SLACKS by SLACKS

SLACKS A Playful Exploration of Contemporary Masculinities ISSUE No 1

Editor-in-Chief M. A. Kawinzi

SLACKS, and all content and photos within, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. Any inquires can be directed to SLACKSmag@gmail.com.

The important fact of men's lives is not that they are biological males, but that they become men. Our sex may be male, but our identity as men is developed through a complex process of interaction with the culture in which we both learn the gender scripts appropriate to our culture and attempt to modify those scripts to make them more palatable.

Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner, 1998

Slacks

contents Fall 2011

ross Lipton /4 Present-day dandy on bad sunglasses, feline fraternity, and Windows DOS.

David L. Byrne/18 Newly-minted blackjack enthusiast does AC, antiDFW style.

Mark Popham /30 Dong size is a dialectic like any other.

Greg Dean/34 Local animal handler horses around with rats, mascara, tauntauns.

JOHN WESLEY WILDER Jr/48 Dumbbell enthusiast who will not abide a flat ass.

Adam Brody/60 Of Barbara Walters, domesticity, and sincerity.

Alexander Jiro Sugiura/69 Married to the sea (been out a long time).

Ross lipton

(...is not coming to your stag party.)

Traipsing through the streets, you might mistake him for a wandering time traveler. Ross Lipton is the image of vestured consistency: never in shirt-sleeves, hat charmingly askew. Anachronistic? Sure, but a little respect for ages past never hurt anyone. You’re really into cats, what is that about? I just love a good pussy. There is a tumblelog—Cute Boys and Cats. I’m really disgusted by that. Men and cats--it’s the one subversion of masculinity that really disgusts me. So you’re disgusted by me then. A little. Me too. I like cats more than anything. If a cat was taller, if a cat could walk on its hind legs--not taller, but longer, and a little sentient--well, cats are pretty sentient. Cats are pretty sensual, actually. I don’t really consider it bestiality, it’s called passion. 06

Did you discover your sensuality through your relationship with cats? I discovered my ability to have affection that is selfless through cats. The sensual feeling when I’m cuddling Mr. Nelson, my love baby Mr. Nelson, is not sexual. Interestingly, I don’t have a sexual instinct or desire for procreation to sully my relationship with cats. The implication being that that it sullies your relationships with women. Yes. You see, I despise children. I hate little humans, little wretched gremlins. The idea of a woman giving birth is weary, like a wheel turning endlessly. You’re turned off by the

perpetuation of the human race. Continuing the endless cycles of conception is pretty vulgar. It’s insufferable. An insufferable game and I’m not playing it any more! Well, that’s too bad. Yeah, it’s a shame. I want to talk to you about contemporary dandyism and if you think it’s something that exists. Is it meaningful to call someone a dandy in 2011? I get called a dandy a lot. Was it a name you assumed for yourself or did people just start calling you that? Tim Dunn calls me a dandy, other people may have... That’s how I’ve heard you referred to. No, I didn’t cultivate that. I appreciate it. The thing about the dandy as a concept: it came in the mid19th century, it was a liberation of the idle class. A man of leisure, of fine taste and cultivation...he made the outside his inside, the public space into his private parlour where he performed parlour tricks for everyone. He was unstirred by social pressure that other people are distracted by. I think why dandyism is in danger in the 21st century is that

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even the leisure class finds itself distracted. Dandyism in many ways is sort of an ascetic monasticism. Ascetic aestheticism. Paradoxical. I think the reason why it came during the 19th century, why there was a golden age of dandyism--you needed to have an industrialized society that had enough of a culture of excess but also not the sort of distractions that we have: handheld electronics, cellphones, internet, multimedia, Windows XP, DOS, webdesign, HTML, these things are counterintuitive to the dandy project... including iPods. Did I mention iPods? No, you didn’t yet. Tapes, headsets... Walkmen? Bluetooths? Blueteeth. Blueteeth; b a s i c a l l y anything that can distract the individual from his here and now in the environment. It’s all about-(his cell phone rings). Aw...see this is a good case in point. That’s not a phone. That’s the birds chirping. Oh, Ross. Perhaps you don’t engage in dandyism as much as you’d like to think that you do. I do. That’s not a phone. Do you think that it’s something one can still intelligibly engage in or is it something one can only

Cats are pretty sensual, actually...i don't really consider it bestiality, it's called passion.

