Jack Frost, The Friend Zone, and Happy-Endings

Let me begin by saying this has nothing to do with Rise of the Guardians.  I love that movie and will mention it several more times, but this is actually about an earlier version of that mythic character.  These brain-thoughts are about Jack Frost.  No, not the one with the dead dad.  No, not that other one about the serial killer.   This one made in 1979:

He’s not actually as gay as he looks…I think

As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of this movie.  I thought it was the funniest, coolest movie ever and as an adult, I have no idea why.  When I watch it now, I just laugh at the sexism and the silliness of a time before children’s movies were made to entertain adults as well.  I’ve seen it more on TV this year, than I ever did as a kid (due to Rise of the Guardians, which is a great film).  I like to think that it was never that popular when I was a kid because of the blinding sexism, but it was probably because of the “sad” ending.  Spoiler Alert: Jack doesn’t bang the chick.

I don’t know how recognizable this movie is to you modern kids, so I’ll give you the basic run down which neglects the groundhog because that freak never made any sense to me.

RUN DOWN:

Jack Frost is light-hearted fun-loving sprite who is invisible (Rise of the Guardians totally takes this idea, takes a flying leap, and make it a jaw-dropping depressing character motivation).  He is one-of-a-kind, playful, can whistle up the wind, fly, and is invisible to humans which bothers him because he likes to play with them (sound familiar, Rise of the Guardians?).  One of the residents in Jacks favorite town is Elisa (you know she’s the romantic lead because she doesn’t have an accent, unlike her parents and everyone else in her world).  One day while Jack is stalking Elisa, she goes to play on a frozen lake with bunnies and squirrels and shit and suddenly, the villain, King of the Cossacks (once again late 70s) appears talks to himself through an iron puppet like a bat-shit crazy mofo, and makes the healthy decision to ride his iron horse over the ice.   The ice breaks, nothing bad happens to the villain because it’s still early in the movie, and Elisa is about to go over a waterfall on a piece of ice (don’t worry the bunnies and shit are safe).  Faced with her gruesome death, Jack Frost saves her by freezing the waterfall and flying her down to her furry friends (who seem to be taking bets on how she would die)  Her reaction: “Oh that was fun!” (Rise of the Guardians did the ‘no dying horribly, we’re going to have some fun’ part of Jack Frost so much cooler).  She calls him a hero and all the problems start.

Being called a hero put ideas in Jack’s head.  He goes to Father Winter and begs to be made human through a very disturbing song.  Winter says he can be a human but not a mooch.  Jack’s got 3 to 4 months to get a house, a horse, a bag or gold, and a wife or he has to go back to being an overworked slave.

So Jack becomes human and sucks at it.  Trips on ice.  Forgets his name.  Learns that he picked the worse place in the world to be a capitalist, because the King of the Cossacks will never let him have a house, horse, or gold.  Now, he could conceivably go about working on the wife bit and make a convincing argument with Father Winter not to separate him from his beloved wife.  Instead, he announces in the gayest way possible, “Kubblah Kraus has Got to be overthrown.”

So he tries to over throw him and he sucks.  He only succeeds in getting the pretty girl close enough that the villain falls in love.  After a heart-felt conversation with himself through his puppet, Bat-Shit Crazy kidnaps Elisa to woo her…but he’s going to wait just so he can ruin Christmas.

Okay, the King of the Cossacks kidnaps the girl.  He totally carries her away on his horse to his castle in the snow.  She doesn’t really fight him that hard.  I can’t tell if it’s a result of bad animation or sexist storytelling, but I’ll move on.

You might expect this to be the part of the movie where Jack Frost uncovers his awesomeness and saves the girl thus proving his love for her and becoming her knight in golden armor, right?  Nope.  This is where the actual knight in golden armor shows up.

As evidenced by the fact that he gave her a real rose for Christmas and not an imaginary gift, Sir Ken Doll apparently banged Elisa in the past (or maybe just lived nearby).  The knight takes on the entire army of iron men things and saves her.  Her contribution is to run towards him with her arms outstretched (which is more useful than running away, I guess).  Having saved her, Sir Ken Doll falls into the snow, inexplicably wounded through his undented armour (I guess that’ll show him to use a soft metal for protection against iron robots).  He is taken away to be nursed back to health.

