Not So Soft

I've always had a man-crush/soft spot for Andy Bick, also known as Zeb Atlas in certain circles, and by that I mean the obvious: gay porn.

And while I'm sure he might be less inclined to read "The New Yorker" from cover to cover (cartoons included) or keenly explain every detail of the 111th Congress on C-SPAN, something about the guy.  I can't place my finger on it.  I would, however, love to place my special finger, or tongue on his special place.  You figure that one out, because I'm not even sure where or what that might be.  I am, however, a great investigator.

So, this rainy night, I'm going to share a little bit of Zeb with anyone who decides to pop in.  Or plug it in.  Whatever your persuasion; it's a free country and that if what the Internet is for: personal gratification.  Now, if only that came with the 42 million dollars I'd like to win at a Vegas casino.  A girl can dream....

And of course, I don't lay claim to these pictures as I found them on the Net so if they're yours I'd be happy to delete them.

I'll order that with a side of gnocchis in vodka sauce, please.

Stating the Blatantly Obvious

What a mood killer.  No, really.  It never fails.  You know when you're at this swanky cocktail party thrown by your friend who lives on that unattainable yet ultra-sleek high-rise overlooking Central Park, everything is going g-r-r-r-reat, you're making good contacts, moving along the crowd with effortless grace, you've even managed to make out a little in the bathroom with What's-his-name who's telephone you managed to bag even when you know you'll never call... and then, just at moment you're about to leave to hit the bars for a night of debauchery amongst go-go dancers, bar hoppers, and drag performers handing out prizes to the lucky ones... the drunken, uber-lonely, homely girl with the horn rimmed glasses and the three chins who for the entire night has tried way too hard to muscle herself into the eyes of the cute but nerdy college guy sporting preppy overkill and hasn't realized he's long left with his pals to play World of Warcraft at his tiny apartment and now all she has left are glass after glass of hard liquor has decided to sing.  Yes, si-i-ing.  And wouldn't you have it, the tune she picks isn't any tune, oh, no.  It's none other than the mother of all belters: "I Will Always Love You" as sung by Whitney Houston, pre-crack, voice still marvelously intact and at its most glorious.  Of course, the host tells you to please stay (even though his eyes are trying too hard to hide the impending terror and minute beads of sweat are forming on his brow, because he had to invite her---she's his socially awkward sister)... and then she begins to exhibit her croak in full display.  To a collective halt as the unwilling audience goes silent.  One interminable, Begmaneque moment.

Right before the climactic "youuuuuuuu!!!!" she passes out, eyes rolling backwards, face a grotesque shade of burgundy and blue, her cheek hitting the hardwood with an audible crack! as she twitches a little as if imitating prodded cattle... or a turkey at the edge of death, its neck snapped.  Perhaps this is karma for attempting karaoke when not at her most lucid because when you think of it, no one held a gun to her temple.  We're the ones forced to live through  it and then smile and carry on.  That in itself is traumatic.  And anyway, only one woman can truly belt that tune out, whacked-out crack, bad wig and fond memories of "Bobbay!!!"

At least she doesn't drown in her own upchuck, so I guess this means there is a happy ending.  I love parties.  And of course, now I have no idea where I was going with this, but I guess somehow I'll tie it in with the fact that Ricky Martin, former Latin pop star, decided after all this time to come out of the closet.  You know, that mental thing that cripples most gay celebrities compulsively hanging out with brainless starlets or total complacent dogs when all this time they're wishing and hoping for man-flesh?  Yeah, that.  I mean, who saw that one coming?  Who?

Certainly not him.

Wired for Sex

I forgot where I read it.  Must have been something on AOL News or Lemondrop, but I was sober enough to remember what it was about and that it was definitely not Foreign Affairs, a magazine I read only when I'm forced to look and sound so uber-intelligent I could knock it clear out of the ball-park with one extremely convoluted sentence packed with so much verbiage you'd think the Second Coming had arrived and He was lil' ole' me, The Head Spoketh.  Enunciations more painfully complicated than the spectacle of a Latina quinceañera trying to fit into a dress four sizes too small.  So yeah, let's say it was AOL News and that I wasn't seeing double.  The (third) Chardonnay hadn't pummeled me yet into a blubbering mess.  I was still on Earth.  Staring at cyberspace.

Apparently, men's brains are wired for sex after all.  It's not their fault.  And all this time, women have had it dead wrong.  ADIDAS does rule inside a man's cranium.  I didn't know if I should raise my arms in sheer exasperation and yell "Thank you!" to the LCD monitor and resume what every man does when he's in the privacy of his own domain: whip it out and go to la-la-land while sitting on a butt plug (what, you don't? Oh... too bad for you then), or perhaps contact some geeky scientist who hasn't had sex since his parents made him in under the aegis of repression, clueless about each other, and a ticking clock and interrogate the hell out of him as to how did he manage to come up with such an original concept.  Of course, as I stared into my monitor I dimly realized it could care less what my point of view was... although it's probably grinning from ear to ear with the indecent amount of porn I've placed on its smooth surface and I think once or twice I heard some weird spurts and starts and you're not gonna tell me that cable connection doesn't have an extra jack where it can plug and supercharge itself until I either see the blue screen of death or the lights spark and flash white all over my house, blowing the bulbs out, temporarily blinding me, and then fade to black as I hear a slutty sigh of relief from my desk.  And feel my mind suddenly zooming towards that movie where the ventriloquist's doll came to life and ruined Anthony Hopkins' life.

Magic.

Uh-oh... it's magic!

(Now you see Zeb now you don't)

Now you're in bed jerking off, then you're flying under a bevy of Colt men, and definitely not getting your nails done as a faint Koren accent ululates some uninteresting story in perfectly chinky English.  Men... what a word.  Short, direct, to the point.  Much like my laptop, sputtering and short-circuiting as I lie in bed and images materialize in front of it.  They're coming for you, Barbara, indeed.  Bring 'em on!  Pod people can cocoon me in spooge and take over!  Take it all!  Take it all!  Take it a-a-a-awll!

Oh, I should know better; my computer isn't out to live my life... although judging from my online persona, apparently, I've got quite the alter ego.  And to think I almost became an altar boy.  Oh, the possibilities of perversion, my little party inside my head.

But it's quite a raunchy mind and it honors that lame discovery.  Loud.  Vulgar to no avail.  Little Voice, big fucker.  Who knew?

Creep

You know what?  It's probably me.  It definitely has to be me.  There's just no other explanation.

Spring rain should bring people together, right?  You would think so.  Of course, in a perfect world two men in love or lust or both would be running towards an underpass or a large awning and taking refuge under it while standing so close as to raise an eyebrow or cause a chuckle.

Not me.  I was home trying to ward off another intruder.  And the onset of the massive nor' easter that brought so much rain that I was wondering when Noah and his Ark full of allegedly heterosexual animals would make his appearance didn't exactly seemed to conspire with me; everyone else's plans were canceling left and right, people were grumpy, others were pumping water out of their basements, others were stranded in chest-deep water in impassable roads, airports were practically inoperable, hotels were piling up with refugees seeking higher ground and drier rooms, Hoboken was a mini-Venice.

