MARK: Here’s your first question… Were you born in Michigan? And, if not, how old were you when you first moved here, and what were the circumstances surrounding the move?

DUSTIN: I was born and raised in Michigan, specifically Otsego… a small town off US-131, in between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. My parents also both grew up in southwest Michigan: my mom in Otsego, my dad in neighboring Allegan. With the exception of a brief stint on my dad’s part in Kalamazoo, they’ve lived in one or the other their entire lives.

MARK: But, if I’m not mistaken, you did live outside the state for a while, didn’t you?

DUSTIN: Yep. I lived in Portland, Oregon for about a year and a half, starting in 2006. Aside from that, I’ve been in Otsego, Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, or Ypsilanti.

MARK: What brought you back from Oregon? It’s been my experience that people don’t generally return from there.

DUSTIN: It wasn’t the right time. There was life-progress that I thought would be easier to make in Michigan, where I didn’t have the handicap of not knowing what the fuck I was doing. Well, I guess one has that handicap anywhere, but I had a little more direction in Michigan than I was ready to muster in Portland.

MARK: So the conditions weren’t right for you to emerge from your cocoon as a fully-formed, radiantly-beautiful butterfly of a man… but now they are?

DUSTIN: Something like that. It’s a little more banal, though. It’s more that I now feel as though I can economically manage myself a little better, and make smarter choices, compromise with potential clients better… things like that. If it’s a matter of “becoming a man/adult,” it’s only inasmuch as I’m not as sensitive to constructive, or even non-constructive, criticism as an artist/designer… “The customer is always right,” y’know.

MARK: Did this awakening have anything to do with the epic dust-up between you and our mutual friend The Non-Local Banker?

DUSTIN: Yeah, I’ve got to get outta town before I make any other enemies.

MARK: I was just wondering if that’s when you officially gave up, decided that you had to play the game, adopted the “customer’s always right” mindset, and lost your last shred of idealism?

DUSTIN: It was a foregone conclusion. According to Ian Fulcher, I made that leap years ago. He loves to point out my tragic fall from punk idealism to shameless capitalism.

MARK: I think you still had a little fight left in you when you took on the bankers.

DUSTIN: Nah, I have a decent amount of fight left in me. I consider myself a “radical pragmatist.” There’s still a lot of stuff I have a big problem with, though re: capitalism, government, mass media, and the other usual suspects. However, as a friend of mine once said: “If you have cancer, you’re not going to go to the indie rock hospital.” I’m radical when it makes sense. Shooting myself in the foot doesn’t make sense. I’ve done enough of that to be limping for life.

MARK: So, what’s the plan? Back to Oregon? To do what?

DUSTIN: Yep, back to Oregon. Portland specifically for the city amenities, but Oregon in general for the natural beauty and milder weather. With the exception of working at Encore Records, I’ll be doing basically the same things I do here: freelance art and design, DJing parties/weddings/whatever, and writing… Hopefully a lot more of the latter than I do here, although I’m not making anyone, including myself, any promises.

MARK: Are you just learning how to write? Is that a skill you need to be successful in Portland?

DUSTIN: No, I’ve been doing it a long time, though I still feel like I’m learning. I used to write music and culture articles for The Ann Arbor Paper when that was a thing, with varying degrees of aesthetic success. I’ve been trying to write a graphic novel, as well as some other essays and a non-fiction book, but I’m holding myself to really high standards, so nobody has really seen much evidence of the progress. It’s slow going.

MARK: What is it about Oregon that you find compelling, other than the natural beauty and the weather?

DUSTIN: Not much. I mean, I like the “vibe” out there, I suppose. It’s as characteristically lazy and slow as it’s depicted on some sketches on Portlandia, or maybe more like the depiction of Austin in Slacker, although this is less true now that it’s such a hot place to move. It’s just a very comfortable place for me. It should be noted that I don’t give a rat’s ass about the music or art scene out there. There’s plenty of it, but I care about MAYBE 1% of it. It’s less interesting certainly than Detroit, and Ann Arbor and Ypsi when those are going full-steam… I actually think the time is ripe to be doing stuff around here, minus maybe Ann Arbor. That’s not my primary concern, however.

MARK: Since you brought the subject up, what’s your biggest gripe with the Ann Arbor scene? And how do you see it evolving in your absence?

DUSTIN: Well, I don’t really have a gripe about it, from a cultural standpoint; I’m simply not as interested as I used to be in such things, but that’s not the community’s fault. I will concede that I’d like to see more people do something that’s not a rock band, exercise a little more imagination, but that’s not a new feeling nor one that’s any stronger now than at any other time. Besides, if people like doing it, and other people like supporting it, who am I to say? Ann Arbor specifically is admittedly kinda lame at this point, just kind of a yuppie watering hole/undergrad pit stop en route to Brooklyn or whatever, but that’s not why I’m moving. Like I implied earlier, the proximity to Detroit and the tight-knit scene in Ypsi kind of remedy those issues. As for evolution sans moi, I’m sure the area’s propensity for transience will keep things fresh in one way or another. I don’t feel like I’m leaving too much of a mantle to take up, but I’m confident that there will be people around to do something comparable.

MARK: If I didn’t have my roots sunk so deep into Michigan, I’d consider making the move. I’ve always had a fondness for Portland. I know it’s become cliche, but it really is a great place. I just hope that, with so many young, talented people there, you’re able to find gainful employment.

DUSTIN: Me too. My goal is to not be dependent on the city for employment, because you’re absolutely right in your implication that the job market is horrible. It doesn’t have the infrastructure of NYC, San Francisco, and all of the other big cities that “the creative class” tend to migrate toward. The miracle of the internet age, though, is that it doesn’t necessarily matter. If I need to, I have friends who can get me a dumb service job, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can avoid as much.