Oh, and Jack Frost, because he still sucks as a human, is captured.  Bat-Shit Crazy announces, he is going to send a thousand iron men to kill everyone… because he wanted the girl or something… his motives are unclear.  Jack has time to count each iron man as they march out before he goes back to being an invisible sprite and saves the day by whistling up “the storm of the century.”  Buries the iron robots in the snow like zombies… well, twitching eclectic zombies… I like zombies and wanted to bring them in.

He makes it snow for just long enough that Elisa and Ken Doll fall in love (nursing-back-to-health is a valid dating strategy) and decide to get married at the “first blossom of spring.”  At least she’s sad that her “sweet good little friend” has mysteriously disappeared (read: was killed brutally by the villain).

Eventually, through some freak roof accident, Kubblah Kraus is knocked out, Jack can imitate the villain’s iron puppet voice, and thus makes all the iron men go lemming over a cliff.  Then Jack… either ducks or donkey kicks the King of the Cossaks out the window.

Jack then takes over.  The castle is his house, the iron monstrosity is his horse, the peasant’s gold is his.  All he needs is the woman and he’s a real boy forever.  He goes to Elisa’s father (not her oddly) and finds out she is getting married to Sir Ken Doll. Jack is surprisingly unbitter about this, turns back into invisible sprite thing and kisses the bride as she walks out of the church, then flies off to bang either the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, depending on how you like your Fan Fiction (thanks again, Rise of the Guardians).

And that’s where the kvetching starts.

KVETCHING:

Well, not with the fan fiction… that’s just silly.  Who would kvetch about fan fiction? The issues are with the not-happily-ever- after.  I’ve noticed that a lot of my fellow uber-judgmental-ists have been remembering one of the characters from this film, Elisa, as a heartless bitch.  Clearly, she comes from a place more evil than the Evil Queen from Snow White , the Evil Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, and the Evil Stepmother in Cinderella  combined!   How dare she leave the weird-looking nice guy in the friend zone and get her happily-ever-after on with some pretty boy in golden armor?  The slut!

This is the reaction I’ve seen from modern adults taking about this movie out of nostalgia when they take their kids to see Rise of the Guardians.  I’ve read it in forums, now and just to see how ingrained this happy ending thing is, I’ve talked up the movie with most of my friends and showed it to some that have never seen it.  Including a pair of raging feminist lesbians.  They still felt cheated at the end and thought poorly of Elisa, usually using disparaging sexual words (which is a strange thing we do to women; no matter her short coming we put it in terms of her physical appearance or sexual attitude, ever notice that?)

I am stunned 1) by anyone else who even knows this movie exists and 2) by how passionate people could get about a movie that they admitted was silly and out-dated.  One of the main flaws people attribute to this movie is that she ends up with the Ken Doll and not Jack Frost.  Jack doesn’t get the girl and that’s offensive somehow.

I’m getting more and more frustrated by this, because it’s totally not Elisa’s fault that she doesn’t end up with Jack Frost and what’s more, I think a good message to throw around in our children’s films sometimes is that love can’t be earned.

First off, to the point of Elisa being a bitch/slut/blonde/ whatever female slur applies to you:  she is not a prize.  Yes, she is a weak character.  She does not save herself from danger (or even fight back).  She waits for a literal knight in shining armor to do it for her, but that doesn’t make her the same as a house, horse, and gold.  Those are things you can earn.  Love is not.

From the beginning of the movie, she is in love with Sir Ken Doll.  I know I’ve stripped him of the dignity of his name, but that fact that he has a cleft chin and perfect hair does not defeat the fact that she was totally in love with him before she ever really meets Jack “Snip”.  And Jack Frost knows this.

While Jack is shameless eavesdropping, which is a perk of invisibility, he over hears this delightful tidbit.

Mama: You are so romantic, Elisa.  Find yourself a good solid husband and settle down.

