Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

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A few days after Christmas Amy and i went to IKEA to buy various pieces of furniture, and while we were there i bought a set of four 12oz rose-colored glasses. For the entire next week, they were all i drank from.

One just broke. I have two, now. This post is about permanence, and the lack thereof.

In 1998, four years ago this week, my grandfather died. At that point in my life i had lived in the same house for over a dozen years, written a dozen songs, and had never kissed a girl. It was a day like any other; i had probably just gotten home from a late rehearsal, walking down 64th street breathless and running lines in my head. Turning the key in our flimsy front door. I remember my mother was on the couch, and when she spoke it was just like a scene from a movie. I numbly walked upstairs to my mint-green room, put on track 9, and laid on my bed.

I cried there for an hour, alone. That day i wrote the first song that i would actually go on to play for someone other than myself. Since then i have moved four times. However, it was a while before i kissed anyone.

I am an easy person to convince of things, despite high surface levels of skepticism. If you’ve been dating for a year or two and tell me you’ll be together forever, i believe you. I start angling for a spot in your wedding party. I take it on faith that if you’re used to each other and happy that nothing will ever go sour; i’ve never done it myself, so it must be possible.

I wound up getting the question about Fallacy of Ignorance right on my Philosophy final, but i might have not gotten the point.

When a couple breaks up after two years together, it’s hard for me to understand how the world will work afterwards. For me, and for them, and at large … how can i believe in anything if nothing lasts forever like it says it’s going to?

Just before spring of 1998 i wrote “I never kissed somebody so that they would break my heart” in a journal i shared with my best friend Andrea. She replied that she never much cared for Lisa Loeb. The other day i found myself singing the same line as i walked down Walnut street. It still sounds the same, but it means something different now.

My mother is taking a loan to pay off her credit cards; she wants to buy a house. I might fail a class for the first time ever, and it’s my own dumb fault. Auditions are Tuesday. I’m listening to Firecracker.

I can’t tell if things change or not. Thoughts?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9831165/

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I have had my ups an downs with Dan Savage’s Savage Love column, and the particular letter that was pointed out in my comments the other day fits nicely somewhere in the middle. Specifically, the first half is an up, and the last paragraph is a down.

While Dan’s opening is indeed quite Savage, it’s also sadly true; the easiest way to stop being mistaken for a homosexual is to stop “acting” like one. Of course, the harder way to stop being mistaken for a homosexual is to only cultivate friendships with people that avoid such idle and generic stereotyping based on shopping, cooking, and Madonna. I enjoy shopping because i’ve had to shop with my mother my entire life, i enjoy cooking because i think it’s one of the sexiest things you can do with another person, and i enjoy Madonna because i’ve always loved music and she’s always been good. So, if those traits (and others) make me “gay,” then… well, then i’ll take the dictionary definition, thank you very much.

Savage hits the melancholy nail right on the head with his second paragraph… that most women would love to meet men like myself or the writer of the letter, but that they would love to meet them so that they could have them as friends. Witness this exact reaction in my friend Lisa, who refers to me as her sassy gay friend. When it comes right down to it, she doesn’t really care whether or not i’m gay — she’s just in it for the sass. The point that was brought to light that i never thought about is that women do want to think they’re bringing out the sensitive side in their men, and so a pre-sensitized guy can seem like sort of a letdown. Of course, not all women subscribe to both of these rules (thank god); some girls like a guy who’s a little bit ambiguous, perhaps for the exact reason that they bring out the guy in him rather than the sensitivity.

The down about this particular column’s closing is, for once, not one i have with its author. The letter writer in question is so superficial of a skirt-chaser that he’s “cultivated” the traits in question, and so Dan dismisses him by telling him to “[B]utch it up a little bit. Shop a little less, care a little less, and listen to Madonna a little less.” I would say the same thing to the man in question, maybe even adding “And try being yourself for once.” I’m sure he was thinking it, though. The down, for me, is that Savage isn’t really addressing the question in my mind, which is “What about if that is yourself?” I can surely be blamed for any sexual ambiguity i present in the form of lap-dances and suggestive commentary, but Savage is essentially endorsing that artificially touchy-feely men should drop the pretense, so i’d assume he’d similarly endorse laying off the pretense of being more of a guy’s guy as well.

So, what’s a girl’s guy to do? In my opinion, not a whole lot — other than believing in the things that make you yourself. No, most girls don’t find sensitive men overwhelmingly attractive (unless they’re fronting decent emo bands, and then it’s open for discussion). However, the girls that do tend to fall for the softer sort of guy are more confident about themselves, i think … enough so that that don’t need a alpha male to lead them around by the arm. This doesn’t mean they’re perfect, or self-confident, or what you’re looking for … but they are probably free from playing the more typical parts of the daily boy-girl game most people subject themselves to.


Mention Madonna a little less? Maybe. Give fewer lapdances to “Queer?” For sure. Change? Never.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9792246/

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As per request.

I’ve had a webpage of some kind or another for years and years, but it didn’t start getting personal until Shafted. Shafted was all personal… personal stories, personal reactions, and personal humor. It was there that i started out, as just a snarky commenter, and i kept it up until i was finally upgraded to a full-time poster half a year later. Crushing Krisis came along three months later, and was meant to be an escape from the editorializing and opinions of all of the other posters at Shafted. It was meant to be soley my voice, uninterrupted.

However, a year later comments began to look tempting. People always say how they wish i had comments so they could react to all of my posts on a one by one basis. It would be great, they say. Taking this all with a grain of salt, i implemented comments for a week this summer to find them sleepy and uninspiring. And then they got the axe.

Essentially, i am stubborn. I refuse to have comments that aren’t being used, because it feels like a waste of time and energy — and it’s entirely too depressing to load and reload the page to see only a litany of 0’s and 1’s linking to comments. I refuse to let comments drive what i’m writing or how i write it, consciously or unconsciously. As per my recent post, my writing is already biased by the people who are reading it. I just don’t think it would be healthy to enable that on every post, so that i can be thinking about all of the potential readers and commenters every time i say something. Finally, i don’t like their add-on nature… i don’t like feeling as though just reading my post is not enough; since i am not an avid commenter on other sites, the ones that have a heavy base of commentary tend to fly under my radar of interest since i am only concerned with their actual content.

And, honestly, the comments on most of the sites i read absolutely suck. For the most part they consist of a few quality bloggers leaving thoughtful messages that would probably be more useful as a cross-link from their own blog, and then a seemingly endless stream of facebiting first-posting people who don’t have a clue. Every so often i have a post i really want a response to, and so i use my comments script for those posts. The extremely underwhelming response to them has confirmed my initial opinion just as much as commentary on other sites does: it’s not meant to be a daily part of Crushing Krisis.

Despite all of my varied opinions on them, sometimes comments are worthwhile. So, that’s why they make an occasional appearance. There you go Shaun & Jon.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9719555/

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I absolutely cannot sing the harmony to “Closer to Fine.” Like, really, i’m honestly trying, but no amounts of lyrics, replays, and really cute girls, i have encouraging me to sing it correctly. So, mostly i’m just sitting here and pouting about not being able to sing it or hit the E in my song. Or, really, sing anything. Not even Billy Joel that i’ve been listening to since i was two. Two.

Distracted much? Me? Never…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9773642/