Rage Hard

Who would have imagined that weather was that big of a deal?  It seems to be for Jim Kosek, an Accuweather.com meteorologist who, at the mere thought of 14 - 22 inches of snow, suddenly hulked out and wound up morphing into a roid-master of gargantuan proportions only Stan Lee could love and turn into a superhero, or supervillain, depending on his roster.  I just hope---for his sake---that his penis also grew to enormous size, because wouldn't it be rather problematic and embarrassing if he continued to act like Joe from Family Guy at his raging worst... but then proved to be a Galapagos turtle in bed?  Isn't that what a consuming passion for a non-human thing leads to?  Eh, maybe it's me.  I have my own quirks, which involve stylistic, contemporary architecture and sales at my favorite department stores.  You go, Jim!  Rage on, man!  Beat those fuckin' clouds to a bloody pulp and make stormy martinis out of them, we know you can with your spectacles and looks that threaten no one!  Yay for you!

Note: If you were around in the 80s you'll recognize the somewhat gloomy Frankie Goes to Hollywood song that is the title of this entry.  Memories?

He Got Legs

I'll never comprehend why men who work out, be it bodybuilders or weightlifters neglect to train the one area that is crucial for a general support: their legs.

You've seen him.  At a bar with dim light, or outside in broad daylight, wearing loose jeans.  The guy who from the waist up looks massive, a behemoth, a badass motherfucker with HUGE arms, a chest Arnold (in his glory days) would weep for if roids that powerful were available in the Seventies, a neck that looks like it's sprouting roots like a banyan tree.  And a voice that is as low as a tuba with a dead racoon inside it.  [Question being now, what was a dead racoon doing inside a tuba?]

And then you glance down, because you simply must regard the entire package... and you scream a little on the inside.  Your hands suddenly come up to your mouth in horror.  Your skin gets cold.  You wonder if Big Brother is watching you because whenever this  happens you always feel like somebody's watching you and you wonder if it's just a nasty, nasty dream because somehow Michael Jackson made his cameo appearance in the chorus. Does this make sense?  Of course not.  But I'll get there.

A guy with pencil-thin legs is a terrible, awful thing to behold.  What support can be give you?  I know, having someone give you a big, strong hug is the stuff romance novels end with but for me, a man whose legs resemble the end result of a botched cloning job between man and flamingo is a man I can't abide ten feel away from me.  This is a man who can't stand strong and hold his own.  And don't even try to find if he has a tushie.  What tushie?  Kansas has more bumps than this.  A straight line stands a better chance.

Which brings me to where I was headed towards.  Being face to face with a guy's massive thighs.  Picture me trying to head out to my gym last night because living in the City you would think mass transit will run No Matter What and everything will close at the time they're supposed to close.  The Engine must run, even in dreadful circumstances like these, right?

Wrong.  From the word "go!" my trip---because at this rate I might as well call it that---was a disaster only equaled by the Titanic nearly a hundred years ago.  [That long?]  Consider this: my gym is technically about 10 minutes away which in a city with mass transit means nothing---you can't even catch a snooze.  Me, all bundled up and wired for a slamming workout only a steroid freak would enjoy, and I don't use them, although there is a rumor down in the delta that I do.  Unconfirmed, of course, and I am more than willing to submit to a test.

When I finally reached my gym---over forty-five minutes later, more exhausted than gung-ho and covered in snow to a point where anyone could have taken me for an animated snowman---I saw the lights still on.  I nearly whimpered in joy.  A warm place!  House music!  Equipment!  Ah... it was all looking up for a great night.

Um-hum.  You wanna know who were having the Best Night Ever?  Snowplowers.  And anyone who stayed home drinking hot cocoa whether alone or with company, because it sure wasn't me.  Here I was stumbling over half a foot in snow in my Converse sneakers that were soaked through, laboring to breathe, and what do I find when I reach the door?

It was closed.  The guy who works in the front desk and one of the trainers were standing there in much better shape than I was, and I don't mean making out, I mean just talking, turning lights off, getting ready to leave.  The trainer saw me and started to howl and doubled over.  Front Desk just mimed "We're closed" through clumsy hands and gestures.  And I just stood there and stood there and stood there.

Oh, I left alright.  My soul crushed, my body ten times as heavy due to what layers of snow I'd accumulated, but I figured I couldn't do anything else other than to walk away, go home, and call it a night.

And then, as I reached Grove Street... he showed up.

Almost by accident.  Picture me huddled in the trenches waiting for the PATH to arrive and in walk these massive pair of gams.  I'm not talking tree-trunks, but the kind only models in Power Men have, gigantic teardrops, and the calves were no laughing matter.  I have big calves hitting 20 inches; this was unspeakable.  This was unbearable.  This was torture.

Because to his side, a petite blonde of barely five feet---he was a foot taller than her, an impossibly gorgeous blond down to the eyelashes, a miracle in the bleak of winter.

Both were sporting rings and holding hands.  Looking very much in love.

In an instant the clouds parted.  Angels started to chant alongside of me in baritone voices.  My blood began circulating, the snow melted clear off me, and I was there, sitting on the dirty floor, unable to stand now because Something Had Stood Up, and despite me wearing a puffer coat I still felt that I'd form a tent between my legs and wouldn't that be odd since I was less than five feet away.

This is when I thought of murder.  You see, I could push Blondie into the train tracks as the PATH roared into life, and by doing so I'd wake Thor out of his nightmare of conformity and make him see the error of his ways, that only my narrow tunnel was fit for a club his size---not something that a watermelon could fit into and stank of fish.  And anyways, he'd snap her in two just like that.  Me?  Can you say sublime wrestling?

However, I pondered the equation better, and decided it wasn't all her fault.  Well, it was, but not entirely.  And besides, all I wanted was a mere 45 minutes with him.  I wanted to sink my teeth so badly into his jeans and see if I tasted copper.  I wanted to hit those muscles with the force of an Acela at full speed and fuck the night away in a subway closet.  And later on, send him back to wifey, his own closet, and continue on my merry way.  Eventually he'd thank me, and so would she.

I just live To Serve Man.  Especially when they have legs and know how to use 'em.

Pounds of White

As the snow rages on and on and blankets New York in fifty-thousand layers of white powder only coke addicts (or "enthusiasts", as I tend to call them---speaking of which, is Whitney in New York attempting yet another comeback, hoarse singing and all?) can snort in one line, I think of what I should write next.  Kathy Griffin at Madison Square Garden is halfway through fruition, but needless to say I can't publish something that is missing its torso, or worse, its storytelling mouth, can I?  So I'll have to take a detour and look for a quick cheap one before the next long entry.

Tonight I searched long and hard for a quickie, preferably with a stud who would have it long and hard.  Some ideas came up, but nothing concrete.  And then she came up.  The poor woman who got a little too close to comfort to a killer whale of the comical name of Telly and I wondered what brought that up.  You know what I mean.  Could Telly have confused Dawn Brancheau with a baby seal and decided to play with it or worse, have sex with it?  [Yes, this is a fat joke.  Yes, it is too soon.  But too bad for any pleasantly plump (i. e. chunky, or in the gay world, bearish) reader sporting hypersensitive feelings and think that because I made a comparison it now involves them although I may have to be careful or I might have the Fat Mafia after me.  I might become the victim of a kidnapping, be chained to a chair, facing a table with an endless variety of the most luscious, fattening foods from the likes of IHOP, McDonald's, and anything Italian, and be forced-fed 'til I became the dead guy in Se7en.]

Could Telly also be a serial killer, since it's responsible for three deaths that seem to happen every 10 years?  Or maybe Telly was just lonely and didn't know its own strength.  Think, when you play with a Really Big Person you have to ponder the possibilities of being crushed and be as close as possible to a quick exit or risk being confused for a Happy Meal.  Multiply that fifty times and you get the grisly, gruesome picture of Death by Suffocation.  Borat comes to mind.

