Levi Rogers

Art by @iceicepop 

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A field trip in middle school like any other. Except it wasn’t. We drove down the mountain in our yellow school bus. To downtown Denver. To visit the Denver Buddhist Temple. Two worlds removed from mine—Urban, Eastern. My parents didn’t love the idea. They, or their Christian culture, said Buddhist temples made you bow to ornate, false gods when you went inside.

I arrived with a religious exemption note. One of my teachers, also a Christian, didn’t seem to mind. She took me to walk around downtown Denver instead. The rest of my classmates walked inside the temple. Past the bamboo and Buddhas, pagodas and trickling water features. Outside it was warm and smelled of spring. I wondered what was inside the temple I was forbidden to enter. Whether or not or how they would make me worship. I wondered if a bow meant worship and if God tell the difference. I thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel. They refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol and were cast into the fire. Yet, they didn’t burn. An Angel of the Lord saved them and God praised them for their faithfulness. So, in a way, I felt special. Maybe even in a holy, all-consuming-type way.

For lunch afterwards we all went to the McDonalds on Colfax. The McDonald’s was two stories and we ate on the second floor. My classmates asked me where I went. I made some excuse, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Then our food came and we forgot about the entire morning.

My college friend Jake later told me that a Buddhism is not a religion, a “buddha” is simply one who is with all the sense of reality that is possible with their material and mental capabilities. He and my friend Abby once lived in a Buddhist retreat center near Goldendale, Washington.

I think now about Jesus and Buddha. Sometimes even Muhammad. How far their messages have gone around the world. And how distorted they’ve become. Crushed through the teeth of men and religious hierarchies and nation-states hungry for power. Made into something corporate, manufactured, violent. Corporate Buddhism retreat. Christian right-wing nationalism. Violent extremists who claim Islam. I want to return to the the well. If there is such a thing...

While it's still a matter of speculation as to how much of "The Dating Game" that Janie has actually seen, here is her version of the show with just one suitor in the hot seat answering questions --- that is, with our old pal Levi answering on behalf of the book.

It's like the Dating Game, only about your book. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Las Vegas Bootlegger: Empire of Self-Importance by Noah Cicero and available through the always wonderful Trident. According to Las Vegas Bootlegger bio, they're all about [how]"Ryan Neroni is a lonely lawyer with bad breath. All his life he's had everything handed to him on a silver platter, but after winning what should have been a career-defining lawsuit, he discovers that what he really wants is to drive contraband across state lines in a fast car with tinted windows. With the help of Theresa Barahona, an innocent and aspiring multi-level marketing entrepreneur, nothing can get in his way. Not social expectations, not the emptiness of the western U.S., and certainly not a string of surreal experiences orchestrated by a shadow organization known only as 'the Committee.'" 

Q. How does your book take its coffee?

A. grande iced twp pumps of classic sweetener creamer

Q. In terms of furtive hopefulness, what does your book wish on and what for? (I.e.: does it wish on times of day, shooting stars, birthday candles, the tides coming in, etc etc)

​A. It hopes that everyone stops caring about things that hurt them

Q. Your book is preparing a sacrifice to appease the hoarsely voiced king of demons, Bael. What is the sacrifice and what does the ceremony look like? 
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A. It would sacrifice expectations, it would take place in a court house. There would be 9 day trial, the lawyers and their paralegals would work all night eating great meals. The jury would give a preponderance of liability to expectations.

Q. Your book is putting together its resume, what skills does it lie about having?

A. Works well with coworkers, above average skills in Excel, enjoys work.

Q. What is your book’s favorite movie monster? 

A. A desert hitchhiker.

Q. When going out on a blind date (do those still exist? Okay, like, when going out on a Tinder date is probably a better example), where does your book take the person they’re out with if they ended up not liking that person and want to get rid of them?

​A. They go to a bar, but the book leaves in the middle of the date because it just knows this is stupid.

Q. When confronted with a coven of witches is your book welcomed into the fold or do the witches cast a spell to entomb book in an old tree by the swamp in a remote and cursed location? Why?
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A.  Las Vegas Bootlegger gets along with everyone. ​

When I watched the first episode of One Tree Hill, I was 23 and the series finale had aired two years earlier. I went into this viewing expecting the drama of The OC or innocence of Dawson’s Creek, its prime-time counterparts that I had only recently finished watching for the first time. With those two millennial classics in my repertoire, OTH was the logical next piece, the final leg of what I imagined to be holy trinity of teen dramas that my peers had dedicated their weeknights to in our adolescence, while I remained amused by Spongebob and devoted to Canada’s teen soap, Degrassi: The Next Generation. ​

The Ghosts’N Goblins series (Makaimura 魔界村 in Japan) celebrated its 35th anniversary last year, a year before this year’s iconic Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda’s 35th.  A new game, Ghosts’N Goblins Resurrection, was just released for the first time since 2006.

The first eponymously titled game in the series didn’t captivate my attention, but its sequel certainly did.

I have been obsessed with Ghouls'N Ghosts since its inception in 1988. It was a much darker, more sinister (yet oddly creepy-cute) sequel to an already odd game about a hapless bearded and fragile knight that was contemporary with Super Mario Bros and would share infamy for its unforgiving difficulty. As I now believe, Ghosts’N Goblins has, over time, become its own genre.

