Tragic Rabbit
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Posts posted by Tragic Rabbit
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howdy! welcome to the happiest place on earth...well, ok, maybe not the happiest, but it's pretty damn gay. With your interest in publishing, perhaps you'll join the (rather thin) ranks of the people who are too damn lazy to do all that typing, and prefer to kibbitz about what other people write--the editors.
cheers!
aj
Hehe. Naughty, naughty, AJ. Though I challenge the idea that writing a story is just typing, if it were, it wouldn't take so damn long. But you know that.
On the sexuality thing, I think Kinsey made it clear that most people are bisexual, that there's a continuum of sexuality [as defined by fantasies and sensual experiences of all kinds as well as 'relationships'] and that it is somewhat fluid through one's life. I usually call myself homosexual or gay but sometimes just say 'queer' because, to me, that word encompasses more of who I am. I have had sex with women, lived with women, also with men and have had attractions to both since before I started school. That I now significantly prefer men is more a product of emotional interactions with men and women that I've had, I find that men are generally better intimate company in and out of bed.
Maybe that awareness, of the difference inside me, colored how I saw myself in society, in that social constructions, in life, in film, on television, in books, clearly indicated, even to a very young mind, that whatever I was, was not the 'norm' nor acceptable. Which is a very bad message and I'm sorry its the one I received. It doesn't lend itself to self confidence as one grows up. Which is yet another reason why this site is so great, the stories and interactions allow us to support each other and send that other kind of message, that this other thing, being queer or gay or homosexual or questioning or bisexual or WHATEVER, is a fine thing to be and doesn't disqualify you for any perks of human associations. Someone's sexuality, whether gay or BDSM or whatever, or their gender presentation, typical or atypical masculinity for instance, does not bar them from the tribe...or make discourtesy or discrimination acceptable.
A young friend of mine from the Philippines got into town recently as is hanging around while I show him places and just generally let him see people that are atypical behaving normally. It always amazes me how just being around others, of the group I call Queer but has many names, can go a long way fast in improving someone's self esteem. What? all these queer type people do normal things like getting married, dating, raising kids, going to picnics or parties, having coffee and reading the paper, and even if sometimes you can 'tell' they are different, in essence, they are just people, acting like people, not particularly better or worse than anyone else? Yep. Just amazing how meaningful that is for someone who hasn't had the experience. Hell, its still meaningful for me and I'd never choose to live outside of or far from places where I can experience that, it just isn't good for my soul. AD is one of the online places that is good for my soul, and yours too, I hope.
Kisses...
TR
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#3
Thank You
mama took a pencil
and drew me alligators:
lady alligator
with earrings and purse
gentleman lizard
reptilian grin
and a red necktie
mama read me stories:
?saunday comin? along?
gory brothers grimm and
way up on olympus
spiteful goddesses
haughty pagan gods
and edgar allan poe
mama made me biscuits
rolling dough each morning
flour on her fingernails
punching out circles
that puffed up in the heat
flaky and delicious
with ribbon cane syrup
mama washed and dressed me
taught me to tie my shoes
brushed down my cowlicks
gave me lunch money
extra for ice cream
and all that other stuff
without a thank you
*
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#2
cheerleader cool,
she couldn?t understand
why her daddy
had to lay on down and die
his hound dog howlin?
while her mama?s hands
went right on
shuckin? them peas
shuckin? them peas
small town sweetheart,
she couldn?t work it out
how her own man
could be so elevator smooth
buttons flashin? Up
always ridin? Down
spineless fool
gotta headache
headache tonight
petty princess,
she learned to live on hate
all the sloppy secrets
eatin? out her heart
chewin? bitter meat
just to taste the gall
still daddy?s girl
she knew her worth
knew her own worth
daddy?s darlin?,
her empty womb bewitched
birthing bottle babies
always glued to books
never catching balls
unworthy offspring
no mother?s milk
just let him cry
just let him cry
cold cassandra,
she?ll never understand
why her life shrank down small
beset by fragile men
finally set adrift
angry amazon
mislaid her pom poms
daddy loves you
sure he loves you
*
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#1: Mama's got a headache
Mama?s got a headache
draw the shades
slink like skinks
Mama?s got a headache
shut your mouth
zip that lip
Mama?s got a headache
don?t make noise
don?t be boys
Mama?s got a headache
wake her up and
you?ll be so-rry
Mama?s got a headache
shhhh
*
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DC is definitely not light-hearted. Full of conflicts but NOT depressing :) I really like the emotions and chemistry between the characters. Really2x like your story Joey.
