So you forgot about Christmas: 18 horrible gifts for your horrible family

By, AMMA

12/28/2016

So you forgot about Christmas… So what? You’ve spent this entire month getting hammered at ugly sweater get-togethers and surviving on appetizers from friends’ office parties, and got so buzzed on eggnog and blinded by twinkling sweaters that you’ve lost track of the actual Christmas day. Given that the Christmas decoration madness started even before the Thanksgiving turkey was half-digested, it really isn’t your fault for losing track of that one day of the year when the red, white and green of the Italian flag takes over the entire nation starting, naturally, with Jersey Shore – where it stays secluded for the rest of the year.

Just as the BDSM garden gnomes tied up with Christmas lights are starting to be replaced by Easter paraphernalia (or was it Valentines next?), you’ve realized that even the bubonic plague couldn’t save you from the belated family reunion, and the ready-wrapped, Xmas-branded, generic off-the-shelf gifts that you could just throw in your Walmart cart without even looking at their contents are gone. As terrifying as Christmas shopping is, showing up empty handed would only unleash a chain of periodic Ghosts-of-Christmases-Past-exorcisms performed by mother over the phone every time she’s told that none of the next 18 months’ worth of weekends is good for her to visit.

Luckily for you, we’ve put together of a list of thoughtful gifts, available at big, nationwide chain stores, that give an honest voice to your feelings towards your family. For those members that you actually like, however, we recommend you buy local and invest some thought of your own. For the others, here it is:
1. Nothing screams “Classy” louder than the leopard-spotted decorative pumpkin that matches your Aunt Flora’s leggings, corset, handbag, boots, coat, car seats, etc. Available in discounted Halloween items sections at your local strip clubs!

2. Let nephew Timmy know he’s a little shit by gifting him the magic of archeological scatophilia: a genuine dino poop gem hidden inside a turd-shaped casing that he needs to dig with his tiny little claws. For added fun, tell him it’s a jawbreaker.

3. It’s good to let your dad know that even though he may have failed with your education and morals, general guidance and overall success chances in life, there are still things he’s really good at. Like taking the newspaper in, or lifting the toilet seat!

4. Let your uncle Elmer know that you’re on to him. If what happened in the barn stayed in the barn, your cousins wouldn’t be here.

5. Nothing would please your dirty ol’ grandpa like being able to publicly express his deviancy with the BDSM gnomes tied up in Christmas lights. Maybe granny will finally get the hint this year – what a titillating thought!

6. You’ve got a bone to pick with “Aunt” Rita, who’s only your aunt because she got stuck with Timmy that one night when your uncle drank blind. Remind her who’s the Alpha in this fam with the trailer park ornament, and suggest that she hang it in the window, since she can’t actually fit a tree in her caravan.

7. Niece Annie may be only 6, but she’s at that crucial age where she’s beginning to get a broader view of the world and be interested in ecology. Help educate her on modern slavery by giving her real elves’ legs to teach her on how consumerism is affecting vulnerable populations.

8. Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean granny can’t indulge in her make-believe faith. Show her support and acceptance with the stigmata cross made with the original nails used in our Lord and Savior’s crucifixion, for only $19,99.
9. Everybody’s got a feeling that little Preston will end up in juvie before he finishes first grade a third time. Help him become a villain with the superhero punch bag, and hopefully he will someday become their problem instead of yours.
10. Since we’ve already established that cousin Ed was born in a barn, it would be only natural to gift him with a cow-butt coat hanger, but only because they didn’t have a rat’s ass for you to give instead.

11. Mamie’s practically raised you judging by the number of times she’s been your babysitter when mother ran errands at Jim’s house, the other neighbor, every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 5, when pop was at work. Because nothing says Christmas quite like a deer wearing plaid.

12. Cousin Butch thinks the 4th of July is the only celebration worth mentioning. Make it easier for him to appreciate Christmas with patriotic nutcrackers that embody the trinity of principles on which this country was built: service, hunting and police brutality.