MARK: I have to believe there’s always room for someone who can so deftly incorporate gynecologic imagery into his work.

DUSTIN: Hahaha, I was actually just writing the html code for the page on my portfolio that will feature that controversial image.

MARK: What’s left to do before you go? Is there a list of Michigan things that must be accomplished before entering this new phase of life?

DUSTIN: I’m trying to spend a little more time exploring and appreciating Detroit before I leave. I didn’t have a car from 2004-2012, so my visits in that time were pretty limited. I’d also like to get back to the U.P. I also might start a Link Wray-ish instrumental party band for the summer, if I can get my shit/friends together for it.

MARK: So how did you spend your time in Portland when lived out there before? What did you do for a year and a half>

DUSTIN: Drank shitty beer, walked and rode a bike a lot, worked at American Apparel, met my best friend Cait, played in a Replacements/Alex Chilton/T. Rex/Pavement amalgam power trio called FOREVER STOKED, recorded my best record, saw the legendary noise/improv band Smegma multiple times, did some of my worst cartooning since age 18, worked at a toy store, got offered a job at the American Apparel factory in L.A. that I ended up turning down, entertained my first serious suicidal thoughts, drank Everclear, got offered sex in a filthy house-party bathroom (same night as the Everclear), drank a ton of super-good coffee, put my finger in a sea anemone’s “mouth,” and pretended that I had a clandestine relationship with Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy’s) to entertain my hero Ricky Delucco.

MARK: Did Dov make love to you and/or photograph you?

DUSTIN: It never got that far. I was actually supposed to be his assistant’s assistant, but I never flew down for the interview. I’m sure, one way or another, I would have been fucked, though possibly not in a sensual way.

MARK: Is that why you came running back to Michigan… because you were jilted by Dov Charney? And how cool is it that assistants get assistants in LA?

DUSTIN: I actually jilted Dov. I was explicitly informed that casual sex would be an incredibly likely part of the deal, which was hard to turn my back on, but I just couldn’t see myself in L.A… The assistant who was trying to hire me actually died tragically a year and change later, likely due to overexertion from working 22 hour days and drinking endless amounts of Starbucks (but it should be said that that’s conjecture). She was my age. Weird.

MARK: Who is Ricky Delucco? (I’m too lazy to resort to Google.) And what has he done to earn your respect?

DUSTIN: Ricky Delucco doesn’t need to earn respect, he demands it. This is by sheer force of his beautiful aura and gregarious laugh. That said, he’s also an amazing draftsman and designer, one of those people that makes me look like a total chump by comparison, but nonetheless showers my work with praise. He also doesn’t prefer to be called Ricky, but I can’t resist.

MARK: Tell us about this imagined liaison with Dave Thomas.

DUSTIN: The imagined affair with Dave Thomas was just something that came out of a stream-of-consciousness conversation; the specific origins of which are a mystery lost to the sands of time. In other words, “you had to be there,” but besides Rick and myself, those that were there were largely unamused, so maybe being there didn’t help.

MARK: Did you take the person up on the party sex? I ask because I was once made a similar offer and declined. It was the only time I’ve ever been propositioned by an attractive young woman who was completely unknown to me, so I have fond memories of it. I was at a baby shower that had somehow evolved into something much different with the addition of strangers, who had apparently been drinking all day. A nice young woman, after a short conversation, asked me to join her in descending the stairs we were standing next to, and defiling the basement of the unsuspecting homeowner, at which point I had to tell her that I was the homeowner, the basement was already sufficiently filthy, and the woman standing about ten feet from us was my wife. I believe she moved on to someone else… I later had to stop her friend from having sex with another guest in our bathroom.

DUSTIN: I rejected the bathroom sexual advances, but I assure you that this was an accident caused by the aforementioned consumption of Everclear (side note: Art Alexakis of the band Everclear still lives in Portland, or at least he did. My friend Ami, who now owns Brass Tacks Sandwiches, used to work at an ice cream parlor at which Mr. Alexakis was a regular patron. She described him as being haunted by the spectre of defeat at every turn.) The woman who propositioned me had asked me prior if I had a girlfriend. When I said no, she said “SO IF YOU HAD SEX WITH SOMEONE TONIGHT, YOU WOULDN’T BE CHEATING ON ANYONE?”. She then suggested we go wait in line for the bathroom. When it was her turn, she said “would you care to join me?”, to which I responded “pfffft, we can’t both pee at once.” Later that night, I made some very dubious choices with one of my roommates, but I’m going to keep that one vague to protect the innocent.

MARK: Describe your work.

DUSTIN: Basically, I do illustration and design work, and I also moonlight as a DJ playing mostly 45s from the 1950s/60s. Some of the design work is done by analog means (pen and paper, rub-on letters, and the like), but most of it is augmented digitally in some way or another. My over-arching aesthetic is influenced heavily by pre-digital cartoonists and graphic designers (Robert Crumb, Milton Glaser, Seymoure Schwast, George Maciunas, Peter Bagge, Basil Wolverton, etc.). If folks are interested, they can view samples of my work at DustinKrcatovich.com. I also run a small art and sound label called FM Dust, which is currently semi-dormant but will rise again, just like the phoenix.

MARK: Was Ann Arbor too small for both you and Jeremy Wheeler?

DUSTIN: Probably, but he and I super-tight bros from way back when, so I don’t know if we’d see it that way.

MARK: If you could take one person from Ann Arbor with you to Portland, who would it be?

DUSTIN: Tough one. The first person that came to mind is my roommate, Jen Munford.

MARK: Do you feel bad for abandoning her?

