Essentially Nude Except For The Mortarboard: “Mass Effect” And Women I Have Known
My new female Commander Shepard in the game Mass Effect (also known as a FemShep) looks like a girl who got a standing ovation at a poetry slam I hosted years ago for reading a poem about humming The Star-Spangled Banner while giving a blowjob in a public park. My FemShep also looks like a girl who broke up with me in college because I was “like a brother to her.” A brother that has sex with you and takes you to see Ben Folds Five in concert, I guess. My FemShep is completely ruthless. She shot a Salarian in the face even after he begged for his life. To be fair, the Salarian was wearing a Ben Folds Five shirt, so you know he was going to try to have conservative, missionary style sex with her.
Let’s Talk About The Trailer For “Moonrise Kingdom”
In which Jason and Kristina of Knuckle Salad discuss the trailer for the movie Moonrise Kingdom.
J: Wow, this movie has it all. Little girls in bird costumes, old compasses, kids writing notes to each other on custom stationary and Ed Norton in a Boy Scout uniform. It’s like the deleted scenes from The People vs. Larry Flynt in an alternate universe where Hustler magazine is about the top sellers on Etsy. According to its synopsis, Moonrise Kingdom is about two twelve-year-olds who fall in love at summer camp, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. I had a crush on a curly haired girl at 4-H camp when I was twelve. She never smiled and got pregnant in the tenth grade. I guess she would have gotten pregnant even sooner if she hadn’t scowled so much.
Everyone Has A Wheel: In Defense Of Summer
This essay was originally written and performed for Write Club Atlanta, a monthly competitive writing event. It is a companion piece to this essay.
Everyone has a wheel.
For some people, the wheel is a grindstone, an oppressive force pushing them down into the dirt as it turns, squeezing the air out of their lungs as it spins against their back. For others, the wheel is a puppy in a velour tracksuit, massaging their shoulders with a tender professionalism, because it is a certified massage therapist in addition to being a soft, wiggly puppy. And for some, their wheel is a grindstone in a velour tracksuit that dropped out of massage school to become a cashier at Target, a place notorious for not giving massages.