13. Cousin Jenna won’t shut up about her career plans as an ICP make-up artist. Luckily for her, this chair doubles as a Powder Puff, and with only a little help from her husband (rumor has it), she might get to be an expert in furniture-to-face contouring.
14. Niece Marissa is tiny, but vile. Since she’s not your kid, you might as well let her embrace her dark side and whatever demon she’s got living inside with the two-headed styling doll, just as ugly as her little soul.

15. It’s time to accept your brother Jason and embrace his quirkiness as part of his special, unique self. A “Your coffee” coffee mug should help him lose any trace of his already lacking personality and give him a good nudge into complete and irreversible submission.

16. Missy loves Duck Dynasty and pink camo. She’ll be happy to know that redneck-themed Christmas is sort of a thing these days, and will be eager to add these Shotgun Shell Lights to her huntin’ truck’s boudoir.

17. Cousin Dora’s hairy knuckles cost her a few dates and an engagement, but with the Werewolf-mitten ice scraper she can finally blame the locks rolling down her furry forearm on the joke tool she got as a gift. Only until spring, unfortunately.

18. Last, but not least, a fun game for the entire family to play: toss the stinky pig before he starts passing gas. Continuing a family tradition since the good old days.

Sex Club on a Tuesday

Going to a sex club on a Tuesday is bound to be interesting. It seems a weekend activity to me. But, I suppose switching partners and engaging in public orgy like endeavors is a post-work happy hour as good as any.

I went to the sex club on Tuesday purely because it’s what my schedule would allow and because on Tuesdays, single women get in for free. Normally it’s twenty dollars. For couples, it’s sixty dollars. For single men, it’s one hundred and twenty dollars. This price break up could say a lot about the economics of sex and who is likely to pay for it, and I feel this is especially true of a Tuesday. Perhaps sex is worth splurging for over the weekend, but on a Tuesday? Download some free internet porn and go to bed early. Spend that one hundred and twenty dollars on takeout. Or rent.

This sex club does not allow walk-ins. I had to reserve my spot online, and then they sent me a follow up email regarding the location. They gave me an address, which was the address to a lighting store in the middle of a dilapidated Chinatown neighborhood. Then, they told me to go through the door bordered on both sides by closed silver shutters. I was to talk up the stairs and tell them I was there for the “Adult social.”

I had three drinks at a bar nearby beforehand. There is no bar in the actual location, but patrons can bring in their own bottles and leave them at the desk. So I also brought a bottle of wine. The woman at the front gave me a robe, a locker key, and told me to proceed upstairs when I was ready. She told me where any additional sex supplies were and emphasized consent. As I thought her speech was finished, she said “you do know this is a sex club don’t you?”

I think she was referring to my attire. I was wearing a baggy goodwill cardigan that clearly belonged to a grandfather that may have died in it. My hair was pulled back in a 90’s style half pony tail and it was evident that I did not dress for sex.

I nodded, changed, and walked upstairs. Before I noticed the people on one of the communal beds engaged in a makeshift threesome, I noticed the snack spread. It was impressive. Rice crispy treats and nature valley granola bars in one bowl, cheese puffs in another, and a well curated selection of tiny cookies on a paper plate. The room itself was also impressive, and characteristic of what one would expect to find in a sex club: there were beds with bright red comforters lining each of the walls, and a seating area for mingling or making small talk before launching into sex.

And launching into sex is exactly what people did. At first, it was one couple on the bed. The woman was bent over, her husband penetrating her from behind, and she was holding another man’s penis. Delicately.

A couple sitting next to me in the mingling area started touching one another, and right next to me she pulled out his penis and put it in her mouth. They then migrated to the bed, next to the other couple, and were immediately followed by an entire group. There were four couples, all having sex side by side in a strangely beautiful symmetry. Most people in the club were older, and their bodies showed it. But this particular pattern of individuals looked genuinely well choreographed. It was striking in an entirely non-pornographic way despite the fact that it was, essentially, live porn.
Then came the small talk. I wondered this going into the club. How do people converse when sex is happening all around and when sex is the stated goal?
It turns out, the same way everyone else does.

