Musings on fellas and free monies

Gah there are so many things right about this picture. For those of you who don't know him, meet Sufjan Stevens. I've been in love with him for roughly three years. Amongst other things, as you can see, he plays the banjo. He's from Michigan. His first name is Sufjan. He describes his sound as "sixth-grade band class". How could I NOT fall for him? I just felt like honoring him today.

This week, I recognized a trend in what I tend to be attracted to in a fellow. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. Puzzled, I think, because after looking over the list, it appears as though my ideal dude is Willie Nelson. And, needless to say (I hope), he is NOT. Here are a few things my butterfly-inducing-boys usually have in common: they play instruments (guitars/banjos mostly), they like to garden, they are amateur photographers, they are hairy about the face/chestal area, they love bikes, they are frugal, and they are incredible at some sport (that's a typical girl thing, probs). OH! And they usually end up being under 6'0", which is bad news bears for Kassie as I'm at least 6'1" with heels on. K. So, no big deal, none of these are bad things or too creepy, except that every gay man in NYC probably has the exact same list... But what I've been trying to figure out is, whaaat? Why? There's gotta be some fundamental characteristic I'm attracted to underneath it all that leads to...gardening. And whatnot. I can't be that superficial (oooooh! he has a homemade bike? AND a beard? swooooon)! Gah I dunno I'm a weirdo. But I will get to the bottom of this. Because to know oneself is to know God. Or something like that. I bet Sufjan makes his banjos with materials he grew in his backyard and makes strings out of his chest hair. And then takes pictures of them with his digital Nikon and uses the copies as stationary. Gaaaaaah so sexxy!

AND subject change:

So since my classes have ended, I've been trying to get me a full-time job in the City because that is what one is supposed to do. Surprisingly difficult, ladies and gentlemen! I've technically had an extremely part-time/on-call job for an oral surgeon since March (he has called me probably four times and I have been able to work for him once), and I think he fired me via text on Wednesday. It's ok, folks, I didn't come to NYC to be a surgical assistant. So back to the drawing board. I got a couple of rad gigs this week. Did you know that marketing companies hire actors and pay them good money to exist?? Wednesday I got $100 for six hours of work, three of which I had the tiring task of hanging out in Madison Square Park and looking like I wasn't being paid to be there. We were promoting a movement (trying to get peeps to take their lunch breaks and leave their offices building let's change corporate America w00t!!) and I pretended to be a convert, eating my lunch at the park. It was beautiful out and there were some really cool-looking birds chilling in the little flower garden I was admiring. So I even communed with nature a bit. (Also, has anyone been to MSP recently? There are these strange naked dude statues standing in what appears to be yoga's "mountain pose". What ARE these? Some little kid walked up to one, stared, and just took a hold of the statue's manhood. Like it ain't no thang, just holding it as casually as if it were his mom's hand. Awesome. THAT, my friends, is art to me...) I was even interviewed for some NBC affiliate. Flirted with the cute field reporter. Easiest money EVER! Free t-shirt, free lunch and granola bars. Perfect gig for poor people like me (I was so excited to get a free t-shirt)! I'm all about this!

I also might be starting my own baby-sitter's club, members: one. Maybe I should get a members only jacket... A friend of a friend hooked me up with this rad little family up in my neighborhood aka "the barrio". I'm gonna regularly babysit two wee lasses - three & four yrs. old, a-dor-a-ble. AND the mom is gonna tell all her friends about me. More easy money and, truly, kids say the darndest things. I freaking LOVE humans not in my age bracket.

Why waste my time doing crap I don't want to do? Office assisting, surgery assisting, paperwork, selling beds, blargh. If there are things out there like fake-activist-ing and hanging out with rad kids, I'm all over it. It may be less consistent and less health-care-covering, but it's fun stuff! Loved ones, I think it IS possible to support yourself actually doing things that you enjoy. Don't give up hope!! And don't let the ego get in the way. I'm a 27-year-old babysitter. And I have no apologies.

Holler back,

Kassie

I still miss MJ

I miss him a lot today for some reason! Probably because I just watched "This Is It". I don't think I ever properly mourned for the King of Pop. For all of you who are too cool for Mr. Jackson, I recommend you skip this post and go get a life. Cuz you just don't get it yet. For the rest of you, journey towards healing with me.

