Good Cats Eat Ants

I’m not sure if any of you saw this today, but I posted this picture on Instagram just a little while ago. Within about 30 minutes, it got taken down. Violation of the TOS, with that pang of discomfort that comes with not knowing if this will result in your account (finally, and somehow inevitably) getting blocked.

Funny thing… It didn’t violate any rules. An obvious lack of nipple. Absolutely nothing that would be considered to be explicit in any realm exceeding PG-13. But, enough naked boob, which I guess violated some unwritten rule. I saw a T-shirt a little while back, that one of my Instagram contemporaries donned in some picture: “Big boobs are not a crime” in block text. Yeah, well. God forbid we violate Zuckerberg’s definition of neo modern puritanism, where hacking the Democratic National Committee is “sticky,” but if you’ve got the ad dollars? Post away, comrade. And then? Some chick who’s way outside of the D-cup range and has the audacity? Hide your kids, hide your wife.

Basically, it was just a post about how I had recently commissioned a really talented artist (I can’t wait until the piece is done!) to do a faux album cover. Something that combines my love (and profound lack of skill) of the ukulele, but, at the suggestion of the artist, would come across in a metal aesthetic. I’ve never been the biggest fan of metal music, but I respect the genre. And considering how the ukulele is the least metal instrument in the history of musical instruments, well, how damned fun to play with the juxtaposition. I wanted tongue-in-cheek, and that’s what I got. I’m thinking it’ll make a hell of a T-shirt.

That’s the thing about metal music. Have you ever noticed, if you’ve ever had the opportunity to meet a metal musician, how, in real life, they are tremendously chill, kind, intelligent, and low-key? Shouting all night on the stage, but when you hang out with a beer, they are soft-spoken and reflective. It’s like they found some ostentatious, profoundly honest way to put all of the darkness into a microphone. I can’t help but think that, for some people, that’s where contentment comes from. In my own way, it has for me.

Have you ever met a person who is outrageously open about their sexuality, their experiences, their preferences, and their insecurities? Not to the point where they’re being crass and insecure (cynicism is most often a defense mechanism), but because they were asked, and they divulged in response. Why is it that these folks are never the people who are arrested for the most insidious of criminal acts? Nope. Instead, it’s that quiet neighbor, who always kept themselves, who never made any waves. Or, who, more often than not, was a paragon of decency in their community. I can’t help but think that offers a little bit of a commentary about hypocrisy. It reminds me of what Sydney Greenstreet said in one of those old Bogart noir flicks: “A man who is careful not to drink too much is a man who is not to be trusted when he does.” (Disclaimer: that quote is pretty dismissive about the nature of alcoholism. Not my intent. In this case, more of a parable about authenticity than booze.)

Marilyn Manson syndrome? The kind of dude your parents despise, but if you sat at a table with him for 30 minutes, you would be discussing Marcel Proust in no time. Primo son-in-law material right there, crazy makeup and contact lenses aside.

Below, the rough proof-of-concept, sketch-for-approval that inspired the above image, and that might better illustrate the silly, freewheeling idea cultivated between a couple of random denizens of Instagram who are frankly not too interested in the idea of censorship or inappropriateness. At the very least, I know I would wear the shirt (should night clubs ever open back up again before I’m simply too old for that shit).

As an aside, I’ve really been enjoying commissioning amazing artists I’ve stumbled across on Instagram. It began as a side project, where I was gathering some fun extras for this memoir I have in the works. But now, it’s become a bit of an addiction. “Here’s a broad notion, along with a few bucks in your pocket, and creative freedom. Let’s see what lovely version of irreverence we can create today.”

Part of my journey with the boobs (I just finished a memoir chapter about this very subject, as a matter of fact!), is that I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’ve realized something that is, for me, pretty important: I am literally so done with allowing others to the arbiters of my own morality. I’m not going to be illicit, and I’m not gonna be unkind. I’m just going to stop living up to others expectations at my own expense. That’s my choice. I think that’s all of our choice. I think we all experience that in our own ways, from time to time.

How? I’m still figuring that out for myself. We all have our own modes of self-expression. In my experience so far, things generally tend to be better when we find out what those are.