“What brings you here?”

“What do you do for work?”

“Where are you from?”

“What are your goals, future aspirations, and have you experimented with kink?”

It’s the same conversation people have in bars all the time. The difference here is that one of the men asking me these questions was rubbing his dick and one woman was getting her tits massaged while telling me what she did for a living.
Some people showed up in lingerie. Some people showed up, like me, in cardigans (most didn’t but perhaps some did. It’s winter).

For some, there was a barrier between their “real” lives and their sex lives. There were a few business men, some travelers, and quite a few couples, most of whom had been married for a substantial period of time. My favorite couple was a slightly older couple who had an authoritative presence in the area.

The woman gave me some of her Franzia sangria and the man offered everyone advice on the politics of sex club etiquette. Basically, it boils down to (as it should everywhere), no means no.

This particular sex club is not indicative of the sex clubs that used to exist. Well, it is. But these are the types of sex clubs that will always exist because they’re frequented by a specific type of clientele.

A sex club that makes itself inaccessible to people who can’t pay will probably always exist. As long as businessmen are willing to pay one hundred and twenty dollars to watch people fuck and maybe get fucked the club will be immune to political and social fluctuations.

That’s what’s problematic – the infamous sex clubs of the 60’s and 70’s disappeared precisely because poor people could go to them. Queer people went to them. When it’s primarily straight, wealthy people – somehow public sex is less of a threat.

Politics in The Twilight Zone of Fashion and why “adulting” is moronic

By, AMMA

Fashion has been valued for its ability to protect the body, to embellish it and increase its beauty, and even as a tool to express the emotional and intellectual in an unspoken way. Its cultural value increased incrementally as a means to express the changes in society, and took the worst of roles when marking those rejected by society, whether through a scarlet letter or more recently the 6-pointed star. In spite of having always suffered from the stigmata of being “merely” an expression of pop-culture, as a fad or whim, its symbolic power and political implications have always run deep, its power over life and death proving to be just as important today as ever.

The symbolic age of fashion – defending fashion’s political value

At the dawn of civilization, fashion symbolized the belonging to a certain tribe, community or social group. As hierarchies and roles developed, so did the visual cues of power and authority for the king and his family, the healers and the battle-proven warriors, for craftsmen of every kind, for life events and stages of life. Fashion helped differentiate and interpret the increasingly intricate layers of society, but it also offered a means of expression against those views and values, ways of life and imposed limitations.

The only proper use of “Literally a Fashion Victim” goes back to the Victorian Era

Women’s emancipation came with inclusion in the work force, when our need for mobility simplified the female looks by giving up on corsets and multi-layered skirts, ample sleeves and ribbons, dangling hairdos and head wear that could get caught in machinery. By the ‘60s we were symbolically burning bras in parks and by the late ‘70s the working woman had emerged, taking on male jobs and masculine look and claiming  its own with a touch of femininity.

If at first trends and looks kept their consistency throughout entire centuries, after the technological advances of the late 1800s and early 1900s by the decade, the new millennia brought on diversity and flexibility of change and choice at an unprecedented scale. And just like Fast Food, Fast Fashion lacks all of the basic nutrients. We want stone-washed jeans now, only to deny them 3 months later, and then to briefly bring them back to life in another 2 years; poodle skirts are in, but so are pencil skirts and short overall-skirts, then supposedly they’re out. After all, major breakthroughs and changes in shape and functionality in this industry are rare and costly, but we love juggling the same old familiar elements as long as they match the new season’s shade of yellow, which is also bound to become obsolete in a matter of weeks.

We are literally (don’t you just, like, love that word?) no better than a goldfish

Our 5-minute attention span – by now shortened to a staggering 8 seconds -, has translated directly into the myriad of variations on looks and personalities. The more unconventional the character, the more praised its originality. Extremes live next to one another, the dressed and undressed, the elegant and the outdoorsy, the business-oriented and the punks, the 50 shades of weirdo and the sexual liberators. Some fight for their right to keep headdress on, while others start their own nudist movements. All lifestyles are in at the same time, and people want to show that!