DUSTIN: Nah… My departure just increases the likelihood of her continuing to like me. I do most of my sulking and complaining at home.

MARK: Will you be defacing any billboards before you leave?

DUSTIN: I wouldn’t dream of it. Not because it shouldn’t happen, just because I’m a wuss.

MARK: What did you learn from the exchange over the Bank of Ann Arbor’s “non-local banker” campaign?

DUSTIN: Not much. It was fun, if a little distressing, to watch that little gag open up old wounds and latent rivalries that have nothing to with me. Everyone needs to lighten up. Any high-falutin’ commentary from my end notwithstanding, it’s all just a joke.

MARK: Have you ever thought of seducing Dave Thomas’s daughter, Wendy? According to Wikipedia, she graduated from the University of Florida in 1983 with “a bachelor’s degree in consumerism.” I didn’t know that you could major in consumerism.

DUSTIN: I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the students at the University of Michigan are studying right now. That’s why downtown Ann Arbor’s a quasi-corporate food court now, and the closest thing to radicalism you usually see is either half-hearted, or perpetrated by people my parents’ age. I’ve never dated a redhead before, but I’d be intrigued to start any old time.

MARK: I hate to ruin the illusion, but she no longer has the red hair, and looks like this. She is, however, filthy rich.

DUSTIN: Oh, man, I found some really mean comments about her after following those links. Poor rich woman. That said, I think I’ll pass. I did consider becoming a gigolo for middle-aged wealthy widows when I moved to Portland the first time, with the smokescreen of an artist/patron relationship, but I never followed through.

MARK: If you woke up one morning to find that someone had traded your feet for your hands, what would you do?

DUSTIN: There’s no PG answer to that one, my friend.

MARK: Yes, I think you’ll fit right in in Portland.

DUSTIN: I dunno, I’m scared of fixed-gear bikes and I’ve never gone mushroom-hunting, but I’ll do my best.

MARK: What’s the ideal job for you?

DUSTIN: Professional roustabout/drifter who owns a houseboat. I don’t know anything about that, though, so probably cartoonist, although I come in and out of that field of interest, and I worry almost everyday about early-onset arthritis crushing all of my dreams.

MARK: I don’t know it’s of epidemic proportions, but, as you mention suicidal thoughts, I feel as though I should mention that, as nice as Portland is, there seem to be a lot of people leaping off of buildings. It’s something about the rain. I don’t suppose it will be too bad for someone moving from the relatively sunless state of Michigan, but I thought that I should mention it. Be sure to take your vitamin-D and your light therapy lamp, OK?

DUSTIN: Thanks for the concern. There’s no two ways about it: winter in the Pacific Northwest is gloomy as shit. The one positive about snow is that it’s bright white (well, until it’s brown and slushy, anyway), so at least that offsets Seasonal Affective Disorder a teensy bit. That said, it’s usually about 15-20 degrees warmer in the winter in Portland, so it’s a tradeoff.

MARK: It’s at the forefront of my mind at the moment because I just recently got a text from a friend in Portland. Someone had jumped to his death right outside his office window. I suspect that a lot of it is the weather, but I imagine that some folks also move to Portland expecting for their lives to turn around, and then have to deal with reality. But, like I hinted at before, I don’t have any data to support the notion that people are taking their lives in Portland more than anywhere else. For all I know, we have more suicides per capita in Ann Arbor.

DUSTIN: I’ve heard that both Seattle and Portland have exceptionally high suicide rates. Rain and grey can do that to people. I’m steeling myself for it, though.

MARK: Do you have a question for me?

DUSTIN: Have you ever seen Pete Larson naked?

MARK: As you likely know, it’s very difficult to avoid accidental intercourse with one’s bandmates… So, do you have a final comment for the people of Michigan?

DUSTIN: Is it ever! Closing statement: so long, suckers. Nah, nah, barring unforeseen obstacles, Michigan will see me again plenty. This isn’t goodbye, just see ya later.

MARK: Oh, and I’ve just been asked by Concentrate Media, to come out and do some live exit interviews at Connor O’Neils on the 28th. Would you like to join the panel?

DUSTIN: Sure, why the heck not?

update: If you’d like to attend the Concentrate event on the 28th in person, and see me interview the likes of Dusty, Jacqui Robbins and Newcombe Clark, you can sign up here.

[Be sure to check out the rest of our Ypsi/Arbor Exit Interviews.]

While we’re on the subject of Degrassi, did you hear the news late last week that Neil Hope had passed away? Hope, who played Derek “Wheels” Wheeler in the classic Canadian coming-of-age drama, apparently died five years ago, alone, in a Hamilton, Ontario rooming house, but the news just now became public. Hope, who had a long history of alcoholism, is said to have died of natural causes.

Speaking of Hope, here’s one of my favorite episodes that centers around his character. It’s called, Best Laid Plans.

And I know that it’s unlikely, but I’d like to see if maybe I could convince Pat Mastroianni, who played Joey Jeremiah, to recreate the drugstore scene that takes place at the 16-minute mark, with me filling in for Wheels. I think that would be incredibly cool.

And, yes, apparently all of the episodes of Degrassi Junior High are now available on YouTube… Enjoy!