I wasn't able to find Ghouls'N Ghosts as a kid at any arcade or convenience store, just the Golfland amusement park in Mesa, Arizona... until it was made available on the Sega Genesis. Maybe not the first time I wanted to get a console just for one game, but certainly the one that stuck. Ever since then, I was fascinated by the entire world and mythos of it. I even sent ideas to Capcom (and they very politely declined).

Eventually I would make a website devoted to these ideas for a sequel, and would reach out to an equally obscure, but far more successful, website devoted to Video Game Bosses (Destroy All Monsters! no less) and write a review of many of the symbolic, mythological references "hidden" in the game (along with many notes from Mike Bevan, curator of the now defunct site):

​If you bore witness to the golden age of MTV (right after they swapped the music videos for reality shows that were as awful as they were amusing), you remember "My Super Sweet Sixteen." The epitome of noughties decadence; teenagers running amok, making demands for cakes, ice sculptures, and gifts. Though, realistically, there was only one acceptable gift for the birthday girl who starred on her respective episode of that show, and it was a very specific brand of car. Her meltdown rivaled that of any infamous "Bridezilla" if things did not go as planned. Growing up middle class, I was never destined to have a super sweet sixteen. I honestly don’t remember my sixteenth birthday party at all, and not because of any teen drinking hijinks, as my friend group’s notorious Prude™. 
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But I’ll never forget my worst birthday ever. April 12th, 2020, almost a month to the day after Washington, DC’s lockdown to reduce transmission of COVID-19. I was excited for a birthday surprise that hadn’t occurred in years: I would celebrate my day the same day as Easter! Unfortunately, one month before my birthday, the entire city shut down. I planned a Zoom call with a friend who lived in Canada, I bought a pot roast to make myself a Sunday dinner, and I even bought myself a special dress. I chose an old-fashioned aesthetic, a white floral number with a sweetheart neckline, just begging to be fluffed up with a petticoat. As much as I tried to turn a day of isolation into celebration, I realized there was nothing I could do to fix it. I got so drunk on the Zoom call that I ended up talking to someone’s sister on the phone somehow once everyone else fell asleep or logged off. I spent my birthday worrying about my father, hospitalized after a stroke and then a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia just a couple of weeks prior. The pot roast came out dry. 

I have a deep unending love for Bette Midler. My passion for The Divine Miss M knows no bounds. My mother loves her and it is the only piece of pop culture we seem to agree on.  I am very thankful to my mother for exposing me to Bette at a young age because I believe in many ways it saved me from years of pain. Despite my Catholic upbringing, now when I think of God and what she must look like, I think of Bette. As a queer person, this has probably saved me years of self-loathing and therapy costs. 

My religion, like any of the western ones,  has a holy trinity. These days, instead of finding myself saying prayers to father, son or Holy ghost, I look to another trinity, one that reminds me that men have no power here. My trinity is wise and good and needs nothing besides a really good white suit. Bette, Diane, Goldie. These women make my world go round, my sunrise, and my sanity at semi-normal levels. 

This is to state the obvious that my favorite movie of all time, is The First Wives Club. 

If you are unfamiliar, The First Wives Club is a 1996 American comedy film about three divorced women who seek revenge on the husbands who left them for younger women. It stars the actresses that make up the Holy Trinity of my personal religion with Bette at the top as God.  It is a perfect film and I will not be taking questions at this time. 

I have seen The First Wives Club an obscene amount of times. I do not know how many, because I go through periods where I just have it on as background noise. Something to listen to while I open mail or fold laundry. It’s comforting to hear the lines, as familiar as if they were my own heartbeat. The jokes have a rhythm. Each one so well written, it’s as if every punchline is musical. 

Before I saw The First Wives Club, for the first time, probably playing on TBS as a middle schooler, I had seen the movie trailer dozens and dozens of times. It appeared as a trailer on my VHS copy of Nora Ephron’s This is My Life, which was my favorite movie as a kid. 

My habit of watching the same movie over and over again started young, possibly a result of only having three television channels. I am also an only child of a single parent, so entertaining myself was a necessity. 

I watched This is My Life, a comedy about a woman who becomes a stand-up comedian so many times as a child that I am now a stand-up comedian. But part of the viewing experience was first watching the trailer for The First Wives Club before, an appetizer before the entree. 

I watched the trailer over and over again because I enjoyed two specific jokes. I would sit on the floor of my mother’s living room laughing at them each time as if they were new. 

My favorite parts of the trailer as a child were as follows.

Two perfect cinema moments. But to my surprise. Only one made it into the actual movie. 
 
The scene from the trailer in which Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker fight over a cake server was cut from the film. The First Wives Club famously shot hours of additional footage. Goldie Hawn’s character even has a boyfriend, played by a young Jon Stewart we never see. His entire role was cut out at the end. I think this probably for the best. The film itself is perfect and a man would only ruin it. 

But my favorite scene still lingers in my heart. Why was it in the trailer but not the film? Where is the footage? Who won the fight? Did Diane Keaton help? After all she recently learned to hit thanks to Marcia Gay Harden. What happened with the cake server? I can't get the look on Bette's face as she stares at Sarah Jessica out of my mind. 
 
Like any god, mine is a mystery and there are parts to her divinity I will never see. Unless they are released from a vault somewhere for a limited edition DVD Blu-ray combo pack.
 
Luckily, Bette Midler has Twitter. And maybe one day she will respond to one of my many many tweets with the full clip. Or maybe not and I will just have to be good, so she can show it to me in heaven.