$1 = 1 vote

In the age where everything goes, the political dimension of fashion lies not as much in adopting a certain look/expression of lifestyle or of anti-establishment views, but rather in consumer choices and how those are expressed. At a time when outraged tweets and store ratings are out to an audience of millions before that person has even stepped into a shop, the consumer has truly become king, and companies either conform or confront, at the risk of gaining few and losing many.

It doesn’t matter anymore how much was invested in positive PR, one person’s burning of their New Balance shoes in protest of president Trump’s comments has reached the headlines and made as many headlines as the collective bra burnings in the 60s. Far less effort is needed for a disgruntled consumer to directly affect a company’s brand perception and sales, and companies are rightfully afraid of it.

This is Twitter war!

Today we express political views not through clothes, but with our credit cards, whether we support local shops or Asian factories, whether we invest in a kickstarter product or decide to go completely off the grid, our dollars represent an investment in a certain political view and therefore become a form of voting, or refusal to participate in thereof.

Voting with our money makes us feel like we are participating in political life, like we have a saying in the matter. And we do. But is it enough to vote with our money and wait for companies to take the reigns? Do we not expect anything from the legislative powers in the country to regulate the way these companies act and contribute to our society and communities? And has fashion lost all of its symbolic and expressive power to the companies that produce it alone? Most certainly not!

The Good, The Bad and The Evil

Welcome the Twilight Zone of fashion, where anything goes, shock value trumps common sense, and the fashion that has served us for so long has now become a tool we use against our own. We get more passionate about the political views of the companies we support than politics itself. We take to Twitter with our outrage, but don’t show up at the poles. We put our money where our mouth is, but not our time. We adopt fashions from other cultures, but don’t spend the time to understand their significance or meaning. We want to travel and meet people, but readily discriminate based on their looks.

Having more power to express our consumer choice puts a great deal of pressure and responsibility on us, whether we like it or not. And judging by the fact that “adulting” has seen a six-fold increase in use in the first half of 2016 alone, it’s probably a safe bet to say that we like to take our freedoms without that pinch of obligations they come with.

We want the freedom to express ourselves, but not to respect other’s expressions, we think trolling and aggression equal freedom of speech and opinion, we’ll take irony, sarcasm and detachment from any part in the real world any day over wisdom, balance, kindness, understanding and responsibility. It’s all a big joke to us now, a global gladiator show where we forsake our humanity and reasoning and cheer for the lion because we want to witness the gruesome, not the good.

Underneath our millennia of evolution and our pretend mature personas still lay trembling teenagers, frightened, yet fascinated by the human body. These are weird times we’re living in, where contradicting actions are taken simultaneously to liberate and to limit the freedom of the female body, for this is the one most vulnerable of the two.

While Victoria’s Secret annual show turns into a cultural event, rape and domestic abuse continue to live in even the most civilized parts of the world. We’re protesting naked against our bodies being taken by force, while allowing legislative measure that take away the right for women to cover their faces as an expression of faith. Our fight for the freedom to undress has turned us against those who wish not to.

In a day and age where the presidential race included a female contender for the very first time, we chose to fight the right for even medical abortion and to deny our right to vote, to spite the pantsuited granny that reminds us of our scolding nana, and deny the female pioneers that sacrificed themselves for our freedom to actively participate in the political life. And then, in our hypocrisy, we go after the First Lady for the way she dresses, for her career choice, for having married into a rich family, for dedicating herself to raising her child. We don’t want one, but neither the other.

Hillary will still kick ass without us kicking Melania’s

And I haven’t even touched the subject of ecological and social implications of production methods and cost.

We’re running out of excuses. Our blatant ignorance of fashion’s colossal web of connections in all aspects of life has a domino effect that spans space and time, across the globe and for generations to come. Political accountability starts at the personal level: in a day and age where we have more information and choice than ever, and therefore more responsibility than ever, we need to stop cheering for the lion and take down the coliseum, we need to stop “adulting” and actually mature.

