Here's something for you to mule over

Sorry 'bout the pun. Alright (or is it all right?), I'm thinking about penning a 5,000-word memoir about my experience at the receiving end of an extraordinary-brutal act of homophobic violence. The most amazing feature about this incident (aside from the male-on-male business), is that it took place during Mule Day. I spent the whole of my adolescence 20 minutes outside of the Mule Capital of the World. The first weekend of every April--my birthday--they hold Mule Day, Bottom's Landing, Day of the ***, the Long-Eared Weekend. I've been thinking about this for quite a bit and it seems to me that the best way to make this thing saleable as a literary essay is to tie the two together, bang out something which is a little serio-comic. Only thing is, most essays that I read dial in totally on one subject and this one keeps veering toward the schizophrenic. I simply can't seem to think of a way of tying mules together with this...other...experience. The only possible connection: mules are infamous for their giant...ahem, ne'er mind. Anyway...thoughts?

Why is Mule Day so interesting?

Everywhere I go, I breed tangents. Why is that? I grew up 20 minutes outside of Columbia, Tennessee, Mule Capital of the World, where once a year, on the first weekend of April (my birthday), they celebrate Mule Day, the Day of the ***, Bottom's Landing. Why is that so ironic? I'm an asexual. Another definition for "mule" is: self-sterilized hybrid. Only one mule in a million is actually capable of reproducing a colt. Mules have 63 chromosomes, so they don't couple properly. As a rule, mules should always be gelded, or else they go insane from back-building sex hormones. It's ironic, by the way, that mules are sterile, since they inherit from donkeys their famous schlongs, which are some of the biggest in the animal kingdom. Mules are superior to all other equine, since they inherit their traits in absolutes. They're intelligent, do not founder, cannot be worked to death, have a feline ability to only remember beneficial tricks, are gentle by nature and cannot sink in quicksand, among many other traits. They are also the perfect metaphor for an asexual. I remember, on the last day of Mule Day (it's a four-day ceremony), all the mules being wending homeward in trailers, planes and trains, all those sad, sterile, gray souls, while the entire neighborhood was exploding the air with sexual and literal pyrotechnics. Mule Day was always a giant orgy and, every year, at Springhill High School (I was a S.Hi.T.: a Springhill High teenager), some sexual depravity was unveiled. During my first wekend, a kid in my comp class was caught manually stimulating sheep and collecting their essence in jelly jars. On my second mule day, the school's token lesbian couple was discovered in one of the changing rooms in the auditorium. My third Mule Day, I came out. Also, quite interestingly, Mule Day used to be known, back in the 1870s, as "Breeder's Day." For these and other reasons, it is very fascinating, Mule Day.

P.S. I need a new password, but, despite requests, nothing's sent to my e-mail.

What does my depravity have to do

with these other kids'? It's precedence, tradition. Every year we get a new Mule Day Freak. In 1996, I was that freak. Why was violence (i.e., rape) done to an asexual (a person who experiences no sexual feeling whatsoever?) Well, I was a suspected homosexual. It was a comedy of errors. First that nude scene in gym class, then the Vaseline incident in the Piggly Wiggly, then that hermaphroditic comment during Wednesday evening outreach, then the drama class episode, then there was my appearance and mannerisms (I'm a bit metrosexualie) and it all added up to that nasty bit of nastiness in that high school bathroom. How's that? Everything elucidated?

God, do I really come off as that sarcastic?

You didn't offend me. No, I know that's what someone says when someone says to them, "Sorry for offending you," but you really didn't. Depravity may have been too strong a word choice on my part. How about "sexually anomalous" or "the sexually freakish." And it wasn't my asexuality which was the aberration, it was my policy on not wearing jockey shorts: they're like iron maidens for the crotch. As for the lesbians, they were caught in the process of, er, cunnilingus. I went to a very strange school, which coupled the puritanical with the sexually bizarre. If we were bored in comp class, we'd play hose head hockey. We held a tranvestitic beauty pageant and an Opposite Day, where the girls dress up as guys and vice versa. Yet, we also had Bible literature classes, and this was in public school. I have my first sentence, too, by the way: For the past several weeks, Aaron and I have seen a man at the Galleria who looks just like Santa Claus: bandy-legged as an ancient cowpuncher, goggle eyes, a wide, comic mouth, bald as a turkey vulture, jaw-hugging cumulus wreath of beard; dressed in crimson flannel and slacks from shoulders to shins, where his feet were swallowed up by engineer boots you could crack a Galopagos tortoise's shell with; his pants held up by red suspenders so strained by his boulder of a belly, if you snapped them, his nipples would sting for days.

Laters.

I am just having the coolest freakin' day...

