How Embarrassing...?

One of the first writing assignments I was ever given in High School was to write about my most embarrassing moment.  I just wrote down something along the likes of, “Having to write this stupid infantile meaningless (etc.)... essay.”  It was a litany of double-spaced synonyms stretching down the page, and after handing it in, I was told to redo it properly.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write up something personally embarrassing to me.  It was that I couldn’t remember one.  To me, being unable to think up anything was embarrassing in itself.

I couldn’t remember anything that could be considered embarrassing, so I made something up that could be considered embarrassing to other people. That essay was accepted and praised for being more honest.  But I can’t recall a word I wrote.

I’ve never been accustomed to feeling embarrassed.  Being self-conscious about being seen doing something in public, sure.  Being uncomfortable about reading / watching something that makes me emotionally insecure, sure.  But, not typical things that would normally embarrass other people.  I didn’t mind when my Mom showed up at school to give presentations and help out.  She was looking out and supporting me.

As a kid, I would be late for when the school bus came to pick me up, being more preoccupied with the TV.  At first, Mom had me go to school in my pyjamas, *certain* that the shame would shake me out of my complacency.  It didn’t.

I only changed my habits when I went to school without having lunch prepared, and then wasn’t allowed to have any food.  The teachers had been warned beforehand, and were told not to share their lunches with me, no matter how much I complained, even as they agonized over my reactions, but my Mom said it was necessary.  When I came home that day, I was practically starving, and my Mom said something along the likes of, “If you had been prepared before the bus came, you would’ve had lunch.”

Since then, I’ve always made it a point to be on time for anything.

It might’ve seemed borderline abusive at the time, but she was just applying Logical Consequences, which are different from Natural Consequences, where a child learns things after making silly mistakes and figuring things out, which is pretty much the mainstay of children’s TV episodes.  Once the child realizes that certain actions result in certain consequences, they’ll be better prepared to avoid doing that again.  But other times, there are moments when simply learning the lesson afterwards doesn’t work, or won’t stick without outside intervention. 

My main problem was that I never learned these potentially reputation-saving lessons until long after the fact.

When most other students would have been embarrassed at the concept of sex ed, I just engaged the lessons with the same clinical detachment as any other class, having been familiar with the source material, thanks to books like Where Did I Come From? and What’s Happening to Me?, which explained body functions like the most normal thing in the world with silly drawings.

That in turn led to me being called the 12-letter ‘M’ word.  (No, the other one)

One time in class, the teacher gave a question.  I don’t remember the question, let alone what subject we were talking about.  It could’ve been ‘things that were once thought to be harmful’, but I remember the answer I piped up with, which was, “Like Masturbating?” which elicited tons of laughs from all the students around me.  I had no idea what was so funny, and it had to be explained that even though the text said the act wasn’t something to be ashamed of, what I said wasn’t the kind of thing normally said in public conversation.  For about a year, I was paired up with a lab partner who disparagingly nickednamed me ‘Masturbation’.

Even though the act was on my mind, having it continuously pointed out and reminded really rankled on me.  I couldn’t understand why these High School teens were so utterly infantile about basic sexuality.  (Looking back on my thoughts and actions now, that should’ve been a big honking clue)

To this day, I have reoccurring dreams of being naked at school, but in these scenarios, I’m more concerned about completing my 3-month project due in 2 weeks that I haven’t even started and didn’t even know about.

I also never understood what was supposed to be so funny about men wearing women’s clothes.

If it was okay for women to wear men’s clothes, then shouldn’t the reverse be true?  Just wear whatever’s comfortable!  If the clothes you want to wear are on the other side of the rack, that shouldn’t be a deterrent, just as long as it fits.  

I don’t really care about fashion or style, just function.  My choices are fairly basic.  I prefer to wear soft clothes with seamless seams, little social commentary (allegiance to specific sports teams or cartoons are visually distracting) I’ve often had to have the holes in my clothes pointed out, since I’m so used to feeling comfortable, and don’t really care about how I’m perceived.