This just proves, animals that aren't domestic by nature should remain in nature.  Can't we just eliminate zoos altogether?  Or create "virtual zoos" for the masses to flock to?  And who goes to zoos anymore?  The last time I was at one was circa 1976, the Bronx Zoo, my parents, sister and I, and I didn't really care for it then so you can imagine how indifferent I feel towards them now.  The only people who go to zoos are tourists who don't have anything better to do and illegal aliens---mainly Hispanics---who consider this their Americanization.  Or might be weighing the possibilities for if they need to go into hiding, you never know.  A bear's cave might be harbouring quite a chunk of Mejicanos, who now seem to have conquered our country.  I recall a time when you had to go to California to find them; now they're smack in the middle of rural New York and New Jersey.  They're my neighbors.  I don't have to go to Caliente Cab to eat Mexican: I can walk up a couple of blocks and get me some good eats just like that.  Or call Pablo and tell him to come over and eat me for a change.  Thank you, Grindr!

At least they're not trying to kill us by signing up to flight school.  You wouldn't want an angry Mexican flying his plane into a Chevy's because it's not the real thing.  Then where'd the tourists go?

And... we're back at the zoo.

Diatribe to a Defunct TV Star

Open wide, dear.  There's a 14 inch cock headed straight for your mouth.

Dear Diary;

AAAAAAGH!!! I can't buh-LIEVE it!!!  I'm totally, utterly distraught, and I've been in running around the City, squeezing my anal sphincter shut, looking with febrile intensity for a place I could call my own, even if it smelled of last night's watersports, and let it loose.  But back to this: I'm devastated, I'm heartbroken, I feel as though I've been betrayed to the core (snicker-snicher as one cute memory surfaces yet again per Facebook emails I still keep like gifts powered by the Energizer bunny, ask and I shall define this parenthetical detour), I am mad, spitting MAD, so MAD I could positively---

"AAAAAAAAGH!!!  FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!!!"

[Pause.  Off to recollect myself, gain composure.]

There.  I feel better.  Well, a little.  My eyes are swollen shut and red, and the tranquilizers are taking hold ever so slowly.  Tranquil.  Will I ever be tranquil?  Oh, no---there come the tears, again, falling down my face like a memory.  I can't seem to sit still.  I'm hot.  I'm feral.  I want to punch something, I want to hit it real hard! and there's no Ouiser Boudreaux here.  I'm positively a bitch in a china shoppe, raging to the left, to the right, swishing my stinger, looking for live meat, a vein, a heart to sting and suck up life.  You can't imagine what this feels like.  What the fuck do you know what I'm going through, huh?  You fucking insensate fool.  I know, you hear me?  I know... the cops came this morning, some loud shrieking that woke up all of Ogden Avenue, a chair exploding out a window then hitting a passerby, my housemates calling 911 for help.  ("No, come now!  Now!  He's going fucking nuts!")  You can't imagine what this means.  (Sob)  You can't.




[Dabbing my eyes]

You see, I was Facebook friends with none other than Roseanne Barr, nee Arnold, former domestic goddess.  [Is that correct?  Eh, it's staying.]  At the suggestion of my friend Jill Abrams, who considered her to be a real pro and someone who catered to the gay community, but what did Jill know?  Hell, what did I know?  I just clicked "Add as a Friend", alongside a quick message, and waited.

And waited.

And---

She'd accepted!  Oh, glory me!  Oh, dear God, thank you!!  I was in!  I was really fucking in!  I was wanted by a TV Star who's show I never watched because I can't understand hick humor, but who cares?  I was in Someone's Contacts!

You should have seen me comment.  Oh, I was a snapper.  I was on, man.  It was like verbal tennis, now she updated her status, now I went and sent her a razor-sharp reply while the others licked her pussy and Hoovered the shit out of her ass for peanuts.  But not me.  I don't kiss ass, ever.  I interact.  Much different.  I was on.  I was set to make my mark on her page, to debate her at her very best, and even bring a chuckle to her nipped and tucked face.

And then Valentine's Day came.  I sent out one of my zingers while Jill promoted her wife's Victoria's blog featured at Female FYI.  Nothing menacing, just posting a link.  We all do that, right?  Right?

Today I discovered Jill and I'd been sent to detention.  After school.  Can't come to my party, guys.  This is for the cool people, and by that I mean kids who Bow Down to ME.  Buh-bye!

Why, God, why?? Was it my slick comments on her posts which she somehow couldn't abide, or possibly took away from her thunder that makes no mark on the world anymore? Was it Jill's promoting Victoria's blog, and perhaps she might not (know how to) read?  Why, Roseanne?  Why did you hurt me to the core??  [That word again.  Oh, my emails from fuck-ups I have met.  So much inspiration you give me.]  How can I face another day without your attempts at wit which clearly disclose you had a team of writers sending you material for your show and those jokes that Made You back in 1984 ("Cause I'm a housewife.") are lo-o-o-o-ong go-o-o-o-one??

Oh, no, here come the tears again. Playing with my heart like a memory.  Tearing me apart with this cruel emotion.  Let me fake scream into the black night, rip the skin off my arms, the hair off my chest and head, and kick myself unconscious.  [Remember, Ivan, you have Borderline Personality Disorder, diagnosed by.. oh, sigh. Why go there with the truly anonymous.]  Because, you see, I have been Abandoned.  By a woman who has a Facebook page that allows, it seems, no room for any conversation... just mindless adulation and drove of flowers and iHearts and iSmiles, "just for you".  Blech.

Because I don't play that game.  Because stars and celebs are people who have the same---and usually bigger---problems and debts than me. I choose interaction.  I don't know how to get down on my knees and open my mouth for someone to pee on if they find my mouth an interesting receptacle.  And I wouldn't want their pee, with the drugs and the meds and the possible detour from hygiene!  I mouthwash three times a day; I can't afford someone else's spunk just because they think they have it better than I, a "nobody".  Fuck them.

I bow down to no one but me.

Inspiration

Nothing says inspiration like taking a cue from that which you admire the most and going for your own personal improvement.  I am all for it the same way I'm all for gushing down an entire box of Almaden down my throat while typing up a storm as the best chill-out plays in the background and hoping for the best the next morning and by that, I mean that I'm still intact on my bed, and not in some dumpster in Baltimore hollering my lungs out for the help that will not arrive or the man that won't do me.  My friend Dan, who works at View Bar in Manhattan, shared his moment of truth with us Facebookers today by posting this statement on his update:

I was inspired by the pushman on the bobsled team & the speed skaters, did legs today, hoping to get my squats up to 400# by April.

And I couldn't agree more.  Loving a good set of tree-trunk man-legs--the kind that pants have become the enemy of and can only cover themselves in custom made fabric and even then look like they're about to Hulk out grotesquely--is what makes my eyes go pop because you can only imagine the possibilities, but my problem with squatting this amount of weight is that I might go pop, and not in a good way, but if you picture people suddenly turning green, retching, and frantically scrambling for the door as if the building were about to explode (yup, another motif), you get the hint.

As of me?  Oh, I've been inspired, indeed.  Taking my very own cue from last week's detour into "Let's smudge our faces with the ashes of some stranger and hope to Gawd it wasn't from some disease-ridden crack addict with a hint of anthrax for the hell of it"--Ash Wednesday for those into religion--I decided to one up my love for penitence and apply not black soot over my third eye, but a gentle exfoliating lotion with a peace-inducing scent of juniper, scrub away 'til my skin was smooth, then add a combination of Neutrogena Instant Bronze Sunless Tanning Foam, a third of Clarin's Auto Bronzant, and a whiff of L'Oreal to seal the deal and I was done.  No mess, no black stain over my forehead, but two hours later you would have sworn on a pile of Bibles I'd come from Costa Rica.  Every contour enhanced, every angle a golden shade of bronze.

And that, to me, is how I celebrate Ash Wednesday.  By looking flawless.  Which isn't too hard to begin with.  Blame it on the gay curse.  And that picture I have in my closet.

