Back in the Groove

Wendy Liebman: It's a family, the Cavanaugh's - Ann and William. They're eating dinner, and they just finish, and their maid comes in and she clears the plates. And they have two children, Betsy and Timmy. And Ann suggests that they all go into the drawing room, where Ann then braids Betsy's beautiful blonde hair. The husband, he plays chess with Timmy - and then the maid comes in with strawberries and whipped cream, and they all eat a nice dessert. And that's the act.
Penn Jillette: What do you call an act like that?
Wendy Liebman: The Cocksucking Motherfuckers

- The Aristocrats

Patrick Lenard's courses for Fall 2007 semester at The University of North Texas:


Film Style Production 8-8:50am Mondays and Wednesdays --
The lecture is taught by a petite Lebanese woman in her late 20's whose style of teaching reflects that of an elementary school teacher and asks obvious questions such as, "What three parts make up a film?Beginning, middle, and end!" The lab, which I'm dreading, is taught by a questionable man who resembles a serial-killer with a smarmy haircut and whom I'm sure stares at me throughout the lecture, conspiring how exactly to kill me. I have to make five films throughout the semester. Thankfully my friend Roy is in this class and shares with me the same wariness I hold toward the lab instructor.

Film History Pre-1945 9:30-11:20am every Tuesday --
I'm pleased to see the same professor who taught post-1945 History is teaching this class. I'm not pleased to find out that most of the class content is online, meaning that I am only able to woo over her romantic British accent once a week.

Spanish 4 12:30-1:50pm Tuesdays and Thursdays --
Taught by a softspoken, mousy blonde woman who I like immediately because of her disarming character. I recognize faces from previous semesters of Spanish. We are assigned to clusters of five yesterday to participate in group activity. I am unusually outspoken and the guy next to me laughs at everything I say which makes me feel egotistical. I like this class.

Gender and Sexuality in the Horror Film 5:00-9:20pm every Tuesday --
I signed up for this class only to be in the presence of the greatest professor in the known world. He's a 40-something gay doctor and published author of multiple books; one of which called "Monters in the closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film". Yeah. Who doesn't want to take a class where 100 people have heavy, in depth discussions about phallic symbols, American counterculture, and sex? Some of the topics we're studying this semster include: Queer Theory of Horror, Drive-in Horror, Leftist Horror Auteurs, The Slasher Film, and Torture Porn. Hooray!

History of the Documentary 3:00-6:50pm every Wednesday --
Overwhelming desires to stab a pen in my eyeball or commit suicide are the enticing side effects of this professor's style of teaching. He is the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Thankfully I have a friend in the class to diminish my pain. He has a filthy mouth and makes crude comments under his breath after every statement from the teacher. I took a class with him a couple semesters ago and I remember literally crying from laughing so hard.

Here are photos from the past week or so:

Moses plays inside my egg crate foam pad.


He also models.



Chacho's. Where middle aged drunk women make fools of themselves on the karaoke stage.



After two margaritas at Mi Cocina in Plano, TX.


Took a trip north to move into my new apartment. This is my building.


Where do we start?


The final product





Surprise! You have a half-wall and no door to your bedroom! Oh well.




While we were in town, Laura and Kevin took us to a wine bar.




Laters for now!

My Life In Ten Words Or Less

Jules: You scratch our backs, we'll scratch yours.
Seth: Well, funny thing about my back is it's located on my cock.

- Superbad (2007)

I was lying on a sheetless mattress in my empty bedroom nursing my bruised fingers in my mouth and writing in my journal. I had spent the previous two days feeling sorry for myself while filling large tupperware bins with all my shit and lugging them up what might be the longest staircase I've ever encountered. (A great workout for my pale, puffy frame) It was my idea to move out of my aparmtent by myself; a choice I would later regret when realizing exactly how much shit I owned. In one sense, I came up alone in order to prove to my parents that I could actually accomplish something without their help, but mostly I came up just to get the fuck out of my house in San Antonio and be alone.

I've essentially spent the past two years of college alone, intentionally cooped up in my pathetic bedroom and hidden away from people, parties, and any form of socialization for no legitimate reason. Even when I would hear my roomate's presence in the living area I would freeze in my room, hoping they wouldn't detect any signs of activity. I don't know why. Now that I think about it, it's sort of sociopathic. On the rare occasion that I would meet one of his friends, they would make a comment about how they didn't know Brad even had a roomate. Ha. In the future, when I look back on my college years, most of my memories will probably consist of me sitting alone in my bedroom. And I'm okay with that. I think.