When I started getting more invested in comics that weren’t of the Newspaper variety, I was quite enthusiastic about reading digest collections of Richie Rich and Archie.  (Don’t sneer - they were extremely popular and cheap) But the more I read them, the more I noticed that there was an element in these comics that kept cropping up that annoyed me.  It wasn’t the repetitive plots, the page limitations or the corny jokes.  It was that the sentences invariably ended with exclamation points, and there were very few instances where periods were put in place, and that put me off.  (Question marks didn’t count)

When I become overexposed to media, I become hyper-aware of the limitations of the form, and once notice something that keeps showing up, it becomes impossible to ignore, especially when certain themes start to show up.

I don’t know when it started (probably around Twilight & the Hunger Games), but I got annoyed when dystopian stories struggling under suppression started shoehorning in romance plots which only served to distract, particularly love triangles that hardly elevated the story, and would’ve benefited from their absence.  Why did EVERY story need a forced romance subplot?  Being more interested in creating artificial drama than authentic chemistry.

I got so annoyed by this that I even parodied this outlook early on in my WebNovel:

Amazing Greys

Much like a large segment of online Webcomic artists who’ve taken an extended hiatus (due in no small part thanks to the pandemic), before making a comeback about their sexuality, so too have I come into a realization about myself.  I’ve recently identified myself as being Asexual.  What does that mean?  It means that when I’ve eaten too much substances such as cake, and my weight exceeds the natural limit, my current form won't be able to contain my mass, so I’ll split into -

What?  That’s not the definition we’re going for?  Too bad.  2 of me wouldn’t be a bad idea.  I’d have someone to do half my chores while the other half lazes around.  But then I’d have to share my space with me, so it’s not as good as it sounds.

Basically, Asexuality can be described as a lack of sexual attraction, much in the way that single-celled cells have no desire to split apart, and are content doing their own thing.

To make matters more complicated, Asexuals CAN feel lust.  They just do so under very specific conditions.  Like if they’ve known the person for a long time and deeply connect and relate to them on a relatable level.  Or if they want to beat off to the latest salacious crack pairing fanfic.  (If I’d known Asexuals could masturbate, it would’ve saved me a LOT of confusion)

This realization doesn’t come from abstinence from sex.  It can come after being pressured from feeling left out twiddling your mitochondria while everyone’s dividing like crazy around you, trying to convince a cell to split.  “C’mon, you’ll LOVE it.”

Anytime 2 couples are paired together, promos go teasing around by asking questions of “Will they?  Won’t they?” and express their outrage of “Why AREN’T they?!”

From MAD’s Real Reasons why the X-Files is Totally Unbelievable

When the default state for romantic couples is ingrained in society, you start noticing it popping up everywhere, even in places where the hookup shouldn’t even make sense.  If you removed the five-second shot where the lovebirds lock lips, it’d hardly change the narrative one iota, especially when they’ve had to condense the contentions of meet-n-greet, getting to know each other, getting used to the annoying quirks, culminating in a connection, all in a single day.  It’s basically a narrative shortcut, and can be annoying when overused.

The thing was, whenever these pairings happened, they always felt forced, and I looked forward to the rare occasions where someone wouldn’t be romantically paired off with anyone.  Like Sheldon in the early seasons of Big Bang Theory before he was unceremoniously paired up with Amy (who originally had no interest in men) because the writers couldn’t conceive of a purely platonic relationship between two like-minded individuals.

There were very few representations of Asexuals, and I would welcome those rare instances when they came, because I found it fascinating.  That Tesla was able to fully devote all his time and energy into research rather than distractible foibles as love was admirable in a way.

The earliest instance I ever saw the theme of Asexuality represented was in a Manga.  Normally, this would sound counterintuitive, since Manga is known for having perverts and characters that are ‘sexier than sex’, but it works for the very first story in Mitsukazu Mihara’s I.C. in a Sunflower, Keep those Condoms Away from our Kids.  In this world, the young populace has suddenly developed a deep disinterest in propagating in the forbidden act of reproduction, the cause of which was... well...