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look back toward? I think to engage one must want it more than the dandies of the past. One must be armed. Armed? What do you arm yourself with in your quest? An insurmountable will. I’m not saying I’m the ideal dandy, I’m a work in progress. Is it a label that perhaps you heard applied to yourself and then tried to embody even more? In a way. Maybe I’m taking on the mission that other people have bestowed upon me. But I do believe in the project of dandyism. All my heroes I would refer to as dandies. What I was trying to say before the birds interrupted was that dandyism is all about immediacy. That’s what monasticism really means: not having a reflective ethical notion 08

about one’s actions. It’s having an immediate sensuality. That’s interesting because I think a lot of different forms of masculinity overthrow ethicity. You could say that the theory of fratdom is completely devoid of ethicity, but comes to a very different conclusion than dandyism. You probably have more in common with Phi Kappa Kappa than you might think you do. Phi Kappa Kappa? No, because the thing about dandyism is that it accentuates the individual. If you are referring to the immediacy of male sensuality, drunken stag party sex is not sensual. It’s actually more ethical than anything else. Drunken stag party sex? It’s what happens at a fictional Phi

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the lacuna. that's really what gender is. the hole in the dialogue. the ghost at the feast. hamlet's father. that's gender to me: hamlet's father.

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Kappa Kappa party. You get drunk and have drunken sex and that kind of thing. I don’t partake in these things-that’s contrary to dandyism and I’m not about that. So what are the ethical weights that you’re throwing off of yourself as a dandy? Commitment to future generations.

That’s basically the main ethical weight that a dandy must throw off. It’s a form of hedonism. Hedonism usually comes at the cost of causing others pain. Hedonism is similar but evolves from epicureanism, or the pleasure principle. It’s actually more based in utilitarian philosophy where you do something specifically based 09

on how much pleasure it gives you. Hedonism is a little more analytical. It’s also sometimes a little masochistic like in de Sade or something. I’m not saying that it doesn’t come into dandyism... It’s a more solipsistic form of hedonism? No, it’s contrary to solipsism. Solipsism has as part of its thesis that you yourself are the world in which you live. But if you’re saying that it’s not engaged with other people, but about pleasure and causing it only for yourself--making sure it’s not at the costs of others--to me it seems as though you’re cutting yourself off from the world for the sake of whatever brings you joy: stroking your pussies, reading Hamlet, and removing yourself from engaging with the rest of the world as though it does not exist. That’s not what dandyism is at all. Dandyism requires a world with which to interact. Does it require a world with which to interact and engage or a world with which to compare yourself? Well, it requires a world in which to study. There has to be an object outside of oneself in order to be a true dandy in the traditional sense. Solipsism is related to all these things of which I was just saying, the interwebs where people spend so much time working out their persona by moving small increments of data across webs of information. Cybernetic projection of person. That’s solipsism. But your presentation of self is also

very curated. Is it? Yes, you don’t think so? Having a sort of style or a notion of what you like doesn’t necessarily have to be curated. Or I should say that at least a dandy--no matter how curated his persona may be--still expresses his persona in the real world, while someone else who is aloft somewhere moving bits of data through cybernetic worlds never actually interacts with anything substantial. I think you’re being a little romantic. Thank you. …and also making some false distinctions, but we won’t dwell on that. To return to your aesthetic for a moment: one thing I really like about it is that it does have this foppish edge to it, but at the same time is very shabby. Yeah, shoddy. Sepia-toned. Derelict dandy chic. Like a daguerreotype. Like a walking daguerreotype. It’s very...Oscar Wilde at the Salvation Army. Mmhmm. I would like to wear nicer clothes. You can put that on the record. That was my question, how intentional is that look? Not terribly intentional. My clothes-a lot of them are old and there aren’t really clothes like this any more. I know, you think menswear is bad, try women’s clothes-I will try women’s clothes. --it just falls apart like THAT. 11

I say I dance with masculinity. You dance with it? Yes, different dances. What dance is it usually?