Have you received my mails? I didn't know you changed address
Cheers :)
Rad
Dear Rad
I'm trying to phase out my AOL account but its still active. The tragicrabbit domain addresses are through the website so they're also good. Did I not reply to the last email? If so, my humblest apologies. And thank you for the comments on DC. If my downstairs neighbor would stop bassing my head off my shoulders and the pictures off the walls, I could maybe get some writing done today. For months, I thought the heavy bass was from a nearby bar. Why are people so inconsiderate?
Kisses...
TR
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dcorvus
I liked it a lot, lovely words put together beautifully. You really didn't need to explain, it does conjure the image of a restless sleeper in a darkened room.
Kisses...
TR
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New Brother is very dark and rather depressive. I actually sided with David. Can you believe that? Try Falls Creek Lessons. A light-hearted romance story.
Rad
Is Drama Club dark and depressive? A light hearted romance? A light hearted and depressive romance? Just curious.
Kisses to Rad!
TR
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er... Graeme you do that SO well... think you could go to Tragic Rabbit's Drama Club thread and do the same thing?
:p
Subtlety is the Dude's trademark.
Um,what can I say? Not writing weighs you down like crazy, it feeds on itself until nothing seems to make you want to sit at the keyboard. Its a weird feeling, I used to write all constantly. Part of it is the lessened response from readers, but that's not all of it, I'm sure. I'm genetically predisposed to depression but knowing that doesn't make it go away. I think whining at us does help, even if we complain. At least we know someone's reading our stuff. That's not always clear.
Kisses...
TR
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*sigh*
No one even noticed the last chapter. Yeah, depressed, I suppose you could call it writer's block. Feels like a block weighing me down, I guess. I'm off to gay church this afternoon but will try to get some of my projects finished tonight and/or tomorrow. What I need is encouragement (and to stock up on vanilla Coke and cigs). I'm overwhelmed by losses and the physical right now, finding the way to submerge myself back into fiction would be good for me, actually.
Kisses...
TR
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boys in studyhall
boys in the gym
lockeroom buds
ripe for picking
ammonia
gardenia
swelling with smell
of sweat and piss
boyhood flowers
ripe for plucking
drooping lilac
weeping willow
men in subways
men on the street
newsstand blossoms
open in the sun
velvet roses
and thorny pricks
daytime garden
overripe flowers
giving off man scent
give it to me
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Well, moving it to the Limerick section would certainly lighten things up.
There once was a writer named Dave...
Excellent. I think all quarrels should be automatically shifted to the Limerick Lane/Poetry Place. Members unable to versify their anger will thus be disarmed and those packing prosy will inherit the earth. As it should be.
Kisses...
TR
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Very nice, but I have to disagree with the sentiment.
I'd like to see the narrator marry Harry one day, even if it is not possible today.
Graeme
But I thought the sentiment was pro-marriage. Despite what he says, he's more promised than any wedding could make him, yes? Its just the word itself, the technicality, that he's telling his parents he will not do with someone else. Because he's already given himself to Harry. Sort of as if he has some contempt for the trappings of marriage when, as he keeps saying, he's already sworn. Yes? No? The view from the inside is always different, though. There is no right way to feel about a poem, even if you are the author.
Kisses...
TR
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No, Father, I shall not marry
Shall have no bride
Here at my side
For I am sworn to love Harry
Oh, Mother, plan no wedding day
No girl in white
No bridal night
For I promised my soul away
When we were two, I gave my heart
Ribbons of blue
Promises, too,
That nothing could tear us apart
When we were ten, he gave a ring
Silver in hue
With promises true
Mine, no matter what time would bring
No grandchild will be begotten
Mother, don?t cry
He did not lie
I know he has not forgotten
Mother, do not weep so forlorn
My heart is true
And despite you,
Mother, I will not be forsworn
So let not the churchman tarry
No wedding chime
I have not time
For I wait alone for Harry
No, Father, I shall not marry
No wedding cake
No vows will take
For I am sworn to love Harry
Version with visuals: http://www.tragicrabbit.org/poems/Sworn%20...m%20by%20TR.htm
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Well, outdoor camping can be fun.
Um, okay, indoor camping I could go for. I simply adore room service.
TR
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SWOON! Outdoorsy men! I'm goign camping next week. :D
Gag, outdoorsy men! They want to get romantic near bugs and far from proper facilities.
Pool parties are fun...but I don't swim. I do love to be shown how, though, by nice men.
Raise your hand if you've never done it in a swimming pool...
Kisses...
TR
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Thank you for the condolences and comments about the story. At the Dude's suggestion, I passed it to my father, the uncle Joe in the story, and he showed it to the Grandpa of the story, Tommy. They both cried, he said.
Josh's funeral was today. The bullriding saddle pictured with the story was on the casket, it might have been buried with him, I didn't ask.