Me?

Home, happily boarded up like a disease, listening to Sirius radio, dreading an appointment I had made several days earlier to meet a guy I'll call Ron at the gym.  Now, Ron is one of those guys you meet and you can't place your finger on it, but aside from there being little to no chemistry beyond the first grope in a semi-public place---mine took in the fitting rooms at Macy's and, as the saying goes, what happens in the fitting room of a department store should stay there---there's something a little "off" about him.  You make your polite exit, not really expecting anything else other than what it was, but it seems, he has made up his mind and is eyeballing you for his Next Conquest.

Now, I'm not one to disregard someone's attentions and advances, but being someone who survived physical abuse, stalking, and date rape at the hand of one lunatic at 21 and then the more subtle emotional/mental abuse with a clever diplomat who shall remain nameless shortly thereafter, you keep scars in a little black box hidden in the top shelf of your closet, only to rarely peek into it as a reminder.  Not that I carry mine as if they were medals, but I learned.  Anyone who manifests possessiveness and tries to insinuate himself into my life will be unmistakably get caught under my extremely critical eye and promptly weeded out.  Of course, you can't tell them "You know, Frank, you're coming kinda strong.  Tone it down a notch because last I heard we haven't exchanged vows, and by the looks of it, we're not gonna, anytime soon, okay?"  You just can't.  They can't see it, so you always revert to "You know... it's not you.  No, really.  It's not.  It's me.  I'm the problem.  I'm the one with ginormous issues.  Yeah.  Everyone tells me I need therapy."  And you shake yourself free of the lint, moving gleefully towards the next dysfunctional creep waiting outside in line.  Rinse and repeat.  Until Mr. Right comes along.

Ron is just that and then some.  Thankfully my instincts never let me go past the "let's meet" which always ended up with someone not being able to, and I never could figure out why I always clammed up when he sent me a text message.  You could almost hear my ass muscles slamming shut and my balls creeping all the way to my crotch---I might as well have been a eunuch.  The feeling of being sucker-punched would follow as would this sensation of being surrounded by little tendrils tickling me all over and draining me slowly but surely.

So of course, this time I thought it would be perfect.  I'd bail out and this time, for good.  My instincts were telling me it wasn't going to happen, and I just could not see myself sharing bodily fluids in private, let alone on my bed.  There was this huge blockage, and it was signaling warning signs, all bright yellow, and blinding.

Even more so when he texted me that morning, Saturday the 13th, the day it rained an ocean.

Ron:  hey studly
Me:  hey
Ron:  how are you? ready for a slamming workout?
Me: I'm very tired.
Ron: well be ready because I'm leaving here at 12 and I'll be there before 1

Basically, this was an ambush.  Ron had manifested zero concern that I'd said I was tired.  And in a way, I was... I'd spent the night watching movies downstairs with my housemates Bob and Vic.  But fuck, it was friggin' raining.  Raining!  Not just, it was a fuckin' storm out there!  Was it so necessary to go to a gym to work out?

Inside, my mind raced.  A little voice kept telling me
(you know he just wants to come over and 'hang out' with you, which means he wants a quickie and then the gym right?)

and I doubled over.  I couldn't.  This wasn't going to happen at all.

So I lay down, trying to meditate.  Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad.  I mean, he's short, barely 5 feet 6, what harm can he do to me?

None... except that something was truly wrong with this picture.  I could feel it all over.  The air was just... thick with it.

And then, thank God, my indignation came and paid me a visit.  "Why are you letting this loser push himself onto you, Ivan?  What the fuck?  Don't you know that people like this if they get their way will make your life pretty miserable if you go out with someone else?  In his eyes, you're his.  And there are crucial things you don't know about him.  Herein lies the problem.  His, not yours.  You're fine.  You show him how much of a bitch you are."

That got me riled up.  I jumped out of my seat, and wouldn't you know, there was the call, and he was walking my way in the rain, up my block.  I came out, resolute and icing myself up---Hitch would love me if I were female; I'd be the perfect blonde---and when I saw him I had to restrain myself.  Not because he was built like a bodybuilder right before competition.

His jeans were too tight.  His long-sleeved muscle shirt was an exercise in "I'm still 25 and hot!" and showed his muscles obscenely.  The skull cap was closer to a do-rag, and looked pathetic.

In short, Ron was a 54 year old loser trying to impress me with his body and I was already giving him the thumbs down and he wasn't even up the stairs yet.

Because of course, that had been his intention all along.  I stood in the foyer and he double-stepped his way up the stairs.  I showed him up, coolly, only because I still had to pack my knapsack that I'd purposely not packed yet.  He stood in my living room, chewing gum like a cheap hooker, arms outstretched, and said, "Well!  Aren't ya gonna hug me??"

"Uh, I said hello, but okay."  The words couldn't have been more perfunctory.  And I went and gave him a stiff hug; then I resumed my packing as I was nearly done.

If Ron had had any intentions of perhaps a little grabfest it died there and then because I walked out of the room, into the hall, and proceeded to go down the stairs.  He reluctantly moved.  "Well?  I'm on my way out; let's do this."  I wondered if he could grasp the venom that was in my voice.  I wasn't trying to hide it inasmuch as let it out casually.  You want a workout, you fucker?  We're gonna have one... and I'll be one insufferable bitch.

And that is exactly what happened.  Oh, he kept acting hyper-sensitive with his "Are you OK?  No, are you sure you're OK?  I don't you well and I'm not sure if you're angry or not,"  as I responded with my "Oh, I'm fine... I'm just a bit hung over."

"Oh?  You were drinking?"

"Yeah..."

"With whom?"

"None of your business," I smiled, and looked dead ahead.

I sensed suspicion on his behalf---I'd had drinks with someone else, with whom?  I knew that look, the insecure but angry frown, the way he clenched his hands on the steering wheel.  Oh, dude, if you only had a clue---but I was decided to make this day a living hell.

"We don't have to go to the gym, you know."  A pause.  "We could go back to your place---"

"We're working out.  Shoulders, remember?  I want you to teach me to have a real shoulder work out."

"Uh, yeah... right..."

"Alrighty..."  I smiled again.  The temperature dropped ten more degrees inside the confines of Ron's car.

The next hour and a half was the longest I've ever had in any gym, cardio included.  Mick, the owner, kept stealing looks of "What's the mattah?" at me, but I was pretty much beyond that.  I was making my point.  I'd make him spot me, then pretty much hoist the bar by himself at one point.  I'd be continually talking on the phone with friends (or no one; I can have mock conversations like no other), and thankfully, a gym-buddy of mine, Shem, came up to me and we began having quite a chat and I knew this was eating Ron up because he actually came, separated us, and said, "Uh, shrugs?"  To which I responded, "Oh, in a minute.  I'll be there." You want to take me out of my house and have your way?  No problemo, Mister Burger King.  Only my meat comes pretty sour and squirts tainted blood.