Usually a gavot. It's a very man dance. It's quite a frigid affair.

Yeah, like this jacket’s not that old but it’s so faded. It’s just four years old. You take it to the wash-The washterium. A washtorium, a washteria. You know-it’s a few washes and already faded. You should really be going bespoke at this point in your life. I should be going what? You should be going bespoke. Say that again? “Besp--”? Bespoke! You know, custom-made tailor suits. They’re expensive. They are expensive but you buy one or two and you don’t have to worry about the problems that you’re having with that thing. I just want to ask one more thing about your sense of dress: do you think of it as costume? Some of it derives from my compulsive personality. I like to wear the same thing for a period of time. I didn’t always partake in the dandy code of dress. Before I was a dandy I was into wearing mock turtlenecks all the time. Am I to assume that you were really into Steve Jobs before you became anti-technology? More into French films of the 1960s, that’s what inspired the turtleneck. That’s pretty cliché. I wouldn’t wear turtlenecks with a sports jacket and jeans, I’m not into the Steve Jobs look. I’m into more of the Alain Delon. It’s cliché because its a good look. It’s really the only look people look presentable in. The black turtleneck? 14

Plain colors. Ugh, disgusting neon pastels... I hope you’ve noticed that I definitely agree with a muted color palette in my everyday life. No, I have noticed, and I appreciate it. I deeply appreciate it. The thing I hate the most are those sunglasses that people have with the-With the neon on the side! Yeah, what is that? What the hell is that?! Those are the worst. I tell you! Very, very terrible. I remember that was like cutting-edge hipster when I was living in New York. Then recently you see these UPenn kids, like Wharton kids... That was my exact reaction--I saw a gaggle of Penn kinds wearing them recently and thought, ‘I can’t believe this trickled down...’ Yeah, like what about that was so attractive to the masses? And don’t they know that it’s played out and also was never attractive? They were too busy studying. Heh.

One Tuesday, David L. Byrne and I straight hopped up and booked it to Atlantic City. We saturated ourselves in the capitalist absurd, and emerged merrily on the other side, pockets and spirits lighter:

a definitely fun thing that we will almost certainly do again 18

We have now seen sucrose beaches and water a very bright blue. We have heard orgasmic techno and watched, in time, as neon-colored water ejaculated several stories of a beachside mall. We have pointed rhythmically to the ceiling to the two-four beat of the same Smashing Pumpkins music we hated pointing at the ceiling to in 1997. We have eaten worse and more tasteless food than we’ve ever eaten, and done this during a day when we’ve also learned the difference between “splitting” and “surrendering.” We have heard a professional psychic tell folks, without irony, “Let me tell you about my crystals.” We have seen professional blackjack dealers so enervated they make you want to clutch your heart. We have acquired and nurtured a searing crush on a group of drunk dude-bros, they of the cropped crew cuts and gentle tans, who always wore cargo shorts one size too large and smelled of diluted rum and cola. 20

A Surgical Guide to Improving Your Love Life Mark Popham When Male Health Magazine asked me to write an article on how men can improve their sexual health, well, I was a little surprised. To be honest, with two kids and a wife with her own career in academia, sometimes I feel like my OWN sexual health could use a bit of improvement! But I decided that this assignment would be a perfect opportunity for me to re-evaluate my own sexual relationship with my wife, Joyce. It’s not bad, of course - we still have our old passion, once in a while but it just seems like, with the demands of kids and careers, sex always comes last. I wanted to spice up our love life, and I decided the best way would be for me to deal with something I had always felt uncomfortable with: my penis. At 5.72 inches and with a reasonable degree of reliability, my old penis was fine, but it wasn’t exactly something to write home about. I had always felt like I could have a better, fuller penis experience - and when I went to see Dr. David Burnheart, the warm and gregarious plastic surgeon at the heart of Jersey City’s InteleGenitals Penile Construction group, the first question 30

he asked me in our consultation was, “Describe the penis that you have always wanted to have.” At that first meeting, he asked me to brainstorm and write down a list of words which described what we both referred to as my “dream-penis.” He would then use this list to draw up a surgical plan to achieve said penis. After our brief consultation, Dr. Burnheart slapped me on the back and left me to his partners, Drs. Ohle and Moldenke, who - with the help of local anesthetics - removed my old penis, taking care to leave the delicate tissue which would be used to anchor my new, improved penis. Unfortunately - wouldn’t you know it Joyce decided that that very night would be the perfect time to “get frisky”, just because it was our 10th wedding anniversary. While it was difficult to dissuade her, and downright painful when my gauze-wrapped genitals began filling with blood, I managed to defuse the situation with some light cuddling and a promise that in a few weeks I’d let her see her “anniversary present.” At my next appointment, Dr.

