Pass the Crisco

I try to horrify people as much as possible with my poor verbal filter, penchant for bathroom humor, and inappropriate comments because the payoff of seeing their faces go from completely blank, to shock, to a level of disgust only seen on the unfortunate viewers of grindhouse movies of the ilk of the original Last House on the Left is better than a mind-blowing orgasm.  So far the results have been mixed---the average reaction is that of people's faces going red to losing friendships along the way to a diabetic coma that sadly, didn't end in a casket or a permanent disability and produced a pedophile.  Right, Uncle Maurice?  Right.

Roberto is an old, old pal of mine whom I met whilst studying the uber-butch profession known as Architecture at the UNPHU in Santo Domingo.  I didn't graduate (long story) but he did and I love it because I love people's successes---the kid's traveled halfway around the world and achieved the oyster's pearl of being part of the "elite", a status only a chosen few achieve.

He was visiting for the week and thanks to Facebook contacted me (after twenty years of not even knowing where the other one was) to meet up for dinner.  I chose Morimoto at the High-Line.  As we engaged in an evening of small talk, over-expensive food and drinks, somehow the conversation turned into sex as I came out to him and I saw it as another golden opportunity to throw it all out.  Before anyone could say "pass the Crisco and put it in my hole" out roared a flood of sexual preferences, because I just couldn't stop at the simple top/bottom level.  As we chewed on Kobe beef and drank bad saki, I gleefully chirped away about whips, chains, aggressive affection, BDSM (and how I've become accustomed to it whilst not a 24/7 lifestyle, the hyper-male culture that isn't interested in the more effete aspects of being gay), fisting, and on and on.  When I thought I couldn't be more pornographic I stopped to observe the moment.

He wasn't shocked.  Not in the least.  And I was rubber-faced.

How could he not be?  I would have expected an incursion into awkward silence and a "Uh, well, this certainly has been a most revealing reunion.... I think I'm going to hurl," he took it all as if I'd described the Glass House or Marina Abramovich's chic Manhattan apartment.  So I asked:

"You're not even remotely disgusted?  I mean, this is a lot to take in after more than twenty years since you last saw me.  I can't believe I just described felching in such loving detail.  Can't see that in Dominican Republic, I can bet you that."

"Nah... trust me.  Not at all.  It takes quite a bit to really rattle me.  You want to know what's scary?  This place.  Have you seen these prices?  I think this is pretty fucking disgusting, what I'm going to have to pay for a simple course and lite Japanese beer.  Ugh...."

"But... you're supposed to!  You should be turning green by now!"

"Nope."

"But..."  I was at a loss.  "Maybe if I do a demo?"

"Nope.  No need to."

"What kind of a Dominican are you?!  You should be storming off and cursing in Spanish!"

"Um...nope.  Sorry.  Not happening."

"Well, I'm disgusted!  Where's the homophobia?  The rejection?  The controversy?  Oh I give up.  Being gay has lost its luster.  Let's just finish out overpriced food and get the hell out and get hammered someplace else."

And so we did.

A Little Night Music

The phoenix.

Because I love what this song implies.  How it soars.  How it glides through the glittering sky without fear, without looking back.  I never look back once I take off into the future.  Fuck the She-Goat and her Horns.  I am about to leap into the air.

My life has been one long, extended take off.  I've never once pondered a situation more than it needed... although on occasion such elements do pop up in conversation and revisions.

I'm at the halfway mark.  Ready to jump off a cliff and looking straight ahead, East, the Sun not quite yet on the horizon.  And I see It.

The skyline of my dreams.  The contour that is as sensual as it is frenetic, alpha and omega, the City to end all cities, world without end.

This is who I am.  Where I belong.  On its streets.  With its people.  I am proud of it, over and over.  Like it, I've been attacked, the tower that I am attempted to be overthrown by those who judged me to be frailer and malleable.

Far from the truth.

Now I rise.

I'm getting ready to leave ground.


U2 - City Of Blinding Lights - Closed Caption, Corrected Matte Version
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Dunkin'... Though Not for Donuts

Like Ross, I've never been with a girl. That way. So I'm wondering if the day comes and I'm faced with the life-threatening decision of "cake or death" I'll have to man up, wipe the tears off my eyes, take a de-e-e-e-ep breath, cross my fingers, and hope I can survive intact without devolving into a sobbing hot mess of a fagelah who found himself staring at the Grim Reaper's deadly gash right in the face and hoped to Christ it didn't open up, bare its gnarly, feral teeth at me, and roar.  I don't think there'd be enough Listerine to wash away the horror off the tip of my tongue.

Just click on the title. The right half of this video is missing.

Sleep, Interrupted

It's probably safe to say I had it coming.  After all, when you make a habit of telephoning your friends who work the early morning shift with the oddest of requests it's only time before someone whacks you in the face with a surprise.  You might recall my misadventures calling Karen in the late-late hours of the night, for sport: "Mommeeee!  Read me a story.  From the Colt Studio 2010 Calendar.  And make sure it has a happy ending."  Understanbably she didn't hold an appreciation for it and the next morning she threatened to get me closely acquainted with her very white knuckles and if you must know, she's quite the pro at boxing and martial arts, so I've widened my target receptors, if at all to be more democratic, you know, like any sell-out artist.  And besides, I can't bear anything coming real fast at my face that isn't a powder puff with either Nivea cream spread evenly throughout my cheeks, forehead, and nose, or water from a glass, waking me up after a night of sheer debauchery. 

Which was the case here, and would it that I'd have gotten splashed by the cold stuff by Bob as he tried to wake me up because screaming right into my ear wasn't doing the trick.  No... I was too lucky.  This came on a night I go to bed early and sober so I can function at around 10 per cent at my workplace the next day because that's what a working stiff does if you didn't know it: he comes, performs in a way that seems to be overreaching, and let's others do the hard stuff while he gets the promotions.

Chris Meloni and I were getting it on quite nastily.  I was, of course, right on top, the fist all the way in as he quietly moaned and begged me to treat him like a total bitch and make him forget the beard he was pegged to or the long hours of working with Mariska, which was more than any man could bear before he went postal.  It all seemed a bit too real to me, and Mr. Happy was one smiling mofo.

However, suddenly I was propelled twenty feet into the air and landed right on the ceiling.  Picture me, a big dude, all 260 pounds of muscle and beef, stuck to the surface, a frog with suckers for fingers, eyeballs totally popped out to the stalks.  The air, electric, thick with horror and the fabric of reality ripped apart.  My bed, the sheets crumpled to a misshapen mass, and the culprit blinking and ringing obscenely.

