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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781939650528 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Santa Fe Writer's Project |
| Publication date: | 01/26/2016 |
| Series: | Pagan Kennedy Project |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 125 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Pagan Kennedy's Living
A Handbook for Maturing Hipsters
By Pagan Kennedy
SFWP
Copyright © 2016 Pagan KennedyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-939650-52-8
CHAPTER 1
manifesto orama
You're an aging slacker. In fact, you've been slacking off for so long that you can hardly remember what it was you originally decided to slack off from. Years ago, you left the mainstream world of career paths, malls, expensive hair-care products, regular TV viewing, and wearing deodorant. Instead, you've taken up residence in this strange place at the edge of town, where the frozen-yogurt boutiques yield to thrift shops, where the mailboxes on the triple-deckers are covered with scratched-out names, where the jukebox in the diner sill knows how to play "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves."
You wouldn't live anywhere else. You've grown to love this part of town. But there is one niggling problem. You've begun to notice that, while this is the perfect place to be young, it's a hard place to be, well, not so young. You never quite feel settled here. Everyone keeps moving around — people are always trading apartments, roommates, bandmates, jobs, girlfriends and boyfriends. Your life sometimes feels like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party; you have to keep switching your seat, and you never know what kind of odd characters will share the table with you.
Yet in the midst of this chaos, you've managed to build a family out of housemates, co-workers, neighbors, lovers, ex-lovers, and ex-lover's ex-lovers. There's often someone sleeping on your couch. Whenever you clean out your pantry, you find strange plates and dishes and you're not sure which roommate or boyfriend/girlfriend left them there. You've accumulated a pile of other peoples' keys — to apartments, to cars, to motorcycles, to practice rooms. This revolving-door community was fine when you were in your early twenties, but could you carry on a really, really long-term monogamous relationship in the midst of this chaos? Would you want to? And how do you raise kids on this side of town?
Then there's the job thing. Most likely, you've learned how to earn a living without losing your human dignity — and that's required some compromises. Maybe you work part-time and do your art on the side, in which case you make ends meet by living like a monk. Maybe at this point you've actually decided to become a monk — after all, you might get paid to sit on your butt all day and you wouldn't have to do data entry. Or maybe you've found a job you love, but it pays a pittance and your funding is always about to be out. Maybe you're stuck in some white-collar job that bores you, but instead of quitting you've decided to Quit in Place — you pretend to do your work, all the while using the office's phones, faxes, and copy machines for your own illicit purposes. Maybe you've become a professional temp or freelancer. Whatever your job situation, if you live on the slacking side of town, you probably don't have any health insurance, savings, or security. At this rate, it looks like you may spend your retirement years in a house with five roommates and some stained futon furniture.
But wait! Don't lose hope. I know there's a lot of pressure to sign up for The Program — get a full-time job, buy a car on credit, move to the suburbs, get married, stop doing your art. Actually, there's a lot to be said for The Program: It's a clear-cut path through the wilderness, a path that leads a lot of people to happiness. And those of us who can get with The Program any time we want should never forget how lucky we are. For much of the world, these banal American luxuries are not even an option. But just because we can have gas-guzzling cars, pointless desk jobs, and wall-to-wall carpeting, should we?
A lot of people are quietly pioneering a different kind of life for themselves. They're patching together bizarre families, inventing new types of romantic relationships to suit their needs, finding low-budget and creative ways to raise their kids, tuning out the mainstream media, doing what they love, and trusting that the money will follow.
How do you know whether you yourself are one of the pioneers? Here's the test: When you meet someone at a party and they ask you what you do, can you sum up your job in a few words or does it take you half an hour to adequately explain your situation? Same goes for living arrangements. If your life is incredibly complex and jury-rigged, consider yourself a success. You have managed to resist The Program. Of course, if you can't pass the fifteen-word test, well, that can be okay, too. You may have accepted society's labels even while subverting them. The important thing is to live your own life — not the life that's being sold to you by a bunch of corporations.
Designing your own job or family unit or living situation from the ground up takes a lot of energy, especially in these dark days when anyone tainted by non-traditionalism gets lynched by the media. Marcia Clark, Joycelyn Elders, Patricia Ireland — such women have been vilified as Bad Moms, Masturbation Fiends, and Bisexual Good-for-Nothings when in fact they are just sensible people trying to pursue happiness without hurting anyone.