Eating Out, Eating In, Eating Me

In case you haven't heard it (I hadn't until a day ago, several times), the new Kit-Kat commercial is an exercise in what I call an ear-rape sans the lube or the happy ending.  First of all, I can't stand anything crunching, slurping, or chomping coming from anyone's mouth because I get an instant case of severe revulsion so thirty seconds of this is enough to make my tympanic membrane go into an epileptic seizure and produce a gush of blood spurting outwards like a woman during her monthly visit to the tampon factory.  Yellowstone would look positively demure to what I'd spit out.  As a matter of fact, if I ever even remotely hear a tiny peep that looks like hard wafers being destroyed by shrill unwrapping followed by sonorous masticating I will retch, preferably on the person.  You know, for added punctuation.  He can clean the mess later.  That's why they invented washing machines.

Speaking on reenacting a quick entrance to the Vomitorium due to someone else's insensitivity, I hope the next charmer I go out on a dinner date has the built-in manners and common courtesy not to make my dining experience an eternity in illbient hell because I will go all out in style.  Oh yeah.  I'll get up, mid course, and without losing my decorum I will walk away without my plate to a quiet booth granting me a great view of the place where I can bring out the Bose earbuds, turn on my iPhone's iPod, and enjoy the sounds of anything that can take me from the spectacle of feeling my innards slowly compacting themselves into putty, such would be  my irritation.  He can pay the bill.  It's his fault for attaching a mike to his jaw, showing his teeth, getting all that sauce on his face, and going to town.  If he's that loud on the table, I can only imagine what he'd sound like taking me in like the world's hottest popsicle, or pie-eating me thru the back-door.

I shudder just thinking of it.

Parenthesis - Two Hiccups

Gloria Allred Reads "Friction: the Uncensored Colection"

If ever I was in need of audio-erotica in lieu of the real thing I'm going to personally contact Gloria Allred and have her read to me my old chat sessions with guys I've met in the past when AOL was the default place to "meat" on the internet.  I'm totally serious.  I love a woman who looks like she has power and massive balls, and nothing cries out butch like a manly woman with a square haircut reminiscent of Seinfeld and a suit so severely tailored that it makes whatever Hillary Clinton wears look positively ethereal and misty, like a runway model draped in Vivienne Westwood gowns.  And besides, Allred's gravelly voice inflections wouldn't make me suddenly bi-curious: if anything I can always close my eyes and think "invasion of the brainless muscle-mary" and hope for a penis between the legs if my crazy imagination got the best out of me and it all got too real for comfort.  At least if she doused her mouth with Scope the horror wouldn't be that intense.  Is she a good kisser?

Damaged Goods

"I just wish that I was told the truth and that I would have made other choices."  That sentence rings so true.  Joslyn James could not have uttered a more priceless pearl of wisdom, and I get misty-eyed whenever I hit replay on the video where she appears, and the first thing that crosses my mind is, "Girl, you're so right.  Didn't your mother ever tell you that to be a bona-fide porn star you need to have the long flowing, Paris Hilton extensions?  You can't make it wearing that boy-bob!  And where are the tits?  Shouldn't they be up to your eyeballs, out and proud, on display like a Vegas buffet for men (or Gloria, which is the same) to dive-bomb in and slobber away?"  Then again, this might be her off-camera look.  After all, she has to convey she's an actual person, not a fuck-bunny trying to (after all these years) pay her way through college.  Or through a slew of medical bills.  Those Aunti-biotics aren't exactly cheap.

Firecrotch!

I should be in bed, asleep under the covers, letting the alcohol I consumed tonight do its magic and send me off to slumber, a slumber I would wake up from with a severe headache and possibly an acid stomach only chocolate milk would cure.  But no.  I'm typing, extra careful I should say, because I'm seeing two screens four hands.

The thing is, I need to get this out before I collapse face-first in a puddle of my own up-chuck which might not be far in the future, judging from the rumblings of my stomach.  Rawr.

Tonight Kathy Griffin rocked it, worked it, sucked on it, gyrated on it, and splashed her fantastic self all over the Garden.  It was heaven for me to be seated several hundred feet away from her, see her prance out like a gymnast and showcase her control over a myriad of topics like a deranged stream-of-consciousness freak, touching everything from Tiger Woods' apology video to the Real Housewives (of several cities), Jersey Shore, Oprah, Barbara, Anderson Cooper, and the insanity of "Toddlers and Tiaras" and "Hoarders."  It was better than raunchy sex for me, and I love me some yum-yums.  This was the bush I've been dying to bite all week and I have the clit-juice dripping down my jaw and onto my lap and I'm oddly erect as I type this but that's the mental reaction to so much rapid-fire delivery, not a sudden interest in female cooch.

Of course, more about that later.  Right now, my fingers are reaching the moment they call "stop it or we'll rip ourselves from out of your hand, god-DAMN it" and where my eyes are now not only seeing double but my entire life is passing me by like a man who came, sexed me up, and left me high and dry.  I've got to collapse on a pillow-top mattress and let my night end, complete.

A Burning Bush

Last week I was sinking in a boat of pure maudlin.  You could practically hear "Liebstraum" playing over and over, ad nauseam, as I continually veered off into shrieking tantrums against the sole mention of a heart or love or Valentine's Day.  I actually met with a fabulous girl I know at Havana Alma de Cuba and over dinner and drinks we were planning on throwing used condoms at any passersby holding hands or looking too much in love, because that is how much we love that we're not in love, or partnered, and want to spread the wealth to others and possibly make someone flee in horror, or throw themselves into oncoming traffic on Broadway circa the Flatiron.  And wouldn't that be a romantic place to die?  All covered in your own blood and guts as the tires from a (friendly, but blubbering) Pakistani cab driver runs your over and impales you onto the glass window at MAC's which could come in handy if you need a little extra touch-up?  I think it would be grandiose, looking at the sky, seeing a marvel of architecture and a symbol of New York loom over you, saying, "Love stinks!  Yeah, yeah...."

Oh, wait.  What happened?  Did I do my own little sabotage and veer off into a detour?  Where the hell was I going with this?  I can't have a decent little social observation without "love" entering the picture?  Shit....

Oh, right!  Thank you, my darling pills, thank you!  You do bring me some wonderful returns of the day, and shutter our the Alzheimers that advanced age and a calcification with society might bring.

What I was blurbing was, last week I was in a funk because "love don't live here (well, hasn't, for a while now) anymore."  This week I'm back in tip-top shape and ready to dive face-first into a puddle of red, and by that I don't mean I'm suddenly finding out I'm a vampire since that seems to be the trend lately, but that I'm ecstatic I'm going to see none other than Kathy Griffin at Madison Square Garden!  Um-hum... life is beautiful when you're in the greatest city in the world.... I am walking on air!

I really need a better picture.

Free Speech and Facebook

Considering that some of my posts contained links that prompted some people to cry wolf, mass-email their contacts, and use me as a ruse to create as much drama as possible, I consider this little vindication a personal victory.

From CNN:

Miami, Florida (CNN) -- A former Florida high school student who was suspended by her principal after she set up a Facebook page to criticize her teacher is protected constitutionally under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Barry Garber's ruling, in a case viewed as important by Internet watchers, denied the principal's motion to dismiss the case and allows a lawsuit by the student to move forward.
"We have constitutional values that will always need to be redefined due to changes in technology and society," said Ryan Calo, an attorney with Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
"The fact that students communicate on a semi-public platform creates new constitutional issues and the courts are sorting them out," Calo said.
Katherine Evans, now 19 and attending college, was suspended in 2007 from Pembroke Pines Charter High School after she used her home computer to create a Facebook page titled, "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met."
In his order, Garber found that the student had a constitutional right to express her views on the social networking site.
"Evans' speech falls under the wide umbrella of protected speech," he wrote. "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus ... was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior."
Matthew Bavaro, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing Evans, was pleased with the ruling.
"The First Amendment provides protection for free speech regardless of the forum, being the Internet, the living room or a restaurant," he told CNN.
On the Facebook page created by Evans, which included a picture of her teacher, Evans wrote: "To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred."
According to court documents, Phelps never saw the posting, which was made from a home computer after school hours.
After receiving three comments from people who criticized her and supported the teacher, Evans removed the page from Facebook.
School principal Peter Bayer suspended Evans, an honor student, for three days for disruptive behavior and cyberbullying of a staff member. Bayer also removed her from Advanced Placement classes and assigned her to regular classes.
Bavaro, Evans' attorney, is seeking to have the court find the school's suspension invalid and to have documents related to the suspension removed from her school file.
"It will eliminate any official public record and validate her rights, since her First Amendment rights were violated," he said.
Internet experts say the court got it right, and that the ruling shows the law evolving with society.
"It reassures Internet users and students that they can still speak their mind," Calo said. "Its not a security issue. Its personal opinion and gossip."
Calo believes high-profile campus shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech have made schools more security conscious. But in this case, the principal went too far, he said.
"I think this is just an example of an overreaction on the part of an administrator to speech outside the classroom," he said.
"It used to be that principals wouldn't hear you talking about teachers outside the class. Social networks give principals the ability to see what students are saying about teachers and each other.
"It's one thing to use that information to identify illegal or dangerous conduct. It's quite another to punish opinion and speech outside the classroom that doesn't disrupt the activities of the classroom," he told CNN.
Bavaro said Evans is not granting media interviews at this time. He said she is not seeking to get rich from her lawsuit.
"We are only seeking nominal, token damages. Maybe $100. Some token amount to show that her rights were violated," he said. This case is not about money."