Once we were done, Ron began making excuses to want to go back to my area.  "Isn't there a Subway around your house?"

"No, but there is one on Grove."

"Yeah, but..."

"Any reason it has to be near my place?  Because I'm actually going to the mall.  You're more than welcome to come, you know."

That did it.  Something in his face broke.  Oh, he didn't go into a flying rage or create a scene under the torrential rain.  He just glowered at me like, "You knew all this time we weren't going to play, right?"  Mine said, "Why Ron, however did you get that idea?"

He said, "Oh, well.  Seems like I'm going to have to go to New York to meet a client."  He's a massage therapist.  In my book, that's also another red flag.  Any man who barely has the means to support himself but has time to give some stranger a massage is a creep in the works and will be sent packing.  Without a happy ending.  He can download my pictures from the Internet and jerk one off for all I care.  This waltz was over.

"Good bye, Ron."

I left him standing in the rain and took the train to Newport where I crept into the theatre and saw Alice in Wonderland.  Not too wondrous.  But it was a good escape from the torture I'd been put through.  Quietly, I removed all vestiges from Ron's presence in my phone, Facebook, and let my afternoon move into a drier, more comfortable evening.

Toon Damn Hot!!

 
Funny how you never quite realize something until it hits you smack in the face.

Tonight, instead of walking 'round the City as the temps hovered, pleasant, parked at a neat 60 degrees, I stayed home with my housemates Bob and Vic and watched Planet 51.  While nothing like the brilliant Up!---and as of this entry I've yet to see the ubiquitous Avatar---it holds its own, a simple ET in reverse where instead of a Mr Potatohead landing on our planet, croaking little burbles, and pointing to the sky, we have none other than one of us doing just that.

Wouldn't you know, the guy isn't just tall, redheaded, and completely my type... but it seems, he's also quite the queerbait.

Oh, not the femmy, Jack McFarland cartoon that for nearly ten years controlled the telly Thursday nights on NBC on "Will and Grace" but in a Chelsea clone kind of way.  Sure, he's masculine... but that haircut is telling with the cowlick and the short-short buzz.  And Our Hero, worrying about gel in his hair?  Displaying self-involved, quasi-narcissistic behaviour?  Not having a clue how to fly a shop because it's on autopilot? And those muh-muh-muh...muscles??

Oh, Daddy got hungry all right.  Daddy wanted a mouthful of that hunkaman.  This movie was a sheer incursion into harmless ennui, but Chuck Baker, astronaut, could be the, ahem, animated man I've been looking for all this time.

I'm going to have to take a trip to Spain.  Jorge Blanco (not to be confused with the Dominican ex-president and quite the fugly-man), Javier Abad, and I need to have a long chat.  Chuck Baker might have to star in a sequel, and this time... how about landing in a planet full of masculine, gay men covered in big man-muscles and happy bulges?

Mutual Appreciation Society

I never know how to react, or to respond to, acknowledgment of any kind.

A couple of days ago Jill [Abrams], author of "The Myth, the Muse, and the Meshuga" and a woman I've come to regard as a true friend released a video via her YouTube channel Creamrises, thanking everyone whom she could fit in a compressed space of just under two minutes who has featured her mother, Lola Abrams---a woman of strong convictions filtered through an artful eloquence laced with an earthy humor that would fit perfectly as a velvety counterpoint to Robert Osbourne's connoisseurship on TCM "Essentials".  In that video are the pages where Lola's commentaries, filmed by Jill herself (she's a documentarian), appear, and to my surprise I saw Jill's posting on my wall

Hey Ivan, you're in my new video - but don't blink at all. xoxo

on my way to work.

Because I've never received any kind of mention, ever, I was completely stunned: I was in a video? I had to watch... but not until last night was I able to truly see her little piece, and yes, there I was---well, my page, this one---, one of the many that have made Lola a household name.  It really got to me... because as I said, I never know how to react to someone acknowledging me, or my work.  Nothing prepares you for it.

My reply on Jill's Facebook page, following my viewing the video in its entirety:

Just the fact my little page made it to one your videos is really beyond words... I'm truly grateful it's gaining momentum albeit progressively, and that the people who matter---the intelligent majority---see it for what it is: a page filled with my own twisted detours into the surreal and absurd with my own, developing style of humor, where Yours Truly is the first to poke fun at himself.

I love observing Lola's commentaries because they speak for the Universal Mother. You know, the kind that defends her own, who holds a massive umbrella of acceptance, who doesn't hold back and can make cussing seem like it should be exhibited at the MoMA. She isn't one to hold back and fire away at what she doesn't agree with and that makes her human and hilarious.

And that earthy sense of humor comes from a life of learning among mistakes and detours into dysfunction. Carol Brady could never teach anyone. Stepford is a dull dream, a trip to a three-hour conference without a break. Lola is a fully realized person who, warts and all, has those elusive "pearls of wisdom" to offer. She's everyone's mother. I've met her under the body of my own Mami.

And you can't replace that.

Caribbean Blues

Gratuitous man-candy.  Zeb Atlas.

Two weeks ago my friend Orin decided to take a gay cruise on the Caribbean for no other reason than it involved him getting away from grey, wintry Manhattan, boarding and cavorting on a giant boat filled with horny gay men in perfectly worked-out, tanned bodies, tiny shorts, and ready for carnage, and venturing into the lands I sought to leave for seventeen years---namely, Dominican Republic.  If it were me, I'd have gone the opposite direction to even colder lands---the fjords come to mind---but this was his trip, and not mine, and it seems like he had loads of fun.  I haven't pried... I'm not curious to get the scoop unless it involves someone I dislike with a passion getting themselves locked in a cleaning closet for the entire duration of the trip after a night of debauchery and spiked drinks and emerging only when the boat had done its second round, was onto his third, and his name was now featured in every lamp-post in the Continental US and Unsolved Mysteries.

I noticed Orin had gone into withdrawals from the experience.  "You know what makes my blood boil?"  He asked me over coffee and bagels at the Cafe Europa on Lex and 53rd.

"Um, I know of a number of things, one being Sarah Palin's need for the spotlight... or how Kate Gosselin has managed to infiltrate herself in every niche of Americana to the point you've considered defecting to Tahiti and collecting a bevy of man-servants like a queer Gauguin, what's your point?"

"My home phone."

"It's those pesky Sprint charges, huh?  The ones you never see coming?"

"I have an iPhone.  Far from Sprint."

"Don't tell me you threw it at your whining mother because you thought Naomi Campbell had momentarily taken possession of you."

"Would you stop?  No.  My home phone doesn't have 'stateroom attendant.'"  He pronounced the last word with a marked french accent that still hinted at Berlitz taught at breakneck speed via a flighty, pouty, yet oddly sexy French teacher sporting the ubiquitous name of Marie who probably moonlighted as a chambermaid for some S & M outfit and stepped on old men's balls while teaching them their degradation.  I wondered for a moment if I hadn't in my travels seen her, but I was trailing off....

