Shaun Industry™

Sex is nobody's business but the three or four people involved.

EDIT: Okay, I can't take it. I thought I could, but I can't. I don't make a habit out of editing other people's work - in case anyone was wondering about the netiquette here, it is very rude to edit someone else work unless they have contracted (or contacted you) to do so - without being asked, but since I've posted it here on my page, I think I'll do it just this one time. I'm sure Blaine will understand.

 

Scene Maker #8 - Shaun Industry

From SCENE Underground Magazine - May Edition, Written by Blaine Standon

 

Coming up at number eight on the local scene makers list is the ex-DJ/writer Shaun Industry. Shaun made a name for himself in the late nineties in Austin DJing for after parties, clubs and events under the name "DJ Dirty Irish'. Unlike some other DJs in Austin that just played the radio edits of popular (and sometimes decades old) songs, Industry was known for playing new and unique music, mixing in his own industrial sounds and body beats, and introducing homegrown Austin bands to his audiences.

 

In 2004, Shaun dropped the old ‘Dirty Irish’ nickname and made less and less DJing gigs.

 

“I was depressed,” says Industry. “After 9/11 and all the turmoil and sorrow the country felt, the end of a long-term relationship, and my predisposition to clinical depression I just didn’t have the strength for it any more,” says Shaun who was diagnosed in 2007 with Asperger’s syndrome: a form of autism spectrum disorder. Later in 2007, Shaun reinvented himself as the writer/humorist/blogger Shaun Industry.

 

So what’s Shaun Industry’s work like? Imagine the love child resulting from a debauched threesome of Chelsea Handler, Kathy Griffin, and Eddie Izzard. He’s known for his sharp one-liners, delivered with precise timing. He’s also infamous for his filthy mouth – “if variety is the spice of life, then ‘fuck’ is the paprika of a conversation,” quips Industry.

 

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Shaun for four years and I still relate this tale of his acerbic wit: We were standing outside in a line to get into a club, surrounded by homeless bums, drunks and scensters when a lowrider drove by and stopped briefly to yell, “BITCH!” As the car accelerated off, a tipsy Shaun answered back, “HEY! Get back here and be more specific!” The crowd howled with laughter and Shaun got all the gang beyond the velvet rope with a free round of champagne as appreciation for his comments by the club’s owner.

 

Shaun is currently working on his novel, A Million Ways to be Cruel -the madcap adventures of ex-high school friends setting off to ruin their nemesis' wedding. The ever industrious Shaun Industry is also collaborating on a graphic novel (Lucid: Ragnarok), writing a memoir (Southern, Fried), and working on his own personal web log as well as building a host of others to discuss diverse topics from surviving the corporate lifestyle to advocating plastic surgery.

 

Shaun is also the mastermind behind SCENE's immensely popular catchline: 'SCENE and be seen'.

 

Peep his Myspace page: www.myspace.com/shaunalicious, or his newest public blog on Buzznet: www.shaunindustry.buzznet.com.

He has what I call a Picasso heart: right shape, wrong place.

He shortens the space between us. We can’t speak in this house packed with Emo punks, high school drunks, and some long-haired freak in swimming trunks - no I kid you not; it takes all kinds in Austin. The worst sin of all, I think, is that his trunks are a hideous day-glow orange. They might've been hip in the eighties, but here in this new century, he’s wearing something my father might garden in - why’s it that old Southern people take such a shine to wearing swim wear all year round?

T’s cute, two years my junior and wafts about with the appeal of a lost soul, a puppy to be rescued. He has a sweet smile and crystal blue eyes. His eyes aren’t piercing at all, though; they hang inside the frame of his glasses like jewels on display. We talk as best we can, him leaning over to press his lips to my ear and gently puff air to form words, willing me closer with his familiarity. I like him and he likes me, but we’re nothing alike - this attracts us both, I think, as he continues to speak. My hand plays, for the first time, against the cottony softness of his hair, doe-like in texture and dirty blonde in color.

He leans over to me to ensure I’ve seen his laugh. I beam back sincerely, delighted at his sudden interest. I feel his hand reach for my chin and pull me directly toward him. He presses his surprisingly supple lips against mine and I press back till he breaks telling me, “I’ve wanted to do that for a while now.” He redirects his gaze at the far side of the cavernous media room and the fishnetted harlots eyeing our beer. The kiss had been both the product of a gentle desire and alcohol-induced courage, and yet he’s still a bit uncertain of my reception. I need to answer, and I do. I push my lips to his and meet, once more, the soft pink of his mouth.