Why are those women so dangerous? Why are the Powers That Be attacking anyone who doesn't imitate Ward or June Cleaver? There can only be one answer: Lifestyle choices are the front lines of the political battle these days. And if we consumers fail to live the way Corporate America wishes us to, we become dangerous. When we form our own communities, when we find our furniture in the trash, when we take care of our friends who can't take care of themselves, when we organize our own old-age homes and day-care centers, when we make our own fun, when we refuse to drive cars, when we turn off our TVs, when we do all that and more, well then, Corporate America has little to sell to us. We might not need Exxon, General Electric, or Procter & Gamble. We probably wouldn't need full-time jobs. And we certainly wouldn't need products like L'Oreal ("because I'm worth it") to make us feel important.
The first step toward that utopia is for us alternative types to find one another and share information about how to live graciously on this side of town. If you want to learn how to serve pumpkin consommé in hollowed-out pumpkin shells, then read Martha Stewart's Living. But if you'd rather score some pumpkins for free from the supermarket trash and then make soup to feed your sixteen housemates, two dogs, and three lovers, and then turn the shells into an alternative energy source, well, Pagan Kennedy's Living is the place for you.
Okay, I'm done being self-righteous. On to the fun part ...
CHAPTER 2MYSTERY DATES
When I was a kid, I owned a game called Mystery Date. The goal was to move around the board, collecting the handbags and hats you would need for, say, a skiing date or a black-tie affair. Then you got a chance to spin the handle of a miniature plastic door and open it up to find out who your "date" would be. Depending on where the latch caught, the door would open to reveal a ski instructor, a guy dressed up for the prom, these two other guys I can't remember at all, or a bum. If you got the bum, you lost the game.
Mystery Date taught me that if I wanted to live a sensible and serene life, I should pick a partner who matched my shoes and hat. The thing is, I don't want to live a sensible or serene life — nor do any of my friends. Maybe that's why everyone I know who played that game when they were kids — women and gay men alike — lusted after the bum. Accessories be damned: We all knew that the bum, with his stubble and his cigar and his dirty pants, would show us a really good time.
When I was a kid, I thought that I'd grow up and go on dates with clean-cut guys wearing color-coordinated outfits; I'd be polite to them, but always turn down their proposals of marriage. I would wait for a bum to appear at my door, and when he did, I'd stick an old stogey in my mouth, jump in his jalopy, and ride away with him to a life of adventure. Unfortunately, Mystery Date didn't prepare me — didn't prepare any of us — for love in the nineties. Because these days there are just so many bums to choose from, of so many different persuasions. Gay, straight, bi, femme, butch, nancy boy, macho, transvestite, pierced, not pierced, on medication, not on medication — how do you know which one is right for you? How do you even know that one person is right for you? The average American marriage lasts about seven years (according to recent census statistics), so maybe most of us are designed to live with a series of partners. Or maybe you're happy being single.
One thing is sure: None of us can expect to fling open a door and find love. We've got to make it happen.
As you enter your late twenties, or perhaps your thirties, dating becomes much more complicated than it used to be. Now everyone you meet has an extensive track record. And so do you.
Therefore, when you meet with a prospective partner, you may find yourself acting as if you're on a job interview instead of a date. You carefully slip in references to past boyfriends/girlfriends to prove that you have many credentials in the field of relationship-ology. You casually refer to your mature and committed behavior during those previous entanglements.
Meanwhile, as your date natters on about his/her life, you listen for those chance remarks that will help clue you in to his/her emotional health. Was he/she capable of living with an enamorata, and if so, did he/she do the dishes?
Well, we at Pagan Kennedy's Living have a suggestion. Stop pussyfooting around. Make yourself a Relationship Resume and hand it out to all your prospective mates.
Herewith, we include the beginning of a sample resume to get you started.
Suckdog Speaks ...
... about getting sex through the mail
Here's an interview I did with Lisa Suckdog — also known as Lisa Carver — a performance artist and the mind behind an amazing zine called Rollerderby. Lisa became famous for her willingness to jump around naked in front of an audience and to smear blood and other scary fluids on her body. She's also rumored to have run through men faster than Liz Taylor, though these days, Lisa seems to have become a one-man woman, just like in the country songs. She now lives in Denver with her boyfriend and their baby.
How did Lisa seek out and seduce so many misfit bachelors over the years? Here she shares her secrets with all of you who like to date without leaving the comfort of your own homes.
Lisa, after two weeks of being together, you and your boyfriend decided to have a kid. Is that true?
We'd been writing and talking on the phone for a while, actually.
But had you met each other before that?
No. We wrote and talked for a month and a half. Then I went out to see him for a week, and then I went home and then I went to visit for another week and that's when we decided to have a kid.