An attorney representing Bayer, the school principal, did not return CNN's calls for comment.

Thank you, CNN! Thank you for publishing what I've known since for years and years now! And like the good, law-abiding queer that I am, I shall continue to swing a mean pen and splash anyone with my dark-blue ink with my humor in the form of little spiders, and anyone who doesn't like it can suck it.

Tee-hee!

Petting the Pussy

I have to hand it to Trixy because since 1997 she's been my super-duper fag-hag and closest female friend/sista and has often gone down in flames for me when I got into some kind of a hairy situation and who once even threatened to beat the shit out of a 6 foot 4 Cuban guy I briefly dated who couldn't understand that possession-obsession is a Hall and Oates song that was a Top 30 hit back in 1985 and not a motif for "Love Will Keep Us Together".  In case you haven't met her, and you haven't (because none of you have met me, ha ha), Trixy is a tiny five-foot-one Dominican-American girl with lovely mocha skin and the glossiest black hair this side of any shampoo commercial.  Seriously.  That hair should have its own show and belongs on MoMA amongst the masterpieces.  Sometimes I can't believe I'm a queer.  All women should have her hair and let the wind blow ever so softly.  And all gay men should have a hell of a hag like her.

And any woman who truly feels a part of the gay world would be thrilled to be called a hag.  And the more liberal this world becomes you'll find them lined up, filing applications, trying to get in on a gay man's good graces and ballyhooed flawless taste as if it were Studio 54 all over again, because gay is the new chic.

[However if you do run into a woman who feels demoralized because you called her a fag-hag (one of the highest honors any female friend can be given), please, buy a sizzling hot cup of coffee from the cheapest newsstand in any train station or street vendor (I would have suggested Starbucks, but 5 dollars a cup is a price no frenemy should ever aspire to), and accidentally splash it a-a-a-all over her badly made-up, hypocritical face.  I give you my blessing.  It is your duty as a gay man.  She'll get over it.  Eh, who cares if she does or doesn't.]

Giorgio's Restaurant on East 21 Street and Broadway, a quiet place filled in atmosphere and beautiful Manhattanites, was the scene of our get-together for light food over martinis and the requisite espresso later. As we reminisced about the man I like to call "Trixy's Bitch" and what lovely Caribbean music he and I would have made had he not been several degrees away of wielding an axe or boiling a rabbit because he wasn't going to be ignored, I veered into a topic that can probably bring an evening to a screeching halt.  Just think; you're having this fantastic time yammering over whatnots and cat-calling men (even though she's happily married, but come on, a girl can still look at the merch while not actively indulge in swiping her credit card and then regret the purchase)... and suddenly, the Wretched Hard Left, the Taboo Topic reared its ugly head: career opportunities.

You see, I've been sending her items like crazy because I'm always on the Internet looking for items for me in various venues and well, she's a psychologist who moonlights mainly as a stay-at-home mom and wants to get back at the workforce because there are bills to pay, a cute button of a daughter to rear and educate, and a recently purchased townhouse to pay for and both she and hubby Jay have expensive tastes and it's no secret that times are pretty tough despite those stock market numbers.  She veered into an embarrassed evasion and I immediately knew she hadn't even paid attention to what I'd sent her.

"You do know that it's a first come, first serve, right?"
"I know, I know, but I kind of look at it, and somehow I get sidetracked...."
"By what?  Your pussy?  Please don't tell me you finally discovered a novel way to pet it or you grew the bush and now it's long enough to braid it into little corn roll dreads."
She rolled her eyes and took a deep sigh, because she knew was was coming---our play-squabble.  "You know what?  That's it.  That's exactly it.  I'm totally obsessed with my bush.  I've decided that I'm going to get hair plugs because it can't get too hairy down there."
"Of course not.  You want a thick, impenetrable forest a man can get lost in."
"Hell yeah!  I'm not going to let him go looking for something else!  It's all down there, and it's nappy an' shit.  But he likes it like that."
"Maybe you should make a resume for your bush and throw that out on Career Builder.  While you're at it."
"I did!  You'd be so proud.  It's why I'm petting it so much!"
"Smart girl!  That's my Trixy!"

You can't imagine a more emotional moment between us.  I usually don't produce real tears unless I'm neck deep in a bucket of peeled onions but these just welled out, filled my lower eyelids, and began pouring down my cheeks in streamlets of salt and liquid.  She dabbed her own eyes and attempted to remain composed and ladylike but I was too quick and gave her a hug that made her small eyes pop out obscenely and her cream colored visage turn purple and for a moment the waiter thought I was assaulting her, but we dissuaded him, then tried to measure him up, because he was really a scorcher.  God-DAMN that man was hot!  I would not have a problem leaping over the counter and force-feeding him my wood 'til he cried 'uncle'.  No pussies or bushes for me!  I love men.  Rawr.

Pictures 1 and 2, some German muscle stud. And Rusty Winchester.

Digging Up Pandora

I can’t believe I was your beau
For four years. Our “love” was for show.
(That is, to keep our names abreast
And show the masses our “Love Nest”
Because Heaven help us, would we
Ever display the mad banshee
Screams that permeate the night:
Would it be a tad impolite?)

Why did you barge into my world?
Why did your baggage come unfurled
Like an open wound, and puncture my
Naked trust? Please inform me, why
Was it so important to you
Such chaos, filtered through and through
Our daily lives, at my expense
(Literally)? This makes no sense.

Were you ever, truly, there?
Should I ask, or do you care?
Let me in on your rotten core
So I can understand you more.
I doubt you will. It’s not your thing
To show your skin, your true being.
Four years with you, I cannot think
We had such us: you clearly stink.

DL Meets Barry at the Gym: A Tragedy

Oh, God: here comes That Closet Case,
The one who married young
And sired six kids at breakneck speed
To make sure he’s spread his seed.
He says he “loves” his T’s and A’s —
At that, I’ll wag my tongue!
It’s muscle he’d rather embrace
And play with men among.

Next time I’ll bring my can of mace
And spray him off to Jung.

Reflections of a Skewed Mirror

Paul has forgotten he’s a man.
It looks like he gives not a damn.
He lives immersed in Fire Island
And glorifies Judy Garland
With a fervor but exceeded
By those shrieking songs excreted.
A freak for Cleanliness, as Joan.
See him find Dirt — then howl and moan
And toil and tumble on his knees
Like he was purging some disease,
But once he’s done, he’ll sit and purr
While Barbra whines “The Way We Were.”
When Lover comes back late at night
Paul has prepared “Dinner’s Delight”
And will be squealing like a hog —
To explode into monologue.
A gossip columnist alive.
A regal queen of his beehive.
A connoisseur of the feminine.
A negateur on the masculine.
A rabid presence on Broadway. . . .
God forbid he miss “Cabaret”
Or “Thoroughly Modern Millie”!
How in seconds, he turns silly,
Because for him, the night’s kaput —
Until Honey slams down his foot.