Burnheart presented me with a handsome, personalized Penis Plan, which outlined both our surgical plan as well as the generous terms of my payment plan. My new penis, I learned, would be fifteen inches long, four inches thick in diameter and grown entirely in a lab from genetically modified Rottweiler DNA. The good doctor explained that, while the end result did not technically look much like a human penis, the professionals at InteleGenitals had realized, over the course of several years, that most modern men did not actually just want a “larger penis” but instead wanted an entirely new “sexual appendage.” A huge breakthrough came, Dr. Burnheart explained, when they realized that men wanted this new “sexual appendage” entirely for homosocial display.

soon, as Joyce was beginning to openly ask me why I was “ignoring her.” Boy, was she going to be surprised! At fifteen inches, and weighing in at a reasonable seven pounds, my new penis was everything I had been promised and more. Although completely insensate, as nerve technology has not progressed enough to allow feeling, InteleGenitals had also surgically inserted two specialized glands into my upper thigh which, when pressed, caused my penis to stiff to its full length and caused me to release a fluid that was to some degree indistinguishable from ejaculate. Although my Penis Plan guide advised me to refrain from strenuous activity until my body adjusted to the blood flow demands of a new fifteen-inch penis, I couldn’t wait to go home and show off my new penis to Joyce. How excited she would be! I knew that I was “What does the modern man want in store for an extremely enjoyable from his penis?” Burnheart asked night of what the Penis Plan refers rhetorically. “He wants a third muscly to as “something resembling human arm between his legs, frightening the copulation,” just in time for our ten young and old at public swimming year and three months anniversary. pools. He wants to walk into a room and know, conclusively, that no other Unfortunately, Joyce was not as man in the room has a bigger penis enthusiastic about my new penis than he does. He wants women to be as I thought she would be. In fact, she found it “horrifying” and “an actively afraid of his penis.” abomination,” which I thought were “Sex?” he said, “Frankly, that mode of strong words to level at a man who employment has sort of fallen by the kept passing out from blood loss. As it turns out, I was never fated to share my wayside.” new penis with Joyce, who has taken A week later, my newly grown penis our children and is currently divorcing was attached - and not a moment too me. Likewise, every woman I have 31

shown my new penis to has screamed and, in one particularly memorable case, vomited. On the other hand, men are completely enamored of my new penis. I have been approached at the locker room at my gym, at the beach and in the supermarket by other men interested in penis construction surgeries. Although their words are

envious, I see a much deeper pain in their eyes. If only I had an enormous, fifteen-inch penis, they cry out to me, I could finally be a man.

INTELEGENITALS PENILE CONSTRUCTION SURGERY PROS: Enormous, cudgel-like sexual appendage Predictable erectile and ejaculatory response Reasonable payment plan CONS: Completely unfeeling Occasional blackouts Some consider results “horrifying” and “gnarled”

MALE HEALTH RECOMMENDATION: MEGABUY

Mark Popham looks little like the poor rendition above; he remains unphotographed due to entirely substantiated fears about the early-morning Labor Day streets of New York.

greg dean!

“I’ve never been a boy or a girl, I’ve just always wanted to do everything that everyone got to do,” Greg Dean says, a sentiment quietly expressed in his everyday garb: leather jacket, the semblance of a ponytail, and, on his best days, makeup. This year he immersed himself in the world of eyeshadows and lipsticks for Fun-a-Day, an art show displaying the work that its participants have engaged in for every day of a month. Perennially positive with pet rat Panda Bear perched on his shoulder--”I just have the best life ever,” he intones in a warm, soothing baritone--we G-chatted about what keeps Ms. Dean so wonderfully upbeat.