Unfortunate implications surrounding vaccines notwithstanding, Mitsukazu couldn’t possibly know the false correlation between vaccines and Autism that would come up years later, but the power of the story still shines through.  With the majority of youth drained of desire, schools have forcibly extended their boundaries in prompting sex education to be taught with pornography.  As anyone knows, the surest way to deprive interest in any curriculum is to teach it in school.  If a worldwide phenomenon as Pokémon was taught in class, interest would dry up.  It’s not just that the very act of sex is rendered meaningless, but that main character Irori pretends he understands it to keep his parents and principal feel relieved.

This summary fails to convey the sheer power portrayed through a scant 31 pages, but pretty much all the stories in I.C. in a Sunflower, and can’t be recommended hard enough.

Another instance of portrayed comic Asexuality was in Sex Criminals where a side character was able to undergo the *reality-defying* ritual of stopping time by orgasming via an emotional high.  Still I didn’t make the connection.  I thought that Asexuals derived pleasure through alternate means via a kind of braingasm, deriving pleasure through different circuit pathways, much in the way that Jughead gets his jollies from eating hamburgers.  Or solving a difficult puzzle.  Or clearing a hard level.

When my sibling came out as Trans, I supported them as best as I could, listing several recommended comics in support, even as I struggled to understand their dysphoria.  One of which was How to be Ace by Rebecca Burgess.  It didn’t explicitly deal with Trans issues, but I extremely identified with the underlying social issues surrounding Asexuality.  So when I saw the dead tree version that continued from where the Webcomic left off, I immediately rushed to take it, my breathing coming in heaving gasps of excitement.  I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to read something so much.  I couldn’t until I got home, and started reading it immediately.

It’s a very personal book, and I was struck with the outright honesty portrayed throughout, but it’s not perfect.  Some of the panel layouts are meant to be read downwards instead of across, and it can come across as confusing the first time around.

Halfway through, I read this page and my perceptions completely changed.

For the longest time, I thought that the prerequisite for being Asexual was being totally disinterested in sex.  I didn’t know that someone could engage in masturbation and still be Asexual.  Once that little nugget of information slipped through, a lot of the puzzle pieces left strewn about started fitting together quickly.  I’d never wanted to kiss anyone, and oftentimes thought if I were cast for a Hollywood production or a play, one of my requests would be that I NOT be cast in a romantic situation where I’d have to kiss someone.  (Unless it’d service the plot, like making out with an escapee to escape spies, though even there, I’d probably tuck my lips in)

I’ve never had a wet dream, but I vividly recall what could be described as an anti-wet dream.  In the scenario, there was a young girl who stripped naked and frivolously danced about, displaying her underdeveloped body for all who wanted to see her.  Making herself available to any who wanted to take advantage.  In my dreams, I’m more of an observer, but in this instance, I was a participant.  I took my coat off and put it on her.  It was clear to me she’d been conditioned to wantonly display herself from a young age and didn’t know any other way of being.

In this idealized realm free of consequences where I could indulge any whim I wanted, I chose to be kind.

I lean more towards Greysexual than outright Asexual, being primarily interested in porn.  It may seem contradictory for a self-proclaimed Asexual to be interested in sex, but I’m a fan since so much of it revolves around humour, and I’m a connoisseur of humour in many forms.  So, given that I wanked off to many available material (online and offline), I still felt like a fraud for even thinking that I belonged on the Asexual frame.  (Still do)

From the emotionally devastating Gastrophobia (Pepsiaphobia) story A Good Egg.

It doesn't feel right to take the Ace slang that's normally associated with someone who's notoriously overtalented compared to his teammates.  That, and when I hear the term, I think of the Manga Aim for the Ace, even though the current generation hardly even knows it exists.

Even though I like consuming pornography, I have no inclination to openly engage any physical relationship with someone I don’t know.  Even communicating with someone I’m familiar with is an uphill struggle.  Being Asexual is very different from the toxic online base of incels (involuntary celibates), who feel entitled to have sex, having it denied to them, and rant against those who won’t share.  I’m not sex-repulsed, I’m touch-averse.

So much of what passes for sex in a relationship revolves around communication, seeking out insights of little cues of what sensitive spots excites your partner, anticipating their needs and meeting them.  And being both deaf and Autistic, I simply would fail to meet those requirements in making the other party feel appreciated.

