The Virgin Prince's War Journal

To those of you with an aesthetic sense,

When I was young there was one thing I particularly wanted. It wasn’t the complete line-up of the Super Powers action toy line, nor was it a full compliment of He-Man figures, though those were a close second and third. No, my one desire was a tuxedo. My one recessive British gene somehow survived my plucky ancestors’ fateful voyage across the Atlantic in their mighty Mayflower, and manifested itself in a desire to dress myself in a black top hat and tails. You see, from a young age I had a pretty decent sense for what looks good. Not that I ever got that tuxedo, though I have made great efforts towards building myself up a fine selection of suits, and even wore a top hat for the majority of high school.

It was a classy gray hat, handed down from a relative, who himself had received it from a strange motorist while hitchhiking; not one of those tacky, generic black ones that dumb kids without a sense of individuality pick up at Hot Topic to look cool, or the kind of “beaver-skin” topper that vapid chicks buy to further fit in with their swinger friends. The hat served me well through the years and earned me a lot of nicknames (notably, “the Penguin”) until I finally retired it, after years of consistent use in all manners of weather had caused it to warp and lose shape. I’ve since misplaced it, though how a top hat disappears, I have no idea. I’m sure, however, that should I ever follow up on every man’s dream of becoming a hobo, the Lady of the Lake shall appear in a water fountain, public urinal, or bottle of Guiness to return the singular top hat with unmistakable character to me.

Other items of note within my wardrobe are my black double-breasted suit which I once used during daring spy missions (I’m amazed at the quality of the suit in how well it was able to withstand the stress of being worn as I scaled up onto rooftops, furthermore, its bulletproof weave seemingly also made it impervious to vomit), the powder-blue bellbottomed suit I used to wear when I felt like imitating Karl Kolchak (complete with ancient camera and straw hat), and a red and black checkered tuxedo jacket which allows me to channel Alan Freed every time I wear it.

As it works out, I’ve been spending a lot of time with old flings of late, and every reunion merely seems to remind me of why I never stuck around in the first place. Every girl I link up with seems to be too self-absorbed, thoughtless of others, and generally has at least one psychological condition. Furthermore, I rarely feel any sort of spark. The cynical, overly picky person I tend to be quickly finds flaws with nearly everyone. Now I seem to be comparing everyone I see with the standard I set for my ex; not the person she was necessarily, but more-so the person I thought she was. Whether she existed or not, I know how happy I was capable of being at one point, which I’m never sure whether it’s a help or a hindrance. I’ve hooked up with far too many a harpy in my time, damaging emotional vampires that I’m really not quite sure how I keep attracting. This leaves me often wondering which I’m more frustrated by: the lack of women in my life, or the quality thereof. It’d be swell to get a nice girl for a change, but I suppose the perverse logic of the universe seems to dictate that just as I keep somehow finding myself stuck with these loveless gorgons, the nice women on the other side of the coin seem to keep finding themselves attracted to men that gift them with black eyes, or knock them up to then leave them for the arms (or spread legs) of other women. I’ve certainly flirted with enough unhappy, married women to get this impression fairly well.

I’m off point. The point is, yesterday I was hanging out with a female friend with whom at one time I’d spend the mornings making out before work. It was the first time I’d seen her in a few years and, assuming that she had grown and changed a bit in that time, I’d asked her to come Christmas shopping with me, as I was interested to hang out with her and see the sort of person she’d become.

The same. Boring.

But despite the fact she hadn’t grown much of a personality, I really attempted to make the best of our situation. I tried, despite the fact it was difficult to even talk with her, her ability to converse, nil, and even stringing simple sentences together as a response seemed a bit beyond her. She tended merely to restate my statements, back in my direction. No wonder all we ever used to talk about was sex. I could barely even look her in the eye as the awkwardness was overwhelming, trying desperately to talk with this girl that just couldn’t talk. When she did speak, it was to make, far too often, a comment of how she still needed to lose 7 more pounds at least from her already frail frame. Her anorexia aside (which has become disturbingly obsessive) her only other topic of conversation was of how she thought she may very well be pregnant, as she’s gone back to sleeping with the 6’7 Armenian alcoholic jock she doesn’t actually like (she’s got the hots for another, but he’s too shy, and hasn’t yet made a move on her), and his condoms keep slipping off as he drunkenly has his way with her (an apartment’s-worth of his buddies all sitting in the other room, hearing quite well the whole show), and how he was unwilling to take her out to get the morning-after pill.

Needless to say, I was quite happy to get away from the evening on my own once more, the knowledge fairly firmly planted in my head that it would most likely be a few more years before I saw her again.