We have tried to make him gym,
But it seems it’s not for him.
(Yet he isn’t at all averse
To prowl the baths for flesh diverse.
Says he: “It’s a simple reward
Which never leaves me feeling bored!
Plus, bodybuilders to me, are
Unreachable, like Qiqihar.”)
What he perceives as exercise
Would be akin to fluttering eyes
Or swiping credit cards at Saks —
Or using his tongue as an axe.
It’s just a fact he can’t apply
To being male — hell, he won’t try.
No: our friend can be quite the simp.
See his wavering wrists go limp.
Lately, he has become inclined
On getting his skin redefined.
Layer upon layer of cake
He’s one sucker for Beauty’s sake.
Lover has tried to make him see
His perfect masculinity.
If Husband curdles at the sight,
Prick your ears; enjoy the fight!
Just listen to Paul wildly shoot
And howl at Hubby: “Et tu, brute!”

Let it be said, and I’ll be blunt:
Our Paul would rather sport a cunt.

Shortcomings

PIÙ CORTO!



Last night I met the perfect man;
With muscles to enjoy.
But when his cock I went to scan —
I found he was boy.

Feels So Good

Single and lonely in Manhattan, but what of it?  Huh?  I've been tumbling on dry since 1995 and it doesn't seem to be in the cards for me.  I wonder, will I meet Mr Big, and will he carry me away to some penthouse where I will be surrounded by luscious reds, ultra-modern living, and a man who will devote All His Attention To Moi, forever and ever, A-fucking-Men (pun intended, smack in the bum).  I wonder if the day will come when I don't have to sleep alone in my bed and look into the ceiling for answers that will not come.  And I quietly seethe whenever I see that people who met me, and found me not to their type suddenly leaped into the arms of a sugar daddy or something grossly resembling a man, and I think, was it me?  Did I do something?  Did I not do something?

Of course, this is not a diatribe to a Defunct Love Life, at least it isn't just yet. I'll start complaining when I'm in diapers and in a home, senility constantly escaping me because I'm also destined to be as sharp as HDTV when it comes to memory and experience. See, if I did ever go to mush, it probably would be just as well. I would have no worries to looking good or working out, no cares about sometimes feeling like my plastic heart might go crack at any moment, nothing would faze me. I'd be meeting someone new every day and that would be fine even when it was just the nurse and even then I could hallucinate her to be a he and that would be even better.

To take my mind off things I took the train to Ada's place and we sat down on her lovely hardwood floor, a mojito in each others' hands, Mangione playing soft jazz, and out came the words.

"My ass is depressed."

"You don't say? Pray tell."

"Well, I just said it; my ass---the thing that gives me pleasure, the one straighties love to call the pooper but little do they know---is in pain."

She smirked. "Well, I'll be darned. It's that kind. I thought it was something long, hard, and painful."

"No, that's the time I've been waiting to meet anyone. Even a quick fuck. It's not happening."

"You can't be even remotely serious."

"As the tanking economy. Oh, I've met a couple of irrelevant men, but nothing that's made me take notice. It's all a blur. And I kinda need clear images."

"Well, you certainly don't want to walk around blind as a bat. It's just not practical. Like haute couture."

"Ergo, why my ass hurts. It's hungry. You saw your aloe, how it died?" Ada nodded in agreement: she had had an aloe vera that no matter what she did to it, it just belly-flopped and went to an early grave. And she's got a green thumb.

"Stop, I just remembered Mario going limp on me last night. It wasn't pretty."

"Even with the Cialis?"

"Even with the Cialis."

"Huh? I thought he was a stud?"

"Honey, last night little Mario wasn't having it. And I even made my vagina do some tricks with the lips to see if perhaps it would pep up and come inside like it's supposed to but nah. Nothing. Mario had to lick it clean and I don't mind that, but I kinda like the drill."

"Eh, maybe he was tired. He is past fifty; thank God he works out. Now, if only I could get an anal work out. I'll tell you; I farted the other day on the train and it came out not like the usual silent-but-deadly ones, but like the trumpet in Miles Davis' "Blue in Green".  Think of my ass being in mourning, all dressed in black or something, blurting out the blues of anhedonia. Ticked the hell out of the cold blond bitch sitting beside me, though. All patrician and shit. So I shot at her, 'What, you're not gonna tell me you haven't pooted in public, huh? You're in New York! Get with the program!'"

"Silly bitch!"

"I know! Some people are so sensitive. I hate them. But not more than Valentine's Day. I might just throw up."

"Uh, let me move five feet away from you. And if you do, you're cleaning it up."

"Don't worry, Audition. I'll lap it clean for you. Oh, I'll leave it sparking. And then I'll feed it to you mouth to mouth."

(A rather graphic scene from the Takashi Miike horror film "Audition" from 1999)

"You're disgusting."

"No, I'm horny and in dire need for a man. At least you have Mario!"

"Oh, fuck that! You wanna know where he's gonna spend the V-Day?"

"At the restaurant?"

"No! With his wife! I tell you, I could throw an ashtray at him, but then I'd put him in a predicament with Elena and I don't need that and neither does he."

"So... you're also gonna be alone on the 14th?"

"Um-hum. The rat!" And, as if to punctuate her flare-up of anger, she yelled, "You ASSHOLE!!"

"Um, he can't hear you?"

"Oh, he will the next day. He's coming over. And I'm going to give him ten times what that exercise in futility can't. You bet."

"So... would you want to meet up then? Drinks?"

"Not before getting my emergency date out." Ada has one of those turbo vibrators that she uses when she positively, absolutely cannot make a date that night. Which come to think of it, would be my engagement as well. Four hours of it, with the plug, the small one, the larger one and then the inflatable one, right in front of the man-porn. What? I can't not feed a mouth when it's practically moaning in tongues, now, can I? You try to spend Valentine's Day solo and see if you can survive it.

We made our arrangements for the 14th while continuing our banter in her living as Mangione continued to perform to us about how it "Feels So Good." Um-hum.

La Gamine Qui Aime la Mode

When I saw her picture I assumed she was a tiny, old little octogenarian from Park Avenue who somehow had been bamboozled to wear some leftover outfits from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because they made her 'stand out' as an eccentric. Little did I know that this lil' ole' lady, with her blue-rinsed hair, giant spectacles, sharp features, and impossible "clothes" was none other than a thirteen year old blogger named Tavi Gerinson who has inexplicably become a fixture in the already insane world of haute couture and has been giving some pretty pointed observations on the subject---a thing that isn't gelling well with those in the know who have been at it for years. I mean, think of it: you're a reporter for *** magazine and have made a career making and breaking collections. You know the ins and outs, you attend every show with front-row seats and now this comes along. Things that make you go, hmm, right? Even so, it seems that the weird little girl is quite the ticket and until she falls flat on her face as yesterday's goods, those who go to these shows will have to endure her and hope that someone doesn't insult her beyond repair. Then again, the kid seems pretty self-possessed already, so perhaps she's onto something. I'm all for it.  Move over, Elsa Klensch, and Kojo better watch his back. Tavi might actually steal his job away from him, neatly as you can say pie.

What were you doing when you were thirteen?

Altar Cherries

Martha Lambertus (not her real name) is a friend of my dear old Mom, and I sometimes wonder what it is that they have in common other than their sexagenarian vadges, church, and fondness for lecithin capsules, because I can't see it.  Mom is trendy, glamorous (partly courtesy from my assistance and if this makes me sort of creepy then too bad for you), whilst Martha probably hasn't seen a mirror since they were made from obsidian in Anatolia which, if you didn't know your history, is what we now know as Turkey, and still remains a place I have no interest to go to thanks to Billy Hayes, Midnight Express, and Oliver Stone.  I try not to give Martha any pointers because whenever I she comes to visit I need some material to discuss once she makes an about-face and goes to the bathroom to touch up her face (again, a mystery to me, since she's reached a look that's beyond repair, which does not apply to my mom who seems to have frozen in time and not because of any cosmetic work.  She just ages well.).