From My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

As of now, I’m in the trifecta of invisible disabilities; Deafness, Autism and now Asexuality.  Though it shouldn’t be too surprising, since the LGBTQA+ rate is 2/3rds higher among Autistics than other groups.

Also, I don’t like the Asexual flag, despite liking the colours black and purple.  It just looks so... drab.  Though some artists have managed to make the colour combination work.  (Can be easily mistaken for the ‘Attraction to Women/Femininity’ flag, where the lower colour is pink instead of purple)  I much more prefer the Greysexual flag though - it’s symmetrical.

While there isn’t as much implied bias towards Asexuals, there’s still an underlying distrust towards them along the likes of Transexuals and Bisexuals.  Trans for betraying their side, Bisexuals for playing both sides, and Asexuals for being on neither side.

One thing that struck me once I self-identified as being Asexual was how much Asexuality was a part of my stories.  I never had any inclination of putting any romance in them, which freed me up from thinking up convoluted ways for people to be together, apart or whatnot.

I even developed an erotic fanfic based on Julius Zimmerman’s drawings (most of them centered around Jessica Rabbit) which focused on a girl, Jean R. Rikk (generic) attending Moorehead High who would be exposed to a litany of titillating erotic exploits about her busty cartoon classmates.  And then in the last two chapters, the whole narrative would turn on its head after she found out she was Asexual.

This is the most SFW image he’s done.

A potential symptom of being Asexual should be that you think about characters along those lines more than most people do.  To describe me, one of my favorite coming out comic bios could’ve just as easily been retitled The Times I knew I was Ace.

"People might think that everyone starts out in a closet until they're ready to 'come out.'  The closet could be dark and scary or quite roomy and resemble more of a clothes rail.  But what's funny for me is that I didn't even know that there was a closet - or that I was very much stuck inside it."

Here’s a segment taken from a chapter of my WebNovel Sweet Sick Teen (kind of a warped pregnant Alice in Wonderland that doesn’t emulate any inspiration from the Lewis Carol classic) of a dialogue between the unnamed Girl and the Pale Boy as a take that on YA books that specifically devoted on romance over the political ramifications of the story.

Obituary: “Who was the Host of Jeopardy!”?

Since 1984 this well-known and widely beloved television game show host lent intelligence and class to one of the most popular quiz programs in TV history, until his passing today at the age of eighty.  --Karl J Martin

In a roller-coaster Chinese cursed year filled with unexpected disastrous cataclysmatic results, the death of Alex Trebek feels more like an anticlimax.  After the diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer, we all knew it was likely coming, but it still took us by surprise.  He continued to keep up his Jeopardy! appearances, allaying the illusion that everything was still fine, so the ensuing impact still felt like a low blow.

If there’s one thing that everybody seems to agree on, it’s that Alex Trebek was widely looked upon as a gentleman with hardly anybody saying a bad word of him.  He was one of the few universally loved and trusted figures left.  This was accomplished via his indefatigable gracious manner and sense of humour, always ready and willing to make a joke. "I try not to take myself too seriously," he told an interviewer in 2004. "I don't want to come off as a pompous ass and indicate that I know everything when I don't."

From MAD 347, "If God were One of Us".

For as long as I’ve known, he’s always been the host of Jeopardy!, and had a distinctive mustache.  But before that, he tried out at various roles, covering news, sports and other gameshows that have long since passed public consciousness, such as "The Wizard of Odds," "High Rollers," "The $128,000 Question", "Double Dare", "To Tell the Truth" and "Classic Concentration."  The ironic part is that back then, Alex Trebek remarked that “I don't want to do this all my life. Hell, I don't even watch game shows.”  Hardly the words of someone who would become a defining element of a nationally syndicated game show.

From MAD 350, "Quotes You Can Bet Were Never Said"

Perhaps it’s because Jeopardy! demanded a higher degree of knowledge from the contestants that other shows didn’t that elevated Alex Trebek to giving higher quality services that was absent elsewhere.

It also didn’t hurt that Alex Trebek kept his known reputation as a honorary Canadian, being a natural ambassador, and his playful attitude helped play down his reservoir of knowledge, even as he was regarded as the guy who “was arrogant because he had all the answers”.

