#lukas kaiser

[xoxodropletsscenarios]

Everexas

This ship is Everett x Rex x Lukas who we have so kindly nicknamed the disaster trio. I wrote this last night in the discord and the prompt is, bad hair dying with Lukas. Also, to all of you that have sent in asks, I’m sorry that I’ve been so absent. School and band have thrown me for a loop but I’m back for a little while longer.

      Everett stared at his boyfriend as he pushed the cart up and down the aisles. He bit his Starbucks straw between his lip as he sipped on his caramel frappuccino. Lukas paced up and down the aisles, picking up boxes of hair color and then shaking his head silently and putting them back down again. He’d been doing that for almost 10 minutes and frankly, Everett was starting to get bored and annoyed. The only reason Everett hadn’t told him to just hurry up was because he like staring at his boyfriend’s ass too much to let it bother him. However, Rex had left him 5 minutes ago to go look for something to eat and Everett was trying not to rip Lukas’s head off at his indecisiveness. 

      “Just pick a color,” Everett said, his annoyance coming through his voice loud and clear. Lukas looked over at Everett and blushed in embarrassment as he apologized. 

      “It’s just, I kind of want to go with a color other than orange this time. To spice things up a little bit,” he explained. Everett could see that the color on the box in his left hand was a deep midnight blue and in the right was neon green. Wrinkling his nose, Everett came over to Lukas and starting grabbing colors off of the shelf. When he successfully had collected no less than ten colors in varying shades of the rainbow, Everett went back to the cart and said, “Let's go.” 

      They went to the register and found Rex paying for their food, three club wraps. Everett took his and opened it, taking a bite as he waited for Lukas to check out.

      “Are you sure you need that much hair dye?” Rex asked, watching Lukas check out the different colors. In total, 13 colors went into 3 different bags and Lukas just shrugged and said, “I suppose I can just return what I don’t use.” 

      Nodding slightly, Rex followed next to Everett and slightly behind Lukas as they headed back to Mrs. Kaiser’s car. She smiled at the boys as they approached, her black hair pulled up into the most perfect messy bun Everett had ever seen on anyone (yes, even Rex). “Welcome back, boys. What color did you get, Luke?” she asked, peering over her shoulder as she backed out. 

      “Oh, um, I just got a couple and then what I don’t use I can return later,” he explained. She nodded and they ate their wraps and talked on the way back, Lukas showing Everett and Rex something interesting on his phone. When they got back to the house, Lukas set down his bags from the store and went downstairs to get a bowl. He winked at Everett and Rex on his way into the bathroom, holding the glass bowl carefully so as not to drop it and invoke his mother’s wrath. Once he was safely inside the privacy of his bathroom, he grabbed his hair dye brush with a smirk and readied himself, stripping out of his clean shirt and into his dye shirt, which is permanently stained orange. 

      Carefully, he put colors wherever his artistic side let him, the hair dye being the paint and his hair being the canvas. Lukas made sure not to leave any hair unmarked and by the time he was done, he felt rather proud of himself. Having used about 10 different colors of hair dye, Lukasrecapped the tubes and put them back into the box. He had aborted his original plan to mix all the colors together as he remembered his art teacher telling him when he was in 3rd grade that if he mixed all of the colors of the rainbow he’d get black or brown. When he was done cleaning, he spent the last 15 of the required 30 minutes talking to Everett and Rex through the door before announcing that he was getting in the shower to rinsing out the dye. He could see the pigment swirl in the water, a deep murky color rushing down the drain. 

      Sticking a towel onto his head, Lukas talked to Everett through the door. “It’s going great,” he reassured, “Don’t worry about it!” Grinning, Lukas rubbed the towel vigorously on the top of his head before removing it and nearly shrieking, though he was almost certain he let out a pitiful whimper. His hair looked like someone had dumped paint on it, splotches of green, blue and red intermixed with hot pink, bright purple, and highlighter orange. There were patches of awful mixed colors where he had overlapped the dye on accident and Lukas checked himself over in the mirror. 