Elisa: I will.  When my knight in golden armor comes along.

Her love is expressed in all the typical late 70’s clichés of children’s entertainment.  She waits for him faithfully.  He gives her roses.  She nurses him back to health.  He’s a knight.

Elisa marries the man she chooses which is shockingly progressive for this movie.

Secondly, and a lot of my friends missed this, Jack is a chauvinist who has the opinion that a woman is on par with house, horse, and gold.

Just after Elisa says she waiting for the knight in golden armor, Jack hears this:

Papa: Knights!  Aren’t you in love with anybody yet?

Elisa (with a flippant laugh and toss of her clayish hand): Only Jack Frost.

At this expression of love, Jacks pointy hat jumps to attention (in no way is this a cartoon hard-on).  But does he fly off to Father Winter at this point and beg for humanity so he can express his love to Elisa?  No.   He only thinks to pursue her after he’s saved her (earned her).  As he sings to Father Winter to convince him he is lonely and in love, his fantasy is of Elisa’s serving him dinner!

Moreover, he never tells her the truth.  He never says, I’m Jack Frost and I’ve come into human form out of love for you, which might have impressed her a little more than him failing to storm the castle.  It’s really the only way out of the friend zone; she can’t be impressed by your sacrifices and gestures of affection if she doesn’t know you’re only doing them because you love her.  For all Blondie knows, he is a tailor.  Jack broke the first rule of all children’s role models which is to always tell the truth about who you are.  Be yourself and all that crap (unless who you are is selfish or whiny, then you need to grow-up…but that’s not this movie).

Say, the first two points don’t matter.  Elisa will marry the guy who saves her more, because that’s the logic of a late 70s romantic female.  If she’s keeping count of the times she’s been saved.  It goes Jack Snip: 0.  Sir Ken Doll:1 (that we know of) and Jack Frost: 2.  Clearly, to get his happy end in, Jack just had to tell her that he was Jack Frost and had earned her.

We, as an audience, feel like Elisa is a bitch for not ending up with Jack at the end, although she is clearly in love with another man and doesn’t really know Jack that well.  We feel cheated because we know it was Jack Frost who saved both of them (and the entire town) when he sacrificed his humanity to become a spite and snow the iron soldiers in.  I don’t think we’re keeping a subconscious tally of Jack versus Sir Ken.  It’s out of compassion for the hero’s goals.

We sympathize with Jack’s loneliness (out-dated chauvinist prick that he is).  We want him to be happy at the end and to accomplish his goal.  He is a nice guy, he has made sacrifices, and damn it, the movie is about him.  He has to get his happy-ending.

So we feel cheated of that goal accomplishment, when he doesn’t get the reward we see in every child’s film.  Rudolph guides the sleigh and forgives years of bullying because he’s a celebrity now and there’s a girl reindeer who likes him.  The Grinch is re-made into a modern film and now there a girl Who who likes him.  The hero, [insert name of little boy/girl/old man/judge/skeleton], believes in Santa and discovers the true meaning of Christmas and there’s someone who likes him (you get a cookie if you followed all those movies).  The weird-looking nice guy wins the beautiful woman’s heart.

But if Jack had married Elisa at the end and achieved all his life’s goals, he would have accomplished exactly what Kubblah Kraus would have.  He would have stolen the woman away from the man she was in love with out of a sense that he deserved her.  And we don’t really want that as an audience, do we?

Besides, Elisa is so sweet in the movie, she probably would have married him if he asked.  Just to keep him human if that’s what he wanted.  There might have been a weird threesome involved, since clearly both Sir Ken Doll and Jack were flamers.  And come to think of it by lover-earning logic, Jack Frost won Sir Ken Doll too…but I’ve digressed into what if territory.

Cherry Macaroons

There is no reason to make these without the cherry, unless you hate cherries, or have an allergy, or run out of cherries, or like me forget when to add the cherry.

This is the final I’ll-be-killed-if-the-women-in-my-family-learn-to-use-the-internet cookie. I dare to post no more…

Cherry Macaroons, or Cherry Macs, are delicious and sometimes found in Chinese buffets.  This is also Manly Squeeze’s favorite cookie.

