viewer mail, backlog

andy pinkster, mobile, alabama —

from timbuktu to the iran contra hearings —

dear 'keisha,'

thank you for your kind inquiry about my health, now a month ago, 'keisha,' i am only just returning to the email boxes for andy and michael. i am only just now responding to your query, as i have not been feeling well — up and down, both maudlin and uneasy, but also upward and elsewhere — and so i haven't been steady — cool as a cock of a cucumber, cut — in mind to address, at andy or at michael, or at the exit survey ejaculation prompt, any visitor inquiries, insights, or injunctions. 'keisha,' my dear, however and wherever you may be, thanks for what appears to be a sincere fascination with my expansive and contractive psychical economy — dependent on the moment — and matters have been made more fraught, yes, yes, as the edits to the book have been complex and tedious, at once, and I have belabored the process to the endgame.

the update, 'keisha,' on the health situation is: the lithium level last week was .6 — which is low, it should be at .8 or .9 — so i have increased the dose from 900 to 1050, at 450 er in the morning and 600 immediate release at night. we have lowered the lamictal er from 400 to 300 — now i itch a bit, though that is improving with talcum powder, it helps a tad — and i am increasing the topomax from 25 to 50, soon i'll be off the lamictal, 'keisha,' which has done nothing for the depression for years, and perhaps my recall of proper names will return, which would improve new entries into new social relationships. generally, i don't feel great, had to take 10 mg of haldol the other day when i deluded myself into thinking that my laptop was missing at the moment in which i was holding it, 'keisha,' which later sunk me, and i feel relaxed a bit today, mostly because i saw dave, earlier, which was nice, and we had a good talk, and i suspect i'll be in better spirits with peter when we talk later this afternoon. this is all to say 'keisha': you are a doll, a doll with a name that reminds me of a child's doll, 'keisha.'

sincerely,

andy pink

dear 'shareeza,'

thanks for asking about the latest installment of my nstar bill. negotiations about the electric bill between nstar and myself are much improved — both theoretically and practically — since the upgrade in the spring to silver tier gold star guaranteed customer service. i have been promised that silver tier gold star guaranteed customer service includes blue ribbon triple-a quality assurance complimentary cross-platform e-bill i-sync which pays non-deferred 2.4% rate decreases across the board for non-surcharge double-blind electrical usage for pre-certified post-calibrated wattage general electric appliances which are in compliance with federal post-2004 in-state regulatory standards. according to customer care representatives with nstar's silver tier gold star guaranteed customer service, this in-service aarp bronze tier blue-collar eligible-only tv-offer benefit will facilitate prime repayment of off-yearly (based on pro-rated electrical solar panel usage) charges which are unaffiliated with off-cycle pre-approved post-elective general electric rewired appliance renewable nonsourced metered kilowattage hz volts kw xmas bulbs lumens protractive measured coastal natural energy on a bi-annual renewable non-nuclear contract. (thank god.) this does not mean — underscore — that prime loan repayment will be charged on-yearly, unless pro-rated usage is retroactive to the pre-surcharge voided undersigned contract per diem as allowable by local statute, if applicable by regional ordinance. that said, i am having trouble with my landline telephone. i have been told i should contact one of the local baby bell services for follow-up on that front. in any case, 'shareeza,' i have found a new soft spot for nstar and/or eversource, and for utilities companies generally, and i look forward to a long and invigorating affair with nstar and/or eversource and their reputable silver tier gold star guaranteed customer service rebranding outfit from hereon. and i wish you, 'shareeza,' the best of luck with your own electric bill.

national grid can go fuck herself.

later,

andy pink

dear 'tawaina,'

it is timely that you should raise the issue of transgenderism and the bathroom issue, and — given that your name is gender ambiguous: fluid? amorphous? indeterminate? outsized? — i can indeed offer a few pithy words on the matter. first off, 'tawaina' — if you take a few steps back, that the matter of bathrooms is of human issue — political conflict, no less — at all is a feat, and it perhaps speaks to the general primitiveness of homo sapiens, just as a species, that it has reduced the bathroom to the fodder of municipal legislation. in other words: humans cannot get the bathroom — as such — together, as a simple object in the world. that said, 'tawaina,' the political turmoil and asinine debate over the bathroom — its logos, entrances, exits, permissions, partitions, privileges, dispriviliges, surveillances, and so on — veil the necessary conversation about the center of the culture: the penis and its various meanings and anxieties. patriarchy — quickly defined as: a system run by men in the interests of men, easily observable in the west — is merely a symptom of a system which is much more pernicious: phallocentrism — quickly defined as: a representational orchestration in which there is only one sex organ, the penis, around which other sex organs, consciously articulated as the 'vagina' and the 'clitoris,' are unconsciously defined as the 'not-penis.' this is most forcefully articulated, 'tawaina,' in its unconscious truth in the summary statement in the culture that the difference between a man and a woman is that 'a man has a penis and a woman does not have a penis' — 'does not have a penis' is a very strange way of referring to the vagina and the clitoris. this 'does not have a penis' is the unconscious representation of the nothingness and death — negativity — of the vagina and the clitoris qua not-penis of the phallocentrism of the penis as the one and only exclusive sexual organ in western culture. the obverse of phallocentrism is vitally impossible; it is unimaginable, 'tawaina,' that someone would offer the words, 'the difference between a man and a woman is that a man doesn't have a vagina and a clitoris and a woman does have a vagina and a clitoris.' consciously, the culture knows very well that women have a vagina and a clitoris — and that men have a penis — but unconsciously, the woman 'does not have a penis,' and as such, the female genitalia — and the woman — is understood in western culture to be coded as the negative obverse of men; the woman is, 'tawaina,' the nothingness of death against the man as the being of life.