Right.  The phone.  The fucking, fucking phone.

Who could be calling me at this God-awful time of the night?  Who???  Oh, Gawwwddd---

"Ivan!"

Ava.  Of course.  She whom I'd shared an adventure in Port Chester as we were pestered by the crazy Mick Fleetwood look-a-like who kept shrieking "I will kill you ALL!!!"

My voice---a dim, barely-there croak.  "Whuuuuu....."

She was as bright as yellow in Spring, as giddy as Goldie Hawn in Cactus Flower, as chirpy as a fantastic April morning... and I wanted to bludgeon her.  "What's a hamamelis?"

Now I was really awake.  Clarity, in the tradition of sheer sobriety, was sinking in, deep, and festering.  "Hama what???"

"Mario's online looking for hama-something and he can't figure out where to find it but it's an astringent or some sorts," she explained.  As if that would make it better, I was seeing bright crimson.

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?  What's the immediacy?"

"He needs it.  He just doesn't quite know how to spell it.  Don't forget, he's not from here... he's hardcore Dominican."

"Ava, wha..."  This was unbelievable.  "You're calling me at---" (I checked my phone.) "---one-thirty in the morning, on a Monday night, because Mario wants something real urgent and you decided I was Information Society, let's call Ivan???"  My voice was trembling, but level.

"Well?  Aren't you going to get up and help me?  You're the one with the flawless spelling and knowledge of crap no one pays attention to."

She was right.  I was research-central.  And even as pain shot through my body, I managed to peel myself off the bed, hobble to the computer, and open the Mozilla window.

No sooner than I'd typed "hama" the word hamamelis appeared.  Which was lovely, but it didn't solve my dilemma, or hers, and since I'm much more Google-friendly, I opened the Wikipedia window.  And saw.  And had an idea.  "Ava.  Don't worry... I found what the fuck it is."

"You did!"  She was beaming.

"Uh-huh, and if you don't mind, I'm going to go to bed."

"Wait!  Aren't you going to tell me?"

"Oh, I'd love to, but I've got a better idea.  He needs this, you said?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he doesn't have to worry.  He'll have it real soon."

"Oh wow, thanks!  Let me tell him; the thing is, he suddenly got this urge for hamamelis and took off to the computer and when I saw he was paying more attention to a cyber-bush than my own bush, that was where I drew the line, so I called you up to see if you could help me.  He needs to finish doing me.  Momma has to come to-night."

"Not a problem.  You can resume your carnage.  I'll call you tomorrow."

"Alrighty!"

I clicked the "end call" button and opened one of my sites of preference where I get my supplements.  There it was, and I clicked on it, placed my order, and promptly checked out.  As I walked back to bed, I couldn't help giggling.

Ava was going to get a box of 36 bottles of witch hazel in about two days with a bi-i-i-ig red bow on top.  That's what hamamelis was.  Alcohol and a little fucking extra.  However, I'm pretty darn sure Mario the compulsive would find myriad uses for it.  He'd be the cleanest man in America.  For the next forty years.  And perhaps he might take some into the afterlife like Tutankhamon.

There's a New Kid in Town

You know a sexual expression has or is becoming irrelevant when you have celebrities coming out and the world goes, "And this is news?  My, what a slow week.  Could someone dismember an infant, cram it in a black duffel bag, and toss it into the Hudson?  Something really, stomach-turning heinous?  Anybody??"

[Aside: wow.  I'm... kinda sick at myself.  But it's staying.  Comedy isn't safe, fellas.]

So now Archie, the comic strip, has come out in a move that seems to say, "We're still here, fuckheads!  Memba us?  Yeah, we're controversial, too!  So suck it!".  So yeah.  Archie has gone gay, and I don't mean him, or Jughead (whom I always thought would be the one with the lavender tendencies), or Reggie or the muscular blonde who was always with Sabrina.  [Wow... looks like I know my characters quite well, even after thirty years.  I need help.  Memo to me: burn some cells.  Too much memory.  Not good.  May bring unsavory flashbacks of raging puberty mixed with pimples and bad hair.]  No, it's a new character of the somewhat non-threatening, colorless name of Kevin Keller, and I mean that because the sound of it doesn't seem to conjure images of man-stud and the drawn version of him certainly shows: slender, perfectly arched eyebrows, neatly combed hair, near-flawless appearance.  I guess Veronica will have to look elsewhere for a little vaginal action or remain with her trusty redhead, providing he can after 70 years still crank her monkey.  Then again, if the writers make her clueless and a sucker for humiliation as Kevin blithely rejects her I may just buy a copy.  I love human debasement over the unattainable.  It just makes my plastic heart so bing!

My only question: have I been living under a rock that I didn't know Archie was still in print?  That may be the only relevant question here, the one that makes me wake up in night sweats.  I can see it now: me, haunted by the ghost of comic book past as he chases me through the nocturnal New York streets and in shrieking demon tones brings me up to speed to their convoluted storylines as I beg him to make it stop make it stop make it STO-O-O-O-OP!!

Oh, You Look So Beautiful Tonight....

I think I'm going to kill some erotomaniacal aspirations here, just because I can.  Because sometimes when you see weeds starting to poke through your perfectly landscaped garden you have to take drastic measures.  No one wants a messy, ugly looking garden.  It diminishes the curb appeal your house already has.  So tactless.  But back to taking charge, i. e. killing weeds dead: no matter how many times you scream 'til you're blue in the face that you are quite sure of the type of man you gravitate to (think Derek Poundstone or Chris Meloni and no, you can't enunciate some exceptions because that's precisely where control-freaks slither in thinking, "Ah, there is a chance he might be into me!  Let me sneak in, under the radar, and pounce when he least expects it."), there's always that same thought process from the parenthetical freak, thinking, "Pshaw.  I'm sure he doesn't mean it.  I'm sure he'll see me for the guy I am.  And then I'll cram him into the perfectly gilded cage I've got here with his name on it and he'll understand.  Oh, I know, he might be shrieking for help for the first hundred thousand years, but he'll soon learn to accept it, the same way he'll accept his hobbled foot, but that was because he was trying to escape, and I couldn't allow it you see.  He's mine.  We're meant to be.  Give it time.  I'm a good guy.  I'm a good guy.  I'm a g----"

I've decided I'm married.  And in love.  Deeply.  Passionately.  To New York.  No one, no matter how big their cock is or how big their delusions are, can compete with this.  So there.  I am, however, currently accepting gifts from LXTV Open House, Crate and Barrel or its sister store CB2, a minimalist decor worthy of Dwell magazine (red is my favorite color for interiors), and a wonderful view of either the Empire State Building, the Manhattan skyline, or Central Park, enclosed in about 1500 square feet of ultra-chic privacy and a doorman, no matter how "on strike" he may think he is.  I'm too delicate a flower to be expected to open doors at my age.  As long as he's sexy and willing to provide me with excellent service, even after hours... he can open my door anytime.