1 jar of marachino cherries (cut each cherry in half). Optional.

1 1/3 cup of sweetened coconut flakes

1/3 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons of flour

1/8 teaspoon of salt

2 egg whites (triple the recipe and use the yolks from Aunt Anne’s.  If you like macaroons.)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1) Preheat oven to 375.

2) Mix 1 1/3 cup of coconut, 1/3 cup of sugar, 3 tbs flour, and 1/8 tsp of salt.

3) Stir in 2 egg whites and 1/2 tsp almond extract.

4) Drop by rounded teaspoon on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Decorate with cherry (as in before baking).

5) Bake 20 minutes

Tips and notes:

Good luck with the rounded teaspoon.  The dough is very sticky and this is another one where you get sticky. Keep the cookies smallish, just the same, because they get fatter when the cook and when you stick in the cherry.

I made these this afternoon and forgot to put the cherry in before baking (which means it doesn’t get in the cookie at all.  You can see the difference in size (but not in non-burnedness) in the picture above.  If making without the cherry, watch the cookie carefully to avoid burning.

Parchment paper, being too close too the bottom of the oven, and temp. variations in the oven can really mess with these cookies.  Coconut is easily burned, I think.  So watch them close.

Aunt Anne’s Stolen Cookies

Aunt Anne’s is the one of the left. Pecan Sandy is the on the right, which is stolen from Better Home and Gardens, Dec 12.

So this recipe is doubly-stolen.  You’re getting it because I broke into my Great Aunt’s house one day (okay I was cat-sitting).  I copied this recipe which she has refused to give out to anyone else in the family… ever.  Not even my grandmother (her sister) has it and so far noone has found out that I make it for friends in the safety of my own kitchen under the cover of night.

Aunt Anne stole it from a classy resturant by flirting with a waiter.  And no, she was not a young woman at the time.  She was an over-weight Italian woman in her mid-fifties, so we’re not sure if he gave it to her out of genuine attraction, or if the cook was flattered when the waiter uncomfortably regaled her with the story of the woman asking to sit in his lap while he whispered his culinary secrets, or if the waiter was just terrified that she’d come back and keep harassing him.

Either way, the cookies are great.

1 ib of sweet butter, chilled (that’s generally 4 sticks for the mathematically lazy and/or challenged)

6 egg yolks

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

5 cups of flour

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

 

1) Sift 5 cups of flour and 1/ cup of sugar in a large bowl.

2) Cube 1 ib of butter into small peices.  Mix with the sifted flour and sugar.

3) Work by hand into the mixture until evenly dispersed (crumb-like).

4) Make a well and add all the liquids (6 egg yolks and 1 tbs lemon juice).

5) Form into a ball (a sticky hot mess of a ball) and chill for an hour.

6)Preheat oven to 350.

7) Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch.  Cut out a circle for the bottom and top.  Seperate an equal number of tops from bottoms.  Then cut out the hearts (I’m trying really hard not to make any inappropriate sex jokes about this, which I guess is just proof that we all turn into our parents).

8) Mysteriously missing step?  Or nervous waiter numbering wrong?  The world may never know…

9) Bake for 12 minutes.

10) Cool cookies. Spread jam onto bottom.  Dip top into confectionary sugar and make into sandwich.

Aunt Annie has not revealed to us the type of jam in the sandwich.  I’m fairly sure, it’s raspberry, but I’ve used strawberry, rubarb, and blueberry.

Tips and Notes:

If you plan on making the cherry macaroons, save the egg whites from this recipe.

The first time I made this, I got holy-shit confused over the well thing.  You basically lump all the dry mix into a mountain, and dig a hole at the top.  Then pour the wet stuff into it.  You then fold the wet into the dry.  I have no idea why the well is important; one of the disadvantages to stealing recipes is that I have never been properly instructed on the nuances of dough-wells.  By the way, you’ll get very sticky while making these cookies; but I promise it’s worth it.