But anyway.  Martha came one sunny afternoon to kill some time with Mom and engage in their usual small talk over Cafe Bustelo coffee which puts Starbucks to shame.  I'm meandering in and out with my mind firmly planted in some pornographic story I'm attempting to write and can't seem to get past the moment the pizza delivery boy arrives with a hard-on, those impossible looks, and the dirtiest grin even a gentleman club-going lecher couldn't produce.

Of course, I'm not deaf, and here's where the story gets where it has to while the actual one I wrote took days to fabricate (who knew?): Martha belongs to a Catholic ezine.  Yes, they have them.  And if you must know, they're as nutty as you would think they would be, with contributors yammering endlessly about the "love of God" and all that bullshit.  Martha is sipping her Bustelo coffee and going on and on about how "hackers" broke into the site and placed some of the most indecent pictures on it and that she was incensed, angered, and could not believe how evil could be.

Leave it to me to break into the conversation because, well, I was hoping to induce Martha into an early hospital.  "You know what, Martha?"  My Mom cringed, because she knew it was coming, and she began saying something but I ignored it.  "I'm shocked.  Shocked!"

"I know!  It's sinful!"

"Ivan, don't you---?"

Me, overlapping Mom, to Martha: "It's terrible and makes me want to go out and kill someone.  But you know what's even more disgusting?  Priests who hate on gays getting married and the little altar boys they make sure they molest to high heaven because they're so repressed they can't have sex with one another and need to prey on weaker people.  Ain't that sad?  A little boy getting his cherry popped by a man in a robe?"

And I walked away, giggling.  Mom's too old to whack me on the face so that wasn't going to happen, but she kindly directed me to my guest-room, mortified but trying to hide it, as Martha sat there in uncomfortable silence, sipping her coffee, possibly wishing she hadn't come while I was in the house.  Eh, she'll get over it.  Or she'll stab her eyes out.  She should know me already.  I think?  Eh, whatever.

Quoth the Brenda

I don't like Mondays.

No, I really, really don't. Which is odd because I trudge to work on Sundays, but I'm mercifully on my own and not at the clutches of a frozen smile and a ready-to-serve attitude, decked to the nines and with The Man's arm elbow-deep up my ass without lube or even a warning.

But Mondays are the worst. They're the day God made to make Man groan in his comfy bed, twist and turn as the alarm strikes "GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED AND DON'T HIT SNOOZE!"; they're the reason I sometimes look at the ceiling, my right hand still semi clutching my manlies, and think "oh maybe I can rub one out and ease the shock".

Mondays are the reason I rolled out of my bed, ate Chinese-red carpet (yum, synthetic fiber with my own flakes of skin, so tasty!), crawled into the bathroom, saw the horrorshow that was my face, and proceeded to painfully primp up, all the time longingly looking at the sky for a sign---anything---of a snow day. Frantic, I grabbed the iPhone and tapped. No, there was no message on my answering machine at work from the broadcast system. No, not a drop of snow. Meanwhile, folks down South were comfortably snoozing away, possibly entertaining of a day filled with sloth.

I hobbled into my office, a man of ninety covered in heavy clothes and insulate and misery, coffee in hand, and when I saw Clueless I almost accidentally threw it at her face, but that's because she was wearing too much make-up at seven in the morning and singing like she finally got some from a real straight guy, not the ones she thought were straight or that manly woman who serves coffee at the Starbucks. People came up to me and I growled. I barked. I produced enough saliva to make sure I looked rabid. And the seconds became minutes became hours became eternal.

Brenda Spencer would commiserate with me. Then again, she expressed her dislike in an entirely different way and isn't doing so well. I just white-knuckled it and prayed for five o'clock.

Bad Television Night

Hallmark.  It's estrogen gone bonkers.

Leave it to me to be stuck on a Saturday night watching bad television and eating pizza when I should have been out, at the gym, possibly on my way to View or Gymbar, or possibly wrapped around like a pretzel around a hunk of a man who could whisper the dirtiest things to my wanton ears and send me spinning like a top into Funkytown.  As if my earlier position weren't compromising enough already, but that's Jose Antonio's fault.

Although it wasn't all too tragic.  At the time of this writing The Soup wasn't on yet and I shifted aimlessly.  Who knew that having a fraction under 1000 channels could yield... nothing?  I kept wondering if Sarah Palin had invaded the networks, because she, like her vagina, yields nothing.  Not an inch.  Not even her retro hairdo that's a cheap Audrey Hepburn imitation and is more suited for a more feminine woman.

But I digress, not shockingly so.  I flipped channels and wouldn't you know, CBS had something from its Hallmark Hall of Fame special, which is code for "Estrogen Gone Bonkers".  It's, yawn included, based on a true story, and of course that means it's going to have a sappy, happy ending and we who watch it might as well bring out a truckload of Kleenex and blow our noses raw and dab our eyes red 'til they're glued shut from our very own tears.


Because this time it was the story of Brad Cohen, a young man with Tourette Syndrome who climbed from the mires of his hard childhood into the very top of success.  While all that is fine and dandy and worthy of praise, it's usually the production values that are the horrorshow here.  I had a difficult time reconciling with the fact that Patricia "Everybody Loves Raymond" Heaton,  a redhead with the most sharp verbal deliveries and facial expressions (one stare as Debra Barone and she could reduce Ray Romano's Ray Barone to blubber) was under a black wig in the style of Megan Mullaly's current do and looked, well, like her character in "Raymond" should have looked---frumpy, dumpy, and plainly unattractive.  A real housewife.  With lines on her face.


I kept wondering about Miss Heaton.  How she struggled with getting into character and truly acting out the part in one of the movie's more dramatic scenes. 

I can see the director telling her:

"Now, Patricia... I need you to be completely devastated in this scene.  Your son has is going through an incredibly hard time due to his Tourette's and you can't tolerate it.  Dig deep into your pain... something traumatic.  Focus on Everybody Loves Raymond.  Think of how comfortable you were.  How you were at the top of the world.  A hit show.  Big bucks.  And now, it's all... gone... and you're back in Hollywood limbo, wondering will you ever have another hit."

Of course I shouldn't be that mean.  She's gone to do "The Middle" which is growing to be a success.  But I couldn't help throwing that little dart into her face as she emoted quite well, possibly because she for once is off the botox and can actually emote.  Allegedly.

I didn't stay long to see the conclusion of this telefilm.  I assume Brad Cohen made it through, and thus became a motivational speaker for those who've had Tourettes with the usual, "if I can make it you can make it" message that sorry, means nothing to me anymore.  So I flipped channels yet again.

And wound up on Discovery ID's newest venture into the paranormal: "Living with the Dead".  It follows the same, dried up premise of every other ghost hunter show I've seen: a team comes to a house that is purported to be haunted and experiences disturbing brushes with freak-outs.  That's not the scary part.  It's the Sherri Shepard wannabe that yells and rants and raves and displays Patti LaBelle hair even Patti would be embarrassed to admit she once wore circa the days of "On My Own".

Five minutes later, I was pretty much done.  I blamed it on the Light and Fit commercial with Heidi Klum at her piggish worst that manages to gross me out---but not more so than the fascination the brunette sitting by her who can't seem to mind her own fucking business.  "I love Light and Fit, indeed.

One last observation: does Seal sometimes ask her to probe him up the arse with her finger full of that mess?  As he sings "Kiss from a Rose"?

Lil' Bites

Something Happened on the Way to New York

Does anyone know where the genteel folk of the Westboro Baptist Church plan on converging, or what honorable soldier's funeral they plan on desecrating with their lovely picketing?  'Cos I have a beef.  Not with them---they're mainly unimportant, hatemongers---but with snow.  I even made a pretty big sign shaped like a penis in case I needed to whip that thing out and counter-protest.  It goes: "DEAR SAM CHAMPION: YOU ABANDONED ME... SNOW DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMOAH!"  You see, the forecasts had it that Washington DC would get covered under 30 inches of the white stuff.  The folks in Philly got slammed, too.  But NYC?  Of course we did.  It's just invisible.  I know, I had to mime digging my way out of my house to take out the garbage.  'Cos if you look real hard---

Oh, what am I talking about.  Trying to spot snow in NYC on February the 6th is like trying to find the real Waldo in a sea of fake Waldos.  It ain't there, because somewhere along the line from Philly to Newark to NYC it evaporated or ran out of steam, like a very portly jogger who just gave up and sat there on the side of the road waiting to be picked up by a trucker on the way to an IHOP.  Oh, great: now I'm suddenly craving a greasy pile of pancakes slathered in maple syrup, served by a grumpy waitress with missing teeth, a black eye, and bad 80s hair.