      “There is no way to save this,” he whispered quietly, deciding that it was for the best if he just, cut it all off. Plugging up the electric razor that he normally only used to shave the sides of his head, Lukas looked over his hair and was suddenly glad that his roots were coming in, it meant that he didn’t have to go bald. With a deep breath and a prayer to God, he cut away at his hair until only the black roots remained. The clippers were put away when he was done, looking over his impromptu buzz cut. It wasn't too bad and as he surveyed it in the mirror amongst the remnants of his failed dye job, he could feel it start to grow on him.

 Lukas cleaned up his bathroom, tossed on a clean shirt, and left the bathroom, a proud smile on his face. 

      “What the FUCK did you do to your hair?!” Everett asked in shock, getting up to quickly run his hands over the new haircut. Lukas chuckled nervously, bending his head down for Everett to get a better look at it. Rex came over to look at the haircut, running gentle fingers over the black hair before a soft smile crossed his face. 

      “I like it,” Rex said simply and Lukas looked up hopefully at him. “Though, what did happen to your hair?” And with that, Lukas launched into the entire hair debacle, complete with his first idea of combining all of the colors at once, his rainbow spots, and finally shaving it off. Everett and Rex gave him matching deadpan looks and Lukas tilted his head in confusion, “What?” 

      “You could have just fucking dyed it black again, dumbass,” Everett said angrily. He was personally upset by the fact that he would no longer have Lukas’s soft hair to run his fingers through. “Or you could have just gone back to the store and gotten dye remover,” Rex said, arching an eyebrow at Lukas. Lukas, who hadn’t taken the time to consider these two options at first, reddened considerably and opened his mouth to defend himself before shutting it again.(edited)Everett sighed and stretched up, pressing his lips to Lukas’s to help make his boyfriend feel better. “You can’t shave away stupid, unfortunately,” Everett whispered with a chuckle as he pulled away. Lukas frowned before saying, “It was a good idea in my head.” 

     “Yeah? And so was trying to backflip off of the large communal garbage bin in the back. We had to help you back to the apartment so that you could get cleaned up. You were just lucky not to have broken anything in the fall,” Rex said. Lukas opened his mouth to protest before remembering that, of course, that was exactly what had happened and shut it again. Rex gave a soft laugh before kissing Lukas too, first on the lips, the on point of his newly exposed widow's peak. Eyes lighting up, Lukas said, “Fine, alright. But it’s not that bad and in a month it’ll be long enough so that I can dye it again. And this time, I’m sticking with orange.” 

    “That’s the best thing you’ve said all day, Jack-o-lantern,” Everett teased, kissing Lukas cheek before dragging both Rex and Lukas to the bed for some quality cuddles. 

[thelukaskaiser]

Be Here Now, Now.

Single Most Valuable lesson of the last 18 months? Be Okay With Being Uncomfortable.

Be okay with being Not Okay.

For the longest time, when I began on a path of being aware of the mindfulness movement - and meditation and its many, many benefits, I was always stuck on the concept of "Now."

The Power of Now. Be Here Now. In the present moment. Easy enough - stop living inside your constantly escaping thoughts - try to find yourself - and the moment you're living through instead of thinking about the past or the future.

Cool.

Except that - when big feelings came up - excitement or rage (pick your poison) - I often found myself trying to chase the feeling of the "now" and finding that the outcome wasn't something I was always proud of.

Either I was a blubbering fan boy, saying way too much and ultimately confounding and confusing whomever I was working with - or I was a grumpy jerk, snapping at my collaborators and contemporaries like I was a spoiled child.

But... that's what I felt like doing. Right now!

My therapist, in a session three or so years ago, said something interesting. She said, "Anger isn't an emotion. It's a reaction that you have in order to shield yourself from the real emotion... which is likely sadness, disappointment or shame."

I didn't understand what she meant at first - and I tried to talk this concept out with some friends at work. "Sounds like some California stuff," one of my co-workers said. I laughed. It felt like she was right. If you google the word "emotion", Anger is going to come up as one of the primary examples. If you look it up on Bing... well I wouldn't know. No one uses Bing.

But - how could Anger not be an emotion? What does that even MEAN?

