Author Archives: Joel Derfner

In the late fourteenth century, the mystic Saint Julian of Norwich, twenty years after receiving sixteen visions during a severe illness, wrote them down as The Revelations of Divine Love.

This weekend, I am spending most of my time literally singing the praises of someone (Jesus) in whose name millions of my people (the Jews) have been murdered. At the same time, I am celebrating a holiday during which, for centuries, we have been accused of butchering Christian babies and using their blood to make matzah.

Though my mind doesn’t usually dwell on things religious, this conjunction has put me in mind of a passage from Dame Julian’s work:

As truly as God is our Father, so just as truly is he our Mother. In our Father, God Almighty, we have our being. In our merciful Mother, we are remade and restored. Our fragmented lives are knit together, and by giving and yielding ourselves through grace to the Holy Spirit, we are made whole. “It is I, the strength and goodness of fatherhood. It is I, the wisdom of motherhood. It is I, the light and grace of holy love. It is I, the Trinity. It is I, the unity. I am the sovereign goodness in all things. It is I who teach you to love. It is I who teach you to desire. It is I who am the reward of all true desiring. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Of course, if I were a girl named Julian I might write some weird shit too.

Today I spent seven hours in church. Tomorrow I will spend five hours in church. Sunday I will spend another seven hours in church. This week (Holy Week) is the only time during the year that I feel uncomfortable, as a Jew, singing in a church choir. When the congregation pretends to be the Jews and sings “Crucify him!” en masse it’s hard not to feel a little, well, on edge.

And everybody gets so upset when I stand up in the middle of the service and shriek, “Your god is a lie!”

I mean, I’m just saying.

I first discovered gay pornography at the age of 13, on a trip to New York, where I bought a copy of Inches from a newsstand vendor who somehow managed to remain ignorant of the fact that I hadn’t hit puberty yet. Inches was a revelation to me, as I had theretofore been limited pretty much to the strip club scene in Bachelor Party. There was a story about these two guys who had an affair with a guy who could suck himself off, and then at the end of the story the surprise twist was that the guy had a twin. I can’t tell you how exciting I found this.

In any event, I returned home to South Carolina and started trying to figure out how I could get more of this stuff. I realized pretty quickly that the local purveyors of such material probably wouldn’t be as accomodatingly blind as the newsstand vendor in New York. So I went to B. Dalton’s, where they sold Inches and a few similar publications, picked up a copy surreptitiously, and stuffed it in my jacket when nobody was looking.

Before I left, however, I dropped a five dollar bill on the floor, because I knew that stealing was wrong.

I just wish I could have gotten change.

Everyone must visit the web site of the First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra at once.

I just ordered their CD and will be unable to concentrate on anything until it arrives.

N.B.: This is today’s second post of two, sort of. For the full explanation, see the previous post. Oy.

Today, I had the following exchange with my friend L.N.:

Me: “Have you always doubted yourself as much as you do now?”

(Pause.)

L.N.: “I don’t know.”

It was the funniest thing I experienced all day, even funnier than the moment in the reading of the musical I went to in which someone read the newspaper headline, “Entomologist of the Year Names Killer Bug After Best Friend.”

N.B.: This is today’s first post of two, sort of. But not really. Because I accidentally deleted yesterday’s post, and so I’m posting it again today. But I’m also about to make a real post, a new and exciting one rather than one I’ve had to recycle because of my own incompetence.

I used to think that Spider Man Has Made You Gay was the strangest and gayest thing I’d ever seen on the web; in fact, I wrote a post about it.

But that was before I discovered this.

As with Spider Man, you have to have the sound on to get the full effect; and, as with Spider Man, though this isn’t exactly work-unsafe, your coworkers will definitely think something strange is going on.

And they’ll be right.

Today I participated in a cult ritual.

Twice a year, the church at which I sing for money has a procession through Times Square. Today, Palm Sunday, was one of those times. This meant that for about twenty minutes, I walked through Times Square dressed in a cassock and surplice, carrying palm fronds, and trying not to choke on the incense from the two thurifers at the head of the procession, all while singing “all glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King” over and over and over again as hordes of tourists stared at me. I was supposed to be giving the palm fronds to passersby, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.

Am I wrong to think that this isn’t too far removed from Heaven’s Gate?

Today, the gay cheerleading squad cheered for the New York Sharks, one of 21 teams in the Independent Women’s Football League. They were playing the Montréal Blitz.

This meant that you had a bunch of fags jumping up and down waving pom-poms and a bunch of dykes in football helmets tackling each other. Plus, none of the fags had any idea what was going on in the game, so every once in a while we would start cheering “D-D-D-Defense,” for example, and then have to stop and figure out if the Sharks were actually playing defense or offense at the moment. Eventually we gave up trying to figure the game out and just jumped up and down and looked pretty and got ice cream from the ice cream truck.

And the Sharks won.

Go Sharks go!

Pros of going to the third step aerobics class you’ve ever been to in your life:

1. You will get exercise.
2. You can pretend without too much guilt that it’s the first step aerobics class you’ve ever been to in your life, and ask the really cute guy who’s also taking the class for tips.

Cons of going to the third step aerobics class you’ve ever been to in your life:

1. You will get exercise.
2. When you seize the opportunity to position yourself right behind the cute guy, you won’t realize that your complete inability to do any of the moves will make him think you are a total loser.

Another pro:

1. He will cruise you in the steam room.

Another con:

1. Somehow you will lose track of him in between the steam room and getting out of the shower, thereby obligating yourself to go to every single step class they have in the coming week, including the one Saturday morning at 9:00, in hopes that he will show up again.

At least I’ll be really fit.

Last night, I saw A Year With Frog and Toad. Not only did I have a great time at the show, but I also now have a new theme song for my life:

Eating cookies, eating cookies,
I’m so happy eating cookies.
Cookies, cookies, cookies I adore.
Cookies, cookies, cookies, cookies,
I go kooky eating cookies.
Cookies, cookies, cookies—let’s have more!

Because, let’s face it, is there any problem so bad that a batch of really good homemade chocolate chip cookies can’t fix it?

And I make some damn good homemade chocolate chip cookies.