smut shame and authenticity

ive spent the past 72 hours prostrate, cycling through a particularly feisty flu. over the past eight years, my inability to achieve work/life balance has made the common cold familiar and unimpressive, even when its persisted for weeks, then months.

that said, the past three days has rekindled that respect; ive lost track of time, my aching abdominals fear the inevitable coughing fits, and my left foot feebly searches for a cool oasis in my bed of tangled, damp sheets. amidst this discomfort, and too pooped to jerk off, i try to kick-start sexy dreams. in my hazy, nyquild state, my bath house or bedroom fantasies quickly devolve into incoherent, very unsexy work-inspired story lines.

you should know that this is only my latest foray into harnessing the potential of unconscious self-pleasure. early attempts were more impressive. on a few occasions while in the throes of puberty, i went to my greenhouse under the guise of horticulture. amid flats of recently germinated phlox and sweet william, i recorded explicit fantasies into my panasonic cassette tape recorder.

i surmised (probably incorrectly) that the moments just prior to sleep were the most fertile to insert sexual innuendo. to allow sufficient time to drift into that netherworld between consciousness and sleep, i left the tapes first minutes blank. when i put on my headphones, however, my giddy anticipation and the roar of white noise kept me awake. when i inevitably woke up hours later with the headphones painfully tied around my neck, i had nothing sexy to show for my troubles.

its amusing to think of my shame as i made these tapes- the fear of being exposed as a little pervert. today, my greenhouse story time reminds me that deep down i am a pervert, thank you very much, and theres no need to hide that. given the inconvenience of secrets, i think we still keep them because exposing them threatens our pride. for me being mixed, homo, american, from a "kooky" family and porn-inclined, are all things that have incited shame and reprimand from others. yet, i dont regret what factors conspired to gain me these descriptors, nor much of anything else then or now. i value authenticity and i dont need help regulating my morality. im bored of parsing words to meet others standards of propriety. im tired of how my actions are judged by people who are themselves fearfully suppressing dirty secrets. and im sick of when their shame is exposed, thus devolving society another 25 years.

im convinced that were all narcissists. embarrassments discomfort is overrated, and my desire for people to know me and to create authentic connections with them trumps my fear of bad writing. in a perfect world, by more fully processing and owning my experiences, this site will help me to reject shame as an excuse for not being authentic. if i dont succeed, at least it wont be the first time ill wake up in despair with a cord wrapped around my neck. im kidding.

bio

pants, aka matt kelley, was born in spokane, washington state to a korean mother and white father who met thanks to the draft and malaria. i grew up in the tiny towns of spangle and rollingbay where i spent my formative years drawing maps, harvesting sea life, selling plants and competing in classical piano competitions.

at 19 i dropped out of wesleyan university to bus tables and to found mavin magazine. in 2000 i expanded mavin into a nonprofit organization that raised millions of dollars to support health, education and policy projects for mixed heritage people and families. along the way i co-edited a book, produced a film, presented testimony to congress and served on a u.s. department of commerce census advisory committee. this work attracted the attention of some 500 media outlets and garnered 35 awards from civil rights orgs to our decider in chief, gw bush.

in 2006 i quit my job to travel and play nanny to my 0.25 korean, 1.5-yr-old niece in suburban chicago. before moving to seoul, korea this spring, i am spending my days writing, lecturing, consulting and staying involved with organizations that support youth and asian american and lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) communities.

email me.



former glory

new york times: when you contain multitudes (april 24 2005)
an article about mavin's most ambitious project- a 10,000-mile rv trip around the country to raise awareness of mixed stuff... and the project that convinced me to move on.

village voice: black and white and read all over (january 31 2006)
nycs weekly rag of record talks a bit about the film we produced about the tour.

utne reader: birth of a maven (sept/oct 1999)
this is my favorite article about my days at mavin. i was interviewed for it just a couple of months after mavin's first issue hit newsstands and it generated a lot of interest and support over the years. ah, those simple days!

lip magazine: race changes (february 21 2002)
heres a sassy article i wrote for a progressive magazine that was syndicated through alternet.org. i even use punctuation.

link magazine: who wants to be an entrepreneur (april 2000)
i appeared on this college magazines cover bald and splayed out on a red velour couch under the teaser 'tycoons at 20'. google cofounder larry page was one of the other tycoons. today hes a billionaire and im unemployed.

seattle voices with matt kelley (may 18 2005)
heres streaming video of an interview i did with a seattle television program.