When I was a kid I lived in Germany for a few years. The old man was financing his oral surgery specialization via the USAF. We would go on lengthy road trips around Europe and, tellingly, my fondest memories are of being in the backseat, staring out the window totally absorbed in the magic my Walkman was pumping into my tiny impressionable ear canals. The two cassette tapes I played the most from ages 9-11 were the Boyz II Men Cooleyhighharmony album (abcbbdmmmhm!) and Michael Jackson's Dangerous. Hot damn, I know I would've already become like the President by now, or Oprah, had Bad found it's way into my cassette collection then- I didn't get hip to those insane grooves until later - but, to be honest, I'm lucky I had any good music to listen to. Sweet serendipity landed those cassettes in my player, there is no other explanation for me having them. It couldn't have been my mom's doing (I love you mom, but Lionel Richie and Michael Bolton did not plant the seeds for the deep and abiding love I have for music today. I'll give you Nat King Cole).

I can't explain accurately what I felt then, or really what I feel now, when I hear MJ sing or watch him dance. It was like knowing you're experiencing something big and important, and knowing you will and must be a part of it. I didn't know it then, but it was inspiring me. I distinctly remember it stirring up stuff inside of me that was powerful and alien, kind of like how David Bowie made me feel the first time I saw Labyrinth, but safer and less confusing. We didn't have proper TV until we returned to the States, and then I would wait until an MJ song would come on and sit there slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, probably drooling, mesmerized by a music video. The one where Eddie Murphy is a pharaoh, or the one where he's white and he's singing about how it's ok that way cuz it don't matta, or the duet with Janet in space where they scream a lot. SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD! I don't care if you're the most boring, scroogiest, art-hating soul-sucker in the world - if you were around when MJ was around, you wanted to be him. You can lie to me, but don't lie to yourself, guys. I still want to be Michael Jackson.

As I am no longer a child and have a little life experience under my belt, what impresses me most about MJ isn't his freakin crazy presence or his singular dance moves, it's his courage and inner strength. He was so abused, had so much pressure on him since the womb, so much public scrutiny and negativity, yet he never quit and he always left it all on the stage. This beaten man wanted to 'bring love back into the world'. He definitely was a little insane, and God bless him for it. The sane don't have that kind of capacity. I can't imagine the pain he dealt with everyday. The dude probably never even had the chance to fall in love with someone. But the general love that man had, and had the courage to share, was enormous, too big to let fear or ill health contain it. Aaaah MJ! So tragic and so sweet a life. "What a beautiful mess", as Jason Mraz would say. I am so grateful for Michael Jackson!

It makes me sad to think about how my kids won't have MJ around to provide them with their first mind-blowing experiences. I know we still have the music, but it's not the same. He won't be a part of the collective unconscious that pervaded my youth and young adulthood. He was a great example in that he never, ever fit in anywhere down here on Earth, but he rocked his own angelic alien-like status and inspired the hell out of us. I want to be an angelic alien, too. I want to find my own moonwalk to show you.

So I guess the lesson here, folks, is dare to shine, despite your weaknesses and maybe your craziness! Don't hide your candles under bushels!! We need to find a new version of MJ by the time my kids are old enough to dream (as said children have yet to be born, you all have plenty of time to practice). Listen to good music! Sing. Dance. Or at least find out the things that blow your mind and make you feel scared and excited at the same time. And, most importantly, go easy on your kids if and when you have them. Where would MJ be today if he had a different dad, you know? He'd probably be in the middle of another world tour and I wouldn't care much if you all hid your gifts. Cuz I'd still have MJ.

In heaven, my hope is that there are lots of baby animals of course (that never poo or pee and that smell like baby lotion), we sit on edible cotton candy clouds, and sit around with our loved ones experiencing the world of MJ. What if heaven is a perpetual Michael Jackson concert, without the bounds of mortality?? WHAT CAN'T THAT MAN DO THEN!?




Many thanks, MJ!



Holler back,

Kassie

So many things should not be legal

Especially this. It's 2010!! How is bullfighting still a thing?? Where you at PETA? It boggles my mind. I have so many problems with this.

First of all, if this sort of activity is going to happen, it should at least be held exclusively at the Coliseum. Rome is to spectator murder-sports what St. Andrews is to golf. Animal-stabbing really shouldn't have left the circular confines of that sadistic arena. Second, it's way too simple to be a sport. I'm a girl, and I can fathom the object and rules of the game without even watching! A true sport should take a girl at least a season of diligent study and maybe even a high school level P.E. examination to understand it enough to enjoy or play. The really great sports require strategies from the players that are incapable of female contemplation. I am a fairly intelligent woman, in addition to being an avid sports fan with a good grasp on and experience in most sports, but I still sit in dumbfounded silence every time I witness the men in my family discuss in depth whatever sport is in season. I think the female brain is missing that lobe, just like the male brain is missing the thoughtful/multi-tasking lobe. Jim Rome might as well be speaking Norwegian on his podcasts. That is the way I like it! That's the way it's supposed to be! That is a world that makes sense. Third, the predominant thought in an athlete's head during a sporting event should never have to be, "Only one of us is going to make it out of here alive, hombre."

