Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
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Roads only end in Arizona. Roads there run north to south, or east to west. And sometimes, you'll be on a street, going to somewhere else on the same street with the same name. But, then, the street stops. There are buildings and vacant lots in the way. And you have to take a left or a right on to another road, and then turn right or left on yet another road, and then, after several blocks, the road you were already on returns, and you can continue your journey.
Boston roads don't end. I'm not saying they make sense. It's just that, instead of ending, they just become something different. After several months of living in my closet, working in the same building as me, and being a major part of my, and my roommate's lives, I eventually decided to get Sora his own set of keys. He was, after all, paying rent. I think. In theory. Possibly. The first three alleged key copying places in the area around my house proved not to exist. It's not that there weren't hardware stores or locksmiths at the addresses I'd found via Google, it's that the street addresses simply didn't exist. For kicks, I googled "gay-friendly locksmith" and actually found one. I figured theater district, and was very much correct. I figured pink awning, and Shakira on the radio (these being the halcyon hip days of 2005). And I was not wrong on either of those counts, either. Either. But the address was on Tremont Street. Tremont Street is the ultimate in the ridiculousness of Boston roads. Heading toward the Mission Hill apartment, you had to get get off the highway, and make your way to Tremont Street. You then had to take a left on Tremont Street, and drive up the hill, and you reached my apartment. The trouble is, once you find Tremont Street, which is not so hard, you're driving along for a few blocks, and suddenly, you're not on Tremont anymore; you're on Columbus. In order to stay on Tremont, you have to take a hard right, because sometime in 1647, a cow farted and turned ninety degrees to the right, so that's the way the road has gone forever and ever amen. Tremont Street does this several times during the course of its roadliness. Knowing this, I got off the T on Tremont Street, and paid really close attention to the street signs. And, after taking a left where I could have gone straight, I stayed on Tremont at the 300 block. And the address I was headed to was 420 (shut up, hippie). And there was 380, and 400, and 120. What? 400 to 120. 400 to 120. Another fucken locksmirage? I was never going to be able to get keys for Sora. I started loudly seething, and apparently actually said "Mothercunting Tremont Street" out loud, as the guy beside me stopped and said, "Are you lost?" "No. I'm not lost. The fucken road is. I'm looking for 420 Tremont Street, and the numbers just went from 400 to 170, and the numbers start going down from 170 instead of up, and I'm trying to get--" "The hardware store?" "Yea." "It's up there. Technically, these are the sides of the buildings on a perpendicular road So, the 170 isn't 170 Tremont it's 170 Herald Street. The signs are just really poorly placed. The hardware store is the next building on your left." He wasn't shitting me. So I got the key copied, got home, and gave it to Sora. "I'm confused." Mazarine says. "You gave him the key? Or you 'gave it to him'?" "I can't mean both?" I say. We're driving home from Madison, and we're both stupid tired. Poetry - sleep + driving - sleep + a large amount of cigarette breaks - sleep = me telling stories to keep myself awake. Because, it's either that or sing along loudly with my Zune, which we'd purchased an adapter for on the Boston to Madison leg of the trip. And I'm telling her the Sora story because it involves roads, and I'm seeing roads everywhere, which is good, because I'm driving, and not seeing the road = car crash. "So, are you two, still an item or what?" And I consider for a moment that my relationship with Sora is a Tremont Street. A series of weird, unnecessary turns. I don't think either of us ever really know whether or not we're together. And while I've been driving excessively for the past year or so, only once or twice have the tires of the vehicle I'm driving ever touched down on Tremont. "Not really." And, yet, he's the first person I IM when I get home. I tell him most about my trip to Wisconsin, and he tells me about work, and then we discuss missing each other. And then I sign off. And I click on Craigslist. Because I miss him. And that is never enough.
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1.) I lost my favorite shirt.