Sitting here, a few years later, I realize what she meant - that I wasn't allowing myself to feel what I really wanted to feel - uncomfortable - and was protecting myself by getting ANGRY. Or flippant. Or cracking jokes. These were reactions - things I thought were part of Being Here Now. But they were, perhaps, the final centimeters between "Right Now" and me.

I don't like being made fun of. I don't like feeling like an idiot. But it happens. And stopping myself from feeling those feelings doesn't allow me to express those emotions and get them out of my system. It just keeps them locked up, bottled inside. Which is like - duh - but like, truly - how many people ACTUALLY let themselves feel things?

Like, why would you? Life lets us down all the time. And the truth is - what I had to come to grips with - is that you have to be willing to constantly have your heart broken by life and still believe in order to keep going and be functional in any sort of open hearted, human way. Because the closed-hearted version of me? It takes way too much time and energy and attention.

I want to be the weirdly optimistic in spite of how stupid life can be version of me instead.

[thelukaskaiser]

Record Store Clerk

I miss the record store clerk. There are still record stores - some sell vintage LP’s, some sell a mix of new and old stuff, some even have CD’s! Which - incredible to see in my lifetime CD’s go from being the most reviled medium to something people are nostalgic for. 

But at these new fangled record stores, the people working there are keenly aware of the status of buying physical copies of music - banged up and bruised, unconfident. And acting accordingly, these truly passionate and kind hearted record store clerks in these new fangled record stores are HELPFUL - they want you to make a great purchase - and fall in love with their recommendations so that you’ll come back again and again - and maybe one day find yourself in a world where buying music is a normalized activity again. 

Wow - these are nice people, these clerks and salesmen behind the counter at the new fangled record stores. Which makes them absolutely unrecognizable with the quintessential, platonic ideal Record Store Clerk of yesteryear that I miss oh so much. 

You see, when you’re younger, you get nostalgic for the good times. But beyond nostalgia there’s a certain wistfulness for the fuller experiences of our childhood - and I’m a 40-year-old man who consumes music - and have a defined though flexible sense of my own taste - and I will say the FEAR that the Record Store Clerks instilled in me - at all the various record stores - is what shaped that taste. 

Picture this kids - you’re 9 years old and you love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Which makes sense because it’s 1991 and the singles from their breakout album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” are being blasted across the radio airwaves and all over MTV. 

You’re a kid - so you don’t know what day of the week albums drop - you just know that you saw this one was dropping soon. So you ask your parents to drive you to the record store and let you buy the album with your allowance money. 

Now - CD’s at that point in time, in 1991 - cost an insane amount of money. Their LIST PRICE - in 1991, 32 years ago, was $19.95. Most CD stores would sell them at a discount - between $11 and $13. 

That means their list price, in today’s dollars, was $43! And they were “on sale” for $27. 

Music was VALUABLE back then. And you’re in the store - a 9 year old having saved money from doing chores for like, maybe a whole year and you approach a surly looking Record Store Clerk. You walk up slowly, feeling intimidated by his black baseball cap and horn rimmed glasses and his intense, furrowed brow. He’s reading a paperback novel of some sort and you hope that as you slowly walk up to him, he’ll see you in his peripheral vision and look up and engage with you. 

“What do you need, young man?” He says to you, in your fantasy. 

“Acceptance for who I really am,” you say in your fantasy. “Both in the long term - but also, in the short term - by you acknowledging and complimenting me on my taste in music.” 

This fantasy - it never comes. Because the Record Store Clerk never looks up. He just keeps reading - licking his fingers as he turns the pages. You’re standing just beneath him now - and he looks like a bird of prey, perched on the ledge of a building, cooly ignoring the pigeons and doves that hover around - his eyes set far away. 

You clear your throat. He looks now, down at you. 

“Yes?” He says, in a tone that FEELS like “No.” 

He waits. “Need something?”

“Uhh…” you’d arrived with a purpose - but somehow, your nerves got the best of you and can’t seem to remember why you’re in this record store to begin with. 

“Hmm” he says and returns to his novel. 

Just then, you remember your father is in the store with you. You glance to your right to see him, his face constrained in confusion. That’s MY son there? you imagine he’s thinking. You see him cringe and then he whispers “Red Hot…” 

He’s jogged your memory. 