No Label Roundtable Podcast Episode 21

Sean, Miranda, and Joe

Photo By, Raymond Craig

No Label Roundtable is a bi-weekly podcast produced by three close friends: Casper locals Miranda, Sean, and Joe.  Join the inquisitive trio as they seek to learn, educate, and foment cultural enthusiasm through roundtable discussions, interviews, and the unrehearsed amusement that is a talk among friends.  There are no scripts; there are no labels. Speakers and headphones are chairs at this table.

iTunes link to subscribe to No Label Roundtable:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-label-roundtable/id1054466507

Episode 20.  In this episode, we are joined by the incredible Paul Centanino.  We had a great time discussing games (as always), politics, and the always amazing random topics from our “Book of Questions.”

 

Elections and Sex Lives

I haven’t written a blog post since the election. I feel like it’s pertinent.

These elections are inextricably tied to our sex lives. The people we elect do and will impact the ways we have sex and the repercussions from the sex that we have. Take, for example, Ronald Reagan. I consider him one of the most dangerous presidents in our nation’s history. His maniacal death grip extends far beyond the genocide he funded and helped execute in Central America and enters into the domestic sphere. By domestic sphere, I mean our bedrooms. He wasn’t just a war criminal, funding the ruthless slaughter of entire populations in an attempt to “thwart communism,” but he initiated the entire “family values” rhetoric we hear today – a rhetoric that implies that reproductive freedom and a well-informed sex life are incompatible with families.

He refused to fund AIDS research because he didn’t really like gays that much and despite logic and science proving the fact that AIDS was an epidemic that impacted everybody, he still wanted to prove a point. And prove a point he did. He was president for over seven years before he even acknowledged a health crisis that killed over 650,000 Americans.

We’ve had a lot of terrible presidents. I think Reagan was one of the worst because he tricked an entire population into thinking he was benefiting them, and that racial minorities, queer people, and single moms were entirely responsible for any sort of economic repercussion that the country might face. I think Trump’s rise is a product of a number of really terrifying realities our country needs to own up to, but I also think the “family value” rhetoric is largely responsible. A massive number of otherwise decent people can somehow find compatibility between grabbing women by the pussy and retaining family values. And that’s because family values have come to be associated with hetero-normative nuclear families who buy massive cars and intentionally dull their senses with ads for large electronics and some new frozen food shit like sugar coated beefsteak or cheeto chicken fingers (I’m looking at you Burger King).

On election night I attended a bizarre underground warehouse costume/dance/pole dancing party in which people listened to music while the results poured in. Initially, the mood was relatively celebratory. Even the most skeptical in the crowd were willing to drink and dance at the beginning. By the end of the night though, as the results grew bleaker and bleaker, people stopped. One young gay man who oscillated between putting on the most incredible acrobatic pole dancing routine I’d ever seen and sitting on his partner’s lap, just stopped and stared silently at the screen. He grabbed a piece of tape and put it across his mouth. He was followed by the DJ, and then other party-goers, as the room began to grow somber. The music still played but sounds that once emanated the rhythm of a night out now felt daunting. The room pulsated with a specific type of fear. The man who had been pole dancing was especially reminiscent of that. He was Hispanic and gay. What would happen to him?

A few neighborhoods over another group of friends of mine were in a seedy little gay bar when they heard the news. One friend reached for the man closest to him and started simultaneously kissing him and crying. As he told me, he just didn’t know if that would be legal anymore. He didn’t know what else to do. The friend he was with fell asleep on the couch, a form of physical denial. A way of coping. He was then disturbed by a particularly aggressive bouncer who felt that his sleeping on a couch was a way of disturbing the space. He shone a flashlight on his face and aggressively shook him awake. An otherwise irritating action was suddenly cloaked in a particularly dark type of foreshadowing. As a gay man of color, my friend sleeping on the couch will soon be considered a threat simply for existing.