Bullfighting? Really? Dude wears tight pants and a jacket that someone went a little crazy with the bedazzler on, holds a piece of cloth in his hand that inspires murderous thoughts in a pre-enraged animal, enters big sand box with aforementioned animal, is armed with colorful swords (of course), attempts to kill bull by severing spinal cord via the lumpy thing on the bull's back. Are there fancy rules I don't know about? Probably a maximum IQ for participants. Must be equal less than or equal to the bull's, apparently. WHY IS THIS LEGAL?

A word to the bullfighter: 1. Sorry for the loss of your tongue but, and it needs to be said again and again - I told you so. 2. This does not make you manlier. I am sorry you were deceived by your proud country. Please try to step back with me and take an objective look at exactly what's going on here. Are you seeing what I see? Yeeeeeaaah I know, yikes. How about next time you just release an "angered and disoriented" bag of chicken breasts on a remote-controlled vacuum into a racquetball court with you and a sledge hammer? You can still feel macho by brutalizing an "animal" without the threat of being gored in the chin. Also, you have tenderized the meat for dinner. Win win win.

Ugh so many things to change in this world! Can I help illegalize this somehow? Gah I need more sway on global stage than I currently hold. Tomorrow, when I write my congressman my serious disappointments with the (lack of) financial regulation reform, I'll air my concerns about the bull-fighting epidemic. I vote no more please.

Holler back,
Kassie

I love to hate you. No wait, hate to love you. No, you to love hate?

This song isn't new at all but I'm real stoked on it right now:

It's by this unassuming fella over here to the right. I love Brett Dennen. Look at him! He looks like that shy, quiet dude in high school who always wore led zep t-shirts and who surprised the hell out of you when the yearly talent show came around. I love it when things are sooooo not what they seem. Well, not so much in a Dorian Grayish way, but like a tamale kind of way (who knew such deliciousness could be contained in an ordinary corn husk?! and it takes love and hard work to make that savory soul-healer...I could take this metaphor much further, but I'll control myself. Gah such a dork) Anyways, this dude is quality.

So I've made a couple of new friends recently and I told them I'd blog more often out of respect for the medium. Mostly, I invited them to read this crap and I feel unworthy, so I need to kick it up a notch. We found out we all blogged, but they actually blog about useful and helpful things. And they do it like almost daily. I talk about stuff running around in my brain (visual: dog chasing it's own tail) maybe once a month. And since the chances aren't great that the concept will change (if any of these turn out to be helpful in any way, I promise you, it will be accidental), I've dedicated myself to more frequent ramblings. Holy geez I'm listening to my Ben Harper channel on Pandora right now and it's blowing my mind. Richie Havens doing "Here Comes the Sun" may or may not make your life a little better.

Maybe I'm just in a fantastic mood because today was my last class. I don't think I've shared this with many of you, but from class one, my acting teacher has proven to be giant douchebag. Huge. I have stories that would shock and awe you. The military could send me to Afganistan to the most cave-y terrorist-infested mountains, give me a megaphone, have me recount a few experiences, and I would not be surprised to find hordes of weepy Al-Qaeda shuffle out of their hiding places as broken men. I cried for three hours straight, uncontrollably, in class recently. He's got a gift. It takes talent to know how to completely break down a class full of such different people! And for that, I give him a lot of credit. Tip o' the hat.

All that whining said, today I was in love with the dude. The struggle was over. We all talked. He transformed from a death eater into a homo sapien, and I was objectively able to see how his constant spewing of disgust and shame actually made a strong group of capable artists. Bravo, David. I guess you're not ultimately a douche if it was just the means to an end?*He pretty much is a hero of mine now. We'll see how long that lasts. Isn't it crazy how quickly and unexpectedly our feelings can change about people and things? We change all day everyday and I love it. Life can be monotonous, can't it? But you're wrong, it's completely unpredictable and exciting every second. Life would be a lot easier if we remembered this. And remembered the things that never change. Like my love for you all (aaaaw yeah)!

I may shave my head tonight. What are you gonna do? Maybe someone will leave a puppy on my doorstep.^ Who knows?

holler back,
kass



*Please don't infer that I'm implying a possible attraction to guys who belittle and torture me. I'm into the nice ones still, Mom, I promise.

^Fat chances, I know. Shut up! That's not the point.