Blast Off!

Just as I thought it would, Goldfrapp's "Rocket" has struck number one on the Billboard Dance charts and I love it.  I'm probably going to burn my ears off listening to it on my iPod and that's exactly my purpose because I, right now, am totally into the "retro 80's sound".  [Can you believe it?  The 80s, now considered "retro".]  It's all I want to listen to.  Tahell with jazz or disco house---they can and will take a back burner for now.  This is it, my focus, 'til I'm sick of it, or the genre kills itself off.  And don't let any music critic tell you electroclash or synthpop is dead---you can check its influence in everyone from La Roux, Ke$ha, Owl City, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, Metro Station... and especially Calvin Harris and Lady GaGa.

Goldfrapp, however, is pretty darn interesting.  There's an intelligence, a tone, and a coherent setting within her music that GaGa can't replicate no matter how gigantic she becomes, but perhaps that's why GaGa is the stronger pop star while Goldfrapp is her artistic counterpart---she's pure, aggrandized, over-the-top theatrics while Goldfrapp isn't trying for the masses but for anyone who can actually, truly listen at the sound and discover the song.  Rocket, the lead single for her new album Head First, is a revelation for me as the listener (and I really am good at finding even tiny little niches in music).  I love how straightforward it is.  Nothing from her previous, beautiful but anti-commercial, electro-folk A&E is here: this is a song with a streamlined story about female power told in heavy synths that made me think of two specific songs: Jump by Van Halen and Xanadu by Olivia Newton John and ELO.  It's as late 1981 as you can get; where she'd been---to me---flirting with the genre of synth in Supernature and Black Cherry, here it is, cheesy, shocking pink, shameless, almost like a note-by-note remake of the kind of material Cerrone used to create, down to the aerobics-inducing beats and the roller-skates.  Even the cover of the single is 80s personified with the airbrushed road peeling off the Earth and reaching for the purple skies---a theme on many rock albums from the period.  [Remember all those Boston and Journey covers?  Of course you do.  You better....]

Sigh... now if only the men I don't want even near me would listen to these lyrics.  Obama just mentioned sending people to space and I say "Hell yeah!  How soon can I get rid of this lint on my clothes?"  I'd be the first one to buy them a one-way ticket.  Because I'm such a softie and a romantic.

Saving Face

This is the perfect cure for what I got.

You know the feeling.

You wake up one day and you realize your eyes can't focus, and one seems oddly smaller than the other.  You wonder if perhaps you did mutate---after all, you can't buh-leeve that humans are the only mammals who haven't done a single thing to their own selves while starfish can grow limbs (we just sever them after a bomb goes off courtesy from dose bad ol' folk from them nasty Arab countries).  Then you comfort yourself that the only other mutation that seems to be taking place is that of a certain prom queen you knew who aspired Big---think Modeling!  Commercials!  Hollywood!  Broadway!  Fame and fortune and (chuckle) eternal beauty!---, turned tail, folded up in a tent, and blew up to massive proportions to a point where the only way to get out from her shadow is to get out from under her and move to another state (although thankfully to us New Yorkers, she did... and crime, and misery, and a whole bunch of other things ceased... she is the prime example of how manatees need to remain, hidden under the sea or someplace, tending their trollful habits).

But back to the important topic: my re-enaction of a Picasso painting, all mismatched eyes, a swollen upper lip, and a constricted trachea that certainly feels a mile long... that can mean only one thing.

Allergies.

On the day you have a date with The New Guy.

So you crawl towards Mecca, which in this case is your trusted altar-slash-medicine cabinet, and lo and behold, pearly-white rays of light bathe your misshapen visage.  There they are.  Your lovelies.  Lite-green, staring at you from within a white, sterile plastic jar with the date 09/11 stamped on its bottom, and you chuckle at the irony, since this is an emergency of a different kind---it's the restoration of your own semblance that while not being that of perfect proportions, is masculine and is driving men wild.  Or perhaps it's your own personality, which is also that of a winning kind.  Anyway.  Before you can smack your Venus-flytrap eyelids dowwwwwn the hatch they goooooo... gulp! and immediately you feel relief washing over you with shades of morning chill-out and urban coffee, and that night you decide you're going to go right back out into the New York jungle and hang out with the boys at your favorite bar that is in the middle of Everywhere, right where you need to be.

Because surely, no small blunder can keep you away from the lights and smells and tastes of the City, not when you're compromised.  Who does this allergy think it is, and how dare it fire up just when Spring is here, when Things are Happening, when people are smiling---well, maybe not the tot in the carriage beside you on the PATH as it hurls itself towards Christopher; it just saw you and belted out a "WA-A-A-A-A-AH!" in what can only be graded as a High C, and while we're at it, stop looking at me, you insane woman!  What, is my eye bothering you?  A little off kilter, isn't it?  I'm sure that's how you don't live your life, everything right on cue down to the dreary yuppie husband and the ultra-modern apartment that I should have but you managed to grab.  It's all this judging of appearances that makes humanity what it is today.  I'm so sorry my face looks dreadful even under the soft layer of Nivea, but you try catching this baby and see if you look fresh come morning.  Maybe that husband of yours might reconsider when he wakes up to your Rocky Dennis.

Uh... sir... you seem to have---

Yes, I know, I know, my right cheek looks like a truck pummeled itself into my face seventeen times, what of it, fatass?  Why don't you get off the train already and let me be?  I have two more stops and an entire block to tackle before I meet my date; you have dinner at Olive Garden or Cosi or somewhere completely scrubbed clean and devoid of personality.  My cheek!  My cheek!  You should see me wearing chaps with both cheeks exposed.  You would like to touch those, wouldn't you?  Silly twit.  Tend to your brat and leave me the hell alone.  I got business at a bar and it ain't with a baby on my nipple but a real man.  Suck on that, dearie!