Cutting out the hearts… This requires a special kind of cookie cutter.  I still haven’t found a good one yet (the cookie pictured was made by the Aunt herself).  I have a star which I use with blueberry jelly for a Hannukah cookies and a shot glass which will do in a pinch.  The idea is to have enough dough around the edge of the cookie that it can be handled without falling apart.  I don’t care if the recipe says to make them equal, make more tops, especially on your first time.  They break too easily.  Also consider keeping the cut out hearts (if you have the cutter) and baking them.  They are delightful as well.

Lady Fingers (aka Mom’s Fat Fingers)

Possibly the most unflattering picture of cookie ever…

The next three cookies (Lady Fingers, Cherry Macaroons, and Aunt Anne’s) are feircely guarded secrets in my family.  My mother and aunt would probably gut me and use the vacated cavity as a mixing bowl if they found out I was sharing them and had the imagination.  However, all of my family is about as internet savvy as a killer whale, so I think I’m safe. The Lady Fingers are from Mom and she hates that we call them Mom’s Fat Fingers.

1 cup of soft butter

1 1/2 cup of confectionary (powdered) sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 cup of chopped walnuts

2 cups flour

1) In a large bowl beat butter with a mixer until it’s fluffy.  Gradually add 1 1/2 cup of confectionary sugar until pale and even more fluffy. Beat in 1 tsp vanilla extract.

2) Hand stir in 1 cup of walnuts and flour.  Make sure it is well blended.

3) Chill overnight (or as I recently discovered, put in the freezer for three hours).

4) Pre-heat oven to 300.

5) Cut dough in half (and put the other in the fridge again).  Cut the half your working with into 8 peices (or 12 if you want thin lady fingers, which are very elegant but hard to dip in chocolate).  On a floured surface shape each into a 12″ log and cut each log into 3″ sections.  Cut on a slant.

6) Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes.  Then roll in confectionary sugar (or dip in melted chocolate).

Tips and notes:

Make sure the walnuts are finely chopped (like tiny, tiny peices).  Mom takes the chopped walnuts in the store and puts them in a food processor.  If you have no choice, don’t worry.  Go for fat fingers, though.  Your dough will be extra crumbly, so you’ll need to squeeze the logs and press the dough tightly.  Mom likes to make very embarrassing dick jokes when we do this.

I have no idea where Mom gets this 12″ log into 3″ section business from.  We barely even cut the dough in half anymore when we make it together (Mom’s gotten sloppy with the baking since I stopped believing in Santa Clause).  The cookie will spread as it bakes so make it slightly thinner than you want the end cookie.  I like to make them about as thick as a lady’s finger (not a fat lady either); you get more cookies and they are dainty and you don’t feel as guilty.  Mom lieks then fat so that they don’t break and they dip better in chocolate, jelly, and whatever dessert sauce she’s made for fruit on that particular day.  I say, roll it like a kid with play-dough making worms and don’t let the media pressure to have the perfectly shaped cookie stop you from making your dessert as fat or thin as you damn well please.

When paired with a cherry macaroon and rolled in coarse green sugar (pre-baking), 3 fat fingers can sort of look like holly on a cookie plate.

Also, you can take the cookie dough and roll it into a ball and put a little chocolate chip (like in a chocolate chip cookie) in the center.  Press it down tip side first and roll the dough a little higher around it (basically make a bowl for when the chocolate melts while it’s baking).  When it hardens again after baking, you have a nifty cookie.  I also occassionally hide one cherry bit or chocolate chip inside of a ball of this cookie.  Not exactly a lady finger, but still fun.

Christmas Casserole (Ham and Cheese)

I have no idea where this recipe first came from or what country of origin it’s from, but it is a tradition in this generaton of Longo’s to make Christmas casserole on Christmas Eve and bake it Christmas morning.  It’s a very convenient breakfast that way (if you hate waking up and cooking or if you have children filled with avarice and wonder).  Also great for a brunch.

16 slices of white bread

2 cups of cubed ham

8 oz sharp cheese

1 small can of mushrooms (or fresh if your like that) optional

6 eggs

3 cups milk

1/2 tap salt

1/2 tsp dry mustard

… about half a bag of cornflakes.  We’ve never done a real measurement on this.

