Tyler Yoder's Blog, page 18

Poetic Interlude LXIX

Ladies of the Obituaries, January 27

A proud Teamster,

A pioneer’s daughter,

Married a Major

One month, and one day.

Alma and Irma and Edna and Cleo

Slipped from this earthly life.

Survived by a husband,

A brother,

Her children ;

Preceded in death;

Widowed again.

Born, in Olympia, Nineteen Fifteen.

Two world wars,

Three strokes, and twelve presidents,

In lieu of a service,

The eldest of eight.

Exhibited strength at Medosweet Dairy:

Cherished.

©2013 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved

Tagged: Obituaries, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder

Post the Thirty-Sixth: In Which I Discover The World Of Raves

A few winters ago, Gentle Reader,  as you may have gathered, I was curiously close to a group of young people. Nothing funny – only six or seven years difference in age, but a significant enough gap that mindset, hobbies, attitudes about the world were significantly different. The boys decided to take me to a rave.  I agreed.

The boys and I. Sadly, we never got to use this as an album cover

That’s right: the pompous Reverend Doctor, who thinks like a licentious Jane Austen, who wants to grow up to be Sebastian Flyte – I decided to expand my boundaries, and attend one of these young people’s entertainments. If one doesn’t try new things, how is one to explore the bounty of the world around us?

Naturally, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what to wear. I was given to understand that bright colours were quite the thing, so I went down to the local thrift shop, where I purchase the raw materials that I torture into sartorial splendour. I… may have gotten distracted. I may have tried to purchase a few items that would have versatility in my everyday wardrobe. This is what happened:

You can’t tell, but the blazer shines like a disco ball in any sort of light – it’s a pale blue with silver thread, making the overall a sparkly grey. It has rainbow undertones – positively luminescent. PERFECT FOR RAVING IN, correct?

No, as it turns out.

Evidently, this is de rigueur:

I may have been over-dressed.

Well, we parked near the train, which we took to an unfamiliar part of the local City. Our guide, B., was the only one who regularly frequented this sort of thing, and as it turns out, this particular event was at a new venue – one he wasn’t familiar with. However, we finally made it to the terminus, and stepped off the train into a dilapidated, industrial, part of town. As a panic attack had started punching my lungs on the train ride, I decided to explore, and look for a local bar, instead of going into a tightly packed warehouse with garishly dressed teenagers jumping savagely about.

I walked for blocks in both directions – there was no liquor to be had. Neither was there anything intoxicating at the grocer’s that I found. At the train station, an elderly woman, round as a peach and twice as sweet, warned me against the neighbourhood, given my dress and ethnicity. She urged me to ride the train, back and forth, until my friends were done dancing. This I did, as there was precious little else to do, unless I wanted to join them in the rave – which I could not, under any circumstances, bring myself to do.

Hours and hours of this

After my second circuit by rail, there was an announcement – this was the last train running that night. This, despite the research we had done to ascertain that the trains ran until two a.m. on Sunday morning – no. Midnight would be the last time the trolley was going our way. I debarked -Eleven Thirty!- and telephoning would be completely useless. I steeled myself to enter the smoker’s area outside the warehouse, hoping to catch a glimpse, or even a glimp, of a familiar face. Luckily, I saw Miss S. and Miss H.

I told them of our little difficulty, and the ladies – closer to my own age by a great deal – they sprang into action. Into the warehouse, dodging dancers, generally wrangling together our party, until all outside, in the relative quiet, I could explain. We dashed to the station, in time to see our train pull away. It had just gone twelve. We found a bus stop, scanning the list of times and buses, hoping to find one still running in our direction. Though there were some listed, when we telephoned, we were informed that the next bus would be at seven the next morning.

So! Trapped in a dodgy part of an unfamiliar city, with nothing open but a barred-windowed petrol station, we lingered in the aisles and made as many phone calls as we could. I should mention that it’s the end of January. As we huddled for warmth by the coffee station, it began to snow. The proprietor graciously allowed us to wait for our ride inside.

Glamorous

One hour passes – our ride arrives. Two of us – Miss H., whose friend has rescued us, and myself, whose van we are retrieving – may go. The other eight are evicted into the cold.

Another hour passes – we get lost. We find the van. We thank our benefactor, find that the car has been parked outside a blatant drug dealer’s door, and head back to fetch our party. Miss H. and I also get lost. Twice.

We begin significantly ticking into hour three before we find our lost lambs, on a sidewalk, in at least an inch of snow. Some of them were trying to sleep. Miss H. and I, we were trying to stay awake. We collected our charges, and began the long, long, drive home.