Oh, good.  She's gone.  And I'm out.  Walking towards my bar on 23rd and 8th.  Well... wading a little.  Goodness, these pills are strong.  Then again I really should have gone to bed, but no... I have a date and I intend to keep it.  Even when everything seems blurry and I have no idea how I'll sustain active interest in this night should it go where it wants to go.  Oh, I shouldn't have come... I shouldn't, I shouldn't... oh well.  It can't come too late for me; I'm only a guy and I have my needs.  Except that right now... a bed could do me real good.

Nine years later, I'm at the bar near the rear, old, broken down, as miserable as a stuck pig.  But that's the nature of the beast; men are pigs and will turn tricks for a little some-some even at the expense of falling into a coma.  So unsavory.  At least have the decency to think of your own boyfriend while having sex with your momentary lapse, who cares if you cried Peter while being with a Matt?  Oh, hell.  Hell, hell, I'm swimming and this fucking music seems so shrill... my eyes are closing....

A hand on my wrist.  Strong.  My reaction is to lash out---watch it, buddy!---but nope, there he is, all a mass of muscles trying to pop out of their clothes, a rogue smile framed by dimples, and one of the most gravel voices I've ever heard.  Me?

In hog heaven, if clouds were made of muck.

Wouldn't you like to know what happened after...

Like Fine Wine...

Now, why can't bodybuilding go back to when it was a bona fide form of art instead of the performance-enhanced freak show it's become?  Larry Scott's official site---that I found because I'm a search-hound and one thing leads to another, especially when looking for topics---features clips of this incredible man showing off one of the most graceful bodies the lifestyle has engendered since Eugene Sandow officially birthed it over a century ago.  Even Ronnie Coleman, a mass of artificiality that perfectly encapsulates bodybuilding's degradation (although to be honest, I hold a special place in my heart for Markus Ruhl, who truly is disgusting and deserves to be studied by science after he dies), had to comment that Scott was "one of the best of all times... during his time."  I'm not sure if Coleman was referring to the fact that thanks to his enormous steroid bill he's managed to accrue (I can't say win) all those statuettes, and now this is his time, but let's leave it at that and enjoy Scott in this video, and for a time when to be a bodybuilder meant you had an amazing physique that also enhanced your masculinity instead of turning it into a ridiculous cartoon.

Spanking is Counterproductive

One million bubble-butts cried... Sir, yes, Sir!!!

It's official: if Tiger Woods wasn't proof positive already that CNN has run out of news that count (that is, until the next earthquake hits or priests actually stop molesting the young' uns), picture this---and it's archived under "Breaking News!  Videos from CNN.com" for a good headstart---spanking is counterproductive.

Being the inquisitive fag I am I thought about his long and hard, and while I did it, Mr. Happy also got long and hard.  And then I had no other reason to take care of business using my overactive imagination, a wine enema, a dildo and some lube 'til all hours, because really, when you have this telling you in tones of practiced sterility and 50s denial blended with that face that looks like it was scrubbed clean of a personality and anything resembling desire, you know you have to turn the video off, whip out your Raging Stallion collection, and spank that monkey  'til it's run ragged.  And at the height of your fantasy then throw your spunk right at her video face as you scream at her to shut the fuck up and stop analyzing what she doesn't know a thing about.  And no, this isn't "violence against women", it's called projective S & M.  So there.

Of course, I'm going to get some comment or email from someone saying, "Hey, moron, you didn't watch the entire video, she wasn't saying that spanking is counterproductive, she was saying that it leads to aggressive behavior and that you should talk to your child."

Right, but see, even as a kid I knew I wanted Daddy's Strong Hand on me---as sick as it sounds, but this is me, not you---so technically, all those belts, slippers, and paddle substitutes were really only a preamble to making me the sadomasochistic gay man I am today.  The "aggression" is only circumstantial and happens when two testosterone-heavy men meet and have to sort things out with grunts and flexing and a lot of grinding.

Where's the Beef?

Maybe it's me.  Maybe it's the fact that I haven't graduated from alcohol to Propofol.  Perhaps I've yet to truly open to certain aspects of the gay world that now seem banal to me.

Perhaps it's that I'm about to turn forty, and while I'm not "old"... the bloom has effectively fallen off the rose.

Chalk it up to five on six years of traveling around the country and being so isolated a conversation with yourself in a hotel room in San Francisco sounds almost like a schizophrenic's argument with all of his seventeen different personalities, not including Elmo, the unformed one because it's been a bad boy, peeing in the pool.  You don't do that.  Not when you're trying to cruise the hot business traveler minding his own business at the other end and he just saw the blue in the water become a faint lime green around your shorts and now you have to look like it wasn't you but the little kid swimming away from your side.  At least you have the night, and the bars, and by that, you mean (the closed) Loading Dock at SoMa, where you could see an extremely ugly guy get fisted and gang banged by a group of sweaty San Franciscan men and live to tell your friends about it because it was hilarious and disgusting and deliciously perverted at the same time... or go into the backroom and get a little action by a shadow and hope it was a guy you wanted near you, which was often not the case.  [Shivering...]

Yes, this was the Lure, in spirit.  Way. Back. When.  Don't let the Tom of Finland cartoon fool you.

Of course, this was early in the previous decade.  Now, it's all gone to pot as far as I'm concerned, thank you very much.  Where did, in fact, all the magic and novelty and sheer filthiness of the New York leather scene go?  What happened to the Meat Market?  The two ultra-dirty hangouts on 14th Street and Hudson where true raunch and circumstance became unveiled in all its skanky glory?

I should have seen that coming.  As early as 2001, when the Spike died and became replaced with its pod-brother-substitute, the now-named Spike Gallery, quickly followed by The Lure's close and gentrification into the less enticing and very straight 419 Washington (no clue as to what it is but it ain't gay and whenever I go by it all I see are well-dressed heteros mingling with each other, the rats), nothing seemed the same.  Even when I go to the Eagle on rare occasions (mainly when there are friends visiting town; other than that I stay home) it seems there's an essence missing---something of the menace, the grit, a feeling that you were inside a discriminating locale, where the men displayed their huge fetishes with a bravado not seen since the days of biker movies.  All I get is a sensation of being in a place that wants and is trying very hard to look grungy, dirty, but comes across as being little more than a locale for posers and sadly, the only place a guy like me can go hang out if I want a harder-edged crowd... whatever that may be nowadays.