There was one break in the awkwardness, however, and this brings me to the subject. As we wandered through the shops, it was quickly apparent that she was more interested in browsing the clothing stores for herself than she was in actually looking for presents. This brought us to the topic of modern apparel, a topic on which we argued greatly.

I feel that ever since the introduction of the powdered wig, at which time fashion unquestionably peaked, the state of fashion has been in decline, losing prestige with every decade. People simply just don’t have an idea for what looks good anymore.

Back in the twenties, kids wore dress-shirts and slacks just to play stick-ball in the streets, and that was the working class! I shake uncontrollably in sheer envy of the finery that must have belonged to the children of the wealthy, those truly fortunate, personified examples of just what a dandy could be. Can you imagine how well most people looked, even in the midst of the American depression? Jeans were reserved for the workers, and for crusty old prospectors and dirt-encrusted cowboys out west. Back in the civilized world, in the modernized, mature America that was slowly stretching towards the west coast from its established home off the Atlantic, it was a time of trousers, of suspenders, of white button-up shirts, and respectable coats. It was the time of the fedora, the bowler, the flat cap, the pork pie hat, the boater, the straw hat, the Gatsby cap, and even the top-hat.

I look now at the sorry state of clothing and feel both a sensation of disdain for my fellow homo-sapien, and a pang of regret for having been born in this late period of time. I fail to see the lasting appeal of a girl’s pink t-shirt decorated in the sentence “my boyfriend’s out of town” or the allure of a black t-shirt with a star drawn upon it and the statement “porn star”. Why wear t-shirts that only serve to expose the stomach, one of the key areas that it is a shirt’s very job to cover? What is the appeal of wearing clothing that is specifically designed to largely advertise a brand-name or clothing company logo? Is there some sadomasochistic enjoyment to be had from treating oneself as a whored-out billboard, not paid for one’s efforts but rather paying extravagant amounts to the very company advertised on the item of clothing? I just don’t get it. Modern clothing sucks.

You can all stick to your big puffy FUBU jackets, and your gaudy items of Tommy Hillfiger clothing (which really just resemble the apparel of a Safeway employee anyway). I’ll stick to suits. Suits never go out of style and have existed, with gradual changes, over several centuries now. Compare this, by contrast, with, say, the failed Cross-Colours clothing line of the early 90’s.

I remember, in the days of my youth, seeing the kids of my school dressed in the gaudy, gaudy colors of this line of clothing. I believe the idea was to make a line of clothing that represented the historical and symbolic colors of Africa, yellows, and reds, and browns, and greens. It was a nice concept perhaps, but niceness doesn’t do a thing to make up for being hard on the eyes. It was particularly funny to see the numerous Caucasian males of my town dressed in the eye-torturing colors of African heritage, particularly, the image of a fat bully I knew, fully decked-out, comes to mind. Boy, did he look ridiculous; by the start of the next school year, I never saw him dressed in that particular set of gaudy wardrobe ever again.

Of course, I knew at the very first time I saw this very briefly existing collection of clothes that they were god-awful. It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong, though I’ve not found anyone to challenge my opinion on this yet, and perhaps I should also point out that I was quite aware of the inherent lameness of M.C. Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Snow, and the New Kids On the Block while the rest of young America was quite willing to offer up themselves in sweet surrender. Do I even need to point out that I was hip to William Shatner and his musical stylings long before Boston Legal was a hit show, and the release of his current critically-acclaimed album (and re-release of his classic album) or his current SERIOUS airplay on public radio stations? Do I need to bring up that I was vocally all for the resurgence of the classic kiddie-treat The Transformers when it was uncool to do so, long before Steven Spielberg decided to make a live-action movie out of the franchise?

I’ve taken a lot of crap from people in my time for not going along with the crowd, not attempting to fit in with their narrow concepts of normal society, but to me it’s clear as day. I know what’s cool.

And I beat everyone else to it by about 3 years. Give me time; Tim Curry is going to hit a huge resurgence in popularity.

For now, I’ll let you all have your doubts; I’ll let you stick to your concepts of cool and uncool. As for myself, I’ve got it all figured out. The key, if you haven’t figured it out already by looking at the very coloring scheme of my webpage, is to stick to the lessons taught by Batman’s rogues gallery. Rule number one: always wear a suit, and rule number two: stick to green and purple, and sometimes black. It is a keen sense of fashion that has contributed greatly to the lasting popularity of these vile characters. It is a talent for style (in addition, I suppose, to good character development) that has kept characters like the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, and (my favorite) the Riddler, well-known names, while, for example, Spiderman’s group of foes is memorable for being little more than a group of boring guys in animal costumes.

