the unfortunate, the underdog, the afternoon-challenged has great dramatic potential.
Since leaving the hospital at birth, I knew that horror movies would ultimately raise me. DonÕt ask me why, I just knew, nature canÕt always be explained. Still, I kept this longing hidden for as long as possible, playing horror skits only in my head during the moments before sleep, waiting, wishing for the day when my weirdo ideas might be embraced by an unloving society. Serendipity happens and this is one such example. At the same time that I realized I was of the Latchkey variety my family purchased a VCR, allowing me to explore my horror roots that began somewhere in the mid-seventies, I now realize. It was apparent from the beginning that Jaime Lee Curtis was to become my surrogate mother, showing, rather than telling, me the fine art of the heroine performance.
Halloween, JLCÕs first role, establishing her early on as the scream-queen of late seventies horror, was the most formative movie in shaping the Travis you all fear today. Before she lost her self-respect by doing sultry bad-girl roles a la Fish Called Wanda and the leg-warmer drama, Perfect, she made a string of horror movies that inspired the latchkey performances airing exclusively in the back woods of my rural Ohio home during the Õ84 -Ô86 TV season. IÕd sit at the back of the bus, my head against the window, craving for that moment of escape when my latchkey slipped through the front door, unlocking the heroine inherent in my smart-boy stride. Only then was I truly in my own, free to concentrate on ways of escape from the evils (Michael Myers, JJCÕs on-screen brother from Prom Night, neighborhood bullies, lovely Ohio) that lurked about. Before reaching the back woods, with a butcher knife in one hand, IÕd stumble out the back door, shaking and giddy. Someone was trying to kill me; I loved it. After the requisite shake down, fall down into the grass, IÕd sort myself out, slip into the woods and keep running. JJC showed me how to out-wit the evil that was everything but me. She always lived, I always lived. I went home the happy heroine of my own private horror movie. If mom would have paid a little more attention to what I was doing with my afternoons from 3 Ð 5 she may have seen what was coming in the years to follow.
07/12/00 Eat the Muffin Im eating some complimentary jelly bellies (the asshole who originally pushed the popcorn jellies should be shot. uh, peanut butter too) listening to records, trying to stay awake. Today's musical theme is bad ass, and BRASSY are starring. Because i woke up with one of their catchiest of catchy songs in my head it had to be bad ass..."I GOTTA BEEF, I GOTTA BEEF, I GOTTA BEEF WITH YOU." Beef, yos. Brassy is import only here in the summer of 2000, but what you dont know is that Brassy's front-gal is John Spencer's lil sister, Muffin. I don't know how you guys choose your friends, but if an elfish girl named Muffin approached me with a beef to chew, id be all over that shit. being john spencer's sister there's a bit of that blues explosion going on, but it's mostly 2 minute pop orgasms a la elastica* gone grand royal. in the tradition of our old skool rap mistress, the original queen bee, roxanne shante, brassy spend half their record singing about how all them other girl groups are trippin. on track 9 muffin asks, WHO STOLE, WHO STOLE, WHO STOLE THE SHOW? and you know it ain't brittney.
*elastica used to be sweet and now they play with the fall and think themselves art. justine should get back on the junk and shut the hell up about her adult stylings. muffin would kick justine's ass. maybe her beef is with justine.
07/07/00 The Francine Three As some of you may know, i had some stuff here for awhile. it has vanished, no? some of it, such as the seminal piece about sodom and sausage is gone, forever perhaps. The bit about Linda Evans being homo and that being okay, well that's gone too. even small things like sean the friend taking his sexy sabbatical on fire island, you guessed it. The vanishing happened conveniently enough as i was about to reveal the identity of Francine Waters, a part-time stalker and full-time resident of Tulsa Oklahoma. Coincidence? I think not. Before i get ahead of myself let me explain a little about Francine's origin.
I began receiving theseemails awhile back, detailed accouts of a lonely middle aged woman from Tulsa. She was all tater tots and exclamation points, clever letters that smelled fishy yos. im talking a fake folks, a fugazi, a phony balogna. Here's an excerpt from the first letter:
I didn't really understand yourweb page very much. Why is watching Linda Evans homo?I don't like the word homo. My coworker Bobbie has a son who is that way, and she says that her son doesn't like that word. You know I'll admit somtimes I think gay people are a little weird and I don'tunderstand how they got that way, but this is God's planet and they must be here for a purpose. You should really treat them with more respect. I'd bet your friend Sean doesn't like the way you talk about gay people.You should really ask him if he likes it.
after the first letter i wrote back, "NICE TRY SUCKER!" like i really meant it, cuz i did. When subsequent emails from Francine followed i decided to do a little investigating. i came up with three possible culprits, three people clever enough to write the letters and fool enough to think they could play me like that. the francine three are as follows:
MATT, my ex-roommate in wisconsin. he's made a teen beat inspired shrine/site for anderson cooper* so i #know# he's got some time on his hands
BETH, my girl in OHIO, patiently waiting for me to return when at which point ill give her some babies. but she's the jealous type for sure. this may have been a trap to see if id try to make a cyber-love-connection with'francine'
ANDREW, the scientist from down the street here in sodom by the bay. all i gotta say is he's not from OHIO and the other two are. coincidence? I think not.
smug letters from the likes of our francine-type appeared in my inbox with each passing day. Like the calm boy i am, i called each of the Francine Three and told them this: "you may not be francine but you're one of three who might be and if one of you doesn't fess up, im gonna have to open my can of woop ass." Each of them said the same thing, 'not me, man.' Francine's identity still eluded me. i started having dreams that I WAS FRANCINE writing to MYSELF, but that's just retarded so it was discounted pretty quickly. it all seemed rather hopeless until saturday July 1,2000, the night of the shake-on in the bomb squad. Without any coercing the scientist approached an non-sober me to reveal the truth, that HE IS FRANCINE WATERS. the scientist seemed a little dissapointed that no cans were opened but i do think some punishment is in order. because sean the friend is hellbent on going homo full-time, he's being let go from my payroll. ill only say this once, sean the friend is no longer my resident homo. now, since the scientist is so clever and full of himself (remember the belle and sebastian shirt he wore to the pride parade because it was the faggiest non-faggy shirt he owned) i think he should stand in behind the curtain of sean's face and become my new full-time homo expert. beginning today, july 7,2000, all homo like concerns will be addressed to the scientist
*anderson cooper is some total homo anchorman for ABC world news at like 3 in the morning or something, just about the time all the homo bars close their dirty doors forcing all the fag-eyed hangers-on to find an after hours party or go home to the TV. coincidence? i think not
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Beth is from Ohio
Not the Johnstown Skate and Swim
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