Or perhaps... New York is forever changed.  Ten years have gone by since the 9-11 attacks and while that has little, if in fact nothing, to do with night-life, it's all related in a tight fabric of events.  The entire area where the Towers fell is to be reconfigured into a swanky office-shopping area.  Even when they're not even remotely built, the changes in Downtown New York are pretty pronounced... and for the "cleaner", and that just exploded all the way up, particularly on the West Side, from Church and Chambers to the high-Twenties that extend from 6th Avenue all the way to the West Side Highway.  I think perhaps I can arbitrarily blame Hotel Gansevoort for making its very un-gayish appearance (despite it's purple lights) even before the attacks and ruining the party for everyone, because after that it all went to ultra-chic buildings that offer little-to-nothing for the gays and ev-ery-thing for real estate sharks.

Perhaps it's for the best.  Private parties are the norm anyhow, I don't do the Black Party (and apparently I'm not missing much), and at least there you can actually get into action instead of standing in the corners with people you know, looking morose (which is meant to be "butch") in your uniform of choice as bad industrial music blares out and a small few drink their wits out while throwing themselves onto you, one eye trying to focus, the other slammed shut, and proffer you a threesome right before passing out.  Yeah, I think this is a great time for me to renovate my tiny place while I'm at it.  That way I can chain Mr Right to a cute nook and have my beastly way with him while times get better for the New York City leatherman.  Practicality over nostalgia at all times!

Still, sigh, better times... better times... good times, hard times, oh well.  The times, they are forever a' changing.  Rinse, repeat.

The Bucket List in the Times of Crazy

Terrorists, like stalkers of different scopes, genders, and sizes, never completely go away.  Even when you lock them up and throw away the key there's always the lingering shadow of the misery they attempted to bring upon you due to their own persecution issues.  Perhaps it's the fact that, like failed talented folk who now reside in the shadows of life and troll for affections on the net while producing nothing of value---whether you accept them or not---if you see them for what they're worth, which is nothing in my opinion---the terrorists' next step is to "show you."  You can practically read it in their actions as they prowl the NYC subways, silent, going to nowhere but watching, watching, while you and I nap and wait for Our Next Stop to get off.  Oh, stupid American, you might sit there and listen to your unholy music through your iPod, but I'll show you.  I'll give you a scare you'll never forget, and you'll see.  Wait.  You'll see.  And then you will understand the fury of Jihad!  [And to this I say, "Meh...."]

Why am I talking about terrorists and stalkers?  Well... read here.

Joaquin Phoenix, is that you?

I just got off a cute little exchange with my friend Jill on my Facebook page because the (would-be) situation reminded me of what happened in the Moscovian subways less than two weeks ago.  And while it certainly is tragic I've learned that when you give in to fear, they have won.  As terrible as matters are---because on one end we have the earthquakes that now occur on a daily basis and on the other we have these foiled attempts which remind us it could happen at any time---I tend not to think of these things in shades of black and blacker.  Too much guesswork!  No, I prefer to see it this way:

Jill Abrams

Even my ordinarily optimistic mother thinks it's the end of the world. I would love to know what your bucket list is Ivan!!!

Ivanhoe Vargas

Mine?
Oh, I'm going to die an old, old man. Happy, surrounded by those whom I love, published, reaping the rewards of having reached the people who matter, still sexually active, with my husband, very forgiving to those who smeared my name in one way or other, in total and absolute peace. And I'll look flawless. Distinguished. My ultimate best.

Tell that to Lola!

Frankly as frightening as all this is---earthquakes and terrorist plots aside---there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, it sounds like a cliche. But it's true.

Of course, I can't live with myself after saying that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  How Hallmark on steroids is this?  The only "light" I want to see at the end is a guy's eyeballs popping out while I'm pleasuring his----

Mozart Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Why was I pulled into this mess?  Why couldn't I have said, "Why no thank you, Bob, I'd rather be stalked to death by a crazy man who would chop me to pieces, pepper my remains all over the state, and keep my mummified head as a token for whenever he'd need a reaffirmation that I, indeed, was his, not just as a passive kisser or an interlocutor named Yorick, but the perfect condom for those dark and stormy nights when he was feeling a bit special."  No.  I had to say "Sure, I'd love to see August Rush with you!" in tones of sheer excitement not seen since I returned to Noo Yawk in 1996.  Then again, had you been imprisoned in a tiny island called Dominican Republic---a country that, while having some of the most paradisiacal beaches known to the globe cannot state the same for its "metropolitan" offerings and cultural advancements---you'd concur.  And we'd continue to sip martinis, because it is sheer happiness when two people reach complete intellectual bliss.

Thank God for Franzia, however, and for Friday nights.  Yeah, you might say, "You're an old fart, Ivan, have you noticed how you've become an old man sitting home with your housemate watching movies when you could be strutting all that junk for the masses to swoon over?"  [I think of myself that way.  A hot mess trapped in the body of a hibernating animal.  Just don't call me a bear and we'll be in peace.  I may be a lot of things, but I really can't visualize myself as roaming the wild, searching for honey, and covered in fur.  And I've worn fur... just not the live kind, but that's another story.]  I'd retort, "Well, Interrogator, if you must know I love New York, but I love the comfort of my sweats and slippers and my sofa even better."  And besides, I don't play staggering drunk well, so that settles it.  Netflix brings me some happy, and I sit back and let the rest take shape.  No pain, no gain wasn't my favorite phrase anyway.

So Franzia, Bob, and I, in an unofficial date, watching August Rush.  He, totally buying into the coma-inducing sweetness, me... uh, not.  Oh, I squirmed in my seat after the first fifteen minutes as Our Kid Hero begins to tell us in exclamation points! that there is nothing greater than the power of music.  Pity he didn't meet Maria, the heroine of The Sound of Music.  He might as well have channeled her, since every scene had him in pure solemn ecstasy, arms outstretched, letting the hum and buzz and banging noises enfold him.  The last time I encountered such nirvana was when I saw my tax return and promptly stormed the Fifth Avenue stores for some brands to fill my place.  But back to Kiddo, his story: you've read it before, as "Oliver Twist", but with a hint of a lesser known novel called "Nobody's Boy" by a French Author.  Both so similar in scope you wonder if there was nothing else to write about in the 1800s than of children in peril.

And by all means, it could have made a good story... had the sugar-coated New Ageism not been amped up to eleven in screaming letters and the contrivances so completely transparent as to be literally talking down to you in hushed, slow tones, because you see, you---the viewer---needs to know that Kirsten Sheridan has a Vision and she needs to expound it to you at every given opportunity with a club.  And then bring on the Good Year blimps with the eighty-foot message.  In case you weren't paying attention.

