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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Mon Mar 23

03/23/09 - Salute to Jan. 2nd

Salute to Jan. 2^nd

(Unused bit from last night’s JG SHOW—doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!)

Alright, before we go on, I wanted to take a moment, if I may, to ask you raise a glass with me in remembrance of January 2^nd… As you know, one of the questions in tonight’s survey was concerning your activities on January 2^nd of this year—at this point you may be wondering, “What’s the deal… Is there a holiday or something? What’s so special about Jan. 2^nd?” Well, I’ll go ahead and give you my answer to that survey question in advance—Jan. 2^nd marks the occasion of the last time that I had sex. Thank you, thank you… always knew I could do it. And because of that, I wanted to take a moment to salute the Fucking of January 2^nd, and the lady that helped to make it possible…

Now, I don’t want to embarrass the lady in question, so let’s just call her “Fred”… in fact, I did call her Fred, often, not to her face, because of my sexual resolution of last year, which was to have sex with somebody who resembles each member of the Mystery Machine Crew from Scooby-Doo. And when I say “Fred”, you may be picturing a big beefy blond guy, but it’s not even like that… I’m talking about a girl that’s tall, broad-shouldered, athletically-built, thick… kinda girl that looks like she could bench press more than me, right? And tough…can take a fuckin’ and keep on truckin’. THAT’S a Fred…and for November and December of last year, this girl, she was Fred like a motherfucker…

Unfortunately, Fred could not be here with us this evening… that’s because Fred is actually under twenty-one. And to those who disapprove of the idea of a 33-year-old man having wild monkey sex with a twenty-year-old, let me say, “Oh bullshit, you fucking moral poseurs”… You’re honestly telling me if a 5’10”, hot-ass, big tittied 20-year-old came up to you, all D.T.F., you wouldn’t do that? And if you don’t know what “D.T.F.” is, go ask the Internet or my buddy Nick right now…

And you’re telling me you’d say no? FUCK NO!! You’d tap that shit! Oh yeah! You tap it, and then you send her home…‘cause it’s a school night. You see? It’s a beautiful thing.

But, as all good, hot, sticky things do, it was bound to end at some point, and that point came, much like myself, after a particularly fevered bout of monkeyfucking on January the 2^nd. Fred disappeared without warning after that, once again proving one of my sexual maxims: Every time you have sex, do it like it’s the last time you’re ever gonna have sex… ‘cause it probably is.

It’s been a long, hard, cold last two and a half months since, but for me, the memories of the Fucking of Jan. 2^nd stand as a monument to the fact I do get to have sex sometimes, and that’s awesome. And never forget, memories are always better than porno.

Turning self-sabotage into an art form,