Honestly, Earth, Wind, and Fire have more flair.

Of course, you can all protest if you want to, but the truth of the matter is that the suit will still be alive and well when we’re all dead and buried. I just hope it won’t be made of sparkly metallic material at any time within the next few centuries. Well, I’m off to dream of Gilbert & Sullivan inspired bliss.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince

“Mr. Spock, on your planet, women are logical. That’s the only planet in this galaxy that has that distinction.”
-Captain Kirk

To all you vertebrates on Valium, Vicadin, Viox, and Viagra,

It’s been one of those days where I just can’t stop singing “The Edison Museum” to myself, though I know virtually none of the lyrics , thus, I hum most of it. I’ve been humming this fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore, because my mind is afflicted with the condition of having far too much thought going towards Brian Dewan. Perhaps it’s the entirely unique sound of his self-built zither that has me so entranced, or perhaps merely his mastery of lyrics in terms of folklore and originality, or perhaps still it’s his distinctive singing voice, I couldn’t say. What I do know is that I’ve been getting 3:00 a.m. urges to hear “Rumplestiltskin”, and when I wake up in the morning, a listening of “99 Cops” is my first thought, and, seemingly, a requirement if I’m to be stirred from rest. It’s like a strong cup of joe, 15 See’s sugar-sticks, a Jolt Cola mint, and an act of physical appreciation as performed by a lithe young Brazilian female dressed in a sailor outfit, all rolled into one.

I used to like Brian Dewan, but these past few days, his musical works have affected me like the second coming of Johnny Cash. Maybe there’s just something to guys that build their own experimental instruments. It certainly worked for Queen’s Brian May, and Devo, for that matter. That short little student film with the prototype electronic drum set gained viewings spanning the world, gaining many a Japanese imitator in the process, and stopping along the way in Germany to further apply an impression on Kraftwerk.

Whatever the case, I blame my old pal Super-Crowl, for turning me on to this bizarre, classically-trained innovator of modern music.

Old Super-Crowl would swagger into the coffee shop where we used to all hang out between classes, slump back in one of the couches, open-legged, and immediately figure out a way to bring up a frank discussion of what usually turned out to be sexual experiences and histories. Somehow, he was the one guy that could pull this off without seeming at all like a lecherous old pervert, though certainly, he was a small bit lascivian, this was unavoidable, but his sense of humor, that ever-present slight-grin, and that small bit of feigned innocence he always used in his defense, always kept him in our good graces. Sooner or later, there’d be the inevitable command, “Cut your hair!” spewing from his mouth whenever my hair got a little too shaggy, or I went a few days too many without shaving.

This, of course, was a line from one of his favorite Brian Dewan songs, whom, in time, he would educate us about.

Of course, back in those days I went by the name of “Big Beard”, a name Super-Crowl himself had picked for me, due to my lack of any real ability to grow facial hair, and based on the name of a beardless soldier, crudely drawn on the back of the cardboard packaging for some cheap $1 G.I.Joe knock-off, that came with a helmet that didn’t fit (the head already had a hat sculpted on to it), a TNT (or moonshine) barrel he couldn’t hold, and an arm that was already snapped off when the toy was still mint in package. Of all of us in the core group of male friends that loitered around that coffee shop, we all took names from the poorly-drawn group of soldiers pictured on that brown cardboard. The Lusty Lascivian, who had bought the toy, as I recall, became “Sea-Hank”, which we all assumed had to be a misprint. Super-Crowl became “Captain J.B.”, though I often called him “Captain B.J.”, as there was no question he was easily the seasoned commander of our small squad. Neither of his names really stuck, however, both lacking the inherent machismo and grandeur of names such as “Big Beard” and “Sea Hank”.

The day I first met my tall pal, we were both sitting on opposite sides of the same coffee table, around which all of us young slackers would center ourselves. We’d never spoken before, but we knew the same people, and it was he that spoke first. As I recall, at the time I was manhandling a Transformer, a scarab I’d bought for $5, and was transforming as a matter of curiosity. It was at this point the big guy randomly asked me a question about what I recall to be the topic of cunnilingus. I didn’t know how to respond, having no knowledge of the subject, I, being very much a virgin prince. There were two or three others of pure virtue amongst our number of friends, though I was singularly noticed, being the only virginal male of the pack; Mr. Mystere, the prude from New England, having left our number for his journey to Fresno.

Being surprised that he had stumbled upon one with such purity and naiveté as myself, old Super-Crowl downplayed the revelation with the simple statement which would soon become a commonly-stated catchphrase used only between him and I.

“Someday, you will be a passionate man!”