SLACKS Mag: GREG DEAN a question greg dean: WAIT!!!!! SM: HMMMM???? gd: we need soundtrack! britney? SM: WHAT IS THE SOUNDTRACK WHITNEY MARIAH AGAINST ME ALL OF THEM gd: BRITNEY BITCH! SM: OH SHIIIIIIIIIII gd: mmmmm hmmmmm! up allll the way! up all in my bed rooom! SM: starting with ‘til the world ends’ because obviously gd: dude... Femme Fatale (Deluxe Edition) in it’s 1 hour 1 minute and 41 seconds of awesomenes.... OH SHIT HERE WE GO!!!! SM: so! the first time i saw you, you were an absolute vision gd: mmm hmm? SM: someone gasped to me that there was some dude walking around with a rat on his shoulder gd: that’s me! SM: i turned ‘round and...GASP! gd: did you? SM: there you were: panda bear perched upon you, hot dog hat...and it was such a beautiful vision of playful boyishness gd: awe! thanks sweety! SM: i expected a slingshot in your back pocket or something; it was just a fun stylistic construction i hadnt seen before can you comment on playfulness in your aesthetic a bit gd: i wish i had a sling shot still... SM: ONE DAY SOON gd: wellllll. i just do what i still love! age means nothing! i do everything i have wanted to do since i was 5? 6? something... i eat ice cream everyday! i own an NBA JAM arcade cabinet! i ride my bike! i wear what i wantz! at one point i owned 2 trampolines with my BF and we jumped on them all the time as if we weren’t suppose to. LIFE RULEZ RUUULEZ! SM: OH GREG you need to spread the gospel PROSELYTIZE THE TRUTH: LIFE RULEZ 37

gd: illl be honest: i had to look up the word “PROSELYTIZE.” but, fuck! BUTTFUCK! i’m so glad i did! SM: i really appreciate the blending of the masccy and the femmey in your mode of appearance; the fun-a-day photos were so striking, i love the leather+makeup combo gd: i hardly ever thought of my appearance until it made a real difference on how people looked at me. my fun-a-day was GAYMAZNG! but my life here, in philly, was hard before hand because i know i look like a ‘dude.’ but it shouldnt matter. i have some of the most important friendz/family because of that FAD! i’m greg dean and nothing more. no gender, hardly any sex(only cause it was given/gave to me.) i’m just greg dean! SM: it’s funny because i definitely think of you as masculine, but not as dude? just as occupying different gendered spaces at different times JUST BEAUTIFUL NO MATTER WHAT and when i think about my own relationship with gender, as i get older, i feel as though i’ve detached gender aesthetic from statement, which wasn’t always true.

it doesn’t feel political anymore gd: at first i was gonna reply as “you thought i was this because i had a leather jacket and no boobs” or something BUT i dont even know.... im just glad some people choose to get to know ME! I dont even think of girl or boy or man or woman or he or she or whatever. in this point of my life i just think of cute or not cute! that human is “bangin’!” or not or whatever. SM: mos def gd: i’ll makeout with whatever. seriously! who wants to die with regret?! ive maybe regretted one thing. BUT i cant even think of what it might be! IMTALKIN2MUCH SM: do you think of your existence as political? implicitly? explicitly? gd: naw. i hate politics. that doesnt mean im not involved. it just means its ANNOYING!!! i cant handle it any longer! politics i follow: greg dean! for president. WRITE ME IN! britney spears VICE prez!

SM: YOU HAVE MY VOTE but i am writing in beyonce’s baby for vp lo siento gd: YAAAAY! youre beautiful, drop dead! SM: girl, i know when am i getting a makup lesson gd: ill give you a dance lesson, but i have no authority in makeup! SM: DANCE! Tango? bounce? tangoy bounce?? gd: ive been dancing in a knit vest and sweat short shorts! on the 3rd floor of my house this whole time. 3rd floORGY... i hope. SM: BEST WISHES. you gotta pump the whitney though “i wanna dance with somebody” then give the cutie eye in succession to all yr roomies theyll get the message gd: dance with somebody! gd: thank dog for my grams/mama dean for taking me to see ‘pretty woman’ ‘body gaurd’ and ‘terminator 2’ at a young age. not to mention ‘steel magnolias!’ SM: bodyguard will eff you up the best way possible gd: i hope all this makes it into the zine with my dick in it! mama and grams would be so... proud. B-) SM: your moms and gammy were super supportive along your “i’m not a boy not yet a woman” journey, yes? gd: wellllllllll. my mom was SO confused! like, you can tell if you’re bi or gay. and i was, like, Im neither. but she couldnt handle it. BUT was supportive! but when i told my grandma that i wasnt gay or bi or straight or what have you. she was like “yea, i was in college and this girl was soooo hot!” and i was like

