Ruadhán J McElroy, also R J McElroy, Ruadhán Jarlath McElroy, and Ruadhán Jowan McElroy (born on
July 22 in
Toledo, Ohio), is a
blogger, writer,
artist and musician who lives in
Ann Arbor, MI. He usually claims to be between thirty and twenty-five years old. Since he always claims that, as per the
Chinese zodiac, he was born in "the year of the
Rooster," if one is to assume this as correct, he was most likely born in either
1969 or
1981 -- it may also just be a claim made from his alleged
penis obsession.
He was educated at
St. Adalbert's
Catholic School from grades K through 6, went to
public school from grades 7 through 11 and quit in his senior year, having made the choice to work full-time to pay his rent. He obtained a
GED at
Washtenaw Community College on a bet to get $50. He is still owed that $50.
Personal Life: Not Just Info For Nosy
Bastards Anymore
Though a
female-to-male transsexual, he identifies as a
gay man. Unlike most visible gay male-identified FTM persons, Ruadhan also eschews the
bear scene and describes his own gay
gender expression as closer to that of a
dandy or self-described "
art fag" (Ruadhan's personal preference, as it implies a sly vulgarity) and uses both terms interchangably despite the inisitance of different meanings on the pages of Wikipedia.
Speaking of medical conditions, through no known fault of his own, his eyes are in a terrible shape. He is
nearsighted and suffers from
Astigmatism. His eyes are also extremely
photosensitive. As of 2010, with glasses, his
visual acuity is 20/60.
Family?
His
father was a former
vagabond and
factory worker (and in the summers, a
Little League
umpire) from
Detroit, Michigan. His
mother, a former
opera singer,
biker and later a registered
nurse from
Toledo, Ohio.
His paternal and maternal grandparents were both
immigrants, respectively from
Ireland and from
England. His parents
divorced when he was ten, after his mother
came out as a
lesbian. He has a total of eight
siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings combined making his placement in the
birth order at
number seven out of a total of nine children.
For all intents and purposes, he is estranged from his entired family. His mother, in
1993, "fell off the face of the planet". His father died in
2002 from a
brain aneurysm at the age of 59. The two had not spoken for nearly five years. He does not speak to his step-mother or any of his siblings and maintains that this is the way everybody is happiest.
He currently describes his "family" as being his room-mate, their two cats and a small handful of close friends.
The McElroy Clan
There is very little known of The McElroy Clan, other than the surname originated in
Ulster, and has many centuries-old connections in
Belfast.
Ruadhán has some interest in researching his family name as well as in meeting other
Irish,
Irish-Scots,
Ulster-Scots and
Irish-American McElroys.
So far he has determined that, while generally ne'er-do-wells, the McElroy clan has had a long, albeit sporadic, connection to music and the arts.
Career?
His first job was working the front line at a
Mexican
deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's since worked extensively in the field of "grunt work and gophering".
For posterity's sake, he's also a former article writer for
punk and
deathrock
zines, and has since penned two novels featuring unusual
gay characters, usually with distinct physical peculiarities.
He also has a
sound collage project (he objects to it being referred to as a "band", despite the project's use of original composition) called
This Is Where the Fish Lives. He's working on a This Is Where the Fish Lives album, tentatively titled
Ersatz Music For Ersatz People. He's an accomplished, albeit former, choral singer as well as a self-described "
guitar noodler". He's noted for playing a solid-body electric
viola in This Is Where the Fish Lives.
He paints
murals on comission, and claims to have once sold a
watercolour "
portrait" of
David Bowie's crotch from the film
Labyrinth for a packet of
Djarum Black
clove cigarettes and a bottle of
Wild Turkey.
Other neat
shit or what you Earthians call "trivia"
- He grew up, in part, in
London, England with parental duties administered by his sister and brother-in-law, who are about fourteen years his senior. His brother-in-law is
Chinese and from
Hong Kong and he and Ruadhan's eldest sister have lived in the UK since marrying.
- He has adult-onset
ADHD, which he feels has aided in his intellectual status as a
polymath.
- Routinely
lies about his age because few people seem to genuinely believe he's the age his state-issued
identification card says he is.
- The name "Ruadhan" is Irish name meaning "little red one", which he chose because he's a Socialist who, coincidentally, looks very good in
red and quite frankly, always has.
- Religiously speaking, he's a practising
Hellenic Reconstructionist who feels drawn to
Apollo,
Dionysos,
Athene,
Eros,
Hermes and
Pan as his patron deities. He really can't stand most other modern Hellenic Pagans, including other "purist" Reconstructionists on account of the fact that most of those whom he has made contact with are, quite frankly, gits.
- He is also a
SubGenius who has never taken
Paul Rubens' name in vain.
- Was once contacted on
MySpace by one of his musical inspirations,
Karl Blake. Blake has done work with
Danielle Dax, whom Ruadhan once claimed he's go straight for a day for.
- Has a strong fondness for
British and
American
camp and, conversely, regional satire with a specifical appeal to the
American Midwest and
rural
Canada (which he considers, culturally speaking, almost indistinguishable from Northern Michigan, specifically
Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Wissconsin and Minnesota). His favourite television programs, for example, include
Pee-wee's Playhouse,
Are You Being Served? and
The Red Green Show.
- Has almost died twice, before the age of sixteen. Once from a severe case of
chicken pox at the age of ten. Once from an allergy to the prescription drug
Lithium, which was prescribed to him at the age of fourteen for
bipolar disorder -- the resultant near-death which has since led bipolar, in his case, to be determined a misdiagnosis.
- His Western
Zodiac sign is
Leo
[1].
- A staunch
Socialist, he pays homage to
The New Left of the 1960s, by adopting the spellings of "America" as "
Amerika" and "United States" as "United $tates", as well as other "political misspellings".
- Despite having never lived there, many of his friends on-line are
Australian. As a result, he has picked up much
Australian slang.
- Raised in both the UK and the US, he's used to the idea of both
American English and
British English being technically correct, but chooses to maintain many UK grammar rules in his own writing for aesthetic purposes.
- Uses gender-neutral language within reason.
- Will usually edit Wikipedia articles indiscriminately to conform to his own grammatical aesthetic preferences.
Musical Preferences and Other Bits:
- His first band was a "sort of
glammy
rhythm & blues" outfit called 13 Chester Street (after a song recorded by
1960s'
British R&B outfit,
The Pretty Things), he was the singer. They recorded three songs on
reel-to-reel tape. The tape was later destroyed in
a coffee-table accident and no known copies survived.
- McElroy jokes that he was raised "by
church choirs and the music of
Frank Zappa." His mother was an enthusiastic Frank Zappa
groupie in the late
1960s.
- As a result of his upbringing, he appreciates most genres of music and can find either socially or artistically valuable or relevant musicians in almost every genre, but maintains that musicial snobbery is a necessary and good thing as both a musician and a fan.
- He was a one-time muse of Wendy Frye-Henderson who, in
1993 (when Ruadhan was still living as a girl) wrote a song about Ruadhan for Frye-Henderson's
Christian alternative rock band, The Deep. The song is called "Erin". Frye-Herderson and her husband, Mike Henderson, were
youth ministry pastors at Rasin Center
Friends Church, an "
Evangelical Quaker" organisation.
Quotes
External links