Tagged: I Don't Feel Like Dancin', Mishaps, Raves, Seattle, The Boys, You Certainly Meet Interesting People on Trolley Cars

Post the Eightieth: TALES FROM THE BUTCH SIDE

Was… Was that a flash of lightning, Gentle Reader?

And – can you hear that ominous music, or is it just me?

Wait – does everything suddenly feel all strange and different? I suddenly feel the need to code switch and perform the expected social roles of an American Heterosexual Man*! AAAAAAAAAAH!

Gentle Reader, may I present to you a new blog feature:

It was a dark and stormy night a heteronormative construction site, and my boss and I had finished laying the house’s foundation a few months earlier. When we returned to pour the concrete driveway, the house had almost entirely been finished.  Tony and I mostly worked in concrete, but we did a little landscaping on the side as well. When the homeowner found this out, he asked us to come back the next week, and lay some sod.

We returned as promised, and set to work.

There was quite a bit of debris that had to be removed from  the site that was to become a lawn. At one point in time, it had been an orchard, and there were dead tree-corpses littering the ground. My job was to load them into the scoop of the tractor as well as the huge rocks and other debris that would keep the lawn from being graded, then run on ahead to guide my boss along the obstacle course of fences, trees, and out-buildings to the cliffside where we were dumping the bodies.

And then, when I turned my back for a split second to make sure the homeowner’s children and dogs were out of the way of the tractor† -

The blade of the bucket of the tractor struck me in the shoulder, sending me flying through the air, leaving what looked like an angry red snake on my collarbone, chest, shoulder, and back for months. I still have the scar, bro – wanna see?

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*It is commonly known that if you’re bitten by a heterosexual man under a full moon, he probably likes you quite a lot.

†Seriously, if you have people doing work at your home, keep children and pets away from the worksite.

Tagged: Angry Ghosts!, Construction Work, Horror Stories, Laying Sod Is Totally A Euphemism Yall, Tales From The Butch Side, That Time I Got Hit By A Tractor Bro

Post the Seventy-Ninth: In Which The Women Come and Go

Gentle Reader, I was made aware of a large gap in my education this Friday. I had never seen the 1939 MGM classic The Women. Like MGM’s other big hit that year, it features a transition between black and white and color, and stars some of the biggest female stars of the time period – Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell,  Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine – on and on and on! So my dear friend Miss Goss and I decided to liveblog the experience on Twitter.

First, I naturally had to dress for the occasion. Luckily, I had just acquired my grandmother’s ruffly peignoir.

And away we went!

 

It was at this point, during the opening credits, that I opened the first bottle of wine.

All of this was from the first half hour or so. We haven’t even gotten into the meat of the matter, really, not yet.

Oh, right. The fashion show scene is in color! All the glamorous outfits and awful hats! And I didn’t even NOTICE until right before we went back to black and white. Whoops. Sorry, artists who worked very hard for Technicolor all those years ago!

So, after the divorce – possibly to get the divorce? – our protagonist and her daughter move to Reno, Nevada, which is apparently entirely populated by divorcées. They also meet my favorite character, the Countess.

The Countess is basically me – always whining dramatically about “L’amour! L’amour – toujours l’amour!” and jumping at any chance to have a drink. But she’s a Countess, so it’s charming. She’s terrific.

 

And I hope you enjoyed this recap! I highly recommend this film to anyone with a pulse – there was just really too much wonderful stuff, such witty quips and one-liners – I couldn’t capture them all. Drop what you’re doing, and go watch it now!

Tagged: Classic Films, HOLY SHIT that is a lot of screencaps y'all, L'amour - L'amour! Toujours l'amour!, Liveblogging, Reno Jumpywumps, The Women, Twitter

Poetic Interlude LXVIII

Youth
Oh, pretty little meteor,
Burning hot and bright!
Consuming all in front of you;
Crashing through the night -
Why, every eye on Earth’s on you:
You captivate the scene.
Enjoy the envy of the few -
Add lustre to your gleam.
Whatever shall become of you,
Burning hot and fast?
They gaze until you fade from view,
Winking at the last
 
©2013 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved
Tagged: It's A Hot Mess Life For Us, Meteor, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder, Youth

Post the Hundred and Twelfth: Tyler J. Yoder and the K.P. Culture

Oh, Gentle Reader, you know me well enough by now to know that I’m peculiar, pompous, and overly fond of formal dress – don’t mistake me; I have bad points, too. I grew up in a place called the Key Peninsula, and still spend a fair amount of time there. It’s a backward backwater. That isn’t to say that the K.P. is entirely   without merit, but it should suffice to say that I do not quite fit in there.