Women are terrified too. We fought to get basic access to reproductive health and still live in a world in which some women have to drive entire states to get an abortion, where some women simply cannot afford the means that would prevent the pregnancy and therefore prevent the abortion, and where some women still have to simply hope that the lump on their breast is benign because going to the doctor is out of the question. One of Trump’s primary goals is to defund Planned Parenthood and that is genuinely terrifying. Cancer will skyrocket. Unplanned pregnancy will skyrocket. STD’s will skyrocket. And people will not get the support they need.

Luckily, people are organizing. Even in Casper there is a well organized and relatively large group of feminists ready to support one another and their community. This is hard. I wasn’t in Casper for the election, I was at a liberal minded underground warehouse party and even that was terrifying. I visited Casper and saw way too many oversized pick-up trucks sporting Trump-Pence bumper stickers and I wanted to throw up. The struggle here is real. There are protests happening all over the city, but the struggles happening in small communities are especially commendable because they’re uphill all the way. But that makes it all the more important.

I went to a conference once in which one of the speakers said “we need to win the revolution so that we can all make love.” He didn’t mean this in a particularly hippie type of way, not in a free love trumps all kind of statement. He meant that until there is economic, racial, sexual, and gender equality – some people’s sex lives will not be legitimized or enjoyable. So on that note, keep fighting the good fight. Our lives and our sex lives count on it.

I bought a sweater for Kim Kardashian with a bag of cement

Here‘s how to get that dreamy Kim Kardashian look

For a minute there I was part of Kim Kardashian’s posse. I was in the back of a black limo chatting with two of my high school girlfriends when a young version of Kim – barely past the age where releasing a sex tape becomes an excusable PR move – swooped her long eyelashes towards me from the passenger’s seat and said: “Am I too naked?”

“For a meeting with the Queen Mother?”, I asked myself surprised, trying to remember if the rules of royal etiquette applied to tabloid royalty. As if! I took a glance at her extra short skin-colored tube dress and slipped a “Yikes!” “Maybe… You might wanna cover yourself up a bit.”

She seemed offended at first, then worried. What if indeed even she was too naked to meet the most prestigious grandmother in Europe? “Grab my wallet. It’s in the back. You need to buy me some kind of a black sweater to cover my shoulders with”, she barked. I obliged, but as much as I searched for it on the floor car and in her bag, under the seats and between the cushions, it just wasn’t there. I hesitated to give her the news.

“It’s OK,” she said, “there’s a bag of cement in the trunk that you can trade for a sweater. We’ll pull next to the Louis Vuitton shop here so you can run in and grab me one.” In front of me stood tall the century-old library I grew up with in my hometown, its beautiful arches replaced with wide windows and neon lights. “I didn’t know this was there”, I thought to myself as I jerked the 50 pound bag out of the trunk and into my arms. It was night and chilly.

A puff of dust rose as I dropped it on the sales floor. It had taken me 30 min to cross the street, going over and over the speech I was to deliver to the staff; the tear-jerking story of a naked Kim and her lost wallet that I was to soften their hearts with and unite them in overcoming this impossible conundrum; the calculations I had made to back emotions up with logic, an iron-clad logic where cement bag was equal in value to LV pullover, if only they gave it a chance… Instead I blurted: “I’m here to buy a black sweater for Kim Kardashian. I have a bag of cement to offer in exchange.” And they were totally cool with it.

I took the coveted cashmere item with both hands, and with both hands, again, offered it to Kim. She put it on, said it fit (“It fits.”) and waited for me to get back in the car before driving off to meet the Queen (“Uhm, hello! I don’t have all day!”). The Queen was also lodging in my old neighborhood.

The car drove off and it was over. All of my anxiety about what the sales staff would have to say about the bag of cement, my calculations for Cement to US Dollars currency rates, my visions of Kim’s coming down upon me in great wrath (Hallelujah!) if I showed up empty-handed, they had all been in vain, because the world was now a safer, less… naked place.

Kim Kardashian, Freddy Kruger of my dreams, please stop including me in your posse, and take the damn cement bag with you!