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make shit and make shit happen--

Life Rules; do life!

WHOOAAA! awesome! an even though she is republican/conservative, she is fucking GAYMAZING (same with my mom, mama dean) and i couldnt ask for a bettter supportive family!!! I’M... SO.... LUCKY! SM: that is so lovely, amazing gammys are the best gammys. we should do a project on 65+ peeps talking about their gay college crushes (no joke) gd: DOWN! SM: SO! any words for the young’uns out here trying to make it in the suddenly cold, increasingly rainy world? gd: i have read this, seen this, watched this, dreamed this... as being a 30 year old / THIRTY YEAR OLD! / 30 THIRTY YEAR YOUNG / old / young queer kid ::: LIFE CAN BE / IS so so so GOOD/GREAT/GAYMAZING!!!!!! love your life and friends! never stop being you! EVAR!EVER! X’s infinity! PLLLEEASE! you are our future and queer/gay?everything kids will rule the world soon! love US!!!! because you’re all beautiful! -gd! SM: absogoddamnlutely gd: xxxooo can i make shoutoutz?! SM: SHOUT OUT TO WHOMEVER gd: moms, grams, queers, anyone who reads this and all the beautiful peoplez that choose to be themselvez! work it gurlz! plus Ongina! I love you baby! I did not watch one single episode after you were off!!! XXX-gd! SM: GREG DEAN you are so perfect tank you tank you tank you!!!! 42

gd: on the record!!!! i cant wait to see my penis that is totally beautiful on paper! U THA B35T

It's john wesley wilder's workout plan ! 48

The freedom of authentic masculinity is an amazing thing to see. Bill Hybels

Name: John Wilder Jr turn-ons: strength, nice backs, debatability turn-offs: excessive pet names, inability to answer questions, zero booty favorite activities: music playing, debating, chilling in the grass with some good buds guilty pleasures: Bleach ambitions: complete personal album of music, dissappear for a while best concert: They Might Be Giants or Coheed & Cambria's Second Stage Turbine Blade 10 year anniversary show favorite books: Comics or Graphic Novels, Sci-Fi favorite movies: Good Night and Good Luck, Tropic Thunder, IP Man 1&2 pets: nope foods I crave: things that are bad for me people I admire: almost anyone who has it all ffiigured out measurements: 8 54

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â&#x20AC;&#x153; Y

ou have a chance to define a new kind of manhood. . . It will be a world where we can love together, laugh together, and work together without fear and without judgment; a world of celebration, not a world of accusation and apology and unexamined assumptions. Kent Nerburn

Adam brody (...wants to hear all about it.)

Whether belting Beyoncé or serenading Stephen Merrittstyle, Adam Brody crackles with lupine energy. Laughing, eyes darting, he inspires a strangely satisfying unease. Hey, Adam? You’ve got moxie, kid. On the Multitudinous Pleasures of THE VIEW: I think part of my love for The View is that the sister circle is broadcast. For years--decades--in television there’s been a kind of assumed female viewership that’s a core of daytime television. I imagine that Barbara Walters just elbowed her way into a network executive meeting and was like, “This is the show that I want!” 62