It wasn’t long after that “Big Beard” preceded the statement, and Super-Crowl and I were good pals. By then, I had developed the “evil eye of Big Beard” and had my own trademarked catchphrase I used in response to my tall pal. Those were fun days, when we were care-free wild-men, our biggest concern the songs of sock puppets, and the occasional boxing match. We were all so young then, myself, Cap’n B.J., Sea Hank, Immoral B, Foxy Valentino, and Mr. Mystere. Those were the days of Hawaiian shirts and bell-bottom jeans, and barely a hair graced my chest.

As the time has passed, we’ve all seen less of each other, the Cap’n having become a virtual phantom, rarely heard from and even more scarcely seen. He calls about three times a year, whenever a notable holiday occurs. Foxy Valentino left us for the warmer climate of Southern California, and now only pops up for brief periods of time, most of which are spent by him, the Lusty Lascivian, and I, drinking whiskey, running, and eating pizza. Mr. Mystere has become a bit of a hermit, or at the very least, doesn’t like going outside when it’s dark. Immoral B and the Lascivian have become less sociable as well, either for reasons of rarely seen girlfriends, or for an over-commitment towards work.

As for all the other friends of mine from the days before or directly following the time of coffee table conversation, I’ve nearly completely lost touch with all. My buddy The Castle occasionally calls from Florida with tales of leaving freshly-baked pies on the porch-steps of females he’s attempting to woo, and he notably has much less success than he did when he was on the western coast of the country. I hear from him probably only about once a month, and of all my friends with whom I was once very close, either before, or following the time of B.J., Big Beard, and Sea Hank, he’s the only one I hear from at all.

It amazes me just how many friendships have slipped through my fingers. I suppose this is why I’ve been incredibly impressed by my good pals the Red Rightwing, and the Caroling Canuck. Where the rest of my friends are slowly losing contact, and enabling our friendships to slowly dissipate, the two-fisted two from Santa Cruz have been remarkably consistent in calling me and in joining me in hijinks. The three of us even walked away from a car crash together. Their good friendship hasn’t gone unnoticed by me, and I was more than happy to petition the government on their behalf to ensure the risk of deportation wouldn’t remove them from American soil.

I must say I continue to be surprised at the way things turned out, considering the Red Rightwing and I had never been particularly close in our earlier days, he seemingly feeling much more comfortable in the company of Immoral B or Mr. Mystere when we were in, and fresh out of, high school. We were initially just casual acquaintances, meeting through them. Likewise, the Caroling Canuck was a complete stranger to me, up until the day she wed ol’ Red, which was the first time I met her. I think we shared a “Hello”, and that was all I knew of her until we hung out again, which must have been months later. The amount of times we’ve hung out since could still probably be counted on my fingers and toes. Yet these people, who both started out as perfect strangers, still call me for every party, and always leave a futon or tent free for me at every carousal.

All said, I’m glad to have people like them as friends.

I’ve traveled terribly off-subject haven’t I, starting with Brian Dewan and meandering over to my friends Red Rightwing and the Caroling Canuck? Not at all! For you see, just this past Friday night I engaged in a loud and boisterous rendition of “The Edison Museum” while at their abode. When I was done singing about the “oldest, greatest, and most famous haunted mansion in New Jersey”, the room had cleared, but I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

Still beats the Black Eyed Peas.

Or Sublime.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince

To all of you, be you bipedal or bipolar,

Ah, they just don’t build them like they used to. I’ve spent the last few hours assembling artificial light-up reindeer, so that we might make the Virginlair that much more festive and enjoyable for when my young niece visits this Christmas. She’s a precocious thing, and smart enough that she’ll know a string of lights when she sees one, but perhaps the deer-shapes will be pleasing enough to her eyes, she being at the perfect age for the peak of imagination. As for myself, it seems rather silly that I’m assembling reindeer out of Christmas lights and metal wire, for the sake of having simulated deer in my front yard. It wasn’t that long ago that we had real deer in the neighborhood, even after there were million-dollar mansions built on the hill across the street from us. When those went up, all we lost was the lone wolf that used to trot peacefully down the sidewalk across the street from my house.

But even after I lost my late-night drinking buddy, they kept building. Every place for blocks all around us that hadn’t yet been completely claimed by man, every place where there were still trees and brush, every place where you could still see deer, skunk, foxes, and garter snakes, every place we’d played and hiked and hid and ran in our youth, every place we’d smoked a joint in high school, or snuck a drink of our parents’ booze (or urinated that same booze) or some weird person kept dumping their trash (which frequently included car parts, old copies of Penthouse and other nasty pornography, and the discarded packaging for a penis enlarger pump), all of it, it was all bulldozed. Fences went up, cutting us off from the paths between the trees looming large over our heads that we’d once walked freely through, and every shelter filled with trees that once had seemed so massive and magical, became just a small city-block’s worth of cold, sterile dirt, on which sat nothing but a few yellow earth-moving machines.