"You didn't hear, right?"

"I was thinking that I'd like to borrow Marie's kinky boots tonight."

"What are you talking about??"

I realized I'd gone into Socratic irony.  "Your phone."

"This is an outrage!  I should have that.  Don't you think?"

"Welcome back to reality," I proclaimed, sipping down my latte.

"Yeah, but reality su-u-u-ucks," Orin said.  "I miss my suite.  I miss the attention, the comfort, the piano bar---"

"You can get this for fucking free.  It's called Anyplace, New York City."

"Oh, you can't understand---"

"Oh, yes, I can! First it's a sense of mood, of things being in the grey.  You're gonna be going into withdrawals because you have to make your own bed, not a maid, or in this cruise, a man-maid wearing little more than an apron.  No more room service, and Chinese doesn't count---they stay in the lobby.  No more, 'Yes, sir, anyway you want it, sir, we're here to make sure your trip is the best you ever had, sir.'  No, it's pretty much downhill from here on.  You'll shuffle through the streets of Manhattan, wonder what did you do to deserve this dirty city---"

"I lived in Paris for god's sake!"

"---and you'll draw the shades, probably miss the Black Party altogether.  It's OK.  I've been there, waking up in night sweats, shrieking into the darkness.  Hell I've even lost my sex drive and that's kinda hard to beat!"

"But why??  You know what it was for me to take the number 6 train to work today?  It stank of dejection, bad suits, and rancid breath!"

"Oh, I love me some New York Subway smells, don't diss them!  You cannot get any more New Yawk than that.  That is where the essence of New York lies, my friend, right up to Chambers St. station on the A train where the bag lady with the harmonica and the Mahalia Jackson tunes died and the giant rats came three nights later---because people thought she was asleep, she looked so peaceful?  You remember that.  They devoured her face, her hands, and her liver, mainly because she smelled of week-old Burger King."  I drew back some tears and had to collect myself for a full solid minute; then I thought of Kenneth Cole's spring collection and that made it all better.  "I am telling you... it's right there.  Here."  I used my finger to tap on the table for emphasis.  The table rocked, almost spilling our drinks.  I thought it was better to stick to holding my coffee.

"Right, right... those rats sure had them a meal, didn't they?"

"Yeah, she was kind of hefty.  Pleasantly plump as they say.  Who knew being homeless made you gain weight?"

"Shouldn't it be the opposite?  I mean, you're walking all the time, right?"

"Exactly... there's no time, really, to rest... and I'm sure they're not eating that much.  Maybe someone should write a book called "What to Eat When Living in the Streets."

"Oh, God..."

"'Portion Control: A Book for Bag Ladies in Manhattan.'"

"Dude, stop."  But he was laughing all the same.

"'Ben and Me on Avenue C"."

Orin cackled.  "Holy, crap!  I haven't seen that in ages... Poor Ben.  Do I smell sulphur?  'Cause you're going to hell for making fun of the destitute."

"No, that's patchouli and lemongrass.  I made it myself."

"Wow, nice!"

We both sighed.  And looked at each other for about a minute that seemed to elongate itself into an uncomfortable moment.

"Okay, what were we talking about again?  Not what's-her-name on Chambers...?"


His response: "I think I forgot."

Musings on Streep

This little ditty of mine appeared on Stephen Rader's blog post about Meryl Streep's Oscar loss to Sandra Bullock's predictable win in the Best Actress category the other night and it was so long I felt it deserved its own posting (with some edits).

When it comes to Oscars I've really come to believe that Streep is really taken for granted. Why bother with all the awards and praise she gets worldwide, that she is emeritus, the actress of the century, the one to model your career by (if you're female), if you're not going to give her anything other than the (eh) nomination, brush her aside with titters and bad jokes, and now she has 16 of them?

I know, I get it, she won twice. Sandra [Bullock] won once and will (possibly) never be up for one again. It's her Mildred Pierce---the Everywoman that the Academy loves. Ya-a-a-awn.

But Meryl transforms herself even in a bad movie. The features are there, but the character is LIVING, Greta Garbo channeled through her pores with light and minuscule dimensions filtered through into the fabric of the film---it sneaks up on you and before you know it, you're inside its world. She'll undoubtedly get a third, and I'm daring to say a fourth (come on, Kate Hepburn won 4 and she, as excellent as she was, is not Meryl), but it's like they're waiting for her to really age and give it for a lesser performance than the ones she gave in (The) Devil Wears Prada and Doubt. To name a few.

Streep, circa Kramer vs. Kramer, and as Sophie in Sophie's Choice.

The Lady in Question is Not Three Times a Lady

The Oscars for reasons only they know decided to feature a long and blissfully incomplete list of horror films that over the years have played with our senses, made us think twice before turning off the lights and slamming our windows shut, and shaped our culture---how we think, how we react to danger, how we visualize fear of the unknown, even our lexicon, and anyone who saw Halloween, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, and Nightmare on Elm Street to name a few knows exactly what I am talking about, and if you don't... you need to revisit those pictures.  It's all there, down to pop culture references and late-night talk shows, all of them fantastic quotable lines.

Pity those in the know who produce these inflated, self-masturbatory---I mean congratulatory shows I am guilty to admit following like the cinema-loving queer that I am didn't see Lady GaGa's brand-new video, Telephone.  In hindsight, it was best they nixed it.  That might have sent the entire audience screaming into the Hollywood night, mindless zombies zooming back in their limos to their multi-million dollar manses, shrieking in tongues as they ripped their eyeballs out and in moments of complete irrationality, ate their spouses or their young and hanged themselves in sheer encompassing terror in their closets or basements.  [The filthy, stinking rich have basements, right?  Eh, whatever.]

You see, I deserve this.  This is what happens when you don't listen to the voice of judgment, when you come home and plug yourself like a junkie getting his fix into Facebook and see something you never want to see on a friend's update.  Which was the aforementioned Telephone.

Having been recently GaGafied (with some reluctance, think Donald Sutherland succumbing to the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, circa 1978) and owning all of her hits minus this one, having seen some pretty ingenious visual treatment to her little pop ditties that are all style and no substance---kind of like a really early Madonna before she decided to Preach to Papa and show a little religious controversy as she kissed a Black Jesus---I decided to take a click into her newest entry.

I'm glad I hadn't had anything to eat before this.

