Maximum Closure || WEEK 2
Welcome to the poolboy digest! Your home for everything poolboy2: maximum closure. The poolboy00 project is a durational reality show / talk show / experimental memoir for the streaming service Twitch. Want more poolboy? Check him out on Instagram, Twitter, Discord, and Youtube. Oh, and don’t forget live shows every Sunday in August at Crashbox (in Austin)! Don’t be a stranger!
This week's digest has a special guest-essay flynnstone_0! Scroll down to check it out!
LAST WEEK WAS ALL DRAMA, CATCH UP:
TUESDAY, AUG 10 — 11:00am cst (S2:E10)
Wake up and smell the poolboy! Spend your Tuesday morning with poolboy doing the crossword, working out, and preparing for the week ahead.
WEDNESDAY, AUG 11— 9:00pm cst (S2:E11)
poolboy’s boyfriend Ryan returns to the stream, only this week the cracks are beginning to show. With the impending breakup and the pressures of the stream can the two lovebirds make it through another week?
THURSDAY, AUG 12 — 9:00pm cst (S2:E12)
momgrab and poolboy begin their quest for a live cry. poolboy is pushed to his very emotional limit as momgrab begins her cry-training on him. But when a line is crossed, poolboy and momgrab must reckon with what is real and what is fake. And it’s up to the chat to sort it all out.
FRIDAY, AUG 13 — 10:00pm cst (S2:E13)
Fan favorite see_men_will_run returns to the pool! Not seen since last season, poolboy checks in with his old friend. But when a trip down memory lane leads to uncomfortable truths being exposed, just how much can a friendship take is stress tested.
SATURDAY, AUG 14 — 11:00am cst (S2:E14)
Join arealtravistea and poolboy for a brunch of a stream! Spend your Saturday nursing a hangover with specially curated TikToks and good vibes. Or are they?
SUNDAY, AUG 15 — 8:00pm cst (S2:E15)
poolboy is LIVE!!!!!! IN PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!! at Crashbox (5305 Bolm Rd. #12, Austin, TX 78721). This is not a DRILL!!!!!!! Your chance to be experience poolboy in blistering 4D. There will be drinks, installations, gallery exhibits, poolboy streaming, a smoking section, music, and your chance to BE. ON. POOLBOY. Last week was so dumb and this week it’s going to be dumbed. Do not miss this insane chaotic hot mess of an event. (Masks required for indoor stuff.)
MONDAY, AUG 15 — 10:00pm cst (S2:E16)
Join flynnstone_0 and poolboy00 each Monday late night in August as they unpack the previous week’s drama, play fun drinking games with the chat, and more. Drinking games, a word of the day, and absolutely nothing left on the table.
Fan shots from poolboy 4D, live in Austin this past Sunday. Don’t miss the next 4D! Photos by: meemaw and gab.
a poolboy digest for week 1 by flynnstone_0
I was trying to find a way into writing a digest so I started watching youtube videos about digestion. I found one that fascinates me. It’s called “Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: Examination Technique and Standard Findings.” The account that posted it is “Video Journal and Encyclopedia of GI Endoscopy.”
Endoscopy feels exceptionally violent, particularly in regard to how boring the images are after a while. Yeah, they’re really gross but they’re all the same kind of gross? Maybe one chamber has more folds, or one contains a small puddle of brown goo. But it’s consistently just pink and wet.
Also: the entire time the body is heaving against this intruder, flexing and oozing as it tries to expel the scope.
Did you know that an endoscope contains not only a camera but also a tool to inflate chambers in the GI tract with air? There are all these intimate little pockets of your digestive system that are closed up unless someone rams a giant tube down your body and inflates them like a balloon. That’s how you get a really good look at the motility of their junctures, the quality of their secretions, or, God forbid, their lesions and abnormal growths.
I wonder if what we’re doing with poolboy is a little like that - inflating all these ugly little corners of poolboy’s inner life so we can get a good look at the structures which undergird it. We’re introducing this massive, blunt tool into his relationships and puffing them up with air. Maybe that’s why he’s so gassy.
This week, poolboy and momgrab worked on crying. Momgrab made herself cry on stream, which poolboy found “frightening.” That doesn’t bode well for the month ahead, where momgrab has made it her stated mission to bring poolboy to tears. Together, poolboy and momgrab are like my tonsils; both are hooked into the lymphatic system of weird performance art, but one is somehow always harboring an infectious crypt. All it takes is some poking to turn the whole throat into a strep-filled war zone.
Despite both being north of thirty, arealtravistea and poolboy compared notes about tiktoks; they’re charmed by insouciant dance videos and turned off by self-consciously excellent ones. arealtravistea and poolboy danced around their drama last season, too, where poolboy questioned the earnestness of arealtravistea’s friendship. In a way, they resemble the first section of the small intestine; the duodenum. This strange area takes in the effluence from the stomach and uses enzymes to break it down further. Like poolboy and arealtravistea, it breaks down pre-digested media and can be easily inflamed by gluten.
Despite the imminent demise of their relationship, Ryan and Poolboy continue to be cute in their own weird way. But cracks are showing! “You’re sexually proactive but not emotionally proactive,” said Ryan during the dramatic season opening. Ouch! This reminds us of the stomach lining, which can collapse and expand as needed and sometimes contain ulcerative sores.
Finally, poolboy spent hours with us, the chat, alone on stream. He promised to disclose the intimate details of his life to us, and he delivered, learning that he had been exposed to a breakthrough case of COVID on stream. But how much of this is for show and how much is real? How do we gauge what’s being withheld and what’s being cautiously prepared? To me, this evokes the cricopharyngeal sphincter, which separates the pharynx from the esophagus. This ring of muscle is usually flexed tight, keeping stomach juices in their place - unless we’re swallowing, in which case it dilates. Or if it’s being probed by an endoscope.
Tune in next week for more poolboy action. And for those of us in Austin, come to the Crashbox at 5305 Bolm Rd. #12 every Sunday for 4D, co-present/synchronous poolboy streaming experiences. Attendance is free! As is the beer!
In light of the fact that we’re talking about digestion and the fact that I now live in San Francisco for the foreseeable future, I’m ending the digest with a Fernet cocktail recipe. Fernet is a bitter, evil digestif, and SF is allegedly responsible for 35% of its sales in the US - a testament to both the city’s enduring Italian American heritage and its expensive yet poor taste. This preparation calls for ginger beer, the kind with real ginger that gives your esophagus a mild chemical burn. In The Indonesian Kitchen, ginger is listed as a medicine for aiding digestion, as well as a curative for arthritis, infection, and low libido.
Bartender’s Handshake:
-1 shot Fernet.
-A Ginger Beer back
Take shot of Fernet. Distract your friends - “hey, isn’t that Nancy Pelosi?” While they’re looking around, try to discreetly gargle with ginger beer.
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