I admit I tried to sabotage the machines once or twice.

There was a condo here, a townhouse there, some apartments to the left, and to the right, the large houses to suit the yuppies moving into my neighborhood. But not a single speck of dirt left to play in, it’s either been built over by now, or has a fence around it to keep us off, meaning they will be building soon. The deer, which we once saw so frequently, have retreated onto the grounds of the college, which still has some unpaved hill left behind it, stretching all the way back to the prison. The skunks wander through the streets of the neighborhood behind me. Funny, that the creature otherwise known as the wood pussy has taken to wandering city streets, though its current close proximity towards streetlamps and stop-signs would explain its other name of polecat.

The short end is, I’m putting deer made of metal wire and plastic lights in my yard to replace all the deer that used to actually be in the neighborhood. My neighbors are too, especially back there in skunk-territory. I’d rather have a bush trimmed to look like a condominium.


So I built these monstrosities, these messes of wires ready to catch fire and motors waiting to burn out. Though the instructions brought new definition to the term “lacking”, and the pieces fit poorly, and other pieces weren’t included entirely, and the materials themselves were flimsy and tended to fall apart at the slightest touch, I probably could have finished the deer in under an hour. But I found things to fix.

The first reindeer was weighted wrong, and tended to fall face-forward and to the left, and came straight out of the box with an already busted light bulb, but it was of heartier construction, and the motor worked well and the beast’s neck swung properly to the left and right, as might a proper old-school rapper (particularly, Run DMC, in moments of shaking their heads in disdain at Penn & Teller, come to mind), so I quickly finished, knowing I would simply fasten the thing to the ground with stakes. The second deer fooled me. I initially thought this would be the better of the two as it was weighted better and the parts fit properly, and it being considerably easier to assemble. But as I attached the pole to the headpiece which caused the motor to bring the neck and head up and down, I found that I was not given the clip the instructions told me use to fasten the wire. Shoddy work! So I bent a paperclip and used that in its place. This would have been fine, except then as I tested the motor, the piece into which the pole slid broke off entirely, having snapped off due to poor design and cheap soldering. This sort of thing happened to me once before with a pair of Laser Tag guns.

As I had fixed (and had made better) the Laser Tag guns in my garage in the latter days of my youth, so did I attempt to fix the deer. I attached the rod to several other pieces of the neck, attempting to bypass the rod-holder entirely, and being successful in achieving movement, though the range of movement for the neck was quite disappointing. Thus, I detached the rod and reattached it to other parts of the neck, trying each time for better movement. Still, the motion was lacking, so I figured out where the rod-holder had been and reattached it even better than it had been originally with the help of two paper clips and a pair of needle-nose pliers. It was now ready once again to be assembled as the builders had intended.

However, by this point both the rod and the rod-arm had detached themselves, thanks to the movement of the motor and, again, shoddy craftsmanship. Again, I reattached these both better then before with a paperclip and a little motivation. The beast was assembled as the manufacturers had intended. The neck movement still sucked. During all this time, the cheap plastic material of the body had continued to crumble and fall off with each time I touched it, causing me to want to finish repairs as quickly as possible.

I dug through the garage until I found a bolt, which I attached to the end of the rod, thus reducing the slack and causing the head to lift higher. Of course, the actual mechanics of the rod, rod-arm, and motor were so poor that they tended to catch on them selves, again, reducing the movement of the neck. On and on I continued, bending the rod arm one way, then the other, then trying to keep the rod straight with a washer (which I couldn’t find, so I then customized one out of something I found in the garage). The results stayed the same with everything I tried, undid, and tried a different way. I assembled and reassembled the thing in every possible combination and configuration until I finally realized that some things are simply crappy.

I’ve even gone over and checked on the damn thing a few times while writing this, just looking for some possible way to fix it.

Poor design is poor design, and I have it assembled now as intended. This deer is the Ford of Christmas decorations, having a motor too weak to move the counter-balance, a counter-balance that drags along and catches on the body’s interior, being too large, placed too low, and too far back, and a rod and rod-arm that are built too close to the counter-balance and are insecure and unstable (sounds like my ex), making worse the problem of the counter-balance, and worst of all, shoddy parts that come apart on their own. Forgiving that this deer doesn’t even have antlers, I’m left to accept that the best this thing can do is a slight, arrhythmic nodding, similar to a boxer past his prime. Perhaps if I had the time, money, and materials, I could get the thing running perfect, but I doubt it. I think this is a case of junk simply being capable of being junk.