As you might imagine, the internet lit up immediately. Women, rightfully, were angry to hear this rich, old man presuming to tell them how to live their lives, and conduct themselves in their bedrooms. After the initial shock wore off, the instinctive anger people were feeling seemed to give way to more thoughtful responses. The “I’d like to shove an aspirin right up this old man’s ass” comments, at least among my friends, gave way to more thoughtful discussions on the history of women’s reproductive freedom, and these recent threats posed by the likes of Santorum, who has, on several occasions, indicated that individual states should be given the opportunity to outlaw contraception. And, by this evening, I noticed that women were starting to embrace the aspirin meme, and claim it for their own. One friend sent around a picture of an aspirin held tight between her knees, and another pointed out the flaw in Friess’s inexpensive health care plan for women. To paraphrase, she said something like, “I’m pretty sure I can have sex with my knees together.” And that’s what got me wondering whether or not we might be standing on the precipice of the most filthy politically-motivated internet meme ever. Might we wake up in the morning, to find the internet bursting at the seems with videos of women having sex while holding aspirin between their knees? Or, if not video, maybe just photo galleries of sweaty, happy, satisfied women with chalky white aspirin residue on the insides of their knees…

If I worked for Baer Aspirin, I’d be all over this in a heartbeat, buying up advertising time, and hiring a celebrity spokesperson. (Bristol Palin, I think, would make a great campaign spokesperson.)

And here’s the video or Friess.

If you want to send him your empty aspirin bottles, here’s his address:

115 E. Snow King Avenue
PO Box 9790
Jackson WY, 83002

[Tonight's post is brought to you by Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney and Eleanor Holmes Norton, who awesomely got up and walked out of a House oversight committee hearing on contraceptive coverage this morning, accusing Chairman Darrell Issa of blocking female witnesses from testifying.]

“The bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, that are acquired simply as a result of living in Ypsilanti, Michigan.”

My injury wasn’t really Ypsi’s fault, so much as it was the fault of the guys who recently fixed our roof, but I still like the word, and I think there are probably plenty of occasions to use it. I can see it being used, if, let’s say, someone steps on a piece of glass while walking around the City, or gets rug burn as a result of having sex with someone met on the street in Ypsilanti. (I should also copyright “sexmata” for similar cases that happen outside of Ypsilanti.)

As for my injury, as much as I’d like to pretend that it’s life threatening, it’s not terribly bad. The nail did go through my shoe and into my foot, but it didn’t go deep. And, happily, I just recently had a tetanus shot after having gone decades without one. So, things aren’t too bad. I am, however, thinking of sending a photo of my bloody sock to the roofers, encouraging them to be more careful in the future. While it wasn’t too bad for me, given how thick the soles of my tennis shoes are, it would have easily gone right through Clementine’s foot. And this wasn’t the only one that I found. I’ve been picking nails up for the past few weeks… Maybe they aren’t from my roof, though. Maybe someone’s booby trapping my yard.

I recently overheard a couple of guys joking about how they used to “fantasize” about Wonder Woman, when they were younger. Of course this is a kinder, gentler way of saying “I used to beat-off to Lynda Carter,” and none of it rings true with me. They were both doing the ol’ nudge-nudge/wink-wink, and I would’ve had to resort to the hey, whatever. 



For one thing, I grew up in the 1970s, and guys never admitted to “fantasizing” back then. We spent a lot of time attempting to procure pornography, of course, but there was never a discussion of what happens next. It was simply out of the question. You could have walked into any high school in America in 1978, pressed a gun to a random boy’s head, and ordered him to admit that he masturbates. And he would’ve looked around at all the faces, turned to the gunman, and said, “Please tell my parents I loved them.” 



Of course everything is different now, and much more healthy and realistic, I know. But I’m a product of my environment, and still have some difficulty processing all this beat-off talk. I think Seinfeld was where it changed. I know there was the earlier Phoebe Cates pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but we weren’t ready yet; nobody could make eye contact for a full half-hour, or listen to The Cars for a week.


But the two Wonder Woman guys (who were roughly my age) have apparently abandoned the code, and believe they’re George and Jerry now. 



Also, I was never a celebrity crush kind of guy. I mean, let’s be serious. I was an ugly teenager in Swamp Ass, West Virginia, with zits and Bert Convy hair. I possess a fairly good imagination, but I’m no Industrial Light and Magic. I knew that if scientists would have asked the NASA computers to develop a plausible scenario in which I might have ended up in a romantic relationship with, say, Valerie Bertinelli, there would have likely been a loud grinding noise, followed by a plume of black smoke from the back of the machine.



No, I secretly obsessed about local girls, only. At least there was a one percent chance of it actually coming true. OK, half a percent… Maybe. And those young lovelies in Playboy and Penthouse? They weren’t famous, they were just like the girls next door. Right? Right. 



At a nearby record store there was a cardboard stand-up of Debbie Harry, wearing shorts, bent forward, and looking back across her shoulder. A couple of my friends would stand in front of that thing – every single time – and practically work themselves into a sexual frenzy. But I’d see it, and think, “Somebody, NOT ME, is a lucky man. Wonder if they have the new Neil Young album in stock…?”



I could never suspend my sense of cold, hard reality. My friend Rocky, however, possessed a black belt in it. He covered the basement walls of his house with posters of almost-naked supermodels, and actresses. It was a 300 square foot jack-off chamber. How his mother and sister allowed it to happen, I’m not sure. This wasn’t his bedroom, mind you, but the finished family room downstairs.



One time I went over there and he had a magnifying glass, inspecting a Cheryl Tiegs poster for stray pubic hairs. “I’ll see you around,” I said, while climbing back up the steps from whence I’d come. “Yeah,” he answered, barely noticing another person was in the room.

Later Rocky wrote a pornographic “novel” about a man identified only as L. It was filthy, and featured scenes of mind-boggling depravity. Clearly, he was operating on a different plane than the rest of us. He had no problem whatsoever toggling back and forth between celebs, the locals, works of fiction, cartoon characters, suggestive tree shadows, or bean bag chairs in soft light.