It's a shame though, that she wraps her tale without a real, plausible character to hold on to.  And I've read romance.  Lots.  You can second-guess the plot page by page.  But at least, with the better ones, there's a little else going on, something extra.  Even when John and Mary will wind up at the altar after much tribulations, they never seem anything but real people, people who make mistakes and on occasions drive the plot a little west of where it was blueprinted to go.

The soulful kid that's the glue tying everyone together: check.  The controlling stage father: check.  The frail, suffering daughter: check.  The renegade rocker with the Romeo eyes: check.  His meddling brother: check.  Fagin: check.  The kind but somehow ineffectual teacher/mentor: check.  Hope: check---down to the name, incidentally.  Throw in a little metaphysics into the mix and you have enough to send you into a diabetic slumber and make Sunny von Bulow great company.

It was a shame I wasn't the girl Romeo meets and briefly dates for about five minutes.  She was smart.  One look at how dysfunctional these two brothers are and she basically said, "See ya!"  Oh, and that shawl sweater Romeo wears while looking fro Juliet in Chicago?  I have one in blue.  I loved it.  That was the best acting from a sweater, I'll tell you that.

PS -- Did anyone see how shots of the brother lovingly looking at Romeo had an unintentional homoerotic feel to it?  It's brief, but again, subtle isn't what this movie is going for.

Gaying it Forward

Wait---what did you say?

You know... life is a bit of a bitch with a aftertaste of the type that recalls old-man's mouth with a fifth of tobacco and homeless sneakers when you look at it closely and attempt at a quick, painless sip.  This is the equivalent of getting a two-dollar bill that on top of it, is fake as a two-dollar bill.  Or watching a really good mystery that leads you to believe that there is, in fact, a lovely pay-off at the end but instead leaves you hanging at the end of your seat, panting, sweating, skin twitching because you practically had it!!! and suddenly, without warning, the credits roll, the camera pans towards a white screen, and you have to make heads or tails about what the fuck was it you just sat through, and let's not even get started on the fight you're going to have to get involved in because you just paid your entire paycheck in order to get in, buy some of the most expensive theatre food ever, and now you want your hard-earned money back.

I have to be grateful, though.  Bar seats are really comfortable---none of that really uncomfortable wooden stools from a time when bars didn't know what the hell they were about and all you did was stand in a corner and drink your wits out while thinking you looked hot when all the time you smelled of Loser with a sprinkle of Needs A Life.  [Well, they still haven't changed much if you check every person's Facebook pages... but that's not the point here.  Don't lecture me about the thens and nows.]

You see, when I found out I was sitting in the plushest couch and nothing allows for more comfort when getting some shocking news than when you have softness and leather around and beneath you, a drink in hand, soaking in ambiance.  Jim, the harbinger of the good news, sat beside me and I could detect a faint whiff of color on his already cute, red, Irish face, but it wasn't his fault.  He'd attempted to introduce me to a guy several weeks ago, but knowing how sharp as a Ginza-knife demanding I can be he met me to hang out on a Thursday night because Mr. Future and I were and are set to meet later in the month and he needed to disclose something rather, um... important to me.

"If it's that he has a boyfriend, it's OK... we don't have to take it beyond a one-nighter," was my reply.  Mainly because it seems that is all I meet lately.  Married guys.  All the single men are hiding from me.  Come out, come out, wherever you are.  No, really.  Please?  Pretty please?  I'll even do my Beyoncé rendition of "All the Single Ladies" if you do.  Minus the clown mask.

"He has the clap."

"Uh, qu' est ce que say WHAT?!?"

"Oh, damn... I knew it."

"You were setting me up with a clapping monkey?  Have you met me?"

"Yes... and that's why I'm telling you now.  I didn't want you to set the dogs on him or rip him to pieces."

"But you were introducing me to him.  And how did you come upon this pearl of information?  Huh?  Please inform me."

Jim kept looking at me with those deep-set blue eyes of his... and it didn't take long for me to make four.

I sighed.  "You know how many times I've told guys whom I didn't care for that I had the clap?  This is so much like bad karma thrown on you for being a neurotic hot mess it's not funny."

"Actually, it sort of is..."

I laughed.  "You're right, you know.  I'm waiting for the one where my mother dies for real."

"How many times have you killed her?"

"We'd have to go into powers to find that one out, hoss."

"Just meet him.  As a matter of fact... he should be fine by then."

"And aren't you so generous?  Giving me your leftovers for me to slobber over."

"I live for sharing."

"Why, thank you.  Thank you so much.  Now I know how Kate Gosselin feels and I don't even have the weird haircut or the eight brats to annoy me.  I'm sorry, love me.  She dances now."

"Or the ex husband."

"Thank God he doesn't!  Oh, I'd kill myself, but I'd kill him first.  War of the Roses has nothing on me."

"Just meet him.... you don't have to to have sex with him."

"Jim, the one thing I love more than myself is my health.  You know how I tend to look down on guys who get any kind of STD.  They're stupid and careless and need to stay the hell away from me."

"You don't look down on me," he stated, softly.

And he was right.  As hypercritical as I am, Jim is one of my closest friends in the world and we've shared quite a bit together.  He's also not a slut, so how he got this might be attributed to mere error in judgment.  And I haven't been the sharpest tack in the world myself---as a matter of fact, the reason I'm so tough as nails is because I've slipped more than once and had a couple critical calls.

So I took a breath, made a decision, took a peek into his Facebook picture, felt my breath go weak and Mr. Happy go "beep!", drank my martini in one fell swoop, and declared: "Alright, alright!  I'll go visit my doctor real soon.  And make sure his drinks are spiked with so much Cipro he couldn't infect me even if he got the virus from USAMRID himself in a Petri dish with a bow on top.  Don't look at me like that!  Preservation before pleasure!"

"Amen!"

Jesus, what a man has to go through in order to get a little some-some.

His Facebook picture.  I'm so easily swayed by beauty.

On Autopilot

So that's it.  That's why for the moment I, like Heidi Montag, can't produce anything a little longer than a quaint burble, an unintelligent squawk of the equivalent of "That's hot."  My brain is on vacation.  Or possibly, fried.  Maybe it's all those imaginary drugs I took when I partied like my alter-ego Barry Cadshaw in the Best City in the World.  Maybe it's these gigantic knockers that have mysteriously appeared on my chest, and no, they're not the muscular kind but triple Ds, attainable by a full dose of 800 cc.  It's a miracle what a pair of reverse champagne cups topped by nipples make you behave like.  Is that why La Heidi decided to participate in that excuse of a show?  And to think, for the longest time I've been dismissing her as a complete bimbo, a moron of the levels only attainable by geniuses and prodigies.  Here we smugly thought we were following this idiotic reality starlet (if we might call her that) as she went through the painful events of her Daily Life, episode through episode, in and out of that pesky lil' trick called "Lurve", met an invaluable rapping white tool under the guise of a romantic partner.  She was deftly winking her dead eye at us, the clever minx.  "The Hills" was a precursor to what she'd plant on her chesties, and as her talent grew, so would their swell.  What a proud American she must be.  She must now walk proud, plastic chin up high, as she now enunciates some of the most memorable quotes recorded in recent history.  I firmly believe Meryl has come upon some serious competition as does every pop songstress with a true voice---she might consider gettin' some balloons, perhaps not even that but fitness balls attached to her chest.  Can you just see the headlines?  Heidi Montag makes her jazz debut at Carnegie Hall with a voice rivaling Diana Krall's followed by a sold-out appearance as the very whimsical but romantic at heart Charity in Sweet Charity, and then moves on to write the next Pulitzer-prize winning novel while winning the Oscar for a powerhouse performance, all done from the depths of her bulging breasts, in record time.  We should be so, so afraid.  Miss Triple Threat is here.  And we're not even yet feeling the real consequences of 2012 yet.

Oh hell.  Let me just play with these fun-bags (not the ones you're thinking) and coast on my inane thoughts for a while before my hard drive (chuckle) kicks back into gear.  I won't think of Heidi Montag anymore.  Boobettes are contagious and before you know it I'll be having fifty surgeries in less than a week and then pontificating on how "deep" a person I am on the "inside."  And worse, stapled to a complete douchebag with a personality defect.  Mainly that he doesn't have one.  Right, Spencer?

Just Dance

I really have no comments after watching this video.  Just click the little play-thingy (or the title in order to watch it full-screen) and watch.  Although... if you're a Republican, and by that I mean a backwards thinking, God-fearing H. I. C. K..., um... don't.

Although... I gotta lay out, in text, Tiger Woods' text messages to one of his skanks, because it's poetry that needs to be exhibited at the MoMA in style for us, the intelligentsia, to read and giggle:

"I wanna treat you rough.  Throw you around, spank an' slap you an' make you sore.  I wanna hold you down and choke you while I fuck that ass that I own.  Then I'm gonna tell you to shut the FUCK up while slap your face and pull your hair for making noise."

Spoken like a true gentleman.  Kids do say the darnedest things, after all.  But Bill Maher's delivery?  Flaw-less.  Elegant, eloquent, and with the silk gloves of a blue-blood.

Home, Sweet WHAT?

Sometimes the only way to get back at a homophobe is by throwing him right into the lion's den, locking the door, and throwing away the key, just for amusement.  Then you can sit back on your chaise-longue, sip an apple-tini, and watch the lovely carnage from a safe distance.  And if a gun goes off, well... you can always close the blinds and turn on the telly.

There's a man I know who can't stand gay men.  Now, I don't know he's eyeball-deep in the closet and self-hatred, but that's not my problem, now, is it?  Of course not.  Recently he approached me (of all people) and told me he was moving away from New York City because it was rife---rife, I tell you!---with freaks, queers, and degenerates and he'd had enough---enough!---of it all.  He wanted out.  He wanted to go to A Better Place.  And die a happy man.

Of course, being the good Samaritan that I am, I could only help him out in his endeavor.  I love bringing a smile to a person's face.  It's so fulfilling.  Remember, the good deeds you do now will duplicate themselves in droves of fabulous dharma that you shall reap in enormous, boundless spiritual wealth, or the entire Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter 2010 collection from your favorite designers.  Knowing that I set out to find him great suggestions for him to relocate; he was dead serious, you see.  Then again, so was I.

So I suggested---after much searching---he move to a lovely, one-bedroom house smack in the middle of town, right near the ocean.  Lovely views, Spanish architecture, the works.  He didn't care for all that jazz; he just wanted a place he could afford, a place that could call home, a place that was as removed from the sodomites as humanly possible.  And he'd found it.  Well, I'd found it, but that was one and the same: he was signing papers in no time, and before you could say "Queerbait!" he was gone from Ogden Avenue, and a truck was delivering his furniture to his new house.

You don't think he'd be mad with me if he found out that the town I just spoke of is none other than the disco ball called Ft. Lauderdale and the agency where I found his new place was run by gay men?

We're the neighbors!

How Do I Want Thee? Er... Maybe Not?

Thank you, Discovery Channel, for finally telling me which gender I truly am when looking for a partner, be it right now or potentially long term.  Even when looking for friends.

Tonight, as I type this, Discovery has a show called The Science of Sex Appeal.  It's pretty insightful, although a lot of the chemical verbage went slam! zing! over my head.  I don't spend time wondering how much androsterone I'm producing, and I really hope no self-respecting woman decides that I'm The One.  Again.  For the umpteenth time.  Then it's becoming a hairy situation for a man my age to be playing dodge ball with a part of humanity I couldn't be less interested in other than to walk through fashion recommendations, dress, and undress, only to dress again.  That, however, hasn't stopped a couple crazy few.  But I soldier on.  A man's gotta live.  And smile a lot.

• Memo to me: appointment with dentist fr. teeth whitening, then tanning.  Fuck the tax.

As masculine as I appear I have no qualms admitting I'm more of a woman looking for a man, and by that I mean a heroine in a film noir, circa Lauren Bacall or a Hitchcockian blonde circa Tippi.  Yessiree.  As you read it.  What you think you're getting is a giant muscleman sometimes called portly by some insecure online creep, but temperamentally I am Sizing You Up for possible carnage... that will happen my way.  So uber-gay, isn't it?  Who would admit to this?  Really, who?  Do you know anyone brave enough?  Admitting to this is tantamount to admitting you're a raging bottom who happens to look like an ass-breaking top.  No.  Only lil' ole' me.  That's because I don't care, not about you, but only about me.  I'm macho enough to disclose this part of myself.  And you better be (macho)... or else.

