DEVOUTLY NORMAL PEOPLE SUCK        

        This month is the 10-year anniversary of the 1^st time that I came to Minnesota. Instead of talking so much about my experiences of being in Minnesota in May 1991, I’ll talk more about experiences I had, which is why I desperately needed to get away from my parents.

          I grew up in the Chicago area and I really enjoyed it when the weather got cold, especially in the winter when the temperature went below 0, which didn’t happen enough.

When I was 10 years old, I wanted to move to Minnesota for 2 reasons:

1. The 1^st reason I wanted to move to Minnesota is because the weather was nicer there than Chicago, especially in the winter!
2. The 2^nd reason that I wanted to move to Minnesota is because I used to be Laura Ingalls in my previous lifetime.

I am not going to explain that 1 right now, but I can’t wait until I do!

        I wanted my parents to take me to Minnesota for a vacation, but they never did. The only places they went to were places that sucked, like Florida and once we went to Arkansas. Traveling with my parents was not fun because I am too weird for them and they are "devoutly normal", which means that they are very mediocre and boring and don’t like it when their son turns out to be a weird non-conformist. I remember 1 time when I was on the way to Florida with my parents, we stopped at a gas station in Lebanon, Indiana and I used the bathroom. Whenever I go into a bathroom, I really enjoy reading what people write on the walls and I noticed that homosexuals wrote a lot of things. I didn’t even know that there were homosexuals in Lebanon, Indiana! Anyway, I asked my father if he noticed the stuff that gay men wrote on the bathroom wall about blow jobs and sucking cock. He told me that he didn’t notice and said that he is normal and has more important things to worry about than what a bunch of queers would write on a bathroom wall. My father told me that men sucking each others cocks is a sin. I told him that there are some churches that actually support gay people, like the United Church of Christ and he told me that that is church for Satan worship.

         Staying at motels with my parents was really an experience from Hell. Whenever I travel, I like to take a thermometer with me and I like to set the thermometer outside the motel room because I wanted to know what the temperature is. My parents didn’t like it when I did that because they were afraid that other people would think that they were weird, even though they would never see them again anyway.

       My parents knew everything about what is normal and what isn’t normal. My parents are even bowel movement "experts." According to my parents, the only "normal" time of day for someone to take a healthy shit is in the morning right after eating breakfast. What if you don’t feel like taking a healthy shit in the morning right after eating breakfast? In that case, you are supposed to sit on the terlet and try to take a shit, even if you don’t feel like taking one. According to my parents, that will lead to healthy and normal bowel movement habits. If that’s not enough, according to my father, it is not normal for someone to stand up while wiping their ass. It is not normal unless you are willing to remain sitting on the terlet until you are done wiping your ass.

       While traveling with my parents, they made sure that they took a shit at the motel right after eating breakfast, which is what "devoutly normal" people do and they would stink up the motel room. My parents would converse with one another in a serious way as to who would go into the bathroom and take a shit 1^st. After they were done stinking up the motel room, they would ask me if I wanted to use the bathroom. No, I did not! The smell was bad enough to make me feel like vomiting. I can not understand how someone can stand to use a bathroom after someone just got done taking a shit? I also can not understand how someone can actually take a shit with other people knowing that they are taking a shit? Aren’t they embarrassed by the bad smell?

         I had a lot of horrible experiences while traveling with my parents, so I wanted to talk more about the comical aspects of traveling with them. After I was misfortunate to move to Florida, my parents would never take any vacations any more because they have no life and believe that they are in the most perfect place on Earth. I couldn’t stand it there. I decided to travel on my own for the 1^st time in my life and most of the time, it was a hell of a lot better than traveling with my parents, except for 1 major disadvantage. At least when I traveled with my parents, they paid for everything! I went to places that I had never been to before like Washington DC, Baltimore, San Francisco, New York and Boston. I really liked Boston and wanted to move there, but it was too expensive to live there and that really pissed me off..

        I knew some people in Miami who were planning on moving to Minneapolis, so I decided to check Minneapolis out. It was in May 1991, that I came to Minneapolis for the 1^st time. I flew into Chicago rented a car and drove to Minneapolis. I decided to stop in Madison, Wisconsin on my way to the twin cities and spent the whole day there and found Madison, Wisconsin to such a cool place. I kind of procrastinated at coming to Minneapolis by hanging out in Madison, Wisconsin because I was so afraid that I would discover that Minneapolis sucks. I stayed in Madison, Wisconsin until 8PM on May 10, 1991, but after that I decided to go on my drive and head on over to the twin cites and I arrived in Minnesota shortly after midnight on May 10/11, 1991. The 1^st thing I do after arriving in a new city is I check out the radio stations. I discovered that most twin city radio stations sucked. At that time, there was a station called KJ104, which called themselves "alternative", but was rather disappointing, but it was still a lot better than the radio stations in Florida. I did discover a very cool show on KFAI, which is called the Root-of-all-Evil and it is still on today. That’s another thing about my parents. They think that it is not normal to worry about radio stations. Radio stations are extremely important because most of them suck and I only want to be in a place that has some good ones. Right now, the only worthwhile radio stations in the twin cities are KFAI and radio K, but that’s better than no good radio stations at all. I met some people who told me that the twin cities would be a good place to live that there would be a lot going on here and it was very easy to find an apartment with affordable rents. Back in 1991, the twin cities had plenty of apartments with affordable rents. Not any more! I know that the lack of affordable housing is not only a government conspiracy, but terrorism to destroy opportunities for artists and alternative people by destroying their ability to afford to live in places that don’t suck. I felt that Minneapolis would be the best place for me to get a new start, while getting away from my parents, which is what I desperately needed. It took until July 1994 before I was brave enough to move to Minneapolis and I will talk about my 10-year anniversary of living in Minnesota in July 2004.

I don't think that my parents will appreciate the things I said about them, but I need to tell it like it is.  Click this blue thing to get back to my spoken words page.