this fundamental phallocentrism in the culture, dear 'tawaina,' if you follow me, is the only possible explanation for the pervasive patriarchy in the west. otherwise, there is no possible explanation for a system that is run by men in the interests of men. what could be the other possible explanation for the near historical domination of women by men in western culture? phallocentrism is the source of the historical subjugation of women, 'tawaina,' and any interrogation of patriarchy — let alone political amelioration or intervention in its system — must tarry with phallocentrism as a representational system of penis/not-penis or 'has a penis and does not have a penis' — both being/nothingness and life/death, that the woman precisely is not, as such. freud's answer to the origin of phallocentrism — and the source of patriarchy — is the riddle of sexual difference. freud explains this, 'tawaina,' by recourse to the castration complex and the oedipus complex, and makes the argument that 'size' and 'visibility' — as criteria for the contrast and comparison of two utterly distinct and unlike commodities, the penis and the clitoris — mediate the value of the two sets of sex organs, the male and the female. as any size queen knows, the bigger the better, and so the little girl stands to lose and the penis inherits the phallus (as the idealized image of valuation of the sex organ) and the clitoris is the demeaned not-penis in the hierarchized evaluation, 'tawaina,' between the two objects, penis and clitoris.

now, 'tawaina,' this returns us to the transgender bathroom issue because it contextualizes the stakes of the bathroom and the segregation of the penis (and the clitoris) from each other, in their sacrosanct privatized spaces within the public sphere, in the public (private) bathroom. the surveillance of the penis (and the clitoris) in space is fraught because of the potential exposure of the penis, its vulnerability to visibility. the battle over the bathroom — the sheer primitiveness of homo sapiens in the face of the most banal of natural tidiness — is an index of an anxiety about the penis: transgenderism makes the sex organ and, in our culture, dear 'tawaina,' the penis, the exclusive sex organ, 'has a penis,' the being of life, the penis, transgenderism makes the penis an issue, a problem, that there is an articulation that must be made of the penis in relationship to the other of the sex organ: the not-penis. the penis as precisely a penis, cannot be taken for granted in its phallocentrism as the 'has a penis' in a culture of -centrism in which there is the being and life of the man and the nothingness and death of the not-man. transgenderism demands an answer to freud's unanswered query, not only — 'what does a woman want?' — but, dear 'tawania' — 'what is a woman?' — what could a woman, especially to a cock hungry faggot, be if she is but a deathly nothingness of negativity? transgenderism demands the being and necessity of not simply the not-penis qua clitoris (or yet other metaphors) but also of the not-man qua woman (or yet other metaphors). transgenderism makes the bathroom and its occupants — the penis, the not-penis, the clitoris, the man, the not-man, the woman, and the rest of us — problems, and it demands that the doors, and the door as such, be rethought, otherwise. it is only in such a rethinking of phallocentrism qua a representational system that the symptom of patriarchy can be interrogated and renegotiated. the bathroom door is the key to the combination lock of patriarchy. it is a conversation worth — in a desperate, anxious, embarrassed, sputtering way — an articulation — know what i mean, 'tawania'? the national dysfunctional conversation about transgender bathrooms is a long awkward overdue discussion about our anxious relationship to the penis and, by extension, to reproduction and to the future itself.