1/2 cup of melted butter.

 

1) Remove the crusts of the bread.  Butter the bread and place it butter side down in a casserole dish.

2) Add 2 cups of cubed ham, 2 oz of cheese, and 1 can of mushrooms (if you insist).  Place the remaining bread on top.

3) Beat together the 3 cups of milk, 6 eggs, 1/2 tsp of mustard, and 1/2 tsp of salt.  Pour this over the top of the whole thing and cover it with either a lid (if you’re fancy) or alluminum foil.

4) Take out the casserole an hour before hand and let it get to room temperature.

5) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Crush a bunch of cornflakes, enough to cover the entire casserole evenly.  Pour 1/2 cup of melted butter over this, again as evenly as possible.  This stops the cornflakes from burning.

6) Bake for an hour.  Cool and try to figure out how to get out the first peice without destroying it.

Notes and tips:

The removed bread crusts make for a bread pudding that is apparently delicious (another family tradition).  I can’t stand the stuff; so I have no recipe for you.  Other wise, feed the birds?  Is that still legal?

When we were kids, my mom used to let my older sister butter the bread and let me grate the cheese (I’m smarter, see!) while she cubed the ham.  We childs would also crunch the cornflakes.  So it’s a nice recipe to do with kids or other helpers.

When you beat the wet ingredients, beat the crap out of them.  The eggs do not like to join the rest of the party and if it’s not evenly distributed you get random bits of baked egg in the middle of the casserole and not a nice blend.  Basically when you pour there shouldn’t be any overly yellow spots on the bread.  If there are… better luck next time?  It will still be pretty darn good, especially if you like baked egg.

It is very important to let the casserole sit out for an hour.  I don’t know why.  It affects the texture, baking time, and all sorts of things go wrong if you skip this.  The most epic was one time when it blew up in the oven… though the oven was broken and was about 400 degrees by the time we realized what was happening.

On crushing the cornflakes… it’s not a difficult task so don’t sweat it too much.  They don’t need to be a fine powder, but there shouldn’t be any flakes remaining.  I usually crush and grind them in my hands and sprinkle it over the top.  My mom uses a rolling pin and a plastic bag and then crunches them in her hands (still inside the bag).  My sister likes to smash them with the rolling pin and blame the noise on me.

The end texture of the casserole should not be runny (too little baking, too much liquids) or too fluffy (too little ham and cheese).

Nano Update

 

Yup and there’s two of them for a reason.  This is the last stop on today’s gloat-fest.  In November 2012, I wrote upwards of 10 k and wrote two novels… which both are in serious need of editting.

I’m taking a break from both of these novels to focus on something involving Faeries (arguably what Twlight could have been) and Christmas baking.  With luck, I’ll get a holiday job, and be able to move back to Ireland by February (with extreme luck it will be at Starbucks which I have always wanted).  Until then… it’s time to bake!

Yeah, I bake too.  A casserole that tastes like Jesus and Christmas cookies you will crave all year round.

Recipes forthcoming.

Behind the Scenes: The Writer Tutor

Idea

This one is actually painfully obvious to me, but you don’t know me so…

I’ve worked as a writing tutor/editor for about nine years now (Christ!  I don’t wanna be that old!) and I started this glorious occupation in college.

In my first writing center, we had a very fun, very close knit community of tutors, at least two of which I still talk to today and we all hung out until all hours of the day in “the lab.”  The lab was a room with floor to ceiling windows, a couch that we all regularly fell asleep and drooled on, and a back corner that we called “L.J.’s office” because it’s where I sat, where I hung my print outs, where my tutees knew to wait for me, and where I could be found writing any time I wasn’t in class.  The saddest thing about graduating was seeing that my “office” had been moved out of the corner to allow for a new table. Also, they took down the disembodied pirate head hanging from the ceiling. Losers, right?

I feel I should mention that this is not a true story.  I don’t know any Josh and I had the evil librarian look mastered by the time I went to college.

