On the Fence of Abstinence

Originally posted 3/14/2011 on another site in a different format

I felt not unlike I was in that old movie Grand Hotel...the one with Garbo 'wanting to be alone'. Let me just say, come Friday night: I felt Garbo's pain. I had a real-time situation comedy/thriller/mistaken identity/runaway groom/sociopath story unfold before me.
My guests, uninvited guests and guest stars included: a doctor, nurse, an airline pilot turned telecommunications expert, a director, a newspaper man, a boot lover, a former trick, a houseboy, his boss, my crazy cousin, a waiter and my neighbors across the driveway: whom for 17 years never gave me much thought, but thanks to recent events, now host tailgate parties on their balconies at sundown.

It was also Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. One might think it's time to reduce the drama, go within and not have my apartment known as the Hollywood Hilton A-Go-Go.

And you: gentle reader. Are you taking a break these next 40 days? The next 30? This next week? Break means a break. Not a scary end. It might mean a rest off the treadmill.

All breaks are good. Do not feel bad because you stopped for a week, and your buddy went two weeks. If you go on holiday, let people on your fave sites know you've gone, either by a profile change, emails...I for one worry if I don't see you around for an extended period.

In the interim, educate yourself. Here are three links I found interesting, though I have not read through them yet. I do not recommend these as accurate, false nor do I guarantee any statements presented as facts. I thought them good sites to visit.

BLUELIGHT is a forum for all types of discussions regarding all sorts of things. I appreciate their statement they have posted:  "Bluelight is monitored by various agencies". Think about that when next you post on Craigslist or Nasty Kink Pigs' pig board w/a phone number whining for illegal substances or situations  It's so unbelievable that people would do that: they must think we're all a  bunch of practical jokers.

Erowid is another resource I liked. I've uh..randomly selected the link to 'speed'. You'll get the myth, the mystique and the mistakes than can be made with meth.  Even a history. No mention of Hitler or Satan though. The Japanese in 1919 cooked up this concoction. Personally I'm more thankful for sushi. There is a great mantra at the end: Control drugs. Don't let them control you.

And last but not least (and if I find more links I will post them) The Partnership@Drugfree.org is like a Webster's Dictionary but not such complex reading that you need a medical license. It's user friendly with pictorials. Imagine if you ever went on Jeopardy! and the category was 'PNP'?  Brush up on your rush and be prepared.

WeHo "Unfriends" Friends of Bill W.

Originally posted 3/3/2011 

It was late November that I made loop upon loop on foot of Robertson Blvd: down to Melrose then back up to Santa Monica Boulevard. I was going to a ONE Institute photography exhibit yet didn’t bring the address because---- I'm stubborn.  The 600 block of Robertson is a short stretch of street, and jam packed with Bossa Nova cafe, The Abbey, the back of the dance club The Factory, West Hollywood Park, Christian Louboutin and other smart, chic boutiques. So, an art gallery should be easy. Not so.

As I made loop number 3, exchanging smiles with Lindsay Lohan as she stepped out of a snappy car (this was between court appearances) voila, there was a sign directing me left onto El Tovar
Place, and at the very end of the street, was a tiny sign marking the ONE Gallery.

I time-stepped up a short set of stairs and confronted with 4 doors, I marched straight ahead and into an acting class: whether it was Strasberg method or Meisner technique I wasn’t sure.  Wait! Not so.
On the blackboard in giant letters: CMA. Yowza! A crystal meth anonymous meeting. And the dirty looks began to fly my way.
I apologized, backed out and went to the door marked ONE Gallery, which was the size of Midtown Manhattan apartment's kitchen.

Investigating later, I learned this was the Werle Building: better known to everyone but me as the West Hollywood Recovery Center. Imagine a small office building made entirely up of  12-step programs A (alcoholics) to U (under-employed)

The Werle Building has been WHRC's  ‘temporary’ home of 8 years and it serves around 6,500 people a month. It's elegant and  discreet in its own way and an asset to the community.

Not for much longer. The WeHo City Council,  which has not been getting the best press for a year now, voted to tear down the Werle Building. The Werle butts up to WeHo Park and its demolition allows the City to expand the WeHo Library (much needed) and the ‘Tiny Tot’ Playground (no comment). This is not the first time WeHo has altered the park. A few years back, the baseball diamond gave way to parking.

The super bad news is that there is no relocation plan at the moment for the WHRC. None.  Where will those who depend on WHRC’s meetings go?

Tuesday is Election Day. If you are a registered voter in West Hollywood, I urge you to study each
candidate’s position and cast your vote with an informed mind. You may not miss something until it’s truly gone.

As they say on TV: “This is Topman California and I approve this message.’ Because I typed the damn thing

Yes, Virginia, the TITANIC Was Worse

 Originally posted 2/22/2011 on another site in a different format

Tonight on The Love-less Boat: A Valentine's Day voyage to the Virgin Islands turns frigid when 'love drugs', holier than thou drama queens and something called 'squeekers' are involved.
Guest Stars: Liza Minnelli, Ricky Nelson, Carrie Fisher, Richard Simmons, Nancy Reagan, Cyd Charisse,  Fernando Lamas, Tina Louise, Tina Cole and Tina Sinatra.

Sit right back and read these plot ingredients:
Celebrating their 20th Anniversary, Atlantis Cruises has chartered the Largest Cruise Ship in the World, Royal Caribbean's "Allure of the Seas' (how's that for camp) departing Florida for Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Croix. 
And I quote from Dan Howell's Travel Agency in Cincinnati "Unlike any cruise you've ever experienced!' 
And people criticize ME for writing over-the-top stories.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol joined the ill-fated voyage in St. Thomas. They arrested a passenger for drug possession, who promptly ratted...uh...relayed that he had paid for the dope in advance, and received them upon boarding. Sort of like 'reverse duty-free shopping".
The Feds searched the cabin of the alleged Party-Planner and found 3 grams of meth, 140 1/2 or so Ecstasy tablets, a vague amount of Ketamine, and ...hold on to your hats:
$51 thousand dollars in cash...and a money order for $960.
I don't condone violating international or domestic laws, excess greed, or flat out stupidity. I wince however, when lack of research causes a supplier to run out of the est sellers and then mark down overstocks. 'Luau Night! X tabs 2 for 1!'

What irritates me more than anything were some posts on this cruise on my old alma-mater THE ADVOCATE's website. Luckily there were an equal number of sensible rebuttals.
One reader stated he was 'horrified'. I imagine him to be a repressed prud who accidentally gets a taste of living. Then he turns up at the White Party dressed in scarlet red....smoking Djarums, and cussing.
Oh, and can any one tell me why THE ADVOCATE; reports of people outraged with tweakers now called squeekers'?

Not one to shy away from scandal but embrace it, : Atlantis announced they are returning next year, same time, same ship. I bet it's a sell out: 

I don't care for sequels. Remember  Beyond the Poseidon Adventure ?

And just for fun, here's one of my favorite The Love Boat intros.

Oliver Tweaked!

This blog originally appeared on another site in a slightly different format.


Southern California has this glamorous... yet entirely false reputation as having such an abundance of....resources, that you can get round the clock service from fiercely competitive vendors.

I was laughing about this, when "Who Will Buy?' from Oliver! started playing in the windmills of my mind. It's my least favorite of movie musicals I might add.

Granted, ‘who will buy this wonderful feeling and put it in a box for me?' is a request anyone would love actualized, but lyrics such as ‘I'm so high I swear I could fly' ? hmm.

I don't think roses, strawberries. milk or...knives ,as the spoken background would suggest, bone us up quite so fast as other chemically created options do

This musical seems ripe for an adaptation into the party world.  A modernization...a bit of re-writing and uh...tweaking of the story. And not unprecedented.  Rent was a Broadway hit and is descended from opera's La Bohemė, written in the 1800's. 

SO--Move the setting from dusty Victorian London to dazzling Los Angeles.  Refresh character names and welcome The Artful Slammer, Fag-in of course,  and Nancy Boy...btw whatever happened to lovely songstress Shani Wallis?

I dare you to watch the You Tube clip when you find yourself 'flying 'and not scream for mercy. (this is the ENTIRE 9:14 song...) You have been warned.

Oliver! went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1968. They truly don't make 'em like this anymore.

https://youtu.be/WhyqQL7Hglg?si=uzlPQg5hqm0PsVHv

Boys in the (Remastered) Sand

Originally posted 1/28/2011 on another site and in a different format

I like movies...but you may have figured that out.

I'm also fascinated by film restoration, film history and documentaries. Here's a cool cool link to a You Tube clip on color remastering done for the 'adult film' classic Boys in the Sand.

A documentary is in the works on the director of BITS, Wakefield Poole, by the same producers of That Man: Peter Berlin.  The doc-in-progress is titled Dirty Poole. The before and after remastering on these clips are great....I can't wait to see the hardcore stuff.

By the way, on this January night it's about 72 degrees Fahrenheit...22 Celsius. I think I'll get out from behind this desk and head down to Santa Monica for lunch and walking.

An Opinion: Entirely My Own

It was whilst in the hubbub of the holiday that this arrived in Ye Olde E-Mail Inbox:

Do you think that there is a high incidence of emotional illness amongst chem-seeking gay men especially over, say 40?

Quite a heady question even if your egg-nog to bourbon ratio is 3%. Perhaps this was meant as nothing more than bait for a sucker like me  to swallow hook, line and sinker and over react. Perhaps I'm wrong for even attempting analysis. 

I think there's a high incidence of emotional weariness amongst all of us who remember the time before HIV, lived through the worst and are here today.  In 1981, my friends and I were well-dressed preppies committed to happy hours, Wednesday screenings of Dynasty and music vid's at JR's in Dallas. A whole patriarchy of hirsute and hyper-masculine men ran the political scene, and they were in no rush to turn the reigns over.  ­­We boys merchandised well amid fern bar ferns and Pac-Man machines in our madras, chinos and argyles

But just like that, it seems now...they were all dead. If only the suffering had been so swift and succinct. The job of growing up isn't always welcomed, but my little bar buds and I had to. Some didn't...didn't want to I should clarify, and skedaddled. I moved west; because it was only a matter of time before all of us would be dead and why not do everything I wanted to while I could. 

That was over 25 years ago. I'm still here: as are a lot of us. I am thankful that medical advances against the euphemism we called ‘AIDS' mean today's Bruins, Longhorns, Horned Frogs or Tigers won't experience what we went through. It wasn't the fear of death: death is guarantee with our birth. It was watching others die, marching with groups like ACT UP or Queer Nation and being treated as lepers for doing so. But perseverance wins out. 

What we gained in acceptance we lost a bit in community, in ‘being different'. The picket fence and family I dream of has little to do with assimilation. It has a lot to do with the corny old movies I hold so dear. Delightfully queered for today's audience.

And if I choose to relax, escape or just exist with a shot, a snort, a smoke, or a slam of a quarter, a fifth, a gram, an ounce, a gallon or by watching a  marathon of Ma and Pa Kettle films (look them up in your Funk and Wagnalls) then that's my choice. I may be a survivor...but a saint? No thank you.

Through A Cam: Darkly

This post originally appeared on another site in a slightly different format. 

Three years ago I discovered the video chatting rabbit hole known as ICU2.  Nowadays, sites that don’t offer video chat are archaic. If you are a paid member, NKP has a very fine one. ICU2’s home page touts it as being ‘the 24-hour party that never ends’. At times I’ve regarded it as ‘the 24-hour party that you can’t escape. 

Despite my flawed time management skills, I have enjoyed camaraderie, pun intended, with many of the hot men since day 1. I see ICU2 as a fraternity of super studly, generally friendly and highly intelligent men-if not lacking common sense with hobbies of pipes and darts.  One ‘good old boy’, who’s sexy yet funny slam vids I drooled over on the old Ning site, was a regular and he lived in this half of the West. He needed tutoring in basic and advanced Skype and Oovoo. I provided lessons pro-bono, hoping he might fly down to Hollywood and thank me, ‘bono’ in hand.  Alas he wasn’t a quick study with my subtext or subjects; and we repeated the lessons about 5 times. And he could never remember how he knew me.

Much like the old studio star system, our cam personas : dom, sub, verbal, silent,  dark, daffy, delirious, self-promoting or tragically self-destructive are often at extreme cross purposes with the face we present to or hide from the rest of the world. At times, and with so much chemical osmosis about, the lines between real and camera blur, combine or even trade places. It’s difficult to be in an altered state and question your judgment, eyesight and sanity.

Last January, on what would be our last video conference, I did just that. The screen name was his, but the easy going, lovable ‘good ol' boy’  appeared on the monitor. Something not quite human, but hyper-masculin creature was standing stout in the shadows. It ranted about thefts of personal property, betrayal by friends and  countless relationships destroyed.
I listened, but there could be never enough apologies or amends for him. A few days later, channeling my cyber-Nancy Drew, I compared his early videos to the latter day pictures and vids. I still don’t know what it was I saw on Oovoo that night.

It’s a small chem, cam and slam club and most of us are 3-4 degrees of separation from each other. Last week, I received a link that saddened but did not shock me.  My cyber-friend had been arrested--and this was not a jaywalking charge. He was accused of committing numerous, and truly heinous crimes.
His local paper broke the biased story and may as well have printed that a lynching would save the state money. As a journalist and an American, I am ashamed at such unfair reporting. I pray that healing and reconciliation can begin for my friend, whose real name, screen names and city I decline to reveal.  I cannot and will not denounce him, and although we never met face to face. I don’t expect we will.

You might find my support odd, and those who know him have contacted me, replacng ‘odd’ with adjectives that I’d prefer not to repeat. Given the accusations, if convicted and imprisoned, he will not survive.  Where did this party take such a nasty turn?

Once upon a time, in a chat room long ago, I saw a man: fun, festive and a lot like you and me.  In talking with him,he became real, not just a potential screenshot.  Some will say he is entirely innocent, blaming his crimes on the substances he used: bestowing mystical powers these concoctions do not possess- nor ever will.  

 

Humans make mistakes.  And we must never forget that we are human.

Who Am I? Why Am I? and what the f*** am i doing here?

Originally posted 9/17/2010  


...I was a precocious, inquisitive and intelligent only child of privilege until one humid afternoon when I became a 12 year old trust-fund orphan. I was sent to live with disinterested relatives mindlessly pushing me towards a future my parents had planned; a medical and/or legal career; marriage to a virgin who would stay home and produce 2-3 heirs. One boy must become a deacon in a Protestant church (my Catholic education ended with my mother's overdose.)  And finally: a two-story plantation-style or English Tudor home in the city's best neighborhood. A house with plenty of guest rooms for my freeloading, deadbeat, country-fried relatives.

...Exactly thirty years ago this summer, I stood outside the gates of a private university; tuition paid in advance, people who actually might have an interest in my future very eager to help. Beside me stood my best friend, who was also my boyfriend. No one knew the football quarterback and the tennis playing rich kid were deep in the throes of teenage angst and love.

He began to cry, all 6 foot-whatever he was, and said, "I'm afraid I'll never see you again."  Looking across the campus, I saw my future: dutiful, dignified, dedicated to honoring my parents. That future, for me would be a living death.

Now ferfucksakes, my father had worked for the mafia, and every night he slept with a pistol in his nightstand and a revolver under his pillow. My mother, his third wife, was a country girl who had married her childhood sweetheart, but that didn't work out and they divorced.  A few years later, she was introduced to my father. She became enamored with this mysterious man and his life. He was INTERESTING. He had LIVED. And he loved her deeply.
Ultimately, they would both wear out (versus rust out). I was 12 years old that sticky June afternoon Mama downed too many Seconals. Four years later, Daddy had a fatal heart attack as he was preparing to drive somewhere.
Being a blend of my parents'  best and worst traits, I never fit in with either family side. I had felt lost and alone for so long. And now I'd be leaving the only person I truly loved and felt safe with.

I raised my chin and looked up at Mark.  He returned my gaze and his eyes widened as they did when he knew I was about to reject authority. We turned away from the registration tables, ran to his burgundy Camaro and kissed passionately as only young lovers can. We headed back to Dallas at 75 mph. I enrolled at the local college as a Theater major.  Never once have I regretted following my heart. I did it my way then: and continue to do so now.

Which brings us to three years ago. From the outside. I was the Guy Who Had It All. And 'on paper',  it looked great. But inside, I felt constricted, caged and cold. A new journey was on the horizon, one taking me on the queerest, wildest ride since Mr. Toad revved up at Disneyland or brave Alice walked thru that looking glass.
My education began when I attended an afternoon orgy in Silver Lake. I sampled what I was the finest, most potent cocaine I’d snorted. Expressing my delight to my host, a rotund and fey fellow, his cheerful face changed as if I'd stamped out a cigarette in his lemon chiffon pie. "Didn't you read the ad? This isn't coke.  It's crystal meth."

 

I thought, This is crystal? I see why it's so popular. I'd read about it, had never seen it, and knew no one who used it. Until today.

Instead I  replied, "I read the ad. I saw the word 'party.'  "And this is one indeed! There are three blow jobs happening in three separate sections of your living room. And over there, a performance or a solo nude tai-chi session,..quite avant-garde and seasoned with Bob Fosse-style hand gestures."
Lowering my voice,  I addded."He's a screenwriter who offices at Paramount. His pet name for we peasants who married into the film industry is 'this is the spouse of'. I'm single now and no longer have a title. This is neither the time nor place to refresh his memory. He looks like a zombie."

My host gripped my forearm. "Promise me. Promise me you won't become like him." I looked down: my host's intense expression was one of genuine concern; but mixed with fear. A fear that made me shudder as if the temperature around me had plummeted from sexual inferno to Siberian igloo.
"I promise."

I studied everything I could on 'party and play, aka PNP.  I checked out every website and attended more impromptu 'parties'.  I’d seen the headlines about overdoses and drug busts.  I’d heard of lives ruined...aka 'train wrecks'.  I resolved not to be another Hollywood casualty.

To achieve that, I had to be strong, persistant or show any weakness. In my search, I often felt assisted by invisible, otherworldly guides. Websites, contacts, and solutions manifested easily. I would meet some of the brightest, hunkiest and most stubborn SOB’s, as well as liars, gamers, and the criminally insane.  I also learned a difficult lesson. Allowing one's jealousy, hatred and pompous arrogance to override natural kindness, forgiveness and common sense can potentially orchestrate our own destruction.

This blog is about the search for myself, and with fingers crossed: the insight to create, implement and commit to personal speed limits. I'll include the men and women I meet along my travels: chipped, tattered, mended and glued back together. And some who I can only describe as 'jes' plain crazy'. 

 

My passion for storytelling was influenced from an early age by my beloved babysitter: a 25" RCA color console television. Our 4, sometimes 6 local channels broadcasted either early morning mid-day, late night and on the weekends, all night movies. It was rumored they were obtained from mysterious midwestern salt mines used as film vaults far underground. These silver nitrate treasures were silent, talked, in black and white or color. Their images shaped my personality, dream world and writing style.  My characters are good looking, well-dressed and witty. It's sarcasm spritzed with a double-dry vodka martini.
 

Good stories need conflict. Who wants to read about happy people in happy places who are always happy?  Yawn. I'll share the obstacles thrown in my path by a most formidable and frightening opponent: I learned about him from a 1956 M-G-M sci-fi movie I love called 'Forbdden Planet.'  My enemy is known in that film as 'The Monster from the ID". Invisible, clever and ferocious, and hell-bent on destruction. He is my very own self.
 

This walk on the wilder side begins now:  and you are curious...aren't you?