The culture clash between the KP and Gig Harbor itself is deep and firmly ingrained. The Harbor is firmly upper-middle class suburbia, comprised of gated communities and country clubs; the KP is mostly made-up of mobile homes and meth labs. The clear and sharp class divide is emphasised by the actual physical separation from the Harbor; the separate identity is reinforced by the outlook of individuals of both areas. It’s unfortunate that the bulk of the KP identity is tied up with racism, sexism, homophobia, and general fear of the Other.

I still attend a fair number of parties on the K.P., and I enjoy them. Despite the fact that you quite literally leave the law behind when you cross onto it*, there is nothing wrong with beer and bonfires. If you differ at all from the standard herd, though, you are almost forced to become an advocate for equality. Though the area is chiefly populated by a strange redneck/thug hybrid, there are many good souls, some really wonderful people; with a little persistence, persuasion, they can be brought to a point where they will even stand up for you against their ill-educated, ignorant, brethren.

The two fellas pictured, for example, have always been very kind to me. I’ve known them for years, and they’re good people. They have both, in fact, called out their buddies on using the word “faggot” on my behalf. However, those of us out here who are outside the KParadigm aren’t always lucky enough to have an inside man.

If you’re not an “inside man” and you call someone on their racism, you get the invariable response “But you’re not black.” If you call someone on their homophobia, you get “Hey man – I didn’t mean you” or “Figure of speech, bro. Suck it up.” If you call people on their sexism, it’s “C’mon, dude – I was joking.”

The trouble occurs when I show up at a function on the K.P. where I don’t know everyone. You see, when I’m invited to a party, I spend days or weeks designing my outfit. I can’t help it; I’m a bit of a clothes horse, and I have whims, like “expressing myself” and “refusing to apologize for who I am.” Whims need to be fulfilled. Therefore, I’ll show up at these casual, laid-back, redneck gatherings, looking like this:

Or, even worse, like this:

My friends out there have gotten used to me, and love me anyway – perhaps even more – because of my little peccadilloes. I’ve been told more than once that I class up the joint. Nonetheless, even when not at a party, I tend to be more than casually dressed. I’m particularly known for colorful velvet blazers. When shopping, or buying gas, or visiting a hick dive bar, it’s like taunting an already angry bull.

I can’t count the times that I’ve heard a slur or a threat hurled in my direction. Sometimes, I’m able to slink quietly away, and pretend it never happened, licking my wounds in the privacy of a friend’s home or car. These events can shake me to my soul. Other times, I hold my head high, and confront the fucker – I will not stand for  blatant, casual hatred, and racism, sexism, and homophobia are rampant, unrepentant, on the K. P. Despite the fact that I’m undeniably dapper, I don’t shy away from a fight. Of course, confrontation usually brings conversation – frequently, the instigator hasn’t meant offense. It’s all just part of the culture of the K.P.

*********

*I’m serious. If you telephone the police to report a robbery in progress, you won’t see them until the next day, at the earliest. It’s more usual not to see them for a week. You can’t rely on them.

Tagged: Beer and Bonfires, Fabulous Parties, Fancy Time, Homophobia, Key Peninsula, Redneckery, The K.P., xenophobia

Post the Hundred and Twenty-Eighth: Absinthe

Gentle Reader, between helping my mother move and taking care of some personal life changes, I may have to throw re-runs into the schedule more frequently for a while. I humbly apologize, and hope you’ll enjoy the selection of my more exciting posts. Cheers!

Shortly before I left for Alaska, Gentle Reader, Miss Ward began diving into the fín-de-siécle demi-monde of the famous absinthe drinkers. She was fascinated by the ritual and mystery, naturally, and the romantic air that surrounds the period. Her enthusiasm kindled a similar interest in me. As it was still illegal in the States, I was surprised and pleased to receive a clandestine package that Christmas, containing a sampler pack of the more popular commercial absinthes. Not knowing any better, I’m sorry to say that I lit it on fire*.

While I was in Alaska, I ordered a very special package of dish soap from Czechoslovakia. I arrived in Washington; that was the same day my grandmother passed away. I was privileged to see her one more time before she passed. A month later, I still hadn’t cried for her. I couldn’t bring myself to the point of crisis, catharsis.

The absinthe arrived.

Miss Ward was visiting from Bellingham, and came over to offer her sympathies. She, Maman, and I sat around with Francois Guy and White Fairy, in smoky, perfumed, candlelight. We began an exquisite corpse†, and this time, we did the ritual right: drops of water, excruciatingly slow, turned the sugar to decanted diamonds plunging into green floral oils waiting below. The truest thing that people say about absinthe is that it opens the senses, sensitivity. In that small circle, I was able to mourn.