Revision

There wasn’t really much in the way of revision… It’s just a sexy scene.

Today

Stop hounding me!

Read “The Writing Tutor” here

Nano update

   So remember how I’m crazy from a previous Nanowrimo post:

     “There were two options at the beginning of the month: 1) say I’ll take it easy and just write like 35 k or 40 k work on a novel… do my best and don’t commit or 2) go shit crazy and do two consecutive rounds of 50 k.  One for Hometown, Ireland and one for Hometown, Pa.  Guess which one I picked?”

Well, insanity is paying off because Virtue Decayed for Hometown, Ireland is almost finished.  Suck it, Cindy!  I have completely ignored the primary plot in the piece and just wrote what I think was supposed to be a subplot and back story… I don’t know.  It’s about a woman in a corset and that’s sexy.

What’s a Whatsit?

There are many great questions: In storytelling, there is the “What happens next?” In friendship, there is “Where do you want to eat?”  And for the rest of life there is, “What the Fuck is that about?”   Go on, preform that line in your favorite actor’s voice; it just gets better.  Nathan Lane in a freak out moment is mostly the way I say it; though when I don’t understand the lyrics to a Rufus Wainwright song usually some variation of that question fits (way to reference two gay men before paragraph one is done, L.J.).

My favorite question though is probably: “Jumping Whatsits on the Empress’s bed?”

When I was a kid and before I understood how to lie, I would blame everything I did on “the Jumping *Inarticulate-word-that-no-one-knows-not-even-adult-me* in the Empress’s bed.” i probably said it in a mind-blowingly cute baby-voice.  The adults reaction was always a confused, “what the fuck is that about?” (not always made suitable for child-me). I don’t remember ever being pressed for details about the Empress, her bed, or the inarticulate-word-that-no-one-knows-not-even-adult-me, because, remember, I was in trouble at the time.  I was getting asked about why my sister’s hair was three inches shorter and the scissors were in my snoopy dog’s lap. Or where all the pots and pans had gone.

The usual follow-up to the unanswered question was “Don’t be so bold, Little L.J.” (bold being a negative word in this use; I didn’t realize that until I was an adult).  Of course, I never actually cut my sister’s hair or used the pots and pans to make an alien space fort.  It was the inarticulate-word-that-no-one-knows-not-even-adult-me. These creatures, given the lack of precaution my parents took to stop them, have probably multiplied and are wreaking havoc on the children everywhere as we speak.  more importantly, as a result of my adults’ short sighted-ness, adult L.J. also must ask “Whatsits?  Jumping Whatsits? What did I mean?” And the world may never know what amazing creatures were jumping on that mysterious empress’s bed…

After I developed my language skills and learned to blame everything on my younger cousin, my sister’s stupidity, or indulge in the occasional flat-out denial, I had a notebook which I titled “Jumping Whatsits on the Empress’s bed.”  This became the place I wrote down all my half-baked ideas.  Oddly enough it was always more used than the good notebook where my story was being written; I organize shit, folks.  I think mostly because I had a problem with regulating my font (read I’d spend hours drawing the title and never write the first sentences; this practice stopped when another child mocked me for have twelve pages with the same words written on the top.  Now I have trouble with titles.  God Damn you, children of Hometown, Pa and your soul-scarring bullying!  Then again… I’m pretty sure I stabbed the kid with a fork so…No, I’m not ready to apologize). A little context: at the time, I was writing on a word processor that got my father’s sister through college, and the Lion King had just come out.  I wrote my first and last 16 page novel to that soundtrack on that word processor.

When Dad got us our first computer (literally when the rest of the world was also getting their first computers… I think, Hometown is sometimes slow).  One of my first files was a little text file called “Jumping Whatsits” and yeah, I dumped all my ideas and observation there.  I still have the file and I still fan through it regularly.  A lot of the ideas I have there will end up here, because when I need random inspiration I go there.

Personally, I’m just waiting to figure out where the inarticulate-word-that-no-one-knows-not-even-adult-me live so that I can join them in their relentless creative experiments.  Until then… guess I’ll write more porn.

