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Boy George as Patron Saint
I suppose we should give some background on ourselves. Boo and I are fraternal twins, not identical, but strikingly similar and aged 15 years. Boo is named after Boudica, an ancient kick-ass Celtic warrior-chief woman who gave the tyrannical Romans (occupying Britain at the time) a good what-for. The name suits her. Boo would be right at home on a chariot - wielding a sword, shouting orders and laying waste to all and sundry. My name, Oomingmak, comes from an arctic musk-ox. Well ... I'm actually named after a song by the Scottish musical group Cocteau Twins, but the word Oomingmak is what the native Alaskan people apply to this big hairy beast of the North.
Illustration by Craig Secrist
Mom and Dad are the progressive post-Mormon type. They met at the Mormon-run Brigham Young University in Provo during the early 1980s, but were encouraged to take their non-conformist element elsewhere. Mom and Dad were "new-wavers" who dressed weird and listened to suspect music ("borderline satanic" they were told). It was Boy George who set my parents free and brought them together. Apparently there was a great hoo-haw over whether the University Bookstore should carry Culture Club records in their music section. It seems the University was certain that Boy George would, through his clothes and make-up, turn everybody gay. Our parents led the campaign for Culture Club and immediately had their ecclesiastical endorsements yanked. An ecclesiastical endorsement is necessary for a person to attend BYU. The passion for the Boy George cause ignited the seemingly eternal passion between our parents. Boo and I, along with our seven-year-old brother Foulkswrath, are the result. Though we very much appreciate the music of Culture Club, we are made to endure a Culture Club marathon extravaganza each year on our parents' anniversary. Out come the actual vinyl records, the posters, the videos, the dress-up, and even an elaborate Boy George rag doll. The doll is carried reverently (with slight tongue-in-cheek) through all the rooms of the house and then enshrined in a grand floral display in the living room. It's just like some village in Spain annually trotting out their particular Virgin on the towns' saint day.
Boo and I have always been allowed access to Mom and Dad's extensive and gargantuan music collection which is kept in mint condition and held sacred along with the seemingly billions of books in our family library. Both of us have inherited our parents' passion for Passion and I believe it's their mania for archiving which led to us observing and keeping files on everything. We each try to log at least four entries in our observation files every week – a slim number when considering the inexhaustible well of fodder Salt Lake provides, but we do our best to keep up with it.
Boo's Addendum: Oom can be a total turd-dip-au-jus. He sounds so clinical like he's cataloging something and is gonna use terms like "penis" and "sputum." The gist of it is that Oom is tidy, likes artsy and spooky things, has literary aspirations, and creates little interpretive dances to his favorite songs (only when he thinks nobody is around to see him). He's a cool kid. I'm a bit feistier; I love to push buttons; I despise most current fashions and pop culture; I love all things bonkers. I also tend to say mean sounding things to people even if I don't mean to and I've accidentally sent a few teachers to places of "rest and relaxation." I mean well, though, and generally care about humanity. There's our nut shell – roasted and salted.
I suppose we should give some background on ourselves. Boo and I are fraternal twins, not identical, but strikingly similar and aged 15 years. Boo is named after Boudica, an ancient kick-ass Celtic warrior-chief woman who gave the tyrannical Romans (occupying Britain at the time) a good what-for. The name suits her. Boo would be right at home on a chariot - wielding a sword, shouting orders and laying waste to all and sundry. My name, Oomingmak, comes from an arctic musk-ox. Well ... I'm actually named after a song by the Scottish musical group Cocteau Twins, but the word Oomingmak is what the native Alaskan people apply to this big hairy beast of the North.
Illustration by Craig Secrist
Mom and Dad are the progressive post-Mormon type. They met at the Mormon-run Brigham Young University in Provo during the early 1980s, but were encouraged to take their non-conformist element elsewhere. Mom and Dad were "new-wavers" who dressed weird and listened to suspect music ("borderline satanic" they were told). It was Boy George who set my parents free and brought them together. Apparently there was a great hoo-haw over whether the University Bookstore should carry Culture Club records in their music section. It seems the University was certain that Boy George would, through his clothes and make-up, turn everybody gay. Our parents led the campaign for Culture Club and immediately had their ecclesiastical endorsements yanked. An ecclesiastical endorsement is necessary for a person to attend BYU. The passion for the Boy George cause ignited the seemingly eternal passion between our parents. Boo and I, along with our seven-year-old brother Foulkswrath, are the result. Though we very much appreciate the music of Culture Club, we are made to endure a Culture Club marathon extravaganza each year on our parents' anniversary. Out come the actual vinyl records, the posters, the videos, the dress-up, and even an elaborate Boy George rag doll. The doll is carried reverently (with slight tongue-in-cheek) through all the rooms of the house and then enshrined in a grand floral display in the living room. It's just like some village in Spain annually trotting out their particular Virgin on the towns' saint day.
Boo and I have always been allowed access to Mom and Dad's extensive and gargantuan music collection which is kept in mint condition and held sacred along with the seemingly billions of books in our family library. Both of us have inherited our parents' passion for Passion and I believe it's their mania for archiving which led to us observing and keeping files on everything. We each try to log at least four entries in our observation files every week – a slim number when considering the inexhaustible well of fodder Salt Lake provides, but we do our best to keep up with it.
Boo's Addendum: Oom can be a total turd-dip-au-jus. He sounds so clinical like he's cataloging something and is gonna use terms like "penis" and "sputum." The gist of it is that Oom is tidy, likes artsy and spooky things, has literary aspirations, and creates little interpretive dances to his favorite songs (only when he thinks nobody is around to see him). He's a cool kid. I'm a bit feistier; I love to push buttons; I despise most current fashions and pop culture; I love all things bonkers. I also tend to say mean sounding things to people even if I don't mean to and I've accidentally sent a few teachers to places of "rest and relaxation." I mean well, though, and generally care about humanity. There's our nut shell – roasted and salted.