2.) In the pocket of my favorite shirt is the key to my hotel room. 3.) Because we're in the penthouse, and you need a penthouse room key just to get on to the penthouse elevator (or to access the penthouse floor via the stairway), I can't even get to the floor I am staying on, to knock on the door, to see if my hotel roommate, Mazarine, is around to let me in. 4.) I could call Mazarine, but I don't have her number memorized. I do have it in my cellphone, but... 5.) My cellphone is in the pocket of my favorite shirt. 6.) I have imbibed just enough alcohol to be cranky about it. 7.) It is nearly 5:30 in the morning. 8.) After several hours searching for my shirt, I ask the concierge to give me another key. He does. When I go upstairs and in to my room, the first thing I notice is that there, on the bed, is my favorite shirt. 9.) I'm the kind of person who makes absolutely sure that when I remove an item of clothing filled with objects, I check all my pockets and transfer anything I need. Therefore, when I removed my favorite shirt in my room, I transferred the hotel room key to my pants pocket, which means that I had the key with me THE ENTIRE TIME. When I still lived with Ben, he took a vacation to a woody retreat, and did a lot of acid. At some point, during the trip, he borrowed his friend, Lisabelle (last referenced here)'s cell phone. He was fairly certain he returned it, but when it was nearly time for he and Lisabelle to leave, she couldn't find the phone, and knew that the last time she had seen it, Ben was using it. To call me. According to Ben, he spent the next hours cleaning the house they were staying at. Every couch cushion was flipped, and dusted for potential cell phone remains. Every jacket in the house was emptied of pockets. Every cupboard emptied, then refilled and reorganized. Every square inch of the house was covered. At this point, Lisabelle's poor pussy-whipped boyfriend was informed that he had to hypnotize Ben, to make him remember what he did with it. The hypnosis didn't work, but during the hypnosis, Lisabelle put her hands in her pocket, where her cellphone had been the whole time. Upon hearing this story straight from the twink's mouth, Sir Trick said "Wait. They thought to hypnotize you? She wasn't thorough enough to check her pockets, but she thought of hypnotizing you? Why not just burn the house to the ground, and use a metal detector to find it?" I have spent the month of August trying to burn down my past and discover where I went wrong. While, technically, July is when I lost Ryan, August is when I lost dignity, Ben, Sora, my mind (when I moved to Arifuckenzona), the list is endless. "Your life is a fucken novel on acid." JBob says. We've seen each other once in the past decade. About a year ago we met for lunch in Boston, just after Sora disappeared. We had a good time, and some good laughs (and I stewed about him being hotter at 31, then he was when we were in high school, sleeping in the same room). And since slam nationals were in Madison, where he lives, we agreed to hang out during the competition. The highlight for JBob was when, in order to psych me up for a particular poem, he got to repeatedly shove me, and slap me in the face. It worked. "What do you mean 'my life is a novel on acid'?" "Well, ok, you're part of this big weird community where most people seem to know you, and, at least on the surface, like you. But you've got two nemeses. One is this Punky Brewster looking gay kid with leggings, and too much eyeshadow. And then there's the thirty-five year old Gothtard who wanders around in his lame-ass black trenchcoat all the time, leering at you." "You've got it wrong." I say. "Ben is not my nemesis, he's just...you know, Ben. And the Gothtard isn't my nemesis, I'm his. If I chose a rival, it would be someone who had a talent for what they do, or at least someone with dignity. That dingleberry doesn't even warrant a special name in my Livejournal." "Well, that's because he already has a special name. A Blue Light Special name. In his case, probably a flashing blue light pulsing to the rhythm of some lame ass techno band from 1994." We are walking to JBob's house. We are both fairly drunkwasted. We also spent some time in a Madison parking lot with a Boston poetry friend smoking a non-cigarette. I am vaguely aware of the turns we take between my hotel and his house. And when we get there, we resume smoking, and talking about high school, while the Olympic Opening Ceremonies play on his TV. "I totally had a gay crush on Fledge." JBob says. "Everyone had a gay crush on Fledge. He was cute, funny, and hung like a...like I'm too high to come up with something funny." "Yea, but, I used to wait outside the showers to try and see him naked." Well, this is uncomfortable. My hot, hilarious friend and former roommate is confessing