One minute into GaGa's absolutely disgusting, terrifying, barf-inducing Telephone I clicked the stop icon, dry heaved, and ran to the bathroom, the floor shaking underneath me, angles suddenly becoming obtuse and skewed, and I wondered if I might be reliving Eleanor Vance's flight from her lesbian tendencies in the very haunted Hill House, where all walls were crooked and doors opened by themselves.  I began to feel space and time closing in.  Venus definitely had her flytrap snapping shut all around me and it was a steroid-enhanced clitoris reeking of fish, salt, and Vagisil.  I have never retched so much after seeing so much femininity gone sour, into the mock-masculine, as here, and I hope I never see it again.  This is why I don't care much for female bodybuilding---they've lost it.  They've gone bonkers.  When you see a woman---and I use this with a grain of rock salt---with a voice deeper than Lou Ferrigno's, arms as big as Ferrigno's, and well, a body that is genetically female but dripping in synthetic testosterone and all it has to remind us of the fact that this is, in fact, a woman, are her giant tomatoes... all logic goes out the window.

Interestingly, some men are into this.

I call them "in the closet" or "gay for pay."  And anyway, when you're that jacked up on steroids, you can and will fuck a tree if it looks like it has curves.

Aside comment:
I don't [juice], contrary to what Porkly Piguette, one anonymous witch I had the displeasure of knowing and who once we parted ways decided to email her [Facebook, i.e. "virtual", i.e. "not real life"] friends (and I will drug test, right now if I have to) so I can't even tempt the idea of mating with a woman due to an overactive testosterone count.  What for?  The world has too many people and women are the carrying sex, especially when they become enceinte.  More would not be going green; it'd be a party that I would not want to participate in.  [Porkly Piguette makes her first appearance here and I'm thinking of developing her as a larger (tee-hee) character/caricature study firmly entrenched in a little word called F.I.C.T.I.O.N.  Although there is a lovely back story as there always is with writers who develop characters from real-life people.  And I'd be more than happy to spill the scoop!  Just make sure we're drinking martinis.  It makes schadenfreude more entertaining.]

Needless to say I didn't care to see when the overtly feminine and beautiful Beyoncé entered the picture.  I was kneeling in front of my toilet, shivering cold, ghostly pale, thinking of better times... like the time I escaped my mother's vagina.  Or the first time ever I kissed a man's lips and liked it.  Or the time I saw a man's barrel chest.  Or the time I sucked on a man's 8 incher without gagging or tearing up and then made some aggressive love over a King sized bed.  Or the time I was in a bar full of men who were for the most part, built like brick shithouses and I wanted to fuck several of them even though I knew they were blithering idiots, eye candy, look but don't touch or you will regret it.

Yes, those were better times... and a reminder that women are lovely to behold.  From a safe, platonic distance.  You just won't find them in GaGa's videos.

You'll need to click on the link to see the FULL version.

Baby Got Caulk

Okay, so I'm one day late for International Woman's Day, but what's a faggot to do when he's still recovering from the inglorious flatulence of Sunday night's Oscar's?  Huh?  You tell me if it's fair for me to take in a cornucopia of ravishing gowns, Meryl Streep--there for the ride--, bad dance numbers (huh?), over-indulgent speeches (name your pick of the lot), quasi-political speeches trying! too! hard! to make a Statement (Mo'Nique), Doogie Hauser belting a showtune, Michael Jackson's inexplicable inclusion in the In Memoriam segment, again trumping Farrah Fawcett who got snatch, and those inane scientific achievement awards (I hope I got this one right and no, I'm not editing this last one because frankly, you don't care either.  No one watches those Oscars.), and not experience some kind of brain swell, hoots and clicks kicking into overdrive, smoke coming out my ears, and a sudden need to crawl under the closet, hold my cock with my right hand as if it were my thumb in my mouth, and cuddle with my large pillows.

Which brings me to another set of large pillows and where I wanted to go.  See?  I meander as usual, but you can take it as a leisurely ride into Napa Valley as the soft Californian breeze caresses your soft skin and you literally feel the anticipation of the rich wine you will be imbibing in, soon, but not soon enough.

Big booty mama

So as women all over the world sing and recite poems and write fantastic prose to the Huffington Post, six women celebrate this wonderful occasion---being female---in the hospital.  Not the kind of place you want to go when rejoicing over growing pains, how far has Virginia Slims come, indeed.  No, these pains were of a different kind; they were of the ones I call "ouchie".  Think, you've received some fabulous implants on your butt cheeks that until recently were not your best ASSet... and the whole thing turns out to be not the malleable kind that actually looks and feels firm and so round you could bounce a bucket of quarters off... but hard and I can only guess lumpy?

Caulk.  With some Vaseline thrown in to make it softer.  Allegedly.

This is what these women received from unlicensed surgeons.  Now, while I don't usually laugh at other peoples' misfortunes, you really have to admit that this one will spawn quite a roster of ass and cock jokes years to come.  Caulk up 'er ass, anyone?  Fill 'er up, buddy!  Make 'em nice and round!  Who cares if she can't ever siddown? Baby got back and it's a sealant!

Hat Off, Cabron!

Winter's almost over, and I love to sit and reflect the fashion trends that came and went with the snow and the January sales.  Military coats became the rage and some of the world's loveliest scarves hit the windows, and my throat.  I even stopped wearing my trademark baseball caps for a variety of hats of different shapes and sizes, all of them pretty flattering to my round head I should say.  [And why not?  I can pull a mean cadet cap, or a thick Hunter's hat.  And look like one mean mofo.]

Speaking of hats, I lost my virginity to skull caps.  I don't know why I never used them before---something about them being too street for me and street usually translates as "I can't allow myself looking like I just came out of jail---body full of sloppy tattoos or worse, a pirate ship with the pipe at the corner of my mouth and a glass eye.  No.  I'd much rather wear a driver cap backwards which always looks so European, especially with the right outfit."

Yup.  The writer.  Me.

I find them sexy.  Especially because I sport a look that translates into "one big motherfucker."  That, plus gloves, the right chain, and sweats and I'd make hot love to myself, who needs men when there's a mirror and myself to be had?

However, one thing that boils my blood is when I see men (and some women) wearing their skull caps with the pouch at the top.  I don't get it.  Hats make a statement, and an oversized skull cap-slash-beanie with the weird point at the top only says, "Fuck off.  You know what?  I give up.  I'm checking in at the nearest homeless shelter and shacking up with Elsie the Crabby Bitch with Missing Teeth Who Life Hit H.A.R.D and we and the people inside her head are going to have a fucking party, beeyatches!  Here's my middle finger to you!  It tastes like my uncleaned ass!"

It seems to be all over.  Not just a specific ethnicity or social class, but even the rich kids and Hobokenites are cashing in.  Maybe it's a virus?  Could someone tell me if perhaps instead of the Rage virus transforming us into mindless mall consumers, or the Swine Flu (that is as relevant as the closing of Gimbel's in New York City) it's just a momentary phase where people of all ages, creeds, and sizes decide, for one oddly communal moment, to fuck it all and use the skull cap with the pouch on top, as if they were habitants of wherever the fuck Smurfs come from?

I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Today, as I came home from a productivity-deficient day at work, I saw no less than three men wearing the same fucking thing at the Journal Square Transit Center in Jersey City as I made it up the PATH escalators and into the concourse leading to my bus.  I decided to probe.  One of them, I think from Peru, stubby, sixtyish, unkempt, and paunchy, caught my attention.  Well, his tall pouch did.