Wow.
That's the way all my relationships are. Fast, I mean
You always have mail-order grooms?
Yeah. Because I'm a peculiar person and it's not like my next-door neighbor is going to be right for me. So every major boyfriend I've had I met through the mail.
Wow. So tell me about other mail-order relationships.
Well, the first one I had ... Well the very first relationship I had was with this dork who worked in a furniture shop and would come in and buy coffee from me at Dunkin' Donuts. I was fifteen. And I never made that mistake again. So from then on I knew I'd have to meet them through the mail.
Then my next one — I interviewed his band in Boston — I was sixteen. The interview went well so we had sex.
You consummated it.
Yeah. I think it's good for journalism to have sex with the people you interview. They tell you a lot of things they wouldn't have otherwise. Also, if I'm interviewing someone I must think they're interesting. I want to have sex with them anyway.
So, um, how many other mail-order relationships have you had?
I think I've only had four serious relationships. And also, all the people I've had one-night stands with, they were also mail-order or I'd meet them on the road [touring with the Suckdog performance ensemble].
How do you seduce somebody through the mail?
One way is to say "I want to have sex with you." That's what I did with X [her current boyfriend]. Others you might not want to be so forward with. First you interview them. You act really complimentary and interested, just like you would in real life.
You write to them and ask to interview them?
Yeah, they fall for it every time.
So that's like the first date, the interview?
And the second date is the follow-up questions. And then you just find some excuse to meet and then you have sex.
Awright!
If you want to take your time about it you write an interesting and sexy piece about them [for some fanzine] and say how brilliant they are.
My second mail-order groom I met on the road when I was touring, and I gave him a blow job. I thought he was really cute. Actually, no, what had happened was, he interviewed me through the mail, and I'd never met him. I was busy at the time so I didn't pursue it. And then I met him and I didn't know it was him.
How embarrassing.
Well, it wasn't embarrassing because he was cute and I said, "Come here."(I was very forward for a couple of years.) I found out later he was the one who had interviewed me. So we had sex, and then I flew to France and when I called him from France he accused me of giving him a genital disease but I had not given him a genital disease. He just hadn't taken enough showers.
You gave him a what?
A genital disease.
Oh genital disease. Sorry. I can hardly hear you because I have the tape recorder stuck between my ear and the receiver. So, anyway, he got the genital disease from somebody else?
No, he just didn't bathe enough, so he was irritated down there. That argument between us brought out a lot of harsh emotions, which brought us together. So then he almost immediately came to live with me when I went back to New Hampshire. Then we were happy for a year, and miserable for a year, then we broke up and I moved to California to be with another mail-order groom, who I was miserable with after a month. So there I was, stuck in California.
Did you know this guy when you moved out there?
I'd met him, but I didn't remember him because I was drunk. I chased him down the street. That's all I know of it. But he had a girlfriend at the time. I had to drive the girlfriend away.
When you got to California?
No, I drove her away with my charming letters. I am a charming writer. I think I'm more charming in letters than in real life. In real life, I'm self-obsessed and busy. In the mail, it doesn't take much time to make charming observations about the other person and pretend they're all I think about.
You can construct the perfect self for them.
It's actually pretty fake. But that's how I get them trapped. Then I can be my real self and they're stuck with me 'cause they're in love.
If you're constructing a false self, isn't there a high chance for disappointment?
Well, that's beautiful, that falling-in-love part. And when you're mail-ordering, you can stretch that out. Or if you get really excited, you can cut it short and go visit them. You're in control of the falling in love. It's usually a lot better than the real thing.
So, falling in love — you've turned it into a sport almost.
Yeah.
But with the guy in California — that represented the downside of falling in live through the mail.
I really wouldn't consider it a downside. I had fun falling in love. And I had fun for a month. And after that it was miserable, but so what, it was an experience.
But another good thing about writing and calling before you meet someone is — I don't know about you — but if I am attracted to someone I have to have sex immediately. So the good thing about letters is that you can get totally worked up like you never could in real life, because if I see someone cute and I'm single, I have to have sex with him that night. But with these long-distance things, you can have a lot of fantasies about the person and you can even talk to them about what to do. By the time you finally meet, ohmygod, you're about to explode.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Pagan Kennedy's Living by Pagan Kennedy. Copyright © 2016 Pagan Kennedy. Excerpted by permission of SFWP.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Manifesto Orama,Mystery Dates,
Personal Care,
Friends and Family,
Better Homes,
Work is a Four-Letter Word ... But Then, So Is Play,