I was friends with capsuper for 30 years and all I got was this

[badatapologies]

A couple of decades worth of unflattering-bordering-on-humiliating childhood photos and a whole lot more about me than I ever wanted you to know can be found in this extremely affectionate and sweet tribute by my apparently very longtime friend Eric Paul "capsuper" Johnson, who is not usually prone to all this sentimental hubbub so he must really mean it. 30 years can really wear on a person. I don't know what I'm more grateful for--the things he said, or the things he generously did not say. I'm gonna say "B".

I share it with you, dear reader, because I am simply too tired to know better. Later I'm sure I'll have a more appropriate response. On the 40th anniversary I want a cake. And a pony. And a pony made of cake.

Comments

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

You are one lucky gal to have a friend like him. And vice versa.

[toddalcott.livejournal.com]

You look great at his high-school graduation -- like Morrissey's American cousin.

[aila76.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was interesting/cool - he seems like a great friend.

Also, reading that I think I've discovered a bit of an interesting coincidence - looks like we were both in Phoenix (err, Scottsdale) in 2004 to, uh, "spend some time with" someone named Toby...

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

May 20, to be exact. And then a bit of bonus excitement in June. I'm glad I friends-locked this. :) I love Toby. Would that I had many thousands of extra dollars I would pay him another visit or two, get the supermodel makeover, whatever. It took me way too many years to finally get to Toby's place.

Eric is a good friend. It's been 30 years, and it's been weird and complicated and all the things you might expect it to be, but I can't imagine my life without him in it.

Morrissey's American Cousin

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

I believe that was the play Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. Abe Lincoln, the first Goth.

Thanks. Yeah, that was a good time for me image-wise. I was acting and playing music a lot. Estrogen had not yet turned me into the thinking man's Sally Struthers.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yes, he's a very unusual man, and I'm grateful for his continued unusualness. :)

[aila76.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm glad it's friends-locked too! :)

Toby is definately a great guy, I like him a lot too. Expensive though, but not really something you want to skimp on. Strangely, mine was May 11th, so I think I probably checked out the day you checked in!

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Unusual is a good description yes :)

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

Even stranger: May 11 is capsuper's birthday. And yeah, I was in town on May 11, so you're probably exactly right, we probably were in the building the same day. Weird. And cool. Wish we had been able to say hi. :)

[aila76.livejournal.com]

Not to drag this on, but another strange thing: I also had a friend when I was a kid (who's now been my friend for I believe 22 years) that I used to make the occaisonal "radio" shows (err, tapes) and "albums" and movies with. And I'm pretty sure we were in cub scouts together shortly before we became friends, too. And guess when his birthday is - that's right, May 22nd! Although the similarities probably wind down from there, but still.

[aila76.livejournal.com]

Duh, just realised the 20th woulda been the mirror image date, so it's not quite that creepystrange, but yeah...

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

No, it's close enough to be a pretty impressive run of coincidences. We've definitely been walking around in each other's footsteps a bit. :)

[revme.livejournal.com]

That was an awesome piece. (Though I thought it was kinda weird that the newsclipping still called you Mike. Hm.)

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

That was a conscious choice for that specific interview, a decision I made and later wasn't so sure about, but in the Loon News I'd been writing as if Mike and I were two completely separate people and that Mike was still the editor, and in Eric's comic strip there are these characters called Mike and Eric and it was kind of a brand name thing so I was thinking I was performing this character---much as I had been in real life in the olden days, so it was---aw, fuck, just trust me, it was supposed to be high-concept performance art type stuff. But nobody got it and it just confused people so I kinda regretted it. People take this gender stuff way too seriously, let me tell you.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, that works, too. I think I was just getting a little protective and bein' all "HE BETTER NOT BE SNIDELY USING THE WRONG NAME/PRONOUN!!!111!!" or somethin'. I guess that while I don't take gender too seriously, I apparently take making sure no one else takes it seriously seriously.

Seriously.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

No, no. He wasn't like, being a dick or anything. Eric had been chatting with Goodykoontz for a bit, and he enjoyed the Loon News and wanted to do the profile, and we knew he had like 300 words or something, and I didn't want 150 of them to be explaining my gender, and I'd been playing the Mike "character" in print and whatnot, so I figured why not just do the interview in character and...yeah, it just confused everybody, had I changed back? Had I changed my mind? Were there really two of us? Etc, etc, etc. Me and my big ideas. Nobody gets me, Matt Keeley. Nobody. It is a lonely, lonely existence. In many ways I am like David Janssen in "The Fugitive". Only, you know, as a hot chick.

I appreciate the protectiveness, though. I coulda used some of that over the past however many years...and probably will continue to need it, actually. So keep that handy. :)

That profile ran RIGHT NEXT to the story about the release of Star Wars: Episode One: The: Phantom: Menace, front page of the arts section. Movie came out that very day. We could not have asked for better placement. Oh, wait, everybody's watching the movie. Ah well. We had some nice elderly ladies from Sun City write in for a subscription.

Re: Seriously.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Heh, that is awesome all around. I just thought it was odd, since the article WAS very good & praising, so it did seem odd that he'd be all "TOO BAD ONE OF 'EM'S A GODLESS HEATHEN!" or something. And I can see that line of reasoning too, just because, well, yeah. You could be all parenthetically "used to be Mike, a dude" but that'd probably raise more questions than it'd answer. So... yeah.

Anyway, you should show that one armed man whatfor. And that rules about the old ladies!

[fluffy109.livejournal.com]

sometimes i look at all thehistory you two have shared . . . i read the old loon newses, i look at the pictures, i listen to eric babble on, and i can't help but think--jeebus, what'd i get myself into?!?! ;)

you and eric rule. i envy the whole decent lifelong friendship thing. here's to 30 years of happiness, craziness, and crunchberries! :-D

[whittyrph.livejournal.com]

You two are too cute together! Joe and I have known each other for 29 years....friggin long time! Congrats and that was a nice tribute.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

Especially crunchberries. Immediately. I'm starvin'!

Re: 30 years of EPJ, I also frequently think jeebus, what'd i get myself into?!?! I'm imagining us at 68, arguing over whether the bird he ran over with the lawnmower was already dead or not. Sigh.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) Yeah, it was nice. 29 years! That's a pretty damn good run. Hope Joe's doing great.

Re: Seriously.

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

Also, and this is a theme that comes up a lot in the history of the Loon News, I often made an effort to separate my "satire" work from my so-called "serious writing". I wanted to be able to be free to write filthy, outrageous, terrible things and not then have that confused with my pretentious literary aspirations and Jewel-esque poetry and respectable playwriting and whatnot. So in essence I tried to use that persona (which I had lying around anyway) as a nom-de-plume, the way Shatner might still pretend to be Captain Kirk just long enough to bang some drunken green trekkie chick. That was the thinking.

Re: Seriously.

[revme.livejournal.com]

...man, it's good I haven't yet been able to figure out a good "serious" project, because alla my stuff ends up bein' goofy. Otherwise I'd have to use a pseudonym!

...wait...