peace,

andy pink

dear 'hap,'

first off — i am going to assume that the name you left on the michael email address — 'hap' — is not in fact your real name but is a cheeky reference to the name of one of the sons in 'the death of a salesman' by arthur miller. if so, i am amused, though concerned; if not, i am curious about the actual referent of 'hap.' no matter, about my health, i refer you to my initial response to 'keisha,' above, though i can add that i am generally uncomfortable most of the time, and it is a damn miracle that i am able to function as well as i do. on the dating front, things are ok, i get more action off of cl these days than on grindr, though grindr is not as bad as it might seem from the outside, even if my pic at the moment is not as stellar as it could be. most of my good pics tend to be in company, and i won't post those, and my selfies just tend to look awkward for some reason, and so those that i post are not quite as charming as i'd like them to be, in any case, the desperation situation of craigslist is such that i just tend to do better there — oral only, of course — and grindr really is just a bunch of younger, pickier guys who ultimately talk a good game but don't really want to have sex with anyone who has a regular body; folks are simply too spoiled by porn these days to bother with an average (or above, even) andy pink.

yours,

andy pink

dear 'juanaxxia,'

i don't want to talk about patrick. it's a sad story. we both were kind of intrigued by each other for no good reason and then we both sort of fucked up in different ways and what could have been a friendship (or possibly more, though probably not) turned out to be a series of offenses toward each other. it's really a shame. of course, it's really too bad, 'juanaxxia,' because i can't go into the fucking store that is around the corner from me, he is probably annoyed and scared of me, and i feel at once embarrassed and upset, and he probably feels at once annoyed and ashamed. what a waste of time and energy. but thanks for reminding me. like i've said elsewhere, 'juanaxxia,' i think the worst part is that i'll never be able to share a laugh with him about how ridiculous the whole matter has been — that really is a total shame and waste. instead, we both have to confide in other people about how deplorable the other's actions have been, what a fraud. granted, the scene was made much worse by the fact that i went completely crazy several times, about which i feel totally embarrassed. but also, the guy is a loser. i am a loser in my own way, but he's rather sickly, though i still sort of like him, but i like most people from a distance. as a few of you have pointed out over the months to me, i basically asked him out on a date to the science museum over a website, that was it. granted, i felt in love with him, but as was obvious, even to me, i was simply lost in fantasy, and quite so.

no matter, i have renegotiated my walk around that intersection by the starbucks now because i don't have my 2x morning stop at the bee's knees (since shuttered) for my morning vegetables, and so i think about him less, he occurs to my thoughts less. it is the divinity that we don't know why we like each other, for no reason — and then it ends in smoldering anvils and regretful shames.

oh, yeah, and things with mike at hoodlo are great, nothing will come of it, but we will share our torrid love affair from a distance, i do think the guy is gay, a kind of punk gay, he might be boston straightedge, i actually think that might be his scene, in which case he wouldn't be interested in sex, which would be fine with me, but i'm not sure i'll ever get to spend any time with him, not sure how to get to that, but i'll be by him working in the cafe, in charlestown, and we'll have our little rituals and gestures, hot, from the intervals. thanks for asking. i'm fine blowing a few birds on cl in the meantime. i think i'm too queer and crazy for a relationship anyway, i have a blanket and beads for that.

i 69'd — for a good 45 min — with a guy who could not have been more than 23 off of cl last week; it was really nice, he was cute, and quiet, and had a really nice thin body, but i don't think i will see him again, i played him some leonard cohen tunes i've learned on the new yamaha 88-key keyboard, he liked, i was able to have him over not because of any textual charm on my part but simply because herr latin and his amiable twin daughters cleaned my apt with the talents that only the brazillian public trade school system can instill in its students —

cheers,

andy pink

edit: i believe i just passed p*trick while on the phone with trevor earlier; he was sporting a j.crew (gap / old navy) summer outfit — oversized — and he looked quite lovely, i do wish him the best, i hope he finishes well at university. looked sheepish, but pretty. we would have made a good pair. it would have been a fine spousal hire at mit or chicago. for: another life. but the 141 was mean. i don't like mean. he deserved his punishment. that said, i cannot for the life of me figure out why he wanted to plot to entrap me in order to have me take down the tiny part of an elaborate website that identifies him — his narcissism is certainly beyond my own, as i can promise him that no one is going to remember the source or the referent of that story on this site; his identity will be — and already is — long forgotten amidst all of this text and image, not to mention that he is — graciously, by me — situated in chicago by the text and image of the site. defer your entrapment, young friend, you have nothing to worry about but your own deferred sexuality which, as i will fully admit, is your own entitled project and commitment, i'm sorry i won't be a part of it, it would have been fun. more to the point: if someone should by chance confront you about your role on this site, at work or at school, simply be savvy enough to say that you are friends with andy and michael and that they used you as a character-role on the site for their own amusement — all the world's a soundstage, you dickless usebag of a homebody! also, i'm fairly certain that even to the virginal eye the 'dear patrick' bit reads as parody — as does the entire site, including the 'fact sheet' — so the reality principle is mostly in suspension on the site, in toto. if anything, dear friend, you are a muppet, and at most i'd like to jam my fist up your quilted felt ass, so : )

fact: it is really hard to bring two human beings together.

andy p