But even Rocky, as ludicrous as it now seems, would never admit to “fantasizing.” Despite the fact he’d constructed an entire world designed to facilitate it… And, to be fair, I’m not sure he ever had any actual crushes on those women, or if he simply used their images as a jumping-off point.

In the comments section, please tell us about your celebrity crushes. I know guys who seemed to honestly believe there was an outside chance they’d someday “date” Pat Benatar(?!), or Bo Derek(!!). And it seems like most women, who are now in their 40s, used to carefully cultivate a fixation on at least one member of Duran Duran.



I have no personal stories to share on this subject. Low self-esteem causes a person to adjust their daydreams accordingly. But what about you? Please tell us about it.

 And I want to thank Mark for inviting me to submit this guest post. Of course, I also congratulate Linette and Mark on the birth of their son, Arlo. Love the name! And thank you guys, for reading.

I’ll see you around.

Those that find themselves needing more of Jeff can buy his first novel, Crossroads Road, here.

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

[The documentary, which premiered this year at Sundance, will be broadcast for the first time this Thursday night, Oct. 20th, at 9:OO PM, on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network. Of course, I can't watch it, as I don't have a television, for the very reasons noted in the above trailer.]

MARK: What’s your name, and were did you call home before Ypsilanti?

THOMAS: Thomas Kula. Before I moved to Ypsilanti I lived in Ames, Iowa while at my last job at Iowa State University, and before that lived in Des Moines while attending Drake University. I grew up in rural eastern Iowa, where there are three pigs for every human.

MARK: If I’m not mistaken, you moved to the area to take a job at U-M, but yet you chose to make your home in Ypsilanti, instead of in Ann Arbor. Why is that?

THOMAS: That’s correct, I moved out here to take a job with U-M. I chose Ypsilanti for a variety of reasons, none of which have much of anything to do with what I really like about Ypsilanti (in fact, before I drove here the day I moved to Michigan, I had never been in Ypsilanti in my life): it looked moderately less expensive to rent in Ypsilanti than it did in Ann Arbor, and I found an apartment complex with a large parking lot that had no problem with me parking the moving pod thing I used to move in the lot for a few days while I unpacked it.

One of the big reasons, at least initially, that I moved to Ypsilanti is that it was far away from Michigan Stadium. Living for five years in Ames and near Iowa State, which is a Big 12 school, I knew how much of a pain in the ass being anywhere near the stadium on a football Saturday was (especially when Nebraska showed up). I knew it would be even worse in Ann Arbor (especially when Ohio State showed up), so I basically looked at a map and went “here’s the stadium and I’m going to live … way over here”.

I have a pretty strong rule about not going west of US-23 during football games (or during Art Fair, for that matter….)

MARK: Recently, you made a decision to leave Ypsilanti for New York. What was it about New York that attracted you?

THOMAS: The simplest answer is that I got bit by the bug.

I’ve always been a city kind of person, although until this past July I never thought I’d end up in New York City — I figured I’d perhaps end up in Chicago, or Minneapolis/Saint Paul. Those are big cities, but they are *Midwestern* big cities, and both with a good number of folks I know living there. But until I was there this summer for a conference, and then back there for vacation, I had never considered it.

It’s many things, I think. There’s excellent public transportation — I was there for six days on vacation and had absolutely no problem getting all over the place on public transit. There’s amazing food everywhere. There’s always stuff going on, and it’s an entire universe that I couldn’t even begin to explore entirely in a thousand lifetimes.

Really, though, it’s hard to find any one thing that I could definitely point to and say “that was it”. It grabbed me quick and it grabbed me hard, though.

MARK: What, if anything, will you miss about Ypsilanti?

THOMAS: Oh, man, where to even start. I’m going to miss an amazing amount of stuff about Ypsilanti. I have a lot of awesome friends here that I’m going to miss dearly. There’s a lot of interesting and creative stuff going on in the area. I love where I live, being five blocks from my favorite coffee shop, the Ugly Mug, and being a five or ten minute walk from downtown Ypsilanti or Depot Town or the Co-op. I love that a good number of places I’d go to or hang out at I could walk into and find someone I know — it feels like a solid neighborhood, really. You know people, you cross paths. That’s great. I love Ypsilanti dearly, and the people here. And it’s great that Ann Arbor is right next door, and Detroit is just down the road.

MARK: In the years that you were here, you got quite involved in number of different activities and initiatives. I’m sure I’ll leave a few out, but you served on the Co-op board, you helped with the planning of the Shadow Art Fair, you were one of the first people to move into Spur Studios, you were a constant presence at events like Elbow Deep, you played bike polo, were an active member of Bike Ypsi, and any number of other things. I think, as far as new transplants go, you’ve been one of the more engaged that I’ve come across. I was wondering what you learned in the process, both about yourself, and about the community.

THOMAS: I hinted at this earlier, but the thing that surprised me the most (pleasantly so!) when I moved out here is the number of people doing creative and interesting things here, and the amount of stuff going on here, not just in Ypsilanti but in Ann Arbor and Detroit and southeast Michigan in general. It’s a pretty common theme in most of the issues of my zine Late Night Thinking, trying to understand why that is, what drives people to it, why it’s happening here. Shadow Art Fair and Spur, the subject of my first two interviews in Late Night Thinking, are great examples of this — it’s just something that, to an outsider with a naive view of Ypsilanti, you just don’t expect. An awesome art fair, with real creative people (and not art-onna-stick), in an awesome brewery with awesome beer? SAF was one of the first things I did when I moved here and it helped clinch my love of the area. And Spur? Stuff like that’s been done elsewhere, but as successfully? Not a chance. I was incredibly impressed with the folks creating Spur Studios, how levelheaded and reasonable they were doing everything. It wasn’t some half-assed thing done on the sly, it was a real, genuine “here’s what we can do with the space. Here’s what we can’t do. We’re working with the building owner on this one, and if we can live in these limits, even if we can’t do everything we might want to there we can do a hell of a lot. Let’s do this, let’s do it right, and let’s not fuck up this amazing opportunity.”