You see, men are typically peacock-ish in how they approach someone they're attracted to and mark their territory quite quickly.  They flaunt how much they make, how big their biceps are ("Look!  Twenty-inch guns!"  Me: "Uh, wow!"  On the inside, "Ya-a-a-awn..."), how good they are in bed ("Oh, really?  And this is supposed to mean what, exactly?  Please.  Entertain me."), and how hot you are ("You're not getting inside my Levi's, bub while I have a say in it.  But it's amusing to see you try.").  It's a dance not unsimilar to the one the ostrich puts on, and it's quite cute actually, because technically all I have to do is sip some ultra light beer (no carbs), stare blankly or impersonate emotion, and look furtively at the clock in case I need to have a headache, be at work early, or suddenly disclose I'm rife with a potpourri of STD's or some kind of mental illness, all of which I've used.  That's, of course, if this is the wrong guy, which is my favorite kind.  See?  I really am into S & M.  Just with invisible accoutrements.  I'm always in control, even when I look like I'm not.

Maybe my life is one long waltz, playacted out to the beat of Dorothy Parker's landmark story of the same name.  Because, as she said, "Why thank you.  I'd absolutely adore to dance with you."  I'd also love to be hit on the head with eight hundred pounds of human waste while we're at it, or have my face be a catcher's mitt for a plate swung at me like a saucer, who cares about the black eye, or the missing cheek bone?  We can always ask questions later, when I'm in the hospital and you are out of my life, for-e-ver.  In the meantime...  let's smi-i-i-ile... for we're in the middle of a dating session and hormones and horniness won't wait and I'll make sure it ends in tears---yours, not mine.  I love a date that ends in one man hating another.  People Are People has nothing on me, indeed: I just hope he'll feel my large hand squeezing his... and I hope it hurts.  Who wants to live forever?

Labels, Displayed

While I'm on a baby theme, I'm going to announce something to the pervy folk who read this post: if you're into diapers and bibs and bonnets and pacifiers you may want to keep it to yourself and not try to impose it unto an unsuspecting Mr. Right or even a Mr. The Next Thirty Minutes.  There is nothing, no-thing that can conjure up images of sheer horror, projectile vomiting, and running out the door while leaving a trail of fire and barely a memory more than a man with a baby fetish using any of these combinations.  Gurgling and cooing and uttering such bon mots as "Goo-goo-gaa-gaa."  Unless you picture Sarah Palin as a Dominatrix named Hydrangea Moose loquaciously fisting a quietly weeping Glenn Beck as he, gag in mouth, watches the collapse of all that he believes in (himself, himself, and uh... himself) and judge that as giving you a reason to rub yourself a piece of happy... although who knows?  Your weird rocks are yours to get off on.  And since this is, apparently, Coming Out Month (see Sean Hayes, Anna Paquin, and Ricky Martin), I'm going to take a bullet and say it: I'm a label-whore.  A fashionista.  An ice-king you have to pick at real hard to get underneath his skin but beware of stinging ice-scorpions.  Oh, and a decor pig.  All in one neat package called Ivanhoe Vargas.

Insomnia

Sometimes I can't sleep at night. Not because I have a guilty conscience, because I don't.  I've come to believe it might be perfectly possible I may have a teeny-tiny, hyperactive sociopath living and paying rent inside of me, and I have to remind him or her that he or she is late already and needs to let me rest. What's up with people or gnomes or little-folk living inside you and not even paying you what you are worth?  It's unthinkable, and quite intolerable.  I need to place an ad on Craigslist and see what dreck I might conjure, and by that I don't mean a man-hating quasi-female from Amazonia---Lord knows I don't need castrating, sterile banshees darkening my door when it's already Spring in New York and I have a swing in my step.  Enough is enough already.  Rebecca Schaeffer shouldn't be my next role.

But, back to front.  I couldn't sleep, not last night, not this night, so I called my friend Karen up.  I wasn't sure if the growl on the other end was because she'd swallowed an avocado, full, and it was pressing against her vocal chords, making her sound like a cross between Mercedes McCambridge, circa The Exorcist, and Barry White on acid walking a tightrope between crazy and transsexual.

Here was our conversation:

"Mawmeeee!"

"WHAT???"

"Uh, I can't sheep."

I heard her breathe exasperation.  "You can't sheep?  Are you sure you're forty years and not months old?"

I looked down at my little friend, Mr. Happy, under my forest green sweats.  It was oddly terse and winked at me, a thing that made me happy.  [Now, if only it would have cried "Bruno!" at the top of its, um, pee-hole...]  I replied with a whiny baby-voice, "Just co-o-o-ome and read me a bedtime story... I can't sleep!!!"

Karen sighed.  It wasn't the first time I called her at two in the morning.  On a day she had to go to work.  At seven in the morning.  She went into Mommy-talk and said: "Alright, honey, I'll come over.  Did you brush your teeth?"

"Naw, I'm super-tired.  I'm on my sofa and I need someone to tuck me in, read me a story, and make sure the monster isn't in the closet.  And by that I mean Father Vargas, who now lives in the Vatican."

For those of you reading this, I have an uncle who's a Monsignor and he's quite the pill.  Unpleasant, presumptuous, and I've decided to promote him by calling him a pedo.  I don't know that he is, but he ruined my father's funeral, took part of my little family's torment because it was his way to get back at my mother, a lady my father should never have married because she was so above him, so I think it's only fitting I label him something more appropriate.  And anyway, aren't they all?  Let's all ask the Pope.  And take pictures of his horrified face.

"You poor thing.  Have you chosen your booky-wook?"

"Um-hum.  Colt 2010 Calendar!"

The next thing I heard was the beep of the line going dead.

April Fool's Blues

If ever I buy another computer again (if only because other than disco dancing on my penis, my ten little fingers are quite adept at dancing on the keyboard and clicking on "buy", especially at music stores) I'll make sure I'll name it something a shade more butch than Lindy-Lou Beckforth.  This is the worst thing that could happen to a man like me: that even his gadgets, curiously named after the drag queens he never was, have turned hormonal right at the eve of the day everyone is supposed to be pranked to death.  And to think that it's not getting its heather menzies.  [That's me calling it a period.]  Wouldn't that be a trip?  To see a Sony Vaio hunched over, puking its lights out, and gushing more red than an Italian Giallo film?  Barfing out the pounds and pounds of muscle-porn I've got stashed inside it?  Then again, here we are back at the male brain again: a fuckload of it being wired for sex, like my bitchy laptop that tonight wouldn't do a single thing I asked it to do but make Jay Cutler stare blankly, yet with a twinkle, as if saying, you know... you could whip that thing out.  You have the oil, you're a big boy now.

Hm... that's not such a bad idea.  I'll be right back.

Or not.