“Uh…” you muster the energy to interrupt the Record Store Clerk again. He’s really not happy this time. You glance at your father - he mouths it again “Red Hot…” You sigh to yourself, slump your shoulders, look down and say:

“Do you have the… Red Hot Chili Peppers album?”

“God no. Of course not,” the clerk says. 

You’re thrown off guard and you look at your father, who it seems, is also thrown off guard. He comes over to your side now. 

“Uh, do you know when it’ll be in stock?” Your dad asks. He’s meek now, cracking under the pressure of the Record Store Clerk’s seemingly invincible force field of scorn and derision. 

“Hopefully never,” the clerk says, turning his gaze back to his book. 

“What… What do you recommend we get instead?” My father musters the strength to ask. The clerk tosses my dad a copy of NWA’s debut album “Straight Outta Compton”. There’s a parental warning label on the album but in the dizzy haze of the moment, my dad pushes through, ignores that subtle signifier and buys me one of the most seminal influences on my budding artistic psyche. 

Because this surly fellow - the Record Store Clerk - refused to sell us something that he deemed in poor taste. More than a music reviewer - more than a musician himself - a Record Store Clerk believed, with intrinsic honesty and valor, that MUSIC was VALUABLE. 

They understood these objects - records, tapes, CDs, sometimes posters - weren’t just disposable, replaceable pieces of “media”. These were coveted and magical objects of DESIRE. 

I don’t want to be “sold” on things. I want someone who cares more than I do to give me a doorway into their passion. I want someone who is willing to laugh at me or tell me I’m a fool for asking the wrong question because they’re confident enough in their belief in their products. 

The luxury space sometimes approaches this - but I don’t think passion should be a commodity that only rich people can afford.

There used to be sandwich shops in New York where you were told they would kick you out if you ordered wrong. 

There are hot dog spots in Chicago and cheesesteak places in Philly like that too. Dedicated, committed people who work and live and breathe a “brand” and its wares so confidently that they don’t tell you why you should buy it. They tell you why you’re maybe not worthy of making its purchase. 

What happened to these temples of passion? These record stores and comic book spots and movie palaces and sandwich spots with a line around the block - the more we’re told we’re doing it wrong the more we want to come back? 

Has our on-demand culture made the “work for it” culture that defines taste go away? The only time you see a line around the block for a store is if they’re selling sneakers and people think they can flip ‘em on eBay. 

That’s not right - passion shouldn’t be transactional. It should be transcendental! 

I want the Record Store Clerks back. I want them at their perch, telling little kids they’re not allowed to buy that pop album because there’s this new noise band they need to listen to instead. 

I want this next generation - Gen Z sure but also Gen Alpha - to feel what it was like to have the unbearable weight of a confident and over qualified Gen Xer sitting behind the counter somewhere, ready to possibly get fired for their passion. 

I miss it. I’m not sure we’ll ever get it back. But I pledge that I will seek out experiences that challenge me and make me uncomfortable - that don’t please my algorithmic choosing but challenge my tastes. 

I don’t want a quiet machine to guess what I might like. I want a scornful teenager to tell me what I like is BAD and give me recommendations as to what I should like instead. 

Grumpy, ironic machines. Is that too much to ask for? 

(It might be)

[ask-av-isaki]

Man, I can't get wifi so I can't get to play Lukas Kaiser's route on XOXO Droplets yet. My time shall come though!

[thelukaskaiser]

My List of The Best Movies (per year)