...I'm a freelance sports feature writer and, while I hate sports, I LOVE writing about them. For instance, today, I got to do some announcing, as "Harry Potter's twin cousin, Dwayne," at this kids roller hockey clinic, while they blasted Queen in the background and Diamond Dave, the pale prince, did a little ice poesy. Sweet! And, a week before that, I got to be a caddy. And now the publisher of the paper I wrote for is taking a shine to my penmanship, after I ignored my boss' requests to KISS and decided, "Screw it, I'm getting paid peanuts, let's make this stuff as salty as possible."

Yee-ha!

Oh, and as far as the sex things goes...

...When I was in 9th-grade biology, the teacher showed us this really graphic docu-horror flick about the mating rituals of arctic animals. Did you know the Alaskan timberwolves penis swells to four times its normal size upon penetration, and both animal, after coupling, must tug for half an hour before the member comes free, an evolutionary trait to increase the likelihood of fertilization as much as possible. I did not need to know that. And once a fact like that expands the dimensions of your brain, they never return to their original, blissfully-ignorant dimensions, unfortunately. That was the last straw. I've always been repelled by this Rube Goldbergian pleasure pursuit, but that just makes my stomach do backward somersaults. It's funny, I have a desperate need for companionship. I'd love to engage someone in an intelligent, emotionally-compelling relationship, but all women want is sex. Whenever a man tries to connect with a woman in any meaningful way, she tries to steer it toward the bedroom. And men are almost as lididinously-dominated as women. I don't know, maybe, one day, I'll encounter a counterpart of the silkier sex who isn't merely interested in me for my genitalia.

Wow...

Isn't that interesting. When I try to come off as sarcastic, it completely misses. I was joking about the women remarks. Because, you know, I was doing a reversal thing, like in a sitcom. Which is just another fine example of why sitcom humor simply does not work in real life. As for the writing of my book, my problem is: I'm not particularly good at writing fiction and my life is too jumbled for a memoir. It's not that interesting things never happen, it's just they don't happen all at once. Most memoirs focus on a particular point in time, instead of covering the broad array of a person's life. Also, there's no overlying theme. I'm an extremely erratic individual, with no set personality. I don't react to things the way other people do. In order to write a successful book, be it fiction or non-fiction, you must be able to fashion a character who appeals to people who they can understand and identify with, get instead their head because they recognize something of that character in themselves. I, however, am the type of person who will walk up to you, not even say hello, and just start ranting: "You know, I had this weird dream last night. I actually dreamt in wide screen with Japanese sub-titles. And the strange thing is, I don't even speak Japanese. Maybe in another life..." I'm the guy who goes to the movie theatre and watches movies in the nude. I'm the guy who dresses like Edgar Allan Poe, whose idea of a good time is touring the oleo sculptures at the Wisconsin Butter Expo, who carries on intimate, two-way conversations with midges and toads. I am not everyman. But don't think I haven't tried. I've written 12 books, five screenplays and three books of poems. Nobody's interested. It's just a fact of life, one that I came to terms with a long time ago. I appreciate your extreme enthusiasm, it's just...well, you've got to think of it like this: in most books, the off-the-wall weirdo is the one the protagonist is reacting to. The OTWW does not make a good protagonist, because he makes everybody else look dull by comparison. Trust me, it's a waste of time. Still thanks all the same.

A proposal...

Two groupies? Who's the other...Oh, right, right. Well, now I can put on races. And stage illegal betting rings. And become a loan shark. And make a lot of money. And buy The New Yorker. And then...Pay back's a *****. Ha, ha, aren't I nasty? PROPOSAL: If you're really interested in reading my writing, let's try a little experiment. I can only write if I'm under deadline. I need set parameters. So, why don't you set me a deadline to write a chapter of a memoir. One that stands alone. One that I can send to literary magazines and agents, churn up some attention. And...so...I guess we'll just see, won't we?

P.S. Don't try to negotiate. This is the only way you're going to see anything new. And, just to make things interesting and knot off this new thread, let's say I have to rewrite the essay you just read. Only, if I have to A) focus entirely on the rape, itself, and B) use Mule Day as a background. That way I'm A) focusing on a single point in my life, so it's self-contained. And B) There's a layered weirdness to it. In my experience, the only literary memoirs which sell are those which have contain multiple, contrasting elements of bizarre human behavior. It's not enough for Johnathan Pitt to be a white teacher teaching surly Cherokee teenagers. He also has to battle severe self doubts and go searching for legendary pygmy Indians for sage advice (he actually finds them, too.) And, thus, you get "Little People." Or how about "The Shopkeeper?" Or "A Bride For My Daughter." Or "My Thai Girlfriends." These can all be found in the non-fiction section of www.missourireview.com. If you can't access the last essay, go to your college's Web site, access Program Muse in the library article search engine area, and type in the name with "Article Title" as the refine search parameters. Ta.