Bike Ypsi and Elbow Deep are also two great examples of this. Bike Ypsi isn’t even a thing in any sense, it’s just a group of people who say “We’re Bike Ypsi”. It started years ago when the city passed the ordinance against riding bicycles on sidewalks in certain parts of downtown. A group of folks asked “Okay, so who is going to address *why* people think they need to ride on the sidewalk? Who’s going to teach folks the proper way to ride on the streets, how to find safe routes, how to ride properly?” And they took it upon themselves to do just that. I still remember our first Spring Ride, the scores of people we had show up to Recreation Park, the stuff we got donated so we could have a free bbq. I remember standing in awe watching 120 people pouring out of the park on the group ride — it was spectacular. I mean, we worked our asses off to make that happen, but we weren’t a huge organization, we didn’t have deep pockets, and still this giant group of people showed up and it went incredibly well.

And Elbow Deep. I think Elbow Deep might be my canonical example of quintessential Ypsi awesomeness. Just think about it: a monthly drag show at a bar in Ypsilanti. Again, if you had a naive outsiders view of Ypsi you’d never suspect that here — Ann Arbor, sure, or Detroit, but *Ypsi*? And it’s all solid Ypsi. The hosts, the House of Chanel, live here, and they’ve been busting their asses doing drag in southeast Michigan for over twenty years. Dave, the organizer, busts his ass every month to make it happen, get the place decorated, and Kurt the DJ is back every month, and they’re in Ypsi too. Andy and the gang at Woodruff’s make the bar such a great venue. And the best part is that it’s a very open and welcoming thing — too much stuff like that tends to get cliquish quickly, if you show up and you’re not one of ‘their group’ you just don’t feel welcome. Not so with Elbow Deep. I’ve been to every one except three of them (in 30 Elbow Deeps total) and every one of them has been very “we don’t care who you are, gay straight, whatever. Just come and have fun.” And nearly every month that place gets *packed*.

What have I learned about myself? Honestly, I don’t know, I don’t get introspective all that often. I can say that over the past several years I’ve been more myself, felt more comfortable with who I am and my place in life, than I’ve ever been in my life. That’s really the result of many things, but a good chunk of it I think comes from Ypsilanti and the people here.

MARK: Is Ypsi just too small?

THOMAS: Too small for what, really? I mean, I got bit by the glamour of the big city, and Ypsilanti will never be New York City, but if I got told tomorrow that I had to live the rest of my life in Ypsilanti I’d be pretty okay with that.

MARK: Will you look back fondly on your time here?

THOMAS: Absolutely. There’s no way for me to say yes hard enough to this question.

MARK: Do you think you might miss being a part of a small community? I’m not trying to talk you out of the move. Hopefully it doesn’t come across like that. I think everyone should experience a big city. I’m just wondering if there’s any concern on your part about moving into a more establish community, where it may not be as easy to get involved… Or, do you think that I’m wrong, and that it might in fact be easier to get involved in things in New York? I’m curious to hear your thoughts. It’s just always seemed to me that it was relatively easy to do things in Ypsi because there was so little infrastructure in they way, and such a hunger for people with new energy and ideas.

THOMAS: Well, I think I will certainly miss being part of a small community. And I think you’re right, it is easy for folks to do things in Ypsi because there isn’t much in the way, although for slightly different reasons than you mentioned. I think there is a hunger for people with new energy and ideas here, but more importantly I think there’s a solid pragmatic optimist streak in the community here, a solid “just do things” ethos — “you want something to happen, make it happen,” and people are supportive of that. If you’ve got a healthy amount of gumption to make something happen here, it’s pretty easy to do so (although its not without its difficulties). I think we’re also blessed, in a weird way, with people *not* expecting that kind of thing here. In many respects, at least when it comes to the creative folks here, we don’t have a lot of “Well, I did that thirty years ago” or “We tried that in 1973 and it failed, I don’t know why you think you can do that.”

As for if it will be harder to do that in a big city, or easier, I don’t know. Ask me in a year. On one hand, New York City is a huge city, with millions of people, so even if you’re interested in not just underwater basket weaving but 14th century upper Scandinavian underwater basket weaving you’ll probably find scores of people also interested in that very same thing — so finding like minded folks for many things I think will be much easier there than here, just because of the scope of population. On the other hand, it also means that there’s gonna be the 20 people who are *really* *into* 14th century upper Scandinavian underwater basket weaving, who let that be the focus of their entire life, and how can someone like me, who likes to dabble into a whole bunch of interesting things and maybe dive a bit deeper into a couple things, compete with that?

As a short answer, I think it will be easier to find people interested in just about anything I’m interested in, but I think it will be more difficult to have as much impact on stuff as I have here. Unless I become focused on just one thing, which, right now at least, I don’t think I’d do. But again, ask me in a year what happened.

MARK: Do you think you’ll find what you’re looking for in New York?

THOMAS: Hell, I don’t even know what I’m looking for in New York. I’ll admit, this entire plan is a harebrained scheme, but when I get one that gives me this much gumption to look for a new job, I gotta run with it. I’m looking forward to exploring a new city, but then again, I had the exact same thing when I moved to Ypsilanti and had just as much joy from it. I’m a pretty simple guy in many respects, so the fact that I’ll have a chance to ride a train to work every day and have ready access to bagels so good I’d stab a kitten for one makes me far happier than I probably should be.