Just my opinion! Don't get mad! Best movies: 2017: Get Out 2016: Austin Powers 20 - We Are Farmers, bum bu bumbum bum 2015: Austin Powers 19 - Keep Austin Weird and British 2014: Austin Powers 18 - British Toy Story 2012: Austin vs Predator 2011: Austin Powers 17 - 12 Years a Spy 2010: Austin In Love 2009: Austin Powers 16 - Obamamemeber 2008: Inglorious Austin 2007: Austin Goes West 2006: Austin Powers 15 - Bronzemember 2005: Borat and Austin meet Frankenstein 2004: Austin vs Zoolander 2003: Austin Powers 14 - Handicapped Austin 2002: Austin's World 2001: Burger King Presents - The Austin Powers Mysteries 2000: Austin Reloaded 1999: Austin Powers - Episode I - The Phantom Baaabyyy 1998: American Austin 1997: Austin Powers 13 - Contract Negotiators 1996: Adventures of Young, Big Dick Austin Powers 1995: Austin vs Shrek 1994: Black Austin Powers 1993: Austin Powers 12 - The Curse of the Begging Gypsy 1992: Austin Powers 11 - Goodbye, Nazis 1991: Austin Powers 10 - Silvermember 1990: Austin Powers 9 - Ham Sammy, Mr. Foxworthy 1989: Austin Powers 8 - Space Pregnant 1988: Austin Powers 7 - The Wandering Jew 1987: Austin Powers 6 - The Pen 15 Club 1986: Austin Powers 5 - Adios, Amigo 1985: Austin Powers 4 - It's A Man, Baby 1984: Austin Powers 3 - Goldmember 1983: Austin Powers 2 - The Spy Who Shagged Me 1982: Austin Powers

[thelukaskaiser]

Water Slide Backyard

There were kids when I was also a kid

With

Water Slide Backyards.

Their homes were large

Their cars were plentiful

Their parents were smiles from

Ear to nose to the other ear.

And in their backyard

There was not just a pool but

A

Water Slide.

“Want to come over and play

In my

Water Slide Backyard?”

I think of those

Water Slide Backyards

Now.

When water becomes

A commodity worth more

Than

Oil

Those people

With

Water Slide Backyards

Will Be the first

To have

Their

Throats cut.

“Splash!”

[thelukaskaiser]

How I Would Fix “Wild N Out”

The TV “Wild N Out” debuted on MTV in the Spring of 2001 (or possibly after that time) and since then it has been, according to some, the most successful comedy show on TV. My friend Greg, who is the son of a guy my dad doesn’t talk to anymore, said “Hey man, that show is good. STILL good.” So there you go.

But is being “good” enough anymore? In the modern era of television when you have at least ten channels to pick from as well as Gifs and other things of that sort, is being “good” fine? Because I think “Wild N Out” can be GREAT! (or as Tony The Tiger would say ‘Grooovy!’)

So I thought about it for a while and I wrote down 10 ways that I think the show Wild N Out can improve. But then I left that piece of paper on the bus. So here are a few ones I remember from that list:

HAVE THE SHOW BE LIVE: Like actually live. So that if there’s like a big news story that happens — say a famous person gives birth or a school shooting — they can do skits on it. Have an old white boy sit in the corner of the stage he’s the news dude. And he has a buzzer and when some shit happens, he hits the buzzer and goes “Hold up! Ya boy Nate has a story!” Or whatever his real name is — nate is dope tho. “Yo yo yo! The stock market has tanked! Do a skit!” And then Nick Cannon can come out and be like “Yo mama tanked the economy with her huge tits!” And maybe the Guy Code dudes will be looking on from above, in a balcony area we can build quite easy (my uncle can install balconies) and they look down and go “Oh shit Nick you went way too far now!”)

GIVE EVERYONE A GUN: So if they DO go too far, you put ’em in line. With a gun. It’s what people do in my hometown of the suburbs outside of Milwaukee and it’s what I think dudes should do on that show. It will keep people honest and happy.

HANG GLIDING: Yo, if you’re doing that balcony idea I said earlier, then we can have motherfuckers hang gliding off that. Maybe give one ’em a Go Pro and he’s like “Daaaamn I’m gonna fall wait no I’m not!”

EXECUTE JULIAN ASSANGE: Yo, this dude seems tite — he has a good twitter feed but I read on the Internet his shit wikipedia is not good. It released the location of the Chili’s where soldiers eat overseas to our enemies like Russia. Yo — I live in Brooklyn — I know what happens when Russians go to Chili’s! So — it’s time to use this dude as a lesson.

That’s pretty much it. Once we do all that, Wild N Out will be Wild Ly Successful. Thanks!

[thelukaskaiser]

Me doing stand up - Nov 2015. I’m tite as fuuuuck!