By Jeff Walsh

With his acoustic album "Motorcycle Childhood," Tyson Meade uses spare arrangement and raw vocals to share details of his life. It's very different from his other role as the openly gay lead singer of the Chainsaw Kittens, where he used to take to the stage in lipstick, tights and mini-skirts.

By Janis Ian

In a small town somewhere at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, teachers prepare for the coming semester. Professors grimly consult lesson plans, breaking in new Dockers ("I still wear the same size I wore when I graduated," they brag, bellies hanging over their straining waistlines like blubber off Ahab's whaler). Dormitories are surrounded by troops of exterminators bent on eradicating last year's mess before the health department shows up for a final check. The grounds are infested with newly arrived victims, ready to give the university their all and terrified that anything beyond the boundaries of the parents' homes will eat them alive. If they only knew.

By Janis Ian

I am standing with my tit caught in a wringer while a mall-haired technician tells me to relax. I am thinking that if men had to put their testicles in a vise as part of a yearly physical, we would have a cure for the common cold by now. I am very frightened.

The pink slip came as we were leaving on vacation: "We have found what appears to be a routine abnormality..." What's routine about an abnormality? I decide to put on a brave front and joke that in all my life no one has ever called me routine; then I burst into tears. Later on I do the grown-up thing and panic, furtively examining my breasts in the mirror for changes. I'm afraid that if I touch them to check for lumps, I will set something off. I wish they were smaller. I wish they were removable. I wish they were on anyone but me.