MARK: Do you want to talk about gay stuff? I don’t know that you and I have ever talked about the local gay scene, have we? Assuming you do want to talk about it in this format, I’d like to know your thoughts. Is the SE Michigan gay scene vibrant enough to hold the interest of single young professionals such as yourself? And it’s not just a gay question, by the way. I think most people we loose in your age range are due to the size of the dating pool. A lot of people, no doubt, head to Chicago for the promise of better jobs, but I think more probably go because they feel the odds of finding love are higher.

THOMAS: Well, in some respects I think I’m a poor person to ask this question of because many days I feel like I’m one of the least gay gay guys out there, at least when it comes to the stereotypical gay guy things. Although, amusingly, I think that’s changed a lot in the nearly five years I’ve lived here.

Seriously, though, I think it comes back again to the simple matter of population. There’s an LGBTQ scene in Ypsi, even, because I know LGBTQ folks here, but really, there’s not a huge visible “this is the gay stuff”. Elbow Deep every month, the stuff going on at Qzone at the Ozone House in town, that’s about it here in town. Ann Arbor has like the gay sub-block maybe, and folks like HARC are doing great things in HIV/AIDS education and prevention, which gets closely associated with LGBTQ scenes, and there’s the student associations at EMU and U-M. Even Detroit, well, Motor City Pride each year and there’s some bars spread out around town and the suburbs. I know I’m missing some things, but not *much*. It’s not like there’s whole damn villages like there are in large cities. I mean, the closest we have to anything like that is Ferndale, maybe, and even that pales in comparison to neighborhoods in Chicago or New York City. But, that’s just a matter of scale again — in a city of 8 million people that 10% number that gets thrown about a lot means 800K LGBTQ folks wandering around, and the population density just means it’s easier for those clumps to form. Here in Ypsilanti that 22K population means there’s 220 of us LGBTQ folks wandering around, and we’ve got five times less population density, so we’re all spread out.

As for it being easier to find love — okay, I’d be lying if I said the thought “Man, it’s gonna be easier to get laid there” didn’t go through my head, but really, that’s at *most* 10% of the reason I’m moving. And finding love, I think, is really just one part of “there’s just a larger population of people around my age”, which, again, comes with the scale of larger cities like Chicago or New York, or even Detroit. And for those things that are broadly more age-centric, it means that with a larger population there’s more of a chance there’s going to be places to go where I’ll be able to see bands I like, or bars to hang out with people I’d like to hang out with, or coffee shops to sit at, or entertainment options that appeal to me.

If you want to talk about the gay scene, let’s talk about LGBTQ rights. Again, this isn’t something where I woke up one morning and went “I can’t get married here, I’m moving!”, but man, let me tell you, it’s gonna feel good to get out of a state where prejudice is enshrined in the fucking *state* *constitution*. The People of the State of Michigan are so damn afraid of me getting married that they passed a constitutional amendment forbidding me from doing so. The State Legislature is doing its damnedest now to squash even domestic partner health benefits for state workers. Now look at the state I’m moving to, where the law legalizing same-sex marriage had to make it through a *Republican* controlled state senate. New York State is by no means an idyllic gay paradise, but the fact that a pretty fundamental right made it through that speaks volumes, I think.

MARK: What could Ypsi do better?

THOMAS: If I were named Dictator of Ypsilanti I would do but one thing: find every one of those damn “Hip Historic Hipsilanti” signs and burn every one of the fuckers in a big barrel. We could close off the streets around the Water Tower and do it under the gaze of General Demetrius Ypsilanti and have a big party. Because, seriously, if you have to *say* you’re a cool city, you’re not a cool city. You’re a cool city by *doing*, not by *saying*.

Really, though, I think the single most crucial problem Ypsilanti needs to solve is the all to prevalent and entrenched pissed-offness that appears between groups of people in important matters going on in the city. It seems to pop up too much: dealing with Water Street or the Thompson Block, over the whole Ypsitucky Jamboree hoopla, with whatever’s happening with the DDA or whatever it is this month, etc. I still feel that, after five years, I still don’t have enough history to understand where it comes from. And, in many cases, both sides of an issue have done something at least to deserve some pissed-offness. But we’ve got to move past that if the city is going to survive. We’ve got enough issues to deal with in an industrial city in a post-industrial state, with an ever-shrinking tax base, and sometimes at least I feel people are pissed of with each other simply because they’ve always
been pissed off with each other instead of having a real reason to be so. It won’t ever go away completely, and I’m not naive enough to believe that if we could just get a bunch of reasonable people to sit around the table we’d solve all of our problems, because it just isn’t going to happen. But we’ve got far more important battles to fight than fighting battles between ourselves.

MARK: Thanks, Thomas. And, if I didn’t say it before, I’ll miss your presence here in town.

THOMAS: Thank you very much. I’m gonna miss this place, and more importantly, the people here, more than I’ll ever be able to say properly.

And, yeah, I drank too much. That’s what happens, I guess, when you run into Patrick at 6:00 and decide to head over to Powell’s for “one drink.” And, yeah, I know that I ruined Patrick’s interview by obsessing on the absence of damned light switches in Hasan’s room, but I couldn’t help myself. My OCD took over.

[*O'Shea in not Hasan's real last name. If I used his real last name, though, this could be found my his family in Jordan.]

Q: Would you say your actions are guided more by your head or your heart?
• Head
• Heart
• Genitalia

Q: How does the thought of someone masturbating with you in mind make you feel?
• Shocked
• Disgusted
• Flattered
• Aroused

Q: Would you ever consider a relationship where you would take on an exclusive sexual role as master or slave?
• Yes, as the master only.
• Yes, as the slave only.
• Yes, as the master or the slave.
• No.