That said, old Darryl “DMC” and Mohammed Ali are ready for being tied down in my front yard. Furthermore, my carpet needs a good vacuuming, as it is now covered in golden-plastic bits and metal shavings. Ah, but my niece will be excited!

I wish all things could be as simple as plastic reindeer. Certainly women are not, and my most recent ex-girlfriend is certainly no exception, though I doubt half the time even she can make sense of herself. Whatever the case, unlike the screws on my shoddy decoration, she simply won’t let go.

I had hoped that she would give me some space for myself, I, having developed quite a taste for it during the two months she decided to ignore all the efforts I’d made to keep a friendship alive between us, and stubbornly decided to stick to insults rather than apologies, and silence rather than compassion. I haven’t forgiven her, and don’t rightly think I have an obligation to. This is my right. I have put up with nonstop pettiness and cruelty on her part during the length of time I have known her and I think have a right to act perhaps a bit small myself for a change. If she hadn’t wanted me to come to this realization, she probably shouldn’t have stopped calling even before I last called her, and further compounded the problem by stubbornly and selfishly giving me two months of silence in which I had plenty of time to contemplate many things, our entire relationship and personal history included.

But unlike her, I’ve made no claims of a huge metamorphosis, in which I’ve completely turned my back on my bad ways, and now am so forgiving and far from petty. Furthermore, I’ve shown more compassion to her than any, short of a holy man, ever would, having comforted her when she freaked out because her boob-job didn’t quite take initially, stayed up talking to her when she broke down in the middle of the night, due to a lack of alcohol in her system, and, with tears in my reddened eyes, called her best friend so that she might make sure my former amour was safe and not going to do something dangerous in the aftermath of my own conversations with her in which she’d confessed to taking pills again, then proceeded to say the worst, cruelest things to me I have ever heard. I did all this because I cared. I was there whenever she needed comfort or to be cheered up, and I put great effort in that direction.

So I say, without any shame or feeling at all that I am being less than truthful, that I have known forgiveness and compassion. While she is trying to find it, I’ve already had it. And having made no claims about a great personal change, I feel I have a right to be petty. There it is. If she’s really so changed, then she should prove it. I, myself, have made no such claims. As was always the case in our relationship, I, for one, have no problem admitting when I’m wrong. I am being petty.

I simply don’t care. This is part of the healing process, and if she doesn’t give a damn about my need to feel better, and my well-being, then she’s simply proving herself to further be the incredibly selfish person I currently view her as. I had told her, in my last letter, in as civil a manner as possible, that this was how I felt. She acted as if she could deal with this maturely in her response.

So I find it funny that this person who claims to be experiencing a great chrysalis, a change in which she is becoming an entirely positive person and shedding the negativity which she once contained in spades, chooses to continue to write snide remarks consistently on her website (this being prior to any mention of her on mine, but actually starting immediately after my email response, effectively contradicting all she had written, hence my doubts of her sincerity) and continuing to do so in increasing intensity, and obsessively reading my own site and posting more of her own criticisms, negativity, and immaturity in my comments.

I certainly didn’t ask her to read my webpage, and certainly did not expect her to, she always complaining of how lacking my writing is. But I find it funny that while she gripes and complains and makes petty comments within the safety of her own webpage (and has been doing so for sometime) she fails to see my own right to express my own honest feelings within my own webpage. It’s the type of hypocrisy I’ve come to expect from her, and I’m further not surprised she’s already chosen to ignore my request of personal space, filling my comments box.

But I have a great emotional strength and feel moral righteousness on this matter for two reasons. One, I feel completely right in my heart. Two, unlike her, I can be honest with myself, with her, and everyone else. I AM being petty.

And if she does give a damn about my friendship, then she’d better learn to let me have that for right now, because I’m not yet ready to forgive, though I know I’m willing to eventually.

It’s still better than she deserves.

So let’s see if there’s any truth to these claims of personal growth.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince

To all you fans of leavened bread,

Ah, another glorious Sunday, and nothing quite ends the evening as beautifully as William Shatner performing yet another wonderful musical number. For a change I’m excited about this upcoming Festivus, knowing that not only is a new Shatner album available on the market, but the great almighty (Johnny Cash) has further smiled down upon us, and Shatner’s classic album, The Transformed Man, has been re-released! To think I used to tirelessly search Ebay for long-out of print copies, never able to secure one, due to my inability to spend $50 bucks. I may now purchase one new for less than $10! Huzzah!