In a few days I'm driving back to Denton to move into my new apartment: a one-bedroom. Now I can sing out loud, play the piano as loud as I want, walk around in the nude, dance in the mirror, fart, recite lines from my favorite movies...all without the anxiety of a roomate seeing me.
_______________________________________

To busy myself over the past few weeks, I wrote and directed two short films set to music. I would say they're music videos, but whenever I say that people assume that I just filmed somebody lip synching to a Britney Spears song. And as much fun as that sounds, it's not what my movies are. I tend to write movies that are subjective to one character's state of mind, and usually focus on a female protagonist. They also tend to be thematically dark, which my mother told me worries her. Haha.

The first is called "Alone" and stars my sister...again. It's basically about a woman who experiences a break-up and tries to change who she is and suffers a complete emotional breakdown. But it goes backwards. The second is called "Hello Again" and it's about a woman who runs into an ex-flame and re-visits her entire life with him and understands again why their relationship failed. It stars Mary, Danté, and Brittany. Check them out on youtube:

"Alone"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX3Nwea-k3k

"Hello Again"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvVR-KKizZo

I've been away for a few weeks, so I've got a good handful of photos to post. Enjoy.

My empty room



Mary purchased some blow up kayaks so we took a trip to Boerne Lake to use them! The electric pump wouldn't work, so we blew them up manually. (which almost killed me)


Mary made peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches that probably weighed more than me.


Crack is whack


Shisha with Danté and friends


Moses flashes a nipple and winks.


Drinks at...Red Robin? Their Mai Tai will fuck you up!


Prom


At the Sea Island picnic at Ancira Park. Danté and I switched name tags and people called me by the wrong name the entire night. I thought it was funny.


Lalala


Mary saves the environment by ditching her giant-ass truck for a Honda Fit. I'm not sure what she's doing in this photo.


The entire Sea Island gang at Mama Margies. I was the only one not wearing a Sea Island shirt.


Eating Brittany's face at Chili's.


Laters for now!

Costume Party

Carolyn Burnham: Are you trying to look unattractive?
Jane Burnham: Yes.
Carolyn Burnham: Well, congratulations. You've succeeded admirably.

- American Beauty (1999)

A thin shirtless guy sat leaning against the wall, swaying back and forth to the pulsing music emanating from inside the buildling. I glance at Alex and give him a look of uneasiness. His face is glowing blue from the giant neon sign located above us that reads The Saint-- an intentionally ironic title for a gay club. He smirks back. Somewhere between having a drink with Alex at a restaurant and standing in line amongst men dressed like women, Alex had convinced me to join him and his friend Laura at The Saint.

We shuffle into the building and I am suddenly overcome with the powerful stench of cigarrette smoke. To the right is a billiards table and to the front is an unoccupied bar. "This is normal", I thought. I'm not exactly sure what I expected though...maybe people dressed in rainbow flags throwing glitter in my face upon entering? Alex has to pee so we head straight for the bathrooms. I'm standing in a darkened hallway outside the restrooms and texting "help me" to Brittany when I realize how suspicious I probably look loitering in a shadowy corner of a gay club. I quickly move away when Alex appears again.

I follow him and Laura into the main room of the club where a small woman with a microphone and unusually manly voice begs the crowd for male volunteers to join her/him on stage. This is when I almost crap my pants. Alex keeps moving amongst the crowd and waving for me to follow, certainly attracting attention to ourselves. I am terrified that she/he will see me and call me to the stage where I will surely be humiliated. Thankfully I am undetected and thus begins a dance-off between about five different men. The winner turns out to be a chunky straight guy with glasses who was clearly drug to the club by his excited girlfriend.