A few months later, Miss Ward, her young man at the time, and I joined a secret society devoted to educating people about absinthe, and attended a number of sampling parties. We learned a lot, and made some excellent, deep, friendships. With such love and libations, such clarity, creativity, we truly felt part of the Bohemian world of yore.

*********

*Friends don’t let friends light absinthe on fire. The so-called “Czech Ritual” was invented in the Nineties to sell movies and an inferior minty absinthe called Hills.

†An Exquisite Corpse is a delightful tradition where you write a line or two of a story, then pass it to the next person, who can only see the last sentence you wrote. With the right people, you can come up with some truly beautiful pieces.

Tagged: Absinthe, Clandestine Activities, Cocktails, Exquisite Corpse, Fabulous Parties, Secret Societies

Post the Seventy-Eighth: The Lover’s Serenade

Doctor Boyfriend has been pretty gracious so far, Gentle Reader, and I’ve therefore tried to keep him out of the glamorous limelight that my blog creates. However, The List trumps loyalty, love, and honor – the List trumps everything.  Therefore, let me recount that time when I serenaded him in bed on my painted ukulele, Chordelia.

Seen here, al fresco

The Task: Serenade a lover in bed.

The Execution: Well, I’m awfully shy of playing in front of people. Actually, frankly, I’m just generally shy around people if I haven’t known them for a million years. Except strangers – I’m pretty confident around strangers. It’s when people fall in between that I have issues.

At any rate, I had Doctor Boyfriend at my place for once – my current living situation is such that that typically isn’t the best idea. But we made it work one night, and we had nice evening on the chaise watching what he – and he’s a bad movie buff, kids – calls the worst film he’s ever seen.

In the morning, I typically get up quite a bit earlier than Doctor Boyfriend – he’s a night owl, and while I am too, his late nights are generally later than mine. He drowsed; I made coffee and too much noise.

As I mucked around checking Facebook and so on, he said he had been wondering if I was going to play my ukulele for him. So I strummed it absently while we chatted, a little – I have a hard time maintaining a conversation while strumming – but I played out my repertoire while my boyfriend was in bed. It counts.

The Verdict: Meh? I like my boyfriend, and I like my ukulele, but I feel like I could have done a better job of playing for him if we hadn’t been talking.

Tagged: Doctor Boyfriend, Mostly I Play Old-Timey Stuff If You're Wondering, Serenades, The List, Ukulele

Poetic Interlude LXVII

Gentle Reader, let’s go back to the first Poetic Interlude, and possibly my best poem.

Champagne, Silk, Steel

My cufflinks clink against the glass

Filled with gas-station champagne.

It’s Californian, and regrettably cheap.

You asked to come by, tonight.

I knew what I must do, how

I must comport myself.

There is a rhythm to these things;

And you know how I like to

Observe the proprieties.

I knew, when you asked to come,

I’d cast you aside, a ring into the sea.

I’d be wed to the loss of you,

Wake up with your lack each morning.

You, of course, didn’t react.

I, of course, will never move on -

I shall dwell in a memory of something that never happened,

Wearing a suit bought for our unplanned wedding,

Praising you, to a congregation of cats,

A sad person, in silk, and champagne.

I drain each bottle, glass by glass,

And, from out the East, drain sun after sun.

Song after song enters the star that was my soul,

And, for love of you,

I go nova.

I can’t, for the life of me, tell

If the tears or the champagne are staining the silk.

I can’t, for the life of me, tell

If it’s my love for you, or the lack of you,

That gently lifts me to a cabinet of pistols -

-to view them, of course.

The ammunition’s in quite another room, my sweet.

Regardless, when I think of you,

I remember champagne on silk,

And the taste of blued steel.

There are times, my love, when I wonder,

If I had never met you, how young I would have died,

And if you had never met me, how

You would have ever survived.

The pregnant moon has come and gone, now.

She came, yawned once, and returned to her bed.

I must make do

With the friendship of the fountain,

Tinkling at dawn.

I can learn from her;

She always cries.

I grow weary of mourning, each morning,

But what else is to be done?

Even if things had gone according to plan,

I never would have been your bride.

What use is my story?

There are nine billion beside -

©2013 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved

Tagged: Heartbreak, LGBT Breakup Poems, Loss, Love, Patchwork Narrative, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder

Post the Seventy-Seventh: Silvia Rivera

I do not have the time or energy required to make a post for you today, Gentle Reader. There is quite a lot going on, and a lot of it is going poorly. In a few months, everything should be stabilized. In the meantime, please enjoy the short video about Silvia Rivera, an activist and veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion.

http://tranqualizer.tumblr.com/post/26909636645/so-treu-transfeminism-thespiritwas-sylvia

 

Tagged: Holy Shit I Can't Even Deal, Not a Real Post, Silvia Rivera, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, Video