And yet, even when the contestants were doing unevenly, when the contestants bet badly on True Daily Doubles, when the answers given were incorrectly stated, he never made anybody feel bad about having given the wrong answers.  Even on the rare instance where all three contestants failed to win in the final round.

When the Coronavirus was rampaging and Alex was recuperating, there were some old Jeopardy! reruns shown, back when the show had it’s name shown in giant blinking lights (leaving out the grand prizes presentations before announcing the final Jeopardy category, which was just filling up airtime).  One thing that surprised me was that back then, the interview with the contestants - which normally took place after the commercial break - happened before the commercials.

Somebody really should compile a collection of his most humourous lines.  Sometimes he’d give amusing feedback when reading the categories.  In one such instance, in an interview with one of the contestants, he’d mentioned he wasn’t good in classic opera.  And guess what specific category showed up?  The very same category the contestant was bad at.  To this, Alex simply muttered, “Uh-oh.”

A suitable replacement for Alex would be impossible to find, but the most speculated candidate would be Ken Jennings, fabled 74-time winner.  That would be quite the coup, going from long-lasting contestant to taking over the role of gameshow host.  Sadly, it turns out that Ken Jennings along with two other former Jeopardy! contestants is going onto another quiz game, The Chase.  We'll see if the show has any brand-name recognition a year later.  As a joke, Alex Trebek suggested that the person to replace him would be Betty White of Golden Girls fame, since audiences would want "somebody younger, somebody funnier to replace him."

The outpouring of affectionate compassion displayed towards Alex Trebek is in stark contrast to another certain gameshow host who thus shall remain nameless.  For future reference, the unnamed individual-1 shall henceforth be known only as "Ol' Whatsisname".

In fact, there's a surprising number of Jeopardy! comics devoted to crime, which is a stark contrast to the $64,000 Show, scandalized for informing the long-running challengers of the answers beforehand.

"What if we gave the contestants the answers?"

"Isn't that how the trouble started?"

"But then, they'd have to figure out the questions."

And that's how Jeopardy! was born. 

It's going to feel weird not having Johnny Gilbert introduce him anymore.  But at least Alex produced a lot of shows before his death.  His last airing will fittingly enough, be on Christmas Eve.

Political Newspaper Cartoons

For the longest time, I wondered why so many Newspapers hated the Comics Page, even though it was the most widely read feature, next to the front page.  It was only when viewing the vast backlog archives of Newspaper Comics that I gradually began to understand.  So much of it is a vast wasteland of repetition, and it was only recently that some rare gems managed to shine their brilliance through.  Newspaper Comics are really just a lure for the real meat of the Newspaper, which is to deliver... News.  What a concept!

A word of warning - reading multiple Newspaper Comics in one sitting is not conductive to your mental health.  There's a reason they're spaced out on a daily basis.

Interestingly enough, the political editorial comics that are an additional feature giving commentary to the latest world events are labeled... Cartoons.  Apart from the occasional drawing that's broken down into multiple panels, they're not stories following a continuous narrative, but reflecting on the events of the day.

With that tenuous explanation out of the way, one of the ironic things is that while Newspaper Comics may be widely loathed in the Editorial Circle, they also happen to provide some helpful shorthand in expressing certain themes to a wider audience.

This was back when Kim Campbell was the first Female Canadian Prime Minister... for about four 1/2 months.

One of the most common inside jokes is that Canadian News tends to be rather dull compared to what's going on elsewhere in the world.  Nowadays, I would kill to stop that particular Chinese Curse.  (Well, not literally, but that's the general feeling)  As proof, here's a non-comic related example:

You can get a general sense of what was going on around the at the same time some of these comics - I mean Cartoons - were published.

This one below, was printed shortly after Herman retired from the Funny Pages.

And this was after Blondie entered her Catering business.

Considering the ease of some of the simplistic designs, aping other Cartoonist's art styles is hardly a challenge.  It's a wonder it's not carried out more often.

One such stellar example I looked long and hard for was an unflattering cartoonish caricature of Brian Mulrooney done in the style of... well, I'll let the results speak for themself.  I could swear there was another one along similar lines, but have been unable to successfully find it thus far.