After the show the music starts and we dance like crazy assholes. I'm certain that if I had just flailed my arms in the air and kicked my feet while screaming, I still would have been dancing better than most of the people in that club. Alex and I have fun mocking the dancers around us. Laura is impressed with my ability to "walk it out" and "pop lock and drop it". As the night wore on, Alex and I sit to take a dance break only to be approached by our old friend from high school, Nick. Nick is gay and has come to The Saint with his gay posse; one of which includes a drunk Latin transexual. I recognize her as the transexual whose blonde wig fell off, exposing her wig cap not ten minutes earlier. Alex and Nick catch up by themselves and exchange phone numbers on the dance floor while I sit and catch my breathe. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I see someone barging through the dancing crowd towards Alex and Nick. It is Latin tranny and she is angry! She stumbles through the crowd in her stilettos, boobs jiggling, arms thrashing until she reaches Alex and knocks his cell phone right out of his hand while shrieking something indiscernible!

Now, I pride myself on being a fairly unshockable person. I've seen a lot of crazy shit in my life, but witnessing a drunk tranny attack your best friend with fake nails has to top my list of craziest shit ever. This is too good.

Alex inevitably breaks up the catfight and we are able to carry on with our dancing. Laura and Alex take advantage of the fact that I am the self-appointed designated driver of the night by drinking themselves into a dazed bliss. Because of this, Laura decides that I should dance with one of the drag queens roaming the dance floor. The drag queen she shoves me toward is truly daunting. Her homemade boots are close to fifteen inches off of the floor and shrouded in white fur, making her at least seven feet tall. She wears a Hello Kitty tank top, short shorts, a tiny Hello Kitty doll adhered to her ass, and a long yellow wig that sticks to her glittered face. I do most of the dancing since she is only able to take tiny half-inch steps in her boots. When I turn away from her she begins to ferociously grind her taped-down crotch against my back. This is the second time I almost crapped my pants. Having a seven foot drag queen grind her penis against your back is not something I would normally do sober. Alex and Laura are clearly amused. I am not.

Before dropping Alex off at his house he asks, "So did you have fun?" I replayed all the events of the night in my head: looking like a pervert in the bathroom hallway, being scared that I might have to participate in a dance-off, watching Alex get attacked by Latin tranny, and being molested by a seven foot man/woman with a bad wig. "Fuck yeah I did", I respond.

Enjoy the pictures:

Can someone please tell me why I'm single?


Glamour shots


The blonde wig was a purchase I made at Party City for a short film I shot a couple days ago with my sister. Probably the best $12 I've spent in a while.


This is Kimberly's impression of our sister Laura.


Oh god.


I think this should be Kimberly's facebook profile photo.


Hailing a cab.


Laters for now.

Bite My Tongue

Victor: I no longer know who I am and I feel like the ghost of a total stranger.

- The Rules of Attraction (2002)


We exited a street called "Slaughter Lane". Perhaps I could have interpreted the ominous street name as a sign to keep driving, but we exited regardless to satisfy our insatiable hunger for pornography. Mary, Brittany, Danté and I were driving home from spending the afternoon in Austin, Texas. On any road trip I identify my location by surrounding landmarks. One of them includes an Adult Video Megaplex located just off the highway outside Austin. Half joking, I suggested we make a pit stop at the store. This was met with an enthusiastic cheer from Mary in the backseat.

So there we were two minutes later sitting in a darkened parking lot in front of the disreputable store that suspiciously had no windows. It was unexpectedly vacant inside, with the exception of a couple that appeared to have come straight from the Jerry Springer stage. The girls went straight for the wall of dildos while I browsed through some DVDs with vulgar cover-art making sure I hid my intense curiosity by fake laughing loudly every few seconds. Just then, I glanced up briefly from the shelves of endless nakedness only to catch sight of an old friend from high school! I froze for a few seconds while contemplating whether or not to say hello or to run and cower inside a private viewing room. "Max Rodriguez?" He looked up. "Patrick!" He was surprisingly comfortable catching up with an old friend in a porn store. I was as if we were catching up in the middle of a Christian bookstore. I talked to him for a brief moment while trying desperately to ignore the fact that we were surrounded by double penetration DVDs and rubber fists. "Well, I hope I don't see you buy anything," he said. "I had my eyes on those ass beads," I responded. (I'm glad I'm able to find humor under unusual circumstances.) My friends and I eventually became bored and immune to the graphic porn and decided to wrap things up. As we were leaving, the door to a private viewing room opened and a small, sweaty man sauntered out. I knew exactly what he was doing in that room. Looking back, I'm relieved that I chose to greet Max instead of hiding in that private viewing room.