Stuck in the Middle With You

Speaking on the snow that never came, I'm going to have to hand it to my friend Jose Antonio who, while he's a very charitable person, has the worst timing possible.  Or maybe I have ADD and just forgot.  Either way, it was a predicament for the both of us.

You see, we'd arranged to meet at my place and I'd give him two huge bags with ten years worth of [designer] clothing that he'd further on to Haiti, although what they'd be doing with long sleeved henleys and corduroys is beyond me.  [Don't look at me like that.  I live in a climate that has four seasons.  When I give, I don't label: I just throw it all away and never bother to classify it or see where it might be of good use.  I'm too busy.]

When he called I was in a compromising position.  On top of my current squeeze whom I'll call Studmuffin, who happens to be (for now) the hottest thing I've laid my eyes and body on.  Now, why I'd have a cell phone with me when I'm deeply impaled in Studmuffin's peninsula is something I've never debated.  Leave it to the fact that I like having my phone near me, even when technically, I shouldn't.  Because now Jose Antonio was calling.  He was here, outside my door in the cold, and could I let him in?

"Um, I'm busy.  Would you mind letting me finish?"

"Doing what?"

"Fucking.  What else did you think I was doing?"

"Are you for real?  It's cold out here.  Just throw the bags out the window."

"I'm not a drug dealer.  And I think I may be stuck if you know what I mean.  Unless you wanna come up here and detach me."

"Just get the fuck down here and give me the goddamn bags!"

"Oh, alright, alright.  You're so testy.  Give me a minute."  To Studmuffin: "Don't you move."  It's not like he was going anywhere.  His arms were tied to the headboard.  "Think happy thoughts!" I chimed.

Needless to say I didn't bother getting dressed.  Seeing a man walking out into the street in his birthday suit lugging two large carry-on bags is not the kind of thing Ogden Avenue was prepared to see, but then again, I have a fantastic body with an ass to die for.  They can deal with it.

Manimals

So can some straight people.

Do some straight men think that when I friend request them on Facebook which has now become the networking giant de rigueur I'm in some way shape or form trying to get then into bed with me?  Because that is the vibe I keep getting, unless perhaps I'm sorely mistaken.

See, I'm not an idiot.  I didn't just fall out of my mother's distended vagina last night, although on occasions I think perhaps I may have, but that's because I just had sardines and the stench lingers.  But I am quite aware that there seems to be some inherent fear of being guilty by association---if I friend Ivan, that flaming queer, others on my contact list will probably think I'm a queer too.  But of course it will, I mean, we're like spores, pod people.  Converting mere mortals is our main purpose in life.  Better get used to it.  At least it'll give you a better perspective on good taste which you're clearly lacking because of your tight-ass, and I don't mean it in a good way.  You should be so lucky to be in my social circles, you NFL-loving, Coors drinking manimal.  Get over yourself.

Cack the Cuckold

It's Valentine month, I'm on the edge of my thirties, single, and wondering who will I meet next who will raise my terror alert level from yellow to "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE OR I WILL RAM MY FIST DOWN YOUR THROAT AND NO, YOU WON'T LIKE IT."  Because if you must know, I tend to attract the wrong kind of man, and the right kind always seems to be, like the horizon, just out of reach but perpetually smiling at me with eyes of blue hinting at a knowing wink, a thatch of gold on his crown, skin as bronze as honey, and mus-Q-les that delineate what God created for my enjoyment.  I can almost hear Him chuckling to himself as he mutters to the Son and the Holy Ghost: "Poor Ivan.  All his life he's been on the short end of the stick and at the end of one of my abortions' shorter sticks.  I see I'm getting him aggravated; he's reenacting the scene of those ghosts in Jacob's Ladder, shaking his head uncontrollably, all a fit of rage and for once, Lucifer didn't have a thing to do with it.  Oh, hell---pun intended---I'm bored shitless.  Let me turn up the notch and send him a real corker.  You know?  One of those."

Linsday Lohan is apparently luckier than I am.  She is also, it seems, back to men, although this time it's some septuagenarian coot from Austria named Richard Lugner whom she will be accompanying to the Vienna Opera next week.  It seems he has a penchant for Dull Young Things, since Lohan isn't the first, but the latest in a string of 'em (Paris Hilton calls to mind).

Now, why can't I meet one like that?  God only knows I'm tired of working for The Man.  I was meant for Higher Things.  I was destined to live in an ultra-modern pad overlooking a fabulous skyline, mingling with the A-people, never traveling coach but private and a bevy of maids for each purpose including feeding me, bathing me, and even reading me a bedtime story and making sure there are no pedophiles in the closet glaring down at me.

I can see it now: I'm introduced to Oldie Hawn via a friend and we meet for drinks at a quiet cafe because it's off the gay path, and by that I mean Chelsea on 8th Avenue.  Also, it provides me with ample time to make my move without any prying eyes.  We create the talk, we share wine, and I ensure every aspect of me is standing at attention, and by that I mean his feeble eyes.  Speaking of pedophiles, I tell him I'm twelve in case he's into that.  A courtship ensues, and after a tournament of Cialis-induced sex that leaves him less and less able to resist my charms and more inclined to leave me lovely checks filled with the most wonderful numbers or rare tokens and (yes!) his assets (in case he should die his terrible family won't get the benefits), we finally seal the deal... and I have my Place in the City.

Of course, little does he wot.  One night Oldie arrives with champagne and the intention of consummating our bliss which to me has become a geriatric nightmare.  I'm all sweetness and complacency, dressed in little more than a thong and a sprayed on tan that make his heart go bang.  Measuring and waiting, making it look like love.

Until I'm right behind him; then the baseball comes out.  As he turns to toast I scream at the top of my lungs, "Happy Valentine's Day, motherfucker!  This is how much I love you!!"  And I send him off to meet our Maker who has been having a ball of a time at my expense.  And Juanita the maid gets it, doing forty years in Sing Sing, because the blonde hunk of a detective investigating the case saw how impossible it was for lil' ole' me to be such a bitch... and he got a taste of what's under my tight jeans, and can't face the fact he has to go back to his old bag of a wife and her now suddenly disgusting femininity and is starting to call me in the middle of the night wanting to stop over "just to see that I'm fine."  Who am I do deny him?  He should come over.  It's a harsh city, you know.  Don't look at me like that, Giuliani and Bloomberg might have cleaned it spotless but in my head it's still not a place for a lamb like me, lost in the concrete jungle.  As I open the door, Mario comes in full of desire and passion and I'm not going to tell you the rest.  Are you kidding?  I have morals.

Love is in the air....

Fear and a Sexy Beast in Amityville

One of the main elements of remakes nowadays is the fact that instead of attempting to create anything that improves upon the original, directors now attempt to sex it up to a point that you forget what it was you were watching and find yourself reaching for the lube and calling your nearest buddy because Yellowstone is aching for release.

I never cared for the original Amityville Horror back when it came out in theatres, although the book, truth or a balls-out lie, is a nifty read you won't forget after you've read the last sentence, which far from being memorable, is plain final.  Think The Shining without the resonance (...and the long darkness was over.) which even then was as cliche, but gave Stephen King's book a haunting coda.  It actually makes you want to read the fucking thing all over again.  Thanks, Mr. King.  Thanks for scaring me shitless and never being able to walk long hallways without turning my head ever so slightly around, half-hoping to see---

Ryan Reynolds?  Huh?  What is he doing in here?  And nearly naked, oh my gay!  Oh, right.  See, Amityville went from being "that house" to becoming quite the money maker over three decades as it devolved into a mass of silly putty and never once made it past the glass doors of a video rental store, or late-night Cinemax.

Then came 2005.  Trailers peppered the promos everywhere, with the freak-out effects of J-Horror.  It was back.  One last time.

To be frank, the movie is adequate while as stupid as Paris Hilton's hair weave.  Uh, creepy house?  Why not move out?  Why not throw in buckets of camphor and rock salt and bring in an armada of psychics with the recently deceased Zelda Rubinstein leading them all with her little girl voice?  After all, don't these creatures want to go into the light?

Pity Reynolds' body didn't, leaving us panting.  You should see how much time the movie devotes into seeing him in the most form-fitting outfits meant to recreate 1975 fashion with a decidedly 00's feel (come on, no one was that chiseled back then unless you were Jackie Chan).  I bet my bottom dollar that director is as straight as Richard Simmons is a raging womanizer, cock dripping to plant his seed and father stud-babies.  [Okay.  Freaky.  Stop it, Ivan.]

 

Get away from him you BITCH!

And as the "terror" escalates, Reynolds' clothes come progressively off.  What is this new version of The Amityville Horror trying to tell me?  That perhaps Reynolds, even though he is so far as I know as straight as Right Wing America, might be flirting with disaster and freaked out at what he missed by not getting on the Gay Float?  Could Melissa George's slinky-dinky be the real reason behind the horror?  Perhaps she asked Reynolds to open her up like a pair of fat woman's thunder thighs and taste the petals within?  Think about it.  Nineteen-seventy five.  People were hairy then, even women.  Greasy.  Perhaps this version is a sci-fi movie where Reynolds time-traveled and saw he could not reconcile with becoming another Mike Brady clone (gay innuendo included), and the only way out was going bonkers?

Oh, who cares, really.  Anytime the camera focused on his entire physique (which is, oh, the entire movie), I was panting heavily and sweating.  I was randy.  I was ready to jump into that pool and rip him to shreds.  I was hoping Melissa George would meet a tragic end---something a la Omen, very over-the-top, and he'd meet The Man of His Wet Dreams, and they'd be the First Gay Dads to raise an entire litter by themselves.  I'm sure the house would approve.

I knew I did.  That man could easily swing that hatchet he used to hack the dog to pieces on me and I'd go with a piggish smile on my face.  Lucky dog.

[Does anyone know if Ryan Reynolds is still married to what's her name?  I have a marriage to break up.  One ride in my Little Red Corvette and he will never remember what a clunker that disgusting man trapper is.  Nope.  Mine is much, much tighter.  And I have powerful sphincter muscles.  I could snap a spoon in two and make a man's eyeballs roll right to the back of his eyes and reduce him to a mass of blubber.  And if he wants to close his eyes and call me Scarlett, I don't care.]

I Heart New York

Allyson's a real peach of a girl, sweet, wholesome, and totally clueless about most things---but not like Clueless; she's in a wholly different ball game altogether.  She's tall, graceful, and literally reeks of Gwyneth Paltrow down to the girlish, ethereal looks with a hint of steel in them.  Unfortunately, the only steel I'm interested in is in her husband, the dark and brooding man I like to call Heathcliff.

Heathcliff is of a flavor I like to call "deliciously German", with the squarest of faces and a uber-masculinity about himself that makes my cell-phone go ping!  Please note; I never don't go after straight men, I find no reason to indulge in an exercise in futility, I'm not into "converting"... but I can still indulge in fantasy sequences.  Like coming out of Bergdorf with seventeen shopping bags positively infested with sheer grandiosity, or one of those luxurious apartments overlooking the Hudson.  Think 77 Hudson and you got the idea.

Window shopping of a kind you can't sink your incisors in and go "crunch!"

I would, however, love to sink my teeth into Heathcliff's posterior.  Deep.  Tattoo my 32 pearly whites unto all that good, wholesome whiteness.  Good God, that man has the tiniest of waists supporting a massive back, huge shoulders, twin slabs of pectorals and arms that could choke-hold the air out of me, and he has to be as tightly spaced between his bubble-butt as those Inca temples where you cannot, no matter how hard you try, to fit in a razor blade.  And to think I've been so close to it in the locker room at the (mostly straight gym) where we work out.  So... close.  Close enough to reach out with my hands, spread that thing out, and---

"Hey! Were you even listening to what I just said?"

Allyson.  Snapping her alabaster fingers right in front of my nose as we had lunch in **** Cafe which overlooks Hoboken and offers a pristine view of Manhattan Island from the GW Bridge to the Liberty Lady.  No, I wasn't.  "Uh, yeah... wait, could you repeat that?"

"I knew it.  You were far away, man..."

Honey, you have no clue as to how far.   And you don't wanna know.

"Well, then, just hit rewind and I'll be all ears."



"I was saying that I love this view of the City... the way the skyline has two humps..."

"Oh, yeah.  Well, it looks like two concrete teats just laying there, hoping for some dude to sweep down and suck away!"

"Do you ever have your mind out of the gutter?  Good, God!"

"God had nothing to do with what we're seeing.  And if you must know, no."

"I mean, it's so pretty, you know? To watch all that majestic architecture from a distance... thank God I'm not in it, though."

"Oh, I love it. I love being all over it... inside, outside, under and over."

"Yeah, but you know... we went there, my hubby and I, and we spent a fortune just going to dinner.  You  know how it is, even for a simple trip to the art gallery you have to pay an arm and leg."

"Well, it is New York.  And you don't have to donate a spleen to have fun, you know.  Plenty of art galleries on the West Side and SoHo to go around.  It's not all the Guggenheim or MoMA."

"Well, aren't the world's greatest artists shown there?"

"Yeah, but you can go and see some really avant-garde art anyplace."

"I'm just so sick of it, you know?  Having to spend all that money on just about everything.  I mean, what's the gig about?  Even a subway token costs almost three dollars."

"So?  We deal with it.  It's New York, after all."

"Yeah, but it gets old after awhile... doesn't it?  I mean, all that compressed living, the people, the way you almost have to run to get from one area to the next... right?"

"No, why should it?  I find all that exciting."

Allyson gave me this look that clearly spelled out "Nah-uh!" and then I wondered, what happened from her cheerful disposition in the beginning to the borderline animosity towards my city?  My City?  So I interjected, only because I had to:

"Well, all I can say is New York City is one of the most fantastic places anyone can go to.  It's my City, and I came back here because it's where I'm from.  Maybe not where I'll die, but in the meantime... it's It."

"Oh, don't tell me you're one of those!"

"Those what?"

"You know, those people who think that New York is the best city in the world."

"Uh, yeah.  I call it the City with a capital C because it is to me!"

"Yeah, but there are other cities, like Chicago, for example.  New York is not where it's all at."

"Well, when the Stock Exchange decides to open up shop there, when Fashion with a capital F also decides to throw seasonal shows, and when terrorists decide to nuke the Sears Roebuck---then we'll call it a truce.  So far, New York is the greatest city in the world.  Even the enemy knows it---that's why they sought us out first.  Not Chi City."

I love Allyson, but she was aggravating me in a way she could never understand.  Then again, she's from Smallville, Indiana, which says a lot.  Sheltered to ridiculous degrees, married to her childhood sweetheart (who is an avid Bible reader; yes, under all that muscle Heathcliff reads The Book, oh what a waste), and working in New York City while pining for a Life Less Complicated.  In a way, I would like the same---to migrate perhaps down south to Atlanta, to move inwards to New Hope or yes, even Chicago, to rediscover where I left my heart in [San Francisco], but nope.  I think this is it for me.  Ever since I saw my first Woody Allen picture, with his beloved upper crust neurotics babbling the stuff only the intelligentsia could perceive under the aegis of Central Park or W 63rd Street, I knew I was hooked and here was where I wanted to be.  Ever since I grabbed my first copy of The New Yorker when I was in high school, I knew it.  And anyone who doesn't like New York City and its idiosyncrasies can bite me and fuck off.