Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Preface To Valentine's Day 2009: Boyfriend No More!

If I am no longer a boyfriend can I successfully do a show about boyfriends? No! Because the minute I got married, all the memories of being a boyfriend vanished! Wait, that's not true. Yes! Because all my years of being a boyfriend added up to the experience of being trapped into marriage! Damn, that makes no sense. No! I am boyfriend no more! Yes! I was boyfriend before husband, & lo I could be there again!

But I'll try. I'll try to remember the blissful uncertain unmarried state called "Boyfriendliness." "Boyfriendship." "Significant Otherness." "Significant Otherwise." "Insignificant Otter." Stuff like that.

& it's not so hard, in the end, because there are lots of songs about it. That's helpful. There are many more songs, in fact, about the travails of being a boyfriend than the travails I went through as someone or other's boyfriend. For example, I was never another boy's boyfriend, & I have some songs about that. So. My own experience is useless. It is the songs that speak through the mighty megaphone that is "Self Help Radio." Huzzah!

Still, being a boyfriend isn't all that different from being a husband, except, of course, the chains are a lot heavier. Also, the gruel is less salty. Then there's making the bed. That is the worst. [Voices trails off, spouting ridiculous & embarrassingly sexist oversimplifications.] [So you know what to expect this week.] [Just saying.]

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