"Sir?  Sir?  Señor?  Sí, usted."

"No tengo dinero!"

I realized my size was perhaps not inviting.  Plus, I was wearing a military jacket and looked like a Nazi, just not Aryan.  "No, sir, I'm not asking you for money!  I---"

"Que no me joda, hijuelagranputa!  I gaht buss to ketch!"

"So do I, but I need to know, sir, can you please... sir..."

"Yo no sé!"

"...Please don't run away from me, sir, please don't run away.."

"Maldito pendejo!"

"I just---sir, there's no need to use that kind of language, I am a writer and all I need to ask you is---"

"Oiga!  Lo está molestando?"  A man, huge, all belly and arms wearing a hoodie, approaching Peru as he scuttled away from me and I followed, insistent, behind.  "Hey man, was happenin? Whatchoo doin' to da ole' dude, eh?"

"Mind your business.  This is an interview.  He's just shy."  I continued without looking if he was coming for me with his fists unclenched and Boricua fattitude.  "Señor, mire, look, look, please---"

"Déjese de guevonadas que yo no sé nada! I gaht buss to ketch, I tell zhu! You crazy!"

Oh, I know he had a bus to catch, a long ride ahead, and didn't want a guy like me or anyone pestering him, but I really needed to know about his interesting Smurf hat and why he was running away from me in the same way he was running away from good taste in winter trends.  My insides were boiling to find out what made him tick.  I followed him closely as he made his way down the sidewalk and to his bus stop, missing nary a beat.  "Señor, mire.  Look.  Your hat.  Why do you wear it like that?"  I even used a vague Hispanic accent, as if to befriend myself unto him.  "I eng mecking aye do-Q-meng-tary about---"

What happened next pretty much answered my question: Peru wheeled around, eyeballs bulging out of their sockets, face livid, and he tore his Smurf cap off, showing what I think was a shiny bald head, and began slapping my face with it like a granny warding off the Big Bad Mugger.  He was cursing and screaming, too, and I really shouldn't repeat the kind of language he used because it's really inappropriate for this short little entry.  I think I tasted the wool of his cap, too---a mix of natural body oil, smoke, and garlic gone bad.

And then he was gone, giving me the finger, muttering to himself with gestures that made me think of the many episodes Ricky Ricardo went Cuban on Lucy.

At least his finger answered part of my question.

Epilogue/Coda.

No later than two seconds later I'd forgotten about Peru and his preference for Smurf caps, or caps of any kind.  Standing no less than ten feet away from me was the hottest piece of man my eyes had seen, and my eyes normally are overworked from so much looking to the left, to the right, up, and down.

This one, however, was just my cup of hot cocoa on a mild wintry day.  And whaddaya know, he was walking my way!

To be continued....

Kardashian Naysayers

A little under a week ago Jill Abrams posted a link on her Facebook page that points to VH1's blog that in turn featured her mother, Lola Abrams, sounding off on a topic I find near and dear to my heart: girls behaving badly on the telly and the bad programming that ensues.  Of particular notice was the Kardashians from "Keeping Up With the Kardashians", a title so atrocious it makes me want to retch on each and every one of those inane sexbots and kick the husband to see if there's still a little bit of man left in there.  Way down deep.

I'll let the video speak for itself before I sound off on my own tangent.



I won't transcribe the chat session that developed soon later because some of the speakers might not approve of me doing so, but I'll post what I think of this situation:

"The Kardashians have been one of the worst excuses for a "show" (term used with a sense of humor and a grain of salt here). And anything that makes women look like they belong in a freak show pretty much repulses me. It sets back the entire feminist movement to the Dark Ages. But... to each their own; I watch Discovery ID and prefer Candace DeLong or Rachel Maddow on the telly than the garbage that's the norm these days.

"...they're famous just because. Kris married into success with OJ's lawyer and after he died she met Jenner, emasculated him, and decided to use her acquired money as a Mom-ager second to Ethel Gumm to shove her talentless brood into the spotlight.

"So there you have it. Cheap mannequins on display flaunting a life no person with any common sense would live."

Labor Pains, Or Before Kathy Crowned On NYC

Because they always come in threes.  Always.  It never fails, and I should know better than to rely on how a lovely day could turn into a litmus test of pure endurance, a tightrope walk one thousand feet over the City that Never Sleeps that now must decide to try its "mastermind", Absolute Gibberish (again, I call onto terrorists alike in a friendly way: please Anglicize your names for when you ever intend to threaten us or make cute videos or launch an attack on our soil: I don't have the required strength in my tongue nor the patience nor the empathy to attempt to pronounce something that looks like it was penned by H. P. Lovecraft writing his Chtullu Mythos unless I plug myself into an electrical outlet and feel the surge of 200 volts ripping through me and boiling my innards.  Perhaps then my guttural hoots and clicks might produce some magic?), within the city, or in a military base.

But, threes.  Yes, and it can only get better once the first one takes place and roots out in front of you.  Here we go.

I.  Ivan.

Sweet!  The show I've been waiting for since I saw it posted on her wall last week, and I was lucky enough to get tickets when by now it would have been a "sold-out" event and I'd have to sit back and wait 'til it arrived on DVD.  I was really, really going to see her.  You know.  The comedian that calls herself a D-Lister but can rock a nation with her sheer irreverence.  America's redhead.  Kathy Griffin.

 

I wasn't the only one who ate pavement, it seems.  Only mine wasn't a publicity stunt.  And it's on YouTube somewhere.

I was about to leave the house to meet my friend Harlan when I decided I was missing something.  I'm OCD to begin with---yes, I'll turn the knob on the stove just a shade under fourteen times to make sure it's not even a slightest bit on.  You can never be too sure, you see.  One minute you let go, the next your house, your modest little home that sits placidly in what is now "prime real estate" and is worth a fortune, could blow sky-high.  And the Moon is no place to land, I think.  [Did we really land on the Moon?  I'm not convinced.]  Yes.  We really need to get a new stove.  I must remind Bob to come with me to Sears, because this one seems to be expressing its urgent need to be thrown full-force into a metal factory, molten, and reborn into something new.  A set of faucets.  Perhaps three-dozen wrenches.  Anything.  What is done is done.  Like Madonna and her wrinkles, you can't photograph hot on an old body.  It just doesn't work that way and is bad for the eyes.  [Memo to me: eyewash at Duane Reade.  Must. not. forget.]

Riding into New York City on the PATH is usually a placid trip for me, even when the train is packed with Hobokenites, all of them glamorous people of which I hope we get more and phase out the fuglies out west, to Scranton, where they can roost.  Today the train was lightly packed with people and I sank into my seat, closed me eyes, and let the melodies of Thievery Corporation take me away into the afternoon, a smile on my face, my spirits high.