This is what the whatsits look like in my head.

Behind the Scenes: “Before the Rain”

Idea

In the summer of 2006, while in college and working overnight shifts in a food market and giving ghost tours in Ocean City, I happened to see a Rembrandt exhibit in Philadelphia.  One of the things that most stayed with me was that the great Rembrandt, master painter, portraitist, and otherwise upstanding gents, had sketched a  series of of dirty etchings.  Like the one above “Monk in a Cornfield”.  It was painted (sketched?  I’m not an artist, wiki it) in 1646 and is considered Baroque, which is funny considering the act it’s depicting.

Being the dirty twisted bastard I am, it took me a while to realize it wasn’t a dude Padre was fucking.  Rembrandt drew all his ladies in these etching with stocky muscular legs and she’s wearing a dress… or she’s a he and another monk, I guess.  I don’t know they told me it was Hetro.

And that didn’t stop me.

On the bus home, I types up Ciaran’s story (he was Cyril at the time) and it was actually originally a very campy, comedic kind of story. Maybe about three pages long, it showed the deed and then a diva-style hissy fit about the nature of God and homosexuality.

Revision

Then a professor gave me a book called Before Stonewall, which discussed the history of being gay before the civil right movement in America.  All the articles dealt with America’s early history (that I remember anyway…  I had shit to do that summer, hoagies to make, stories to tell, hotties to… look at).  I do know it made me think about this story and I re-wrote it with the diva hissy fit toned down and made part of Cyril’s thoughts, making the only dialogue in the piece his outcry of “Oh God.”  It was much more serious and probably my first literary erotica as it dealt with more than just cock and balls… though meditations on God is quite hard for me to separate from cock and balls.  He’s called the Big Guy for a reason.

So there is sat on my computer for… six years, shit I’m getting old.

I returned to it again recently while appearing as Friar Laurence in Manly Squeeze’s Romeo and Juliet.  Manly Squeeze had a brilliant interpretation of the play, not the tragedy of the kids, but as the tragedy of unbridled passion.  Romeo who kills two people in the play and threatens a shit ton of others (it’s in the script, check it) was portrayed as insane with grief at the end, like full-on crazy Joker-ish in the tomb with Paris.  Juliet was tearing-her-hair, snotty-nosed tears, screaming suicidal.  It was not a sanitized or pretty version of teenage love and the families were the  figures of denouement (why is that word spelled like that!  Ug, the French) and passion had to be the motivation for each character.

For Laurence, I did a lot of research into Franciscan monks (considered the wisest men in Shakespeare’s time so R + J are really fighting fate and God himself when Laurence can’t help them.   A fucking plague gets in the way!  Great example that even hetros can have the Big Guy forbidding their love).  Most of Friar Laurence’s lines are sermons and mini-monologues ( had forty minutes of lines on my mp3 and that was a quick read through to get the words and stanchion) so clearly God and his will was Laurence’s passion, but then I played with the idea that Laurence was gay for Romeo (because our Romeo was a really hot Japanese kid who I would like to… look at some more because I dearly love my Manly Squeeze.).

It made me think of “Before the Rain” and I took out the story, read it, considered it and eventually rewrote what you see today.  Anyways… “Before the Rain” was not porny enough for any magazines (though it did get me a few editors who wanted less high-brow stuff and eventually picked up some of my college fantasies).  The story was also too explicit for literary magazines, so there is sat on my computer for my enjoyment.  Then an editor who loves to publish what she tells me to write and reject my original stories suggested I indie-pub “Before the Rain” and other good-but-not-what-we’re-looking-for material.  So I did.

Today

I don’t know if there’s a future in the story.  I feel like I would be cheating to take Ciaran’s struggle with God and lust outside of the time period he’s in.  But I’m not much for historical romance and I can’t think of a satisfying ending in the fifteenth century.  So this story will probably remain as a short erotic scene.

By the way, that sexy cover image was all me… and Rembrandt (it’s called Titus as Monk and it was done in 1660).  But I added the text and I… am not as impressive as I want to be…

Read “Before the Rain” here: