Oh Wisconsin: Woe, woe, woe, Wisconsin

If my blog were a television show, this post would be equal to the season finale.

You probably aren't surprised to see Wisconsin in the title above. For about two months now, I get semi-regular updates on Woodsy and Nicely Nice Guy: who apparently are the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of the Midwest. Screaming at each other under the Chinese lanterns at the Pride Festival. Using bratwursts as billy clubs. Returning sets of keys: then patching things up via multiple orgasms.

Woodsy at long last was promoted at work and now has an assistant, who I'll call Smokey. Despite my insistence that I do not want to hear about the fights and especially not the reconciliations between these bickering babies, Smokey can't seem to keep his mouth shut. I think he may have a crush on Woodsy but when I suggested that, he got pissed. And then, one night after telling me that he and Woodsy had an argument and weren't speaking, he tosses this into our chat.

"You were so fucking hot in those videos Woodsy has.  I can't wait to get into your pants."

Now I know the reason for my Midwest popularity: Woodsy has been showing the videos we made a few years ago around the Great Lakes. In certain situations, this would be fine: except that I'd asked him not to. We weren't making a demo reel or infomercial... well at least I wasn't. This was more of an 'intimate' moment, meaning it was more kissy-face and coo-coo. At least that's how I remember it: I don't have a copy. Oh....and my cat is stretched across the bed snoring while Woodsy and I bounce off the walls.

Smokey was no different than everyone else who watched those videos and told me about it. And like everyone, he was compelled to make this comment.

"I told Woodsy it's clear you are in love with him."

I brought about such insight, and now such embarrassment: all upon myself. I''ll explain. As part five of our, yes, five-part mini-series video concludes,  I walk over to the camera, look directly into it, and with a crack in my voice, say
"Oh, Woodman." 
Camera off.
The End. Made in Hollywood, USA, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Woodsy was flying home the next morning. This was our last night together after three days of beautiful synchronicity. I can't explain what it was, but it was real. He had been honest about what he wasn't looking for....but his eyes seemed to contradict that. For me, orphaned at age 12, shuffled about as 'sidekick to a Trust Fund', and watching a disease: first called GRID then AIDS, carry a generation of mentors and suitors away, I have said goodbye to too many people. Like many of you have: this I know.

Perhaps had I turned back to Woodsy and delivered that line, instead of to the camera......
You see, the only person who's watched that video and NOT gotten my subtext, is You know Woo. Smokey was startled when instead of letting him continue, I took his line in the script:


And Woodsy said to you, "Oh, Gee, Really?" The dumb ox.
I added, ' I was. Was in love with him.'

As it so happened,  the next night I got a message from The Ox himself. He had been rushed to the hospital.  Nicely had brought W's cell and laptop over, but apparently had taken the liberty of reading all W's texts and e-mails, thus putting himself and W not on speaking terms. Not having spent the night as a patient in a hospital, Woodsy was scared, alone, and would I call him?

Of course I called him. (I'm pretty dumb too). We talked about an hour and a half. It was lovely. Woodsy wasn't happy with his life and wanted to do something about it.  He needed to get away and think and thought I needed to get away too.

"We should go somewhere. Together."  he suggested. "I have flyer miles. How about Vancouver?"
"Noooo," I replied. "Madrid."
(readers who've been following this for awhile will know I cancelled my Madrid vacation to visit Woodsy in Milwaukee about a month after he visited Los Angeles).

"I lived in Madrid, you always forget that." he said drolly, or maybe it was drowsily. "Tahiti."
"Tahiti?'
"Yeah...it's the South Seas"
"Woodman Marquette McCarthy, I know where the fuck Tahiti is. So what if  my imagination conjured up African natives and safaris?"
"I thought I heard drums." He said.

While my mind kept sending me messages clearly reinforcing that Woodsy was on sedatives, I still floated home on cloud 9. Now, I expected nothing more than airfare, hotel and to guzzle Stoli and Noni Juice cocktails by the gallon: meaning Woodsy was picking up the tab. The key would be to get on that plane before he and Nicely made up. Perhaps at last, Woodsy and I could be friends without love complicating things.

Woodsy was released the next day and while I didn't expect to hear from him, neither did I expect to hear from Smokey....who texted me that he and Woodsy had patched up their argument....and were celebrating by fucking. A couple of hours later, with Woodsy sound asleep. Smokey called me.

As usual, he talked too much, informing me that Woodsy had read to him aloud the last e-mail I sent. After one of the more serious break-ups Woodsy and Nicely had, Woodsy was hurting and I wanted to help, and fingers to keyboard I went. That's all there was to it.  I made some observations about Nicely that weren't exactly polite....not by a long shot...but reinforcing that if Woodsy loved Nicely, to work it out.
The 'work it out' portion of my e-mail was glossed over.  Smokey and Woodsy heartily agreed with my comments that Nicely Nice Guy was Fatal Attraction nuts-especially when a bit airborne. Woodsy so very much agreed with my thoughts, Smokey said, that Woodsy had forwarded my e-mail onward to Nicely. With no explanation or comments.

While I was adjusting to the shock of learning I was being used by the bastardly half of America's Sweethearts, Justice intervened. Smokey got another call. His Native American friend, Nokomis, was to pick him up at Woodsy's. Nokomis had stopped by Nicely's to pick up one peanut butter and one cherry pie to be entered in the Wisconsin State Fair.  Nokomis casually mentioned having to then go over to Woodsy's to collect Smokey.

Woodsy it seems, told Nicely he was staying home-alone-that night. After all, he'd just gotten out of the hospital. What a crummy way to treat Nicely...and punctuating it by using my words!

To learn someone is not who you thought they were is a death beyond all deaths. For a couple of days, I did nothing but sit and think.  Had Woodsy changed, had I misread him, or had I blinded myself to the real person? I thought of how he disliked drama, emotional outbursts and conflict. Yet he caused the conflicts, the drama, and his and my heated exchanges were diplomatic compared to his treatment of Nicely.  Did he care nothing for the feelings of others?

A week went by and I pulled out of the numbness. I wrote to Nicely expressing my sorrow as to the assumptions I'd written, and ended there. He showed a lot more class by accepting my apology. He wrote that he plans to move on. If they love each other, and I thought Woodsy did, I hope they work it out. Really.

Woodsy once told me that should I ever write my memoirs, to speak of him with humor and kindness, not tragedy and sorrow. Perhaps he foresaw this unhappy ending. The night he expressed a desire to take us to Shangri-La away from it all was his finest hour and the last time I heard his voice. I've put the rest: the disappointment, the tears, the 'what if' if not away, then to the side.  I'm not angry. I'm not really heartbroken. I have to move on.

Woodsy is off scot-free. Meanwhile, I have a serious drug problem to deal with. And this is where my situation becomes worrisome.

I don't care anymore.

Witness for the Dead

This is the time of year I usually take a break from all things cyberspace, cruisy, chemically enhancing and convoluted...like alliteration. But I haven't...there's too much to do and so much happening at once.

If there ever was a time to take a vacation it would be now. Almost daily (it seems)  there's another celebrity death:  I've stopped trying to memorialize at length those that have impacted me more than others but briefly:

Helen Gurley Brown's 1982 book Having It All...you could say that I'm in the situation I am in by following her advice a little too closely.

Nora Ephron wrote sophisticated screenplays that appealed to all on the most simplistic of situations: romance and love. We all know how I feel about those two subjects.

I had the pleasure of meeting actress Celeste Holm and her 40 years younger opera singer husband 3 years ago. They adored each other. Ann Rutherford was in the category of good acquaintance....and a ball of energy and fire up into her 90s.

I wanted Ben Gazzara to be my father after seeing him in this ABC Movie of the Week when I was 10.

I mourned openly for Whitney Houston this spring and her final film, Sparkle opens this weekend. Donna Summer sang the soundtrack of my junior high and high school years. I spent many a New Year's Eve back then watching Dick Clark. Mike Nesmith may have grown up in Dallas and yes, his mother did invent Liquid Paper but it was Davy Jones who appeared on The Brady Bunch.

With my extended circle of friends and acquaintances I'm averaging about one loss per month, but 5 have passed so far in August. Adam Faust  who I'd last yakked with 4 or 6 weeks ago, was visiting his family in NYC and suffered a heart attack in his sleep. Adam was an adult film star and bright, conversational and sexy beyond belief. He was only 38.

My former writing teacher and yoga instructor wrote me  and said that it is the responsibility of the living to bear witness for the dead. I had to look that concept up. It means to respect them, remember them and take lessons from their lives. If telling you a bit about them and their place in my life respects and remembers them, then it is a privilege to do so.

At the rate things are going, I'm going to have a lot of lessons ahead of me.

Death, Take a Holiday!

It seems like a never ending stream of departures to the afterlife these days, with enough celebrities to fill three seasons of  "The Love Boat" should it set sail down the River Styx.

Even back during 1985-89, when AIDS and HIV wiped out a generation of men I looked on as mentors, I don't recall so many people dying so quickly. Or is it the internet that makes everything seem so much quicker.

I sit at my desk in Los Angeles, looking east. My cats are asleep on the floor: the sun is shining only the way it can above the Hollywood Hill. I am alive, yet I feel so very numb. I reflect on the latest three deaths in my life. Oddly, each of their names started with 'S'.

Sean was a big bear of a man in Vancouver, who loved to play with his model helicopters. He was the kind of person you could just sit quietly with, doing your own thing, yet be content in his presence without having to say a word.

Sylvester was a fan of my writing, and a provocative and gifted artist, but he carried the cross of bi-polar disorder and other challenges. He also played the piano beautifully.

Saul was an accomplished drummer, a captivating personality with a childlike wonder about him...that could become a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions.

I feel it is my duty to tell you that I will miss these men, who not so very long ago, I would joke, debate, argue and interact with. Once upon a time they caroused and charmed in a world I called Cyber-Cafe Society. I am saddened to know they are gone, and yet I am not surprised.

I don't think much will surprise me ever again.

Chik-Fed-Up-With-It

The below is a pared down version of an email I wrote to a friend on Facebook.

I signed up for Facebook to keep up with people and generally relax and have a good time. I have over 300 'likes' and I don't go back and review to see what's politically correct. I've eaten at Chik-Fil-A since high school, liked their food, commend them for closing Sundays: not for religious reasons but because it demonstrates that a service industry business can shut down for a day and still be profitable. I was following their corporate donations as that story developed and had not been eating there...not in response to their actions (at that time) but because I hadn't walked over that way. I'm disappointed in their loud mouth owner but I do respect his right to free speech. 

I don't appreciate you getting my name from whatever site, group or fucking witch hunt 'Bigotry on a Biscuit' is, and publicly shaming me on your page without a) calling my attention to the fact that I had liked them, asking me why, and perhaps educating me if I didn't know. I also lost out on a job from an editor who also went off on me--but who is also involved heavily in fundraising for the Catholic Church: I'm not quite sure where she gets to be right and I am wrong. In my opinion, CFA is the whipping post of the moment, just like Target and Best Buy were last year. 
Then, before I could craft a reply to you (I first went through my 'likes' page and 'unliked' CFA) you pulled your post. And now you don't remember why I could be upset. I guess I'm the only one on your list who either paid attention or overreacts. My FB account is set up to forward stuff to my email: your wall post came through before you deleted it.  

I've grown very weary of a world where George W. Bush's 'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists' has drilled down to the individual level. 
I think education and a little fact finding first has long term benefits. Share that with your immature and hateful friend *************whose writing hand I'd like to scrub with soap...if he remembers what he wrote that is.

If I'm pushed into a 'you are with us or against us' situation: I'll choose to opt out, as I am now. 

I sat across from Chik-Fil-A and watched both gay rights demonstrators and supporters of the fast food chain's owner peacefully try to out-scream each other. I thought of all the suffering in the world, the people who would go to bed hungry, wishing they had a chicken sandwich, or a piece of bread. I looked at this well-heeled crowd and thought:

Is that all that matters in the world? The views of the owner of a chicken sandwich joint?
I never felt so detached from life than at that moment.

The Case of the Missing Blogs

I started blogging on NastyKinkPigs during the Fall of 2010. At that time, I was on the site site regularly, and by extension, writing about my misadventures was the perfect self-analysis.

In addition to my hook-ups/romances/cyber-goofs, I threw in links for recovery sites, news reports: whatever seemed to come down the pike. I tried peering into the looking glass of metaphysics....but found it too difficult to explain in writing. NKP was ahead of it's time and quite comprehensive: offering pics, vids, camming, blogs, stories, classifieds and a sense of community.

I expected my writing to be the equivalent of a wet blanket on a box of fireworks, but something different happened. People wrote back how much they appreciated my words, my openness, my willingness to laugh at myself. I was humbled. I still am.

Blogging on a social network isn't without problems. Upgrades to th NKP site resulted in the loss of all my saved emails there. I didn't even think about saving copies..until they went away. One dark and task oriented night, I dutifully copied my blogs and filed them away.

Although the feedback was great and the target demographic was right there, I decided to move to Blogger last August. I felt there was a larger audience interested in what an alternate lifestyle within a alternate lifestyle looked like. There are thousands who wouldn't dream of logging into websites such as NKP, or Adam4Adam, BarebackRT, Manhunt. I can't blame them. I don't use those sites.
 

For a minuteI thought about posting here AND on NKP, but the platform they use isn't conducive to a cut and paste from Microsoft Word, and what should have been easy became quite tedious. So aside from a few random crossover posts, I've been quite content here.

I've only been back to NKP infrequently the last few months. My profile had vanished during a systems upgrade. I replaced it. My music, consisting of movie musical songs, jazz and classic vocals vanished on another upgrade

The last time I went into my online blog folder: I noticed about 15 blogs were missing. Given how the site upgrades had scrapped saved emails, my music files and my profile on separate occasions, I was surprised the blogs had survived this long.

But then I noticed which blogs were missing. Any that related to the not-so-chic aspects of partying: the former ICU2 buddy arrested for making child pornography-all missing. The  numerous times I sobbed over Woodsy in Times New Roman format-vanished

There's not much I can do about what's lost: I plan to re-post the 2010/11 entries here so we have the blog is in one location.  In the interim, the NKP blog remains as sort of a historical record of another time, another place.

I didn't set out to be a voice for a group, but reports are in that I have. And I thank you for taking this journey with me.

The Reluctant Eulogist

I've a new assignment: Moderator and Content Manager for an Adult Social Network. So far, it's been a lot of work, but dull? Not in the least. I've been quite busy writing FAQ's, How To's, and reviewing a data base of over 12,000 members. More on that as I get settled.

But first, I had to create an obituary for the creator of the site. He had passed a year ago. At the time, I asked one of my predecessors if an announcement should be made.....and was told solidly 'no'. I guess death isn't acknowledged among the hedonistic bohemian cyber-cafe society of ours.

But now that I'm working the reception desk, I can make my own rules. and accessing a dead man's profile was my first bit of creepy but necessary business. Deleting all photos except his profile picture, all his files, all his xxx-rated videos. His death was an HIV-related one, not an overdose, and I felt he wouldn't mind.

Next, I updated his 'about me' with a brief review of how the site came to be, how he persevered to get it up and keep it running. when in a mere 6 months he would be dead.

Death is the only promise guaranteed when we are born. It's inevitable. But also flexible, and no one really knows when it's our time to go.  My father's health was poor and we were totally prepared for his death: only to see him outlive my mother, grandmother and a few other relatives. There is the story of the New York Times reporter who penned a "pre-need" obit for Elizabeth Taylor in 1999, but he did not live to see it published. He died in 2005, 6 years before Taylor.
To paraphrase from my favorite 80's film, Parting Glances, "I bet (death) sucks even when you're 80."

When I stumbled into the party that is cyber-cafe society, everything was upbeat and moving at full throttle. How foolish of me to think that the River Styx didn't run nearby.

I'm honored to stand up and speak about those who depart this world for the next, and to give some authenticity and personality to a screen name, an image, a persona.

I hope I will be as fortunate, when that time comes.

Chik-Fil a-Phobia

CLIFF: Or the hardest. (SALLY looks at him blankly) Someday I've simply got to sit you down and read you a newspaper. You'll be amazed at what's going on.

SALLY: You mean—politics? But what has that to do with us?

CLIFF: You're right. Nothing has anything to do with us. Sally, can't you see—if you're not against all this, you're for it—or you might as well be.

It's Friday the 13th: my black cat is stretched out behind me, snoring. I'd planned to poke fun about supersitions, but reality came in the form of an e-mail, and thus a change of plans.

Sally Bowles line (above) from Cabaret, has stuck with me since I saw a college production of it in 1980.(can't stand the 1972 film, aside from the songs). The line, some would say, shows how out of touch or...frankly, how fucking stupid Sally is.

I don't disagree per se: I'm a child of the 60's, and did my part through the 80's and early 90's with regards to gay activism. That was a time where life seemed so very black and white, and you knew where you stood. Not so much anymore. When I observed this aloud, the 'nostalgic' Skype group call I was on came to a halt, then ended shortly after. I guess I stuck my foot in it again.

I mean, I love talking about 'the old days', but they are past times. I'm not out protesting like I once did, because somewhere along the yellow brick road, mainstream gay culture and I began to disagree on what battles to pick. Couples wanted to know when my (now ex) partner and I were going to buy a house with a white picket fence and adopt some orphans. We desired neither, which made us some sort of traitors to 'the cause' and after a while we no longer desired to continue friendships just because we'd always done so. This outraged some even more.

I've been in negotiations with an online magazine for a few months now. I thought we were getting down to finalizing a free-lance deal but my contact extended her vacation, and has again. I e-mailed her this morning, 'checking in' to see when she'd be back and sarcastically commented that I was off to Chik-Fil-A for lunch, even though it was Friday and the old Catholic rule about eating meat doesn't apply.

I received typo-rich or maybe a Text-Speak reply that I 'shud feel mor guilty eatin @ Chik-Fil-A 'cuz they hate gay people. Remover that headline?'

I decided to research a bit, because I didn't 'remover that headline.' I could give you a short list of facts that would make Chik-Fil-A a little less evil, but bottom line: after informing my mind and examining my conscience, I like their food and I'm going to continue to eat there.

I will also to shop (but think twice about buying) at Target and Best Buy because their donated funds went to either groups or people who are specifically anti-gay. I will shop Urban Outfitters, as the President of UO is an openly gay man with a tough job: his boss, the CEO of UO donates to anti-gay and anti-abortion groups. 

Although it's a fair assumption that her reply was not meant in the spirit I'm taking it, I'm going to bite my lip for now. This does not mean I'm actively pursuing this job opportunity anymore, even though my financial situation makes the trouble with the Euro akin to some missing change. I'm disappointed by this turn of events.

And the woman who has the power to offer me a job? She's quite lovely, well to do, and I've known her for several years: we met at church.  She still attends Mass weekly and works on the church Carnival. I don't: because I've taken the time to read beyond the headlines, and my conscience won't let me be a hypocrite. Politics hasn't a god-damned thing to do with it.

Crabby, Crabby Cammer

Make no mistake: I've no business being in a relationship. I have too much on my plate, am barely keeping my head above water and this blog would probably be even less interesting. (Did you laugh just now You were supposed to..that was a joke.)

But I'm hard wired to be 'in love with love' and that's one addiction I'd like to over come. I've been thinking more and more about some type of recovery program: a recovery program for people who take things too seriously that is.

I began a flirtatious chat with a hot, Tall as a Tree guy on cam4. We talked for hours...and that's my big turn on....men who can converse. Rinaldo aka Ronny or Ron or Ronn or Rhon,was an architect from the desert who called Dallas home now. Except he hated Dallas and everything about it, especially the people.

(to refresh your memory. I was born and raised in Dallas.) And while I can be as pretentious as any prep schooled, SMU grad, JR's Bar good ol' boy out there, and have called Lowsss Ahn-jell-eez home for 25 years, I do retain quite a fondness for my home town.

But Ronny has bigger problems. You see, he puffs his pipe like a steam engine, his business partner does the same while trying to get every boy between 18 and 30 hooked on meth, and wouldn't you know it? Ronny was up all night trying to score but scared everyone off because he's sooooo tall and sooo articulate and soooo attractive he scares people off.  Also, there's the tiny fact his partner is vehemently anti-drugs and doesn't know any of this.

Yes, and he has a lover. For 5 years now. A very handsome guy who was visiting Palm Springs and met Ronny and because Ronny was out of a job and this guy was stupid head over heels for Ronny, he imported him to Fort Worth, which Ronny hates even more than he hates Dallas, so they moved.

(to refresh your memory, my paternal grandparents owned a lot of land in the Fort Worth area).

And no, Ronny didn't say he had a partner when we met online, but  he was impressed enough with me to say he wanted to marry me. I think had I been as stupid head over heels in love too, I might have noticed such things. And had I said yes, why that constitutes bigamy, doesn't it?

Not thinking too much more about him, I was over in R's old 'hood a day or so after we talked and I texted to see if he's like a pic of his old digs via iPhone.

What I got was a snippy sounding reply:; 'who the fuck is this?"
I answered back that I was a local psychic known as 'The House Whisperer' and did he know he'd left behind some cleaning products in his old laundry room five years ago.

This apparently was not a way to flirt with someone like him. I got a ranting message demanding who was I and why would i not tell him?

Because it was more fun putting it in print right here.