And then the toddler struck.  Please note if you ever meet me: I don't like children.  Even as a kid I didn't like children and longed for the day when I was an adult.  I never did the "See Jane Run" books; by age seven I'd read, and understood (to an alarming degree), Stephen King's The Shining.  It even made its way into a book report when I hit the fifth grade.  My teachers were so impressed.  My parents weren't, but that's because they thought King was a freak and I was too introspective and wasn't paying attention to girls.  But that's not the case---I don't like kids.  I wince whenever I hear them play ball on our avenue, or when I'm at the mall and I nearly miss a tot scuttling across the floor, leaving drool behind, and I have big feet.  You wouldn't want me to step on you.  Ker-runch.

Here I was, deep in thought, when I felt my earbud propel itself out of my right ear and a "YEEEEEEAAAAAHHH!!!!" rape me all the way to my tympanum.  My eyes bulged forward, my skin was suddenly a mass of prickling needles over a carpet of nerves, and I think I wet myself a little.  I clearly felt my heart barf its way into the world and shriek at me, "What the fuck was that?? I can't---I can't beat!!!" and snap back into my sternum.  I had no idea what was up, what was down.  All I saw was red flashing lights before me... and then the anger began settling in, slowly, encroaching, connecting itself into tissue, a network of increasing rage.  Because this thing had interrupted me.  This screaming, fucking---

"Oh, my!"  The mother.  A blond young thing, plump, probably an Oklahoman transplant because I'm sure I detected an accent not of this place in her speech.  "I'm so sorry!  Jason doesn't know---" then to her son, who was apparently possessed by the need to rip her glasses off and tear into the car as it plunged towards Christopher Street---"Jason!  You stop that!  You be still or Mommy's gonna spank you!"  They were a maternal mess, those two.  She wrestling the suddenly hyper kid, and I swear I heard a rip that could only be her pants---yep... I was right---as she bent over past her endurance when little Jason swung so far back he nearly hit the floor and almost cracked his head open.  I winced.

She came back to her seat, her face red, embarrassment all over it, an accusation mark no soap could erase.  I felt a little bad for her, but I still wanted to spank the crap out of that kid, or take him to the nearest pharmacy and give him a whole bottle of Robitussin with apple juice.  With her permission, of course.  I'm no perv.  Didn't I tell you I don't like kids?  Well, there you have it.  Robitussin makes them sleep.  And that, reader, is how I like to see them.

Harlan was set to arrive at 6 at Penn Station.  He's usually pretty punctual but it was Friday traffic and that in New York spells out a four-letter word: H-E-L-L.  Especially when you're coming in from the Upper East Side.  But that was OK, because I had the tickets and I was there.  I could wait it out fine.

Perish the thought that would happen.  A placid wait for a friend?  In New York?  At the peak of rush hour?  I'd have better luck getting my head examined by a last-minute visit to a prestigious shrink who would probably overcharge me for just sitting there, listening, as I poured my heart out.  No, and you know why?  Leave it to the pack of homeless people just gravitating towards me, hands outstretched, supplicating.  I stood there, playing it cool.  Oh, I've given to the homeless before, don't cringe.  You're not gonna tell me you've shied away from them as they approach your car with the same song-and-dance, day in, day out.  And what was I, anyway, a cuter and much hotter version of Mother Theresa?  Leave me alone.  Please.  I have tickets to a show.  All you'd use my money for is to shoot up in some dingy alley anyway.

Leave it to one of them to turn sour.  Perhaps it was in the stars.  First, being attacked by a toddler, now by an old, raving coot with teeth the color of sour spinach, lips cracked all over the place, skin that reminded me in an odd way of the Florshiem shoes I'd bought a month ago at Macy's.  [Memo to me: pay it forward, give away those shoes. I can't bear to compare then to that guy's face.]

He seemed determined to take away something from me.  Hell-bent.  Normally I don't get weak in the presence of crazy in New York---rats do that---but this guy seemed to be possessed, and I was his target.  At that moment, the telephone rang.  What to do, pick up and risk getting it stolen if he attacked or let it ring?

"Hey, ya!  Hey!  Ya gotz some money ta spare!  Sho' you have!  You is rich as fuck!  Don' let this muhfucka go hungry to-night, foo'!"

Harlan, on the phone.  "Ivan.  I'm right here, in front of Chase bank, by the entrance to Madison."

"Oh, thank God!  Coming!"

And I ran as Crazy-Dude shuffled towards me.  Of course, when you're in a heightened state of near-panic, it pays to look forward, but especially down.  There are some quirkly steps leading to the bank where Harlan stood, and because I couldn't immediately see him I failed to pay that little detail any notice.

Have you ever fallen flat on your face in the middle of a busy thoroughfare?  I just had... and it wasn't pretty.  And it seemed to take forever... first, me missing the mark at step two, feeling the air under me---almost as I'd been pushed, and for an insane moment I thought

(jesus he got me the crazy got me)

and then lunging forward, a thing that was mercifully brief but also interminable.  And all the time, on the way down, my thoughts racing, overlapping, because on my right hand I still held my iPhone and the screen was facing the pavement.

"Not the phone not the phone not the phone!!!!"

Splat.  Yeah.  That was the noise I made on the ground, between the Chase kiosks and the bank itself, certain my phone was cracked, certain the guy had somehow grabbed me and worse, had my wallet.  I lay there, numb but mortified that all of Manhattan knew Ivan had taken a fall.  Harlan came and grabbed me by the arm that still held onto the phone for dear life, and asked: "Good, God!  Are you all right?"

I just broke into insane laughing.  I looked at my phone.  It wasn't even dusty.  And then, as I settled back to my composed self, the ultimate humiliation came:  a kid sporting Emo hair and urban clothes, no more than fifteen, yelled out at his friends over his skateboard: "Dude!  Didja catch that ole' fucker eat pavement?  Hoo-leee sheeit, man!!  Let's place it on YouTube!!"

2. Ivan and Harlan Meet the Fag-Hag.

You know, I totally get it.  I know that Kathy Griffin has an enormous gay following, that her following is bigger than the Titanic, bigger than 2012, bigger than the Universe itself.  I know it and I love it.  Because I'm gay myself, but even before that was an issue and she was making her pat appearances on TV I'd loved seeing her rip into everything without mercy.

But I should know better.  Some gays have to bring with them their fag-hags because that makes them bond better in a non-sexual kind of way.  And what better for a female to be surrounded by complimenting men who pose no threat to her and who can enjoy the night away, right?

Wrong.  Well, to a degree.  You see, this particular woman, who came in and sat behind us with three very gay men---I'll call her Fag-Hag---had decided that she knew more of Kathy Griffin than anyone else in the room combined.  She was, indeed, Kathy's number one fan.  Hell, she was The Fan---the one that might wind up in the yellow pages and not in a good way.  And, to top it off, she had one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard a human have, and I use my ears for a living.