I confess, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while, too.” It’s the truth. I find him intriguing, attractive as a wild fawn - a mixture of curiosity, tender affection, and an unspoken nonaggression pact that neither party is willing to breach for fear the other might escape the trance. We share an odd attraction: a bond born more of scientific interest than of physical magnetism. He had kissed me, primarily, to examine the touch of my flesh upon his and I had responded in kind, which makes both more fetching as we sense the attraction is more cerebral than chemical.

A girl in her early twenties shifts in front of us shortly after we finish the first of our experiments. She's trying to catch our attention. Her breast sag vulgarly in her loosely fit, black-and-pink striped blouse and her faded red-from-a-box hair adds to the hang of her lanky frame. “Hi”, I offer, my hand still around T’s shoulder.

“Hello,” she says, just as pretentious as a girl of her age can muster, “you two don’t look Emo, so I thought I’d talk to you. Can I bum a light?” She wants us to believe she’s worldly, but her efforts are clumsy and sophomoric.

“We’re not Emo, sweetie; we’re homo,” I say. Given the tone of the night, I feel experimental and I wonder what other things this Emily Dickinson turn Sylvia Plath might say to amuse.

“Oh, I guessed that!” She didn’t. “I just thought I would talk to you because you seemed like a nice couple.” I smile at her ignorance. She begins to chatter: “I’m very flavorful, I’m eclectic, people like me.” She describes herself like a mediocre latte at Starbucks, I think, and tug downward the corners of my mouth so as not to betray my celebration of her uneasiness - although I doubt she would have noticed had I not been restrained. She’s her own best friend.

T cups the right side of my face with his left hand and turns my head from the girl (R) to kiss me again. This time we explore more. He parts his lips and I part mine as well... She’s still talking; we’re not listening. She stands up abruptly and announces she is probably going. Another girl with stringy, straw-blonde hair approaches, a drunk smirk her only greeting. Her denim eye shadow is caked to her eyelids, forming cartoonish hoods. R introduces us (I've forgotten her name already) and I glimpse the blonde’s teeth, jagged and too small for her mouth - no wonder she didn’t smile.

R begins to part from our company, still talking, but I’ve tuned her out. The last I hear from her is “ciao”.

“Did that bitch just say ‘ciao’?” I hear C say. I like her... a lot.

There's more to that night: more drunken exploration, Homeless Dance Party ‘05 in East Austin, forbidden cuddling at T’s house, mac and cheese with peas and tuna, Mr. Wong, and a college drop-out with a coke habit and screwed-up singing voice who tells me that you shouldn't put anything “unnatural in your body” when I reach for my chapstick - he informs me it doesn’t matter that my chapstick is herbal and non-petroleum based (obviously cocaine is much better for your health).

You see, the latter implies a pre-existing condition (another reason to deny us health care; someone call Michael Moore!)

Has anyone here ever been f^&ked stupid? You know, like when afterward it takes you a long time to remember your own name and you stumble a lot like your channeling Anna Nichole Smith (God bless her drugged-out soul).

"Do you looooove me? What's your name? Sugar-pie, SHUT-UP!"

I have the feeling this may be epidemic in the gay community and, unfortunately, the top slapped the bottom on the back right afterward and they're stuck like that for life. It would explain my BFF for, like, two months five years ago and all his tremor-y behavior... well... that and cocaine.

"Cocaine's a helluva drug!" When Rick James is right, he's... well... sober? Hell, I dunno.

Oh! And what the hell is the appeal of public men's room sex? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I'm gay, but not to an insane degree. I mean, God, the smell alone; urinal cake technology has advanced only so far.

And, I'm sorry Senator, but the "wide stance" angle doesn't make any rational sense. You have to do the splits to drop a Cosby at the public pool? What the f%$k are you, a sumo wrestler?

Now women's rooms... I once accidentally (yes, I'm telling the truth, damnit) walked into one at a restaurant in Jersey -- Jersey: my God, the beautiful Italian boys: greasy enough to wipe their foreheads, wring out the wrag and fry chicken (just like I love 'em) -- and there was a phucking loveseat! A phuking antique loveseat in the bathroom and it was GORGEOUS! Frankly, I'm shocked that there isn't a non-stop lesbian orgy in those places all day, everyday.

So, you may want to know why I ask these thing and the answer is simple to me and probably complicated to everyone else. I drum to the march of a different beater -- wait, that's not right! Oh well, you know what I mean. Long story short, I'm working on my book, Southern, Fried, which is to be an odd mix of a non-linear memoir, a self-help parody, and a comedic look a politics and western culture and I want to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass here: something I wouldn't be surprised if one of you could do literally!

Oh and boys, I feel like a prick -- but don't I always? -- for asking, but there is an implied copyright to all of this as it will be going in my book, in some form or another. That being said, I don't care if you re-post, but please give credit were credit is due. *curtsy*

Let he who is without faggotry cast the first stiletto!