For years she was shackled by Hugh Downs and 20/20, being a viable female reporter. She did a good job, she brought a lot of heart to her interviews and the exposés, but she was still functioning in the role of the anchorwoman who’s still hot in a way. But The View doesn’t really do any of that, they’re all just hanging out. It’s sort of gnarly, Whoopi Goldberg is a hot mess. She looks like she just

rolled out of bed. There’s something about it being in the morning and the pretense of quality-directed typical male broadcasting is just gone. A lot of it is just gabbing. Without that phallic projection and presence of narrative and drama, all of these things that have been directed at women though soaps and even talk shows--there’s more of a conflict in talk shows that The View doesn’t have as much. On Chilling with the Ladies: I like gabbing! I like gabbing a lot. When I think about my dad or other men that I grew up with, they weren’t in the chatting circle necessarily. I’ve found I’ve actually become more comfortable

with sitting down with the men in family and just having a conversation, which I think has grown out of being more confident with who I am. Sitting and just having a conversion with my aunts brings me a lot of joy. I was in one little sister circle in high school-me and five girls named Lauren. Me and The Laurens. Most of our time together involved driving around the suburbs getting high, going to shows. I think at that point I wasn’t comfortable with a lot of my experiences in maledominated spaces; elementary and early middle school showed me that male spaces were cruel, and about some weird pecking order. I avoided them for a long time after those experiences.

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The View? You could tear it to shreads and make fun of every element of it, but I think it's a viable and interesting way to to present comedy, to present discussion or insight into things that are happening in the now--which feels taboo for our generation. Teaching in the school district, a lot of classrooms I was in were special needs classrooms—there are seven aides and five students, so it’s mostly just the ladies. I just loved being around a bunch of women talking. I love female fraternity! On Womanly accoutrements: I’ve always liked to dress up like a girl. In middle school and high school, on Halloween I would always dress as a female character. One of my favorite costumes was in the 6th grade--I went as Miss Williamsburg and wore a full colonial attire, I had a bonnet, sort of matronly padding, wore a sash that said Miss Williamsburg 1792 or whatever year we were studying. I wouldn’t say that I was an all around gender bender in middle school, but as I became more interested in goth, I definitely wore capes everyday, and lots of jewelry. I don’t know if it was a safe space--I got tormented--but I enjoyed the attention. I think a lot of that had to do with growing up in the eighties and seeing the amount of latitude that women were given for expressing themselves visually. My mom did the shoulder-pads, sharp hair with highlights and mousse...she was definitely fairly

masculine in her femininity but it was kind of a Bowie look. I think a lot of women in that time had that kind of femininity, which was exciting to me. I think as I became interested in guys there was something about dressing in drag that was interesting as a way to attract male attention. Even if it wasn’t necessarily sexual attention, just the idea that as a man in drag that straight men would be flirtatious. It didn’t feel as risky as trying to attract attention as a man--to me that felt kind of awkward and continues to feel awkward. I don’t necessarily like flirting with guys as a dude, but if I’m in drag I totally get a kick out of flirting with guys.

I think a lot of it has to do with this connection the idea of feminine power making men feel uncomfortable, like you’re larger than they are. I think a stoic male has a lot less power than a flamboyant female character and most men in that situation will play the straight man. One thing I think about a lot is how I can do this without being a dude with a beard in a dress--that’s something frat boys might do as a Halloween costume. At most of the drag performances I do there’s an enjoyable hour or two before I perform where I get to occupy the party space from this awesome, different vantage point. There have

been times when I’ve been performing and someone tries to take my wig off and I’m like, “NO!,” even thought I don’t really have strong sense of the code of drag. When I go to drag shows I like the order, the hierarchy, the professionalism of drag culture. Even at Bob and Barbara’s, the drag shows are deadly serious. I think that was impressed upon me when I first started going to see drag when I was 16 or 17 and thought, “Whoa, there’s something going on here that

is a highly developed culture.” Even though I’m not participating in drag in that context I feel pretty aware—not deferential, but awed—that I should be thinking about what it means to do this kind of performance. Not taking it lightly. Drag is totally raunchy and disgusting and has a lot of potential to be offensive which I think is great, but want to be conscious of what it is that I’m trying to offend and make sure it counts.