Add in the fact that I’m still without a copy of Bill Clinton’s and Mikhail Gorbachev’s reading of Peter and the Wolf, and I’m similarly lacking Vic Mizzy’s whimsy-packed soundtrack to the Don Knotts classic The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (the soundtrack for which he first developed the trademark “Don Knotts Sound”), and there’s a lot of potential for holiday gold in my stocking this year. Or I could always receive a copy of The Federalist Papers with which to snuggle up, or a copy of Bill Clinton’s My Life, with which I could scare my Republican friends during a midnight reading, next Halloween. Oh there’s so many wonderful things still left out there, The Revenge of the Nerds soundtrack, or Tim Curry’s many albums, or even the crazy-space-sounds of the early-80’s soundtrack to Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, all of which are still available with a little help from the almighty dollar.

And by almighty dollar, I’m referring to the currency up in Canada. Here in the ‘States, we couldn’t trade our paper money for toilet paper, now that Bush has devalued the heck out of it, as he works his way up to a Trillion-dollar deficit. I know what I want for Christmas! How about a Presidential impeachment?

It’s been far, far too long since I’ve seen Don Knotts or Jonathan Winters in anything. Well, I did see Jonathan Winters in a commercial for Las Vegas recently, but that’s just completely below his caliber. It’d be like casting Don Knotts for a commercial for the past year’s biggest pop hits, featuring Britney Spears! Oh wait. They did that a few years back.

It was almost as insulting as the time Britney Spears dressed up in Elvis’s white sequined jumpsuit.

On the subject of Elvis, my sideburns are finally growing back in! Thank goodness. I’d felt naked without the boys, ever since I shaved them off to further increase my chances of finding employment. Not worth it. Better to have a good looking set of sideburns than a commitment to labor.

I wish I could find myself another pair of “Captain Kirk boots” that fit. Those pointy-toed, gleaming black beauties fit like a glove, and every time I wore them I felt the confidence of a young Shatner, and was ready to tear my shirt in unarmed combat with any lizard-creature that would face me. Too bad my feet grew. So I picked up a couple more pairs of mystical, flying Vice-shoes today instead.

I miss going out and tearing up the town. I’ve been spending far too much time here in my Fortress of Fortitude, what with the reading, writing, cooking, and running. The cats have accepted me into their tribe. Time to get out.

I’ll have to round up the other members of the Genius Society, they’ve all been far too antisocial, and they too have spent far too much time in their respective caves. I miss the cool night air on my face as I zip through the city streets, and the sighs of female passersby as I jump from roof to roof. I miss being ejected from public places and the concerned looks that my chums and I seem to elicit from the civilians around us.

Furthermore, poor Bobo needs to get out and stretch his legs. It’s been months since he’s sullied a billboard with something tossed from his special stash, and I’ve a feeling there’s billboard out there for a Ben Affleck flick, somewhere, a large print ad with the Virgin Chimp’s name on it. Does Jennifer Lopez still get work?

Why is Sarah Jessica Parker’s face on everything all of the sudden? Sex In the City sucked. It should be a telling statement that her career got such a boost from the cancellation of the show, as opposed to the attention she got while it was still on the air. Not that I particularly mind her, or even the show for that matter, just that I tend to get irritated by anything so overexposed. This includes Paris Hilton, without question, and may (unfortunately) soon include Lindsay Lohan as well, despite her two heaving mounds of talent, namely, acting and musical ability.

I know I must be getting old when I get a little grossed out by the fact that the country is making such a sex object out of one barely 18.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince

P.S. Not Shatner, never Shatner. They could put his face on my electric toothbrush and I’d still never get sick of him.

To all you vicarious Victorians,

My friends say I’m too cynical. Particularly, the Green Mike, Red Raven, and the Lusty Lascivian did on the night of All Hallows Eve. We were sitting in a diner, somewhere in San Francisco, the Lascivian sporting a Spiderman luchador mask, and I, wearing a Batman mask and a necktie, when the television monitors filling the establishment came to life. The staff had deemed the occasion appropriate to show us all White Chicks, yet another bold assembly of crap by the Wayans brothers. I suppose I should have known I was in for bad news the second I entered the diner, and caught the tail end of 13 Going On 30.

I groaned loudly upon seeing the movie’s title upon the screen, and sat, annoyed, as I watched the Wayans brothers make a mockery of Latino culture. It just isn’t funny to see a Wayans slowly massacre "Guantanamera" with a scratchy voice. It’s roughly about as clever a comedic feat as Roseanne Barr’s performance of the National Anthem a few years back. I don’t know if I’d say these musical performances would necessarily qualify as the musical equivalent to a crucifix floating in a jar of urine, but I would say they are about just as funny.