a gay crush while we're both hammered and sitting on his couch. My hot, hilarious married to a girl friend and former roommate. God, I wish she was a bitch so I could sleep with JBob and not feel guilty. Silence ensues. "Well, I have to work tomorrow. So I should get to sleep. Do you want to crash here, or...." "I'll, uh, I'll just go back to the hotel. Yea. The hotel. Thanks for having me over. This was" awkward hug "fun." And he gives me spoken directions on how to get back to the hotel. Directions which I can't concentrate on because I'm thinking stupid stupid stupid just go back there and stupid stupid back to the stupid hotel but I think he was trying to no stupid stupid stupid just go. I've been walking aimlessly for about fifteen minutes, and thinking I'm hopelessly lost, when I look up and see a crowd of mostly-dressed-in-black-people in a circle around someone performing bad hip-hop. Clearly, I'm back in the poetry zone. And, sure enough, I see the hotel. I want to turn around and go back I've since been told that the odds of finding a half Chinese, half Mexican in Madison Wisconsin are not just slim, but completely anorexic. And you can see the ribs of the probability of finding a gay half Chinese, half Mexican in Madison Wisconsin. And the odds of finding a gay half Chinese, half Mexican with amazingly colored hair, from Madison Wisconsin who reads my livejournal and wants me to stick my dick in his smooth, twenty year old ass are so malnourished, they'd make a Sudanese refugee puke in horror and disgust. Yet I find myself staying in the penthouse of a nice hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, face to face with just such a creature. I've texted my hotel roommate, Mazarine, to let her know that our room will be occupied for a couple of hours, and things will be done that she might want to read about, but probably wouldn't want to experience first eye. I am loving my first eye experience. His photograph, and LJ Icon didn't do him justice, and his photographs and LJ icons were hot. He's instantaneously half-tongue deep in my mouth, and his hands are locked on to my shoulderblades. He kisses like we've been in love since birth, but haven't seen each other in a year. And, usually, when people kiss this well, they're amazing on the bed (when someone who looks this good wants to have sex, you don't ruin the view by getting under the covers). Sure enough, it's not long before the pants are off, my cock is in his mouth, and he's making the most spectacular guttural noises. I have not had this much fun, sexually, since I stopped seeing my sort-of-boyfriend, Sora, months ago. This guy is just...wow. And then the condom is on, and he's bent over and even wowier. And it's about twenty minutes worth of wow, where I have to completely hold back to keep from coming, because he's got great rhythm, and...and he just totally came all over the hotel room covers, but that's ok, that's why God invented hotel room washcloths. And it's a thrust thrust, twist, thrust, pull, spank, thrust thrust kind of night, and.....I'm done. I spend a minute or two post-sperminization, continuing to fuck, and then we stand up, me still inside him. And there's more great kissing, and then I pull out, and then...and then we have a problem. This thin running of red fluid starts leaking out his ass. It's not blood. It's certainly not sperm (I was wearing a condom). I don't think it's shit, because I don't think shit comes in the color of Beaker's hair.  Not even having the words to try and figure out what the hell is going on, I say "We should...shower."
And we're in the shower, and we're making out, and the leaking has stopped. And it's not long before he's on his knees, sucking me off, and then he's standing back up, ass toward me, and at no point does my brain go "remember what happened last time you pulled out of there...I know it was ten minutes ago, but dont'cha?" No. My brain only had the foresight to place condoms on the shower ledge, and here we go again, and it's equally amazing, and he's making fantastic noises. And I pull out, and this time everything appears fine. I towel off, I toss him a towel. And while he towels off, I walk into the room to make sure Mazarine hasn't texted that she's on her way back. She hasn't. Well, as soon as I turn around, he's got his tongue back in my mouth, and his hands back on my shoulderblades, and we're right back where we started, and I have no complaints about it. I fuck, I come, he stands up and comes on the floor, which I'm not too pleased about it, but as transgressions go, it's pretty minor. Again, hotel towels. And then he says he has to go. And he turns around, and he's leaking again. "Uhm. Hon, you're....are you okay?" "Yea, why?" "You appear to be...leaking. From your ass." He wipes his hand down his crack. "Huh. Weird." And then he puts his pants on over his still leaking ass. "I'm supposed to meet my friends at a restaurant downtown. Want to walk me there?" "Sure?" But...but your...I mean your ass...I mean...you're leaking some sort of alien fluid. And we take the elevator to the lobby, and we're barely outside when I run into a couple of friends of mine who are also in town. As soon as I say hello, the dude, who now has anal Tang juice spreading across the back of his khakis, bolts. He says goodbye, but it shoots by all Doppler Effect style as he shoots across the street and back into whatever wormhole he came from. I shrug, and walk back into the hotel with my friends. We hang out for a few minutes, and then I go up to my room. The room smells like sex. Which makes sense. Luckily, I brought a bit of Febreeze with me, and I Febreeze the bed covers. I had wiped up his two come stains (one on the covers, one on the floor) before we left. But the floor is still a little damp, so I go into the bathroom to fetch a towel to dry it up. The towels. The white hotel room towels. The white hotel room towels are covered in varying shades of bright red. It looked like someone had used them to crush Fraggles to death. There was clearly no saving these towels. Housekeeping was going to wonder what the hell had gone on in room 1419. I had a vivid image (complete with soundtrack) of their conversation, but as I don't speak a lick of Spanish, I couldn't tell you what they were theorizing. And what did he tell his friends when he got to the restaurant? How do you explain a huge orange stain spreading across the back of your khakis? Gang raped by these guys? I e-mailed him the next day to find out if he was okay, but I never heard back from him. Whether he was embarrassed by his towel-Tanging, or whether he evolved into some liquid orange state, I'll probably never know. Though, I should probably be ashamed to admit, I'd totally hit that again. When I say I'm rubbing off on my friends, I'm not being dirty. While many of my friends are my friends because they have the Snark Chromosome, several of them reserve it for times when we're in a private setting, or else they keep their voice low when it happens. I'm thrilled when one of my friends breaks out of that zone and into The Public Snark. When Emily met JBob, the discussion of me not falling into Gay Stereotypes came up, and, with a little whiskey courage, she said loudly in a room full of people who either knew me really well, or not really at all "Well, he doesn't have most of the stereotypes, but he does fuck a lot of guys he meets on Craigslist."
And a few weeks ago, during one of the more excruciating slams I've ever half-sat through, I said fairly loudly while a poet was on stage, "Someone needs to buy that guy an editor." To which Mazarine replied "Fuck that. Someone needs to buy that guy an eraser." I am hereby erasing my August pasts. Unfuck Elvis. Unfuck stupid boys with initially names. Unfuck when Ben and Sora disappeared on me, because they're both back now, and that's ok. Unfuck Jennifer's treacherous pregnancy, and completely selfish use of my family background to make her feel better. Unfuck dead boyfriends, and insane landlords and landladies. Unfuck razor bladed vagina hos with the depth of a refrigerator magnet. Unfuck poor poetic decisions, and even worse romantic decisions. August, I forgive you. Madison Wisconsin has changed almost nothingly in the ten years since I last stepped foot there. Apart from the construction on State Street, most of the stores seemed to be where I remembered them being. And on our first day there, a group of Worcesterites and I headed to the same Noodle Factory where unHarry and I had our first real conversation. Every time I walked out to State street I expected to see Beckee Krackow flaunting down the street with her Doc Martens, and amazing colored hair. Luckily, that didn't happen. But I did get an e-mail from an amazingly haired LJ stalker, "Heard you're in Madison this week. Any interest in getting together for a couple of hours, and writing an oldschool style Insafemode entry about me?" And who could say no to the pure gonads he was showing (both in the picture, and by writing such a brash e-mail)? And who could say no to his amazingly colored hair? And who could say no to the spectacularly classy ass shot he sent me? Not me, my friends. Not me. Illiterates, Motorhead, Green, Deforestation, Shovels, Rakes, Calves, and Impending Madison8/2/2008 Gay men can't read. I have placed a shamedly high number of personal ads in my night. From intensely specific ads that can obviously never be fulfilled, to sweeping generalities that anyone could fit into. And while I sometimes do this because I'm a desperate, desperate man with a hormone imbalance, sometimes I do it just to see what kind of person responds.
I recently (a few hours after the frustrating encounter with Frenchy McFroggerton) placed an ad that said "Thirty year old, moderately hairy top guy seeks guy my age or younger with smooth ass for repeated fuckery. Must like Motorhead, and the color green." I don't give a shit about Motorhead or what colors people like, I was just hoping for an interesting response. I didn't get any. Lots of bland responses from the same guys who reply to all my ads, no matter what I say I'm looking for. But one guy sent a promising picture, and was able to put a sentence together, so I called him on the phone. He had a sexyish voice, so I said he could come over. He was 1.) much older than me; 2.) had ass hair that needed, not a machete, but a wheat thresher to get through; 3.) a complete tool. The only thing that fit the ad was that he probably liked Motorhead. I'm guessing this based on his being bald, smelling funny, and overusing the word "sick". I was way way way not into him. So he was bent over on my bed with his fanny forest in my direction. "I can't do this." I said. He looked over his shoulder at me. "Why not?" I'm a firm supporter in derrier deforestation? Your picture was from the late eighties when your ass was smooth, and your head was not? "I just...I can't." And I sent him on his way. Depressed, I signed in to delete my ad, when I came across: "I'm tired of offering my ass to beautiful men who fuck me just about right, but then either end up turning into complete dicks, or else stalking me when I say I'm not interested. So I've decided to be more specific with what I want: I want a man to come to my house, fuck me until we both come repeatedly, and then I want to hit him in the face with a shovel. No second date. No awkward goodbye kisses. My shovel to your face.You can tell all your straight friends that you didn't get hit in the face with a shovel by a guy you were fucking, but that you an a bunch of your straight buddies had a martial arts death fest where you were the winner, or that you fell off the bar while banging a really hot chick, or whatever it is you straight guys do after you fuck a gay guy. And you don't have to worry about me following you around for a repeated shoveling. This would be a one time deal. How could I not reply? Dating is a little complex for me. It's not that I don't like eating dinner with someone who's going to be face down on my bed later, it's that I don't want to be sitting in the darkened movie theatre, watching, say, The Dark Knight, and spend the whole time thinking, does this guy have enough stamina to justify all the money I've spent on buttered popcorn and flat soda? But let's say we did go on a date, and things reached the level where you were bent over my couch, face down on the bed, leg up on the kitchen counter, headstanding in the shower, or in the crane position in a vat of pudding (butterscotch, naturally). Things go well, you don't come within ten seconds and announce that you HAVE to go, because you're afraid you'll miss the last train home (nevermind that it is three in the afternoon). Basically, things are good. There may or may not be cuddling involved, depending on how recently you've showered, and whether you mind being the small spork. On your way out the door, I mention that I'm not really into stalking, and while I can certainly hold my own when it comes to smacktalking, I don't enjoy being a dick to someone who's just spent the last hour with my dick in their ass. You pull out your shovel. And here's the problem, my face is completely allergic to shovels. It's not that I'm too pretty to be bludgeoned, or that I'm a wuss when it comes to pain. It's that shovels are just such a nineteenth century sort of tool. And I'm really not into antiques. And since I'm not one of those "bisexual" frat guys who like to act all masculine and tough around my friends, but turn into a catty fagtron once my clothes are off, I have no desire to lie to people why my nose is smashed in, and my right eye is bloodshot. So, what say, instead of the shovel to the face, you just swing a rake at my calves. I've got good calves, they're fairly strong, and I think they could take a raking. Plus, depending on how many tines there are on the rake, I could tell people I was attacked by Wolverine, or Freddy Kreuger, or even Edward Scissorhands. There's just so many more believably crazy stories you can get from raked calves than you can from a smashed up face. I mean, I obviously wouldn't have fallen down the stairs, or gotten into a bar fight. Any story involving raked calves would HAVE to be amazing. So, if you're up for getting together some time for some non-shovel debauchery, hit me up. I'm six feet tall, about 190 pounds, a redhead with strong calves, the correct amount and properly proportioned facial features (no thanks to your damned shovel), and two days off from work. Send a pre-pummeled face pic and some stats (of you, and your rake). --Calvin (not really) So he sends me a pic, and some praise for my reply, and I notice...his picture was taken at a venue I work at. Recently. Turns out we do shows at the same spaces, but different nights (him being a musician, and me being a poet.writer guy). So I ask him what he's into, and he says I sing for a band. I'm a normal guy who likes working out, hanging out with friends, industrial theft, movies and long walks on beach after anal. Well, I've got fast hands, a bulky shirt to hide the merchandise in, a number of movies illegally downloaded, lube, condoms, and a pile of sand I'm prepared to dump on my bedroom floor. So we're totally hooking up when I get back from Madison. Here's hoping I don't have to post about that hookup after I get back. |
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