Whimsy!

or Another Night-Sea Journey Alexander Jiro Sugiura

Is it so? Are we on the journey long before we start asking why? The whimsy of us swimming in the night-sea, what every night brings, questions, perhaps a partial explanation. To be continued. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to say how we got here. When the journey ends for one, it continues for the rest, and every day more seem to join, swimming in the night-sea. Never forgetting, what else is there? Some worry that it will end, and they will have done nothing but swim, and pretend. Whimsy is a powerful tool for the power tool, a man aware of his masculinity. The not so subtle implication of physical hegemonies existing outside the realm of competitive athletics. This fandangled notion that there is a ruling class. Improprieties amongst close friends, the norm on a Saturday morning. John Barth laughs over a homebrew from West Philadelphia, an experimental batch, disappears, and is never to be heard from or seen again. I never meant to ask anyone, to waste their precious time, about the Night-Sea Journey. I thought I could leave it alone and not make accidental references to R.E.M., or crib excessively from the realm of Peter Buck. I was wrong. I wanted so badly to apologize to fans of bands that had broken up over petty things. This need to be forgiven outweighing the act of prayer, that very last of hopes for atheistic gnostics that think their mind a playground and not a place of 69

blinding white light, pure thought, unadulterated, theoretical bullshit. The new economic model: success derived from hard work, an ethic so rigid that bamboo chutes stacked ten high can be snapped in two from coming within a three-mile radius of the damn place. Working for a living. Half-asleep at the wheel, but driving on. But what of the night-sea journey? We sleep, all together now, in the night-sea of the mind, that perfectly black, therefore all colors, and we swim. What is the point of dreaming? Boy, I sure know how to empty a room. Should I put that on my resume? Modern men are hunters, still! They need jobs, they will Kill, if necessary, or to save face. Stalking their prey, plying their trade, within and without; the urban power grids of the Mid-Atlantic Coast silently enabling this foppish embarrassment. Grown men abusing their only power for what little bit of selfesteem might come from such an outburst: The rapist needs therapy, bleeds kerosene, leads a life of day time trauma and misunderstands what the right to exist is, tell him to get out of my shit. Curb thy tongue, knave! For this Lovitzlike precision in the world of maudlin grime, the day to day is like a tide. Something that doesn’t exist in the Night-Sea, there are no shores to wash upon, there is only air and sea. And what about those who seek to appropriate aesthetic for personal gain? Doesn’t that run counter to the whole thing? Corruption is the number one crime in America. The resources we most overlook: OIL, WATER, FOOD. Lost in the quiet rumble for a public works project that will so invigorate this great nation of ours and make the public schools make sense again, but football and the army have a thing or two to say about that. And then it gets you thinking, if we’re fighting Dictators the world over, why don’t I feel safe in my own skin in this land? What’s that? The world isn’t run on racial epithets and outdated, furthermore harsh stereotypes? I didn’t hear a word you just said. I asked you a question earlier. Remember? Well, this has been really fun. You know, cool. 71

Dedicated to the bearde the cut-offs wearing sporting, the crusties B-Boys of all colors, premature to dudes everywhere w

With Mu

ed and the mustachioed, g and the skinny-jeans s of all stripes and The , the behatted and the ely balding: ho inspire double takes.

Love, ukethe

Acknowledgements I make no pretense toward being a photographer, interviewer, designer, or general wordsmith and yet this little magazine somehow emerged from my inexpert hands and maladroit mind. I cannot overstate the gratitude I feel toward all of the boys included within for their patience and willingness to indulge my silly little project. I hope I have not put into jeopardy any plans of running for public office, caused any spousal turmoil, or inspired even one bad dream. SLACKS is set in types Bebas, Crimson, and CuttyFruty. Praise be for beautiful, usable free fonts. To Mr. David Foster Wallace: I am sorry to have written such a poor, unfunny imitation of your most august essay (however brief). Forgive me from your grave; it was Mark Pophamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea. Innumerous, ineffable gratitude to my dear and everencouraging friend David Robert Goodman, who gave me the kernel of this idea, explicitly ("There should be more porn for hipsters," he once sagely proclaimed) and implicitly (by having a rad bod that aforementioned hipsters would totally jerk it to). I can now, thanks to you, aspire to be one day listed under Category: American Pornographers on Wikipedia. See you, 21st century cowboys.

featuring: Adam Brody David L. Byrne Greg Dean Ross Lipton Mark Popham Alexander Jiro Sugiura John Wesley Wilder Jr.