Things have been going really well in San Antonio. I've seen more of my friends than usual and I've yet to tire of them. I've been busying myself with celebrating 21st birthdays, meeting friends for a drink, and spending way too much money. At the end of July I'm heading back to Denton to move out of my current apartment. I was able to convince my father that I can move out by myself, so this will be a much-needed break from my sometimes over-bearing family. I'll keep taking pictures and will update my blog sooner than later. For now, enjoy the pictures from the past week.

Kim's friend Sarah babysits a set of triplets. They've learned to mimic her quite well.


Danté takes a break from shopping at IKEA to munch on a piece of cake.


Brittany listens as Mary proclaims her love for pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches.


Basking in our own filth in the summer heat outside of Hula Hut in Austin.


Food.


Walking back to the car. Mary is hot.


A strange dog wandered into our backyard the other day. I thought maybe it was a dead relative reincarnated, but it turned out to be the dog from two houses down that escaped. The former would have been much more interesting. Moses was afraid.


Kristen turns 21 and we celebrate with drinks at Stonewerks.




Laters for now.

Beard

Paul Denton: Sometimes I'm amazed at the shit that spills out of my mouth.

- The Rules of Attraction (2002)

I awoke from a nap to a relentless thumping in my head. I've always despised naps. They make me feel wasteful and disgusting. It took a few seconds to come to and realize that someone was pounding at my door. I sprung out of bed and threw on a t-shirt and dirty basketball shorts. At the door were two over-enthusiastic blonde women sent to inspect my apartment for damage. I am wary of letting strange people in my house. Still dizzy from my hasty awakening, I staggered around the living room and tried to clean up around them as much as possible so that the women didn't get the impression that I intended for them to see my apartment resembling a disaster zone. They pretended to ignore the mess and complimented my art work on the wall. I walked back to my room and pretended to read a book at my computer when they entered my room and continued to search for damage. I have nothing to hide, but the presence of some strange person in my home made me think, "Do I have something embarassing to hide?" And of course, as the women made their way into my bathroom, I realized that in the middle of my nap I had peed and forgotten to flush in my sluggish stupor. I glanced in their direction just in time to catch one of the inspectors glancing down at the toilet and curling her lip. Humiliation. I turned my head, mortified. They left soon after and I immediately flushed the toilet thinking, "It could have been doody in the toilet. Thank God."

I visited San Antonio this past weekend to celebrate my 21st birthday just in time to see my parents off on their ump-teenth Carribean cruise. They make it a sort of annual event each year and drag my poor grandmother along each time. This year she will be wheelchair-bound due to a bad knee. My mom called yesterday from St. Thomas and informed me that, while helping my grandmother in her wheelchair, stepped off a curb the wrong way and twisted both of her ankles. So now she too wil be wheelchair-bound. I can see them now: My dad in his expensive Tommy Bahama shirt and ridiculous hat struggling to push my mother in a wheelchair while she carries a piña colada in one hand and a camera in the other.

Since they would be out of town for most of my birthday weekend, my mother was understandably apprehensive about the idea of me drinking. She must have forgotten that I've been doing this since high school...except instead of "drinking", I would say "spending the night at Alex's house." She threw at me many scenarios including my friends driving home and dying in horrible car wrecks, and me getting alcohol poisoning. But alas, there was no party and no need for her to worry. I was too exhausted from going out the night of my birthday. Here are a handful of photos from the weekend:

I guess it was understood that on midnight of my birthday my friends had to take me out to my first bar. Loud heavy metal music and drunk horny white people really aren't my scene, but I made a good time out of it by owning Mary in a game of darts. (That is Mary's brother in the second photo)



My mom thought it would be fun to take me to The Palm for my birthday dinner. Kimberly and I had more fun playing with the lobsters than eating them. Talk about overrated food.


Waiting for the valet. I like my mom's expression here.


Maybe Kimberly shouldn't have had a glass of wine at dinner.


Outside a club on my birthday. Alex looks stoned, but he just doesn't know how to keep his eyes open during a flash.


Waiting in line sucks. Although we made it fun by judging people in line.


It had to have been 100 degrees in this bitch.


Alex, Me, Danté, Brittany, Ross, Mary.


My bests and I at a birthday dinner.


It's disgusting how much I love Mary.


Kristen and Darren made it to dinner...even after getting into a hit and run car accident early in the day. I felt really bad for them.


Don't let Kimberly near a camera after she's had a margarita.


Laters for now!