So I sat in our booth and attempted to wait through the film, feeling more irritation with every moment. Now, I enjoy making fun of the Hilton sisters as much as the next person, but seeing the Wayans brothers get painted up in white-face and getting plastic boobs stuck to their chests, merely served to remind me of every poorly-done man-dressed-up-as-a-woman or black-guy-dressed-up-as-white-guy movie made in the years prior. It’s been done! Did no one in Hollywood (or Vancouver, as the case may be) learn any lessons from Juwana Man?

Furthermore, I must say, I wasn’t impressed by the fact that after all the make up and costuming had been applied, the Wayans brothers just looked like ugly drag queens with really creepy, soulless eyes.

As my aggravation became clear to the others around me, the Red Raven, who’d been dressed as some sort of mythical creature, told me I was too cynical. I stopped and reflected on the fact that I did, indeed, hate a whole lot of things. The Green Mike, dressed as a creepy old hippy (the kind that run bookstores), chided me for condemning the Wayans brothers when I had clearly enjoyed Freddy Got Fingered. Perhaps he had a point, but then I’ve never laughed so hard at anything the Wayans have done, as I have at Tom Green eating a sandwich. I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

But on that night, I had to concede, that while White Chicks and the works of both the Wayans brothers and Jennifer Garner only served to annoy me, perhaps I was wrong in my casual condemning of these things. It is entirely possible that somewhere out there, somewhere, someone quite possibly thinks that 13 Going On 30 is the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen. Perhaps someone thinks White Chicks is absolute genius. Whether or not these people also enjoy eating paint chips is of no consequence.

But I’ll tell you there’s one thing I firmly believe: if more people in this country had the mental capacity to listen to the musical works of Devo (or even Shatner) and get it, we’d probably have a significant increase in people smart enough to question their elected officials a bit more, and not only would Bush not be president, but most likely, neither would Kerry. Howard Dean, the only anti-Iraq-war candidate, would have gained control of the polls months ago.

Okay, but even conceding that I perhaps hate too many things too much, I still stand firmly by the statement that Malcolm In the Middle just isn’t funny.

What’s this you say? A sitcom about child-abuse?! Brilliant!

I could forgive the show’s rather sophomoric sense of humor, the stupid jokes, and poor attempts at slapstick. But a show about traumatized children and poor familial relationships, I just don’t get. It seems to me, the point of television is entertainment, a means of escape from the unpleasantness of reality. How is the sound of a loveless harpy, screaming curses for a half-hour, twice-nightly in syndication, supposed to help me relax? Why would I want to watch this?

I suppose it could just be a matter of different people having different opinions, but then, if there is actually someone out there that enjoys viewing a half-hour of seeing children mistreated, if someone actually laughs at the sight of children emasculated and weighed down with a varied collection of psychological problems that will take doubtless years of professional psychological help to heal, I think I’d sooner hit that person with a board than shake their hand. Then, I might be tempted to attempt a laugh, for their sake.

I may be a bit biased on the subject, but I must say, when the old Peruvian used to smack me around, it wasn’t that funny. Perhaps if we’d added a laugh track to all the scenes of the guy verbally berating me, and punishing my sister and I for no reason, we’d have comic gold! Worked for Sabrina the Teenage Witch!

Oh wait, no it didn’t. That show still sucks. All the pre-recorded laughter in the world couldn’t make it funny.

I can still recall all the weekends spent doing forced labor in the backyard to the sounds of that thrice-nippled bastard’s mocking voice. Sweating as I swung the pick-axe and dirt flew in my eyes, digging in the dirt to pull out cement blocks that must have been half my weight, way back then. The old Incan telling me how I was going to find a way to screw up, somehow, lamenting on it really, then punishing me further when I responded with a “thanks for the compliment”. Every weekend he turned his sight away from me and continued complaining about me for hours upon hours, and with every time he turned his head, continuing his lecture, I cradled that pick-axe and envisioned it as I drove it through the side of his head, and considered, seriously, if I could pull it off if I buried him in the hole I’d spent every weekend digging.

Nope. Still not funny.

Okay, so I’m a cynical bastard. Doesn’t change the fact that some things just aren’t funny.

I just caught the Scissor Sisters on Saturday Night Live. They did the single worst cover of a Pink Floyd song I have ever heard. I honestly didn’t even think it was possible to screw up “Comfortably Numb” so badly. Sounded like the Bee Gees covered it, only, as if the Bee Gees were tone-deaf. Guess that’s just one more thing to be cynical about.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince