Notes From the Whirlpool

Hey there! Sit down, have a drink. We should get acquainted…
Me? I’m JAMES GATES. What’s that? Well, that’s a tricky question…You might call me a Wichita…what? Character? Fixture? Gargoyle? I don’t know for sure… I’ve lived in the Wichita area almost 79% of my life. Most of the time I haunt Delano and the Old Town district like they were my own personal Whitechapel—you may only catch glimpses of me, floating in the background at a bar, a show or an art opening, but there are traces of me everywhere. (Wow, that didn’t sound creepy at all, did it?) I’ve been around long enough to have met some people… And let’s face it, I’m recognizable. I’m six and a half feet tall, rail-thin with blond hair, goatee and yellow-tinted glasses—I look like the three-way love child of Andy Dick, Shaggy, and Lurch from The Addams Family.
If there’s one thing I’ve been known for over the years, it’s random, bizarre, goofy shit. Tales are still told of the time I staged a re-enactment of the Oswald assassination in front of the Bohemian Bean Co., or when I held an impromptu white-slavery raffle to pay my rent… After awhile, it just seemed a natural to go semi-pro, which I did in 2006 with the sketch comedy group PANIC BUTTONS. I’ve been performing on stages and microphones throughout the Wichita area ever since, pursuing the goal of building a live, local comedy scene. In March 2007 I started doing THE JAMES GATES SHOW, a live comedy experience based around A) the late-night talk show format, and B) a whole bunch of me. And the rest is, well, the stuff of much confusion…
Anyway, this is my log. I get to write about anything I want, anytime. I like that. Hope you do too.

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Tue Jun 9

06/09/09 - Blog Index #1

Blog Index #1

I reached a couple of e-milestones recently… last Monday, I posted a MP3 clip on my Tumblr/Facebook blog entitled “Fireside Chat #1 – My Vagina”. What made this posting notable, besides being a short monologue about my vagina (which is either too much or not nearly enough information for 99% of you)? It was my 50^th blog since setting up my Tumblr account in January. Then on Tuesday, with my next post (“James’s Digest Condensed Works, Vol. 2”), I hit another mark—post #75 on my Myspace blog, which I started several months earlier than my other pages.

So what’s the big deal? I mean, between photos, audio/video, links to websites/articles/other blogs, and the standard one-sentence entries, a person can make 50 posts to their blog in a week, easily. Well, the big deal is my blogs are NEVER, NEVER just a picture and a sentence—no disrespect meant, but that’s just not what I use it for. Each of my blogs, audio or text, are original essays/rants/pieces, normally anywhere from 300-1000 words in length, on a variety of topics. These are my words and thoughts, not just a comment on or a link to somebody else’s. (And by the way, if you think reading 1000 words is a chore, you should take a moment to consider just how stupid you’re letting yourself become, and go read 1000 words of ANYTHING…)

But at a certain point, some referencing is helpful—I have no expectation that people will enjoy everything I write, but I’m willing to bet if you take a look in the archive, you’ll find something that tickles your wickle. So to aid that search, here’s a list of subject headings, and selected blogs that fall into those categories. Happy hunting!

(FYI: I’m including links to each of these on my Tumblr blog, but you can also find them on Myspace, Facebook, and my blog on the NAKED CITY website.)

If you like HISTORY, read:

LESSER-KNOWN LEGENDS OF THE OLD WEST, PARTS 1-2 (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/74640233, http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/74966118 ) (The Old West characters of my dreams)

CHAPTER 12: WW2 – AMERICA’S PASTTIME, SECTIONS 1-5 (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/80105648 [& 4 more]) (A fake chapter from a nonexistent history book, about America’s involvement in the most hotly-contested game of the last century—World War 2 league baseball)

LIFE AND TIMES OF EMIL ST. SHERBERNAISE, PARTS 1-2 (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/103573412, http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/109369113 ) (The life story of the world’s greatest escape artist in an iron lung)

If you’re into LIST-BASED humor, check out:

JG SHOW SEASON 2 CONDOM SPONSORS (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/105970741 )

TEXT LAUREATE (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/78181040 )

JG TO-DO LIST (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/91393228 )

For those who enjoy POP CULTURE:

A PRAYER FOR PATRICK SWAYZE (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/73648061 )

JAMES’S DIGEST CONDENSED WORKS, VOL. 1-2 (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/87494618, http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/117005461 )

THE BUCKAROO BANZAI–ROBOCOP DEBATE (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/91483727 )

MEDIA ANALYSIS 2 – CELEBRITY ARCHETYPES (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/97584827 )

And if you like ‘em kinda SEXY…:

THIS ONE’S ABOUT SEX – YOU SHOULD PROBABLY STOP READING NOW (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/73647102 )

SALUTE TO JAN. 2^ND(http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/89089875 )

THINGS I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO HEAR IN BED (http://jamesgates.tumblr.com/post/113048088 )

So there you go—hopefully, that’ll give some of you a point of access. And if you like what you see, keep poking around…we’ve got plenty on the menu, and we’re serving it fresh every week!

(Having said all this, I think I’m gonna steal somebody else’s blog for my next post, just because I’m that comfortable with my hypocrisy…)