Q: Do you ever want to punch people you don’t know, right in the face, for superficial reasons (the way they grin, their clothes, their voice, etc.)?
• Everyday
• It’s happens, but not often
• Never

Q: Imagine that your partner has a horrible accident and is left in a coma and on life support. The odds of improvement are nil. Your partner’s living will states that life support should be removed in this scenario. Which would you do?
• Remove the life support immediately.
• Follow proper procedures to get it removed.
• Walk away and let others decide.
• Fight to keep partner alive.

Q: Would you like to have someone strap on a dildo and put it inside you?
• Yes.
• No.

Q: If a trusted partner asked you to submit to them sexually, would you? Assume that this would involve letting them collar you, command you, and have control over you during sex.
• Yes.
• No.

Q: Would you consider performing anilingus on a partner who asked you to?
• Yes.
• No.

Q: Biting?
• No
• Yes
• Let’s break skin

Q: Would you rather…
• be tied up during sex
• do the tying
• avoid bondage all together

Q: Would you consider roleplaying out a rape fantasy with partner who asked you to?
• Yes.
• No.

Q: Receiving anal sex?
• I like it / I think I might like it
• I don’t like it / I don’t think I would like it

So, yeah, I guess it’s no longer the proper etiquette to wait until the 2nd date to broach the subject of anilingus. Now-a-days you just spell it all out beforehand, which I suppose makes things a little easier. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Part of me is disgusted, but I suppose it must be nice to be able to just log-on to your computer and find 30 year old redheads within a 20-mile radius who believe in ghosts and enjoy being urinated on at the click of a mouse. For the most part it just amuses me to think that people my parents’ age who are suddenly thrown into the dating scene after years of marriage are having to contemplate these kinds of questions. It must absolutely terrify people to sit there, and see question after question designed to pinpoint exactly how large of an object you’d allow in your rectum, how often, and with what level of intensity. I suspect a huge number of people are terrified into celibacy. Or maybe they just come to terms with the fact that people today expect a certain amount of ass licking and rape play in their committed monogamous relationships.

In the defense of OK Cupid, my friend tells me that none of these questions are mandatory. You can choose to skip whichever ones you don’t feel comfortable with. And, you can prioritize those that you do answer, so, for instance, you won’t be matched up with someone who wants to bite you to the point of drawing blood if that’s where you choose to draw the line. And, in that respect, I guess maybe it’s a good thing. I’d like to know, I guess, that the woman sitting across from me at TGI Fridays, drinking her wine cooler, doesn’t have her heart set on gagging and beating me in the parking lot before I order the second Miller Genuine Draft. But, by the same token, wouldn’t you feel kind of obligated to perform anilingus if you marked that bubble in the affirmative on the survey? I wonder how many OK Cupid dates end with some standing in their doorway of their apartment and yelling out into the darkness, “But you said you perform anilingus,” as the sounds of someone running like hell echo through the neighborhood.

And what, God forbid, would happen if all of this data fell into the wrong hands? As of September 2010, OK Cupid claimed to have 3.5 million active users. Can you imagine what would happen if all of this anilingus data got into the hands of the marketing people and P&G? Your mailboxes would be full of tiny sample tubes of Crest for Anilingus. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

OK, I want to write more, but it’s late, and I want to see how many sexy young ladies in my neighborhood want to punch people in the face.

As distasteful as this may be to some of you, it would appear that, hidden somewhere beneath the world that you and I both dwell in, there exists a subculture of “bigfoot rape” fiction enthusiasts. At least that’s the sense that I get having just read an interview conducted by Jim Goad with the film’s director, Jon Olsen. At any rate, as we just discussed Ape Canyon last night, I felt compelled to mention it. For the record, though, I’m not suggesting that anyone either watch or purchase this film. I realize that it might be difficult to convey consensual bigfoot relations on film, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and I choose to draw it at rapetainment.

Here’s a clip from Jim Goad’s interview with the man behind the film, which goes into a little detail on the history of the genre:

JIM GOAD: Is it fair to say that Ape Canyon, if not the world’s first Bigfoot-rape movie, is probably the world’s first Bigfoot-rape comedy?

JON OLSEN: Definitely the first comedy, as far as I know, but not the first Bigfoot-rape movie. I have a bootleg copy of a movie called The Geek that a friend gave me after Ape Canyon was made. It’s something else. The stoned nitwit playing Bigfoot can’t get it up when he gets his chance to wax pale, human asses. He spends most of his precious humping time yanking his little wang in a vain attempt to get it stiff. All he succeeds in doing is smearing black shoe polish (used to give him a more Sasquatchy complexion) all over his dick and all over the woman’s vagina. As it is, the woman falls asleep with her bare ass jutting up in the air, waiting for forcible ape-entry that never comes.

And this is ironic, since it would have been impossible to tell if he was actually penetrating her or not—you wouldn’t be able to tell with that fur coat in the way.

Another notable Bigfoot-rape movie—probably the one that supplied the bulk of inspiration for Ape Canyon—is Night of the Demon. There’s this inbred girl who’s constantly being beaten and raped by her daddy, until Bigfoot lumbers out of the woods, kills daddy and rapes her but good. Then she has a stillborn Bigfoot-hybrid baby. In another scene, Bigfoot grabs a guy in a sleeping bag, twirls him around his head, and tosses him through the air, impaling him on a twig. I more or less ripped that scene off in my movie, but I feel the Ape Canyon version is an improvement on the original. By far the most memorable scene is one in which a motorcyclist stops to take a piss by the side of a lonely road. Bigfoot’s hand lunges out of the bushes and rips the man’s penis off! The poor guy moans in despair and drapes himself over his bike, bleeding to death on screen for a full ten minutes…