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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Somehow “I Kissed a Girl” gets slightly more ironic and tongue in cheek when i sing it to a room full of lesbians. First there’s the angle the song is meant from, and then there’s the hilarity of my singing it, and finally there’s the point where you just assume i’m the natural narrator and the song becomes about how i was supposed to marry Larry but instead i kissed a girl for the first time.

I had a good time playing for the Dyke Auction, and i sounded good. I had control over all of my own sound, so instead of flipping out about not getting my microphone to work on “Bridge” i just raised the whole song an octave so i could belt it out at the top of my lungs. Demos were to be had, and i might show my face at other dyke-y events billed as (of course) “Peter, the lesbian boy!”

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3605938/

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Even though i’m in decent shape and i eat well, i don’t excersise very often at all. For years i’d get winded easily just playing games of soccer or jogging to a class. Recently though my body seems to be pulling together and functioning like one cohesive human unit, which is a nice change. For once i don’t just feel like a self conscious lump of flesh sitting out on the sidelines too afraid to get in on a game; today i was on the skins team in ultimate frisbee and actually made a few points on the deal. Spring is nice, (good) friends are good, and i feel like i spent quality time with myself as well as everyone else, which is a nice change.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3605900/

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Yesterday i liberated a microphone and a stand from the Performing Arts Department and gave a little concert in my living room in preparation for my big event at the Benefit for the Philadelphia Dyke March tonight. While my setlist is still in flux, the covers i’ll be playing throughout the evening include “Material Girl,” Ani’s “Untouchable Face” & “Heartbreak Even,” Erin McKeown’s “How To Open My Heart In Four Easy Steps,” and (of course) Jill Sobule’s lesbo classic “I Kissed a Girl.” Given some extra time i was going to do “Least Complicated,” “I Touch Myself,” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to round out the set, but even with these songs i’m going to have lyrics taped to the backs of my amps. What fun. But, anyway, it should be interesting because they’re nothing to fuck me up other than myself: i have all my own sound equipment, i’m playing by myself, i packed my equipment already, and i have backup batteries for everything. So, if this one goes as sour as the last one, i quit. But, it shouldn’t…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3590958/

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The dichotomy of my own personality can occasionally shock me. This week I haven’t even set foot in my own apartment before 11pm every night, and all of the intervening hours are spent in the presence of other people. Imagining little self-absorbed self-involved me wandering around from one group setting to another is somewhat unsettling, even though I almost love it. I know I love getting back to my apartment just long enough to check me mail (real mail, not email) and then crash out in the body-shaped dent in my bed full of pillows. I love seeing people I care about every day.

At the same time, I feel empty. My normal enthusiasm for everything from crossing the street to opening doors for people is gone. People keep asking me what’s wrong, and even though nothing feels that way obviously they can read it on my face. I feel disconnected from my songs, even after I spent literally the entire weekend holed up in my apartment with my guitar recovering from all the time I spent outside of it last week.

When I took the Myers-Briggs personality indicator last summer I strongly leaned to one side or the other on every category except Introvert/Extrovert, where my score was nearly centered. All of the people who took the test with me were shocked because they couldn’t imagine me as an introvert, but anyone who really knew me well just chuckled knowingly. I don’t know how to make time for other people and myself in my life, and so right now I’m trapped at one extreme knowing that I’d feel just as trapped at the other. The reason I’m involved in so many performance groups and activities is because I know they’ll always get me outside of my room, and that I’ll enjoy myself while doing them. But, sometimes I give away too much of that time, leaving me feeling as though I’m lacking my own energy and opinions, and I try to fix it by spending whole days holed away from anything else. But, it doesn’t work. I played guitar for nine hours on Saturday with no interruption, but it doesn’t feel like I got anywhere. I need to distribute those little pieces of personal time around my schedule for them to mean anything.

Of course, I can’t necessarily distribute. I know people who do what I’ve been doing every night, and who have been doing it for years now. They’re happy people, but I suppose they just scored higher on the extrovert scale than I did, because I can be just as miserable and depressed while I’m surrounded with friends as I am sitting alone in my apartment. Lately I feel like I’m just circling some sort of desperate emotional low, and that as long as I keep myself moving I won’t have to notice it. But, at this point, moving might just be getting me closer.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3579857/

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Not that i’m always the most informative stop on your daily surf of the internet, but i was reading recent Blog of Note PlasticBoy and wound up getting sucked into a fascinating article about how dolphins have been found to be aware of their own self image. Apparently, researched put temporary markings on a pair of Bottlenose Dolphins and mirrored the walls of their tank, and the pair of them were much more interested in examining their own reflections than using the mirrors for any other purpose. In the past chimpanzees and other primates have shown similar traits, but they have thumbs so we expect it from them. Of course, examining one’s reflection in the mirror in only a few shades away from being unable to decide how to do your hair for work today, so i’m not sure if the dolphins are really better off now than they used to be. But, anyway, when you’re done reading that go read another link stolen from PlasticBoy about artificial intelligence in gaming. Or just read PlasticBoy … god knows you need to get some intelligent content from somewhere ;)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3548249/