I'll catch up the other writing as soon as I can, I'm pretty tired in more ways than one right now.
Kisses...
TR
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sadly, even proofsters have their limitations.
cheers!
aj
Yeah, I noticed typos but I assume Graeme caught them all. Three proofers? Maybe I'm not so badly off without proofers after all. (though Gabe sometimes proofs for me, if he's around)
I liked the story very much, good pacing and suspenseful. Nice ending but, well, depressing. But I like depressing. I guess that's what Blue didn't like. I don't know that you needed all that preface, were you feeling insecure? Just whip it out next time, hon, we don't mind.
Kisses...
TR
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I think the right words can make you swallow your own tongue.
Lovely sentence. Sometimes your words are very powerful, Gabe. They slap up hard inside my head.
Kisses...
TR
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(though you can quibble over the fact that Sirius and Samwise are actually gays in disguise...)
If you mean Samwise Gamgee, he IS gay, hehe.
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/
Kisses...
TR
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However, a story with gay characters can help me relate more; a story in which a boy loves a boy, a man loves a man, moves me more than a story with heterosexual love. So the core values of a good story are universal: they don't change with sexuality, gender, race, and location; they're only accessories, building onto intrinsic human emotions.
Stories with boys or men loving one another also move me more, significantly more, which is one reason I do still surf for new things and check the gay fiction sections in bookstores. When reasonably well done, I PREFER reading about gay characters. I just do. I would like to see stories in all categories but with gay characters, I would like reading them MORE because the hero, the lovers, the whatever were NOT straight. I have been reading almost all of my life and the vast majority of it was about heterosexuals, whether that was central to the plot or not, it was damn sure evident to me. I'm willing, in fact, to overlook less than stellar writing to get those characters and stories.
I disagree with what I've sometimes heard said, that a gay story should be the same as a straight story--that if you just change genders, the story stays the same. Sometimes yes, usually no, in my opinion. I think there are DIFFERENCES in how men are with one another to the way they are, or would be, with a woman. AND differences in how the world looks and works if you ARE gay or bisexual that can influence non-romantic story elements. This is one reason that I prefer the author actually BE gay, although I've read some stuff I liked from authors who were, possibly, not. One 'gay' author turned out to be a woman but undeniably wrote stories that worked for me, that spoke to me, that expressed things about gay relationships or gay characters in their lives.
Yes, there are universal human themes but there are specific kinds of people and interrelationships that I WANT to see and that are WHY I read gay fiction. Race matters, sexuality matters, gender matters and I don't think anyone should be afraid of saying so in order to seem unbigoted. And I don't think its wrong to want to get my fiction, for a change, filtered through a gay lens. Maybe after I've read ten thousand excellent gay stories, I won't need it so much. But then again, maybe I will. And maybe I like the idea of NON-gays reading about gay worlds, gay people, gay lives and loves.
So for all of these reasons and many more, I love gay fiction, rough edges and all.
Kisses...
TR
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He [Capote] may write a good story but he is NOT a good writer. I will fight you to the death on this one.
Silly me! I guess my mistake is assuming that if one can write a good story, then you're a good writer.
Capote does not suck. If he's not to your taste, fine, but his use of parenthesis (among other things) surely isn't up for debate in this forum. Saul Bellow uses paranthesis rather regularly and extremely well, as do other authors. Does Saul Bellow suck, literarily speaking? [if the answer is yes, consider me tuned out...]
I'm just not sure absolutes have a place in a discussion of what works and what is acceptable in fiction writing. There are just too many styles and too many ways to use the English language beautifully to insist on, expect or even wish for grammar class sentences in works of the heart. You, we, listen to the voice in our head and the meter, the rhythm, may call for something outside standard punctuation or use...and that's a GOOD thing. Anyone writing has likely spent most of their life reading and that reading, that familiarity and facility with way words sound inside a head, is what has prepped them to write much more so than any grammar class. From somewhere we get that voice for each story or character and it might take a bagful of commas to make it work, or it might take a mess o' parenthesis.
Tragic Rabbit
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Jesus, I love that poem! Beautifully done, beautiful topic and not a bit schmaltzy, just really great. Damn, you're more facile with words than I am...I think I'll go cry. <G>
Kisses...
TR
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'you bought a guitar to punish your ma'
Hahahahaha...
Love it.
TR
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I just read this short story and liked it. Its well written and presents an interesting character, Allie. It's science fiction with a sort of spiritual aspect in that Allie connects with others who might not be actually there. I'll be looking now for something else by James, I just wanted to mention that I liked the story.
Kisses...
TR
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Joke
in The Raccoon's Den
Posted
Okay, that was funny, admit it, Dude.
TR