Fag-Hag's voice is what you call an affectation.  It's hard to describe.  I'd have less of a hard time describing it if she weren't sitting right behind me, and talking non-stop, about things I don't need to hear.  Of past shows she's seen here at the Garden.  Of how she's a proud Pennsylvanian, from Erie, and how she goes back every weekend because she "likes to remember where she came from."  Of her amazement at gay sex and how sexy it all was to her.  Oh, really?  Maybe she might want come to my place after hours and see me in total action with a real man, not the three Latino twinks sitting by her all rouged up, wearing these ridiculous scarves that looked more like stoles, with too much gel in their hair and sporting various degrees of femmy.  Yeah, I'd show her a real good time and she could film me and post it on XTube for all I cared.  And then measure her sexuality based on mine, which is much more fluid than hers might ever be since I can be as manly as I want to and as passive and malleable as my body will allow me to.  She can only seem to chirp in one mode: irritating in a tone only an eight year old who thinks Talking! Loud! Will! Get! Her! Noticed!

Oh she was getting noticed all right.  She was getting noticed plenty and then some.  And on and on she carried on, slightly slurring  her words, but I believe it was her ridiculous speech that was doing it because she had nary a drink on her.  Just the high drone.  An earthquake alarm waking people up.  A siren of sheer danger.  A cat having, well, angry cat-sex while people shrieked for it to sta-w-w-w-w-w-p! and shoes flew out into the street, hitting cars, setting off alarms, which set off more alarms, which woke more people, which created quite a picture.  I prayed for her to shut up.  No, not just shut up but for quantum physics to come and reduce her to mere dust and a brief afterthought, forever.  New York didn't need this whiny, affected waif with the speech inflections of a fork skating over porcelain, quadrupled.  I sure as hell didn't.  Which is why a piano falling on top of her would be the fitting punishment for her simply existing.  For her messing up my game.  And how dare she?  How dare she start telling the jokes only a seasoned pro like Kathy knew how to tell, usually punctuated by her trademark "allegedly?"  She was ruining it for me.  But of course she had to turn it up a notch.  She sang, or did something that was supposed to be sing, and before I could say "shut the FUCK UP!!!" she was hollering "Bad Romance" right into my inner ear, the ear that had been, hours earlier, been raped by a uncontrollable toddler.

I jerked up.  I couldn't take it anymore.  I wheeled around and like a ferocious gay male auditioning for his "bitch" moment I yelled at her: "Do you mind?"

"Wha---"

"No, really, do you mind?  You are shrieking into my ear.  I came here to see a real comedian, not a native Pennsylvanian."

"I can't b..." and she snapped shut.  I think I made her cry.  I think I ruined her night and from now now she would never ever go to another straight-friendly show again.  Also, because a guy who looked nothing like the kinds of guys she was accustomed to told her to shut the fuck up and behave like she was in a goddamned theatre, not her backyard.  Oh well.  Boo hoo.

3. Harlan and Paula Deen

Of course, it got better.  I wasn't aware that, during my second ear probe, four very blond, very blowsy, very heavily perfumed women sauntered into our aisle and without much consideration barged in.  Because of course, why should they ask the two gentlemen sitting near the end of the aisle to stand up?  They were, of course, women, and women are entitled, right?

That wasn't the problem.  I've dealt with rude before without batting an eye.  I just hoped none of them spilled the swill they were drinking onto my D&G T shirt because I planned on going out after this and smelling like the cheapest lager wasn't my idea of having a man's cologne splashed all over me.

One of them, the last, a mass of wide angles, curves, and a bust line that made us gape not in the way that might imitate a boar going after its prey, but in amazement that they were so high.

"How can she see where she's going with all that mess over her face?"

"Dunno."  I replied.  "Must be something built-in.  I'm not a woman, so I can't answer that."

I texted Fab, my Gal Friday when it comes to meeting for emergency drinks after all venues have been exhausted.  I wanted to know what was up with women with ginormous boobs the size of water balloons.  Her reply:  "Maybe shes gonna throw herself onto the hudson and needs to make sure she doesn't drown cuz if she's hittin on you those are all she'll have for comfort. By the way tell her not to panic because I know the perfect man for her.  He goes nuts over that kinda funbags.  Also, he might have a heart attack but who cares?"

I sure didn't.  But before I was done texting, I saw Harlan suddenly recoil and attempt to hug me.  I wasn't sure if he'd suddenly caught a romantic urge and was going to kiss me right in public---not that I'd have minded, but with the Pennsylvanian annoyance right behind me in quiet tears (I guess I shut her up, I thought), her twinks who had been eyeballing us since they came in yapping away, clearly about my arms, I wasn't too sure I wanted to give a spectacle.

"She fucking stuck her hand down my crotch!"

"What?"

"That Paula Deen wannabe stuck her hand down my crotch and held it!  Oh, fuck... Oh fuck-oh fuck-oh fuck I need to throw up..."

"Not on me!  This is Dolce and Gabbana I am wearing!  Quick... can we change seats?"

"Hey, honey... come over here, babe..."  the woman purred.  "Momma wants a big lug like you."

"Listen."  Harlan was livid.  "I did not come out to be pulled back in.  What is this, the fucking female mob?  Fuck no, I'm bolting.  What time is it?"

"Eight o'clock.  Show's about to start."

"Alright, let's make a run for it.  There's an empty area over near the center."

"Then let's make it quick before she grabs you and turns you into a bumbling straight man!"

If you've never seen two largely built gay men running away from estrogen, you finally did.  I've never been that close to women except the time my half-sister played my wife when I was five years old and I never want to attempt that again.  As she lights dimmed, the introductory video montage of Kathy Griffin's career burst into life, and people began cheering, we scuttled like con-men trying to make a clean escape into the center, away from those nasty people, dimly hearing Paula Deen's clone slurring something like "f-f-f-f-ucking f-f-f-f-aggot...", and waited for the tiny Kathy to pop up onto the stage, free of our shackles at last.

RAWR!!!

When an antisocial and possibly bipolar female with outrageous anger issues meets a congenial and perfectly amicable male in the social place we call work, sometimes the sparks might not fly.  Sometimes they might not fly at all, not even a tiniest bit off the ground.  [Sputter, sputter, into the gutter.]  Let's say that it's only then when a little thing called the emasculating bitch comes ra-a-a-aging out, hormones all a-flutter, eyeballs popping out of their sockets, hair on end... and the unthinkable happens.

I should know... well... my Facebook page should.  And my iPhone---two of them.  And... oh, well.  Sigh.  I wonder where that subpoena is.



Like a goddamned egg-timer when the Moon is full!  Beware of nasty bitches!  They will Cut. You. UP!

(A Lazy) Eye Candy

It all can't be thoughts and tales of woe and desperation gone riot.  Oh, I have a number of nifty ones up my sleeve that should pop out in the next couple of days but right now, because I need it, because I want to be able to open my very own page and just indulge, let me post a couple of videos that haven't a shred of the intellectual but oodles of what I want and love.

He calls himself Vosgian Beast.  I call him by my very own pet name.  No, I won't share it with you.  You're not him.  Tee-hee.





And a lil' bit of cheap homoerotica for the eyes: