Early 2002
Mid-2001 to end 2001 – November 2000 to June 2001 –
October – September – August – July – June – May and earlier
2002.12.30
In Doylism, the phrase “after furious draining of AAA batteries in Luke’s digicam” was used. We were trying to make up for lost time and take some photos of me, a person essentially unphotographed for his entire life, yea unto his own first book, which contains no author photo.
Which of these four is least appalling?
 |
 |
Which of these can you really pick up at a “laundrymat”?
Find out once and for all as we trek back Ten Years Ago in Spy.
2002.12.22
“In December 2002, Colin N. Doyle of Osaka, Japan (via Enfield, Nova Scotia) had the temerity to jetset through Toronto for a mere day and a half. We can provide photographic evidence.”
2002.12.17
I had just gotten up and was checking my mail. I read my recent search results, including this phrase:
1 for "well hung hirsute but banal"
I thought to myself “You’re missing a hyphen, it’s not that big, and at least I know how to pronounce ‘banal,’ ” then turned on the television to find the music video of the song I had listened to à répétition yesterday, “Greed” by Godsmack: “Hard to find how I feel, especially when you’re smothering me.... Hey, little bitch! Be glad you finally walked away, or you may have not lived another day.”
Well-hung, hirsute, and serendipitous. So watch your back.
2002.12.16
EPISODE IV What do you get for the man who has everything? Today, our snouts manage to sniff out a truffle amid the cesspool that is M4M. Why, it’s a slender young man who, far from demanding specific sexual capacities of his partners, envisages romantic encounters over good food and fine wine.
What else has he got goin’ for him? And what’s he doing among us philistines?
Me: He’s been to Switzerland and he likes fine wine.
Me: Can he also tinkle ivories, and what’s he looking for in a man?
Him: who knows
Me: You do, presumably.
Him: yes, he can tinkle ivories – although it’s been a while
Me: Jeez.
Me: It’s not [fella’s name].
Me: It’s James fucking Bond.
Me: (I kid.)
Him: D.E.S (Strasbourg), B.A. (Mt. Allison), B.Sc.A. (Hull), M.A. (Geneva), LL.B. (Ottawa)
Him: you asked for it... lol
Me: Whoa, he went to Mount A.
Me: What, exactly, is a B.Sc.A.?
Me: I can only match two to your five, but it’s not a competition.
Me: Not everything is about penis size.
Him: applied science – computer science specifically
Me: *Three* to your five. You seem to have the equivalent of high school in there.
Me: baccalauréat des sciences appliquées?
Me: Yeah, the CS majors. I know the type.
Him: quelque chise de ce genre, en effet
Me: I went to engineer school.
Him: chose
Me: je le comprenais.
Him: faute de frappe, zut
Me: my friend down in Kennn-tucky is a CS major
Me: and I wonder how he handles the stultifying boredom
Me: (usually by acing his tests).
Me: I believe there’s an unanswered question on the table.
Him: as opposed to T.O.? boredom is universal ...
Me: something to do with what you’re looking for in a man.
Him: good question
Me: Lawrenceburg, KY is objectively more boring than here.
Him: muscles and a big dick
Me: we’re trying to get him out of there.
Me: I’m 1 for 2 on your list.
Me: this seems to be the theme of the evening.
Him: that I noticed
Him: perhaps some brains – some intelligence
Him: that is hard to find though
Me: ça j’ai en surnombre.
Me: What the fuck did I just type?
Me: j’en ai en surnombre.
Me: there.
Me: the problem with online chat
Him: soupir
Me: (on systems that don’t permit italics, etc.)
Me: is of course misinterpretation.
Me: So I probably sound *slightly* more pretentious than I actually am.
Me: Do you *practice* law?
Him: you speak french, where did you learn?
Him: yes
Him: I am articling now – it was time to get it over with
Me: Je ne suis pas à l’aise en français. Je ne le parle pas couramment. Mais j’ai une assez bonne compréhension.
Me: enough that I run the fan page for a French-language TV show. In English.
Me: I’m a linguistics grad, so I know all too well that we understand more than we can produce.
Me: to speak languages fluently,
Me: one must choose his parents carefully.
Him: not necessarily on the parents thing – my parents do not speak french and I am fluent
Me: yes, but you lived the immigrant experience:
Me: Dad speaks X, mom speaks X or Y, country of youth speaks Z.
Me: that’s how trilinguals are raised.
Me: wow. linguistics on the chatline.
Me: I thought we were supposed to be talking about COCK.
Him: no, actually
Me: we’ve got expectations to meet.
Me: [joking]
Him: Dad and mom are anglos, [I] was born and grew up in canada
Him: hey, that’s one hell of a dick
Me: ah.
Me: you lived the immigrant experience.
Me: Yeah, well.
Me: I assume Strasbourg played a part in the French.
Him: um, yes –
Me: unfortunately, native language fluency is almost entirely out of a person’s control.
Him: went to university there from 19–20
Me: it’s entirely *circumstantial*.
Him: then M.A. in Geneva
Me: *second*-language fluency is often chosen.
(disconnected)
The upper classes. If they don’t get what they want, they just pull the plug. Zut!
2002.12.11
| ENDS IN E | DOESN’T END IN E |
|---|---|
| detente | detent |
| dude | dud |
| heroine | heroin |
| locale | local |
| morale | moral |
| psyche | psych |
| quelle | quell |
| rationale | rational |
| royale | royal |
| silicone | silicon |
| tartare | tartar |
| urbane | urban |
| vigilante | vigilant |
2002.12.09
It nearly killed Luke’s box, and it exposed the dank underbelly of the geekpolitik, but here it is: “Ask an Expert About Web Site Accessibility” at Slashdot.
2002.12.08
At the Ethics in Sports Media panel in Rhode Island last year (still and likely forever undocumented), a fellow panelist declared that I was the most comfortable and most out-of-the-closet person he had ever met. Then again, he’d only been out for a short while despite being older than me.
There’s my degree of outness, there’s Harvey Fierstein’s, there’s Clive Barker’s. Is there another model?
Are there two models, posing nude?
No fewer than five times did I hold and contemplate buying the September–October 2001 issue of 2, the gay porn magazine featuring couples in R- but not X-rated embraces and poses. It is the issue featuring Corin and his boyfriend Jett.
A month ago I got paid and was faced with a fifth second chance. The issue of the magazine, unseen for half a year, was right there in front of me. I quit ignoring fate and now I own it fair and square.
I spent an entire year wondering about, and at, the romance manifest in the photo spread. The online photos are terrible; you’d never know that strange rays of love emanate from the printed spread, shot by James Monroe.
You’re not supposed to mix love and pornography, at least for straight people. Girls in straight porn may get paid more than guys, but the entire purpose of straight porn is to show straight guys what sex with a woman looks like. It’s inherently unequal and, frankly, disturbing. There is a modicum of truth to anti-porn activists’ claims about straight porn.
Activists conveniently fail to mention gay porn, of course. There it’s guys doing guys for the benefit of guys. That’s its purpose; as with straight porn, other people may watch, but they’re not the intended audience. It’s a closed system. And everybody uses it: There simply is not an urban gay male who does not look at porn. In the Britanski Queer as Folk, cleaning out dead Phil’s porn stash so his mom won’t find it is documentary, not fiction. You may not own any, but bars run it like wallpaper on television screens.
Corin already does porn, under the nom de pénis Corky, or as Eric, as in 2. His is really more of a voyeur site, and I doubt it makes him much money, though he’s popular enough with the punters – unretouched urologist-quality photos tend to score high at RateaRod.com (first, second).
He’s always struck me as a smart lad. One can get that impression. He’s not a writer (he can write; he’s not a writer), rather a designer-cum-photographer, and his site is OK. I find him handsome, with the lips and the hairline. The © tattoo is a nice touch. (Two 2 photographs were reversed for layout purposes, inverting Corin’s ©.) He’s well-hung; fine. I can get that anywhere.
He loves his man, Jett. It’s not supposed to be possible if you do porn; Amber Waves taught us that. But she’s a girl who did it onscreen with guys. Corin is a boy who does. The rules are different. Porn doesn’t poison the love; porn becomes proof.
The 2 shots, entitled “Higher Love,” are housed in the fourth issue surrounded by other portfolios of couples that, like the couples in the previous three and all subsequent issues, do nothing for me whatsoever. I don’t have an explanation. I think it’s because they are simply nothing special. Neither is doing porn, though, right? Because porn is par for the course with gays. I’ve seen ads at the Eagle advertising for porn models and I have more than idly considered it.
Corin and Jett, then, are quite ordinary in Aughties terms. They have a beautiful house, they’re handsome and fit men, they run their own sites, they do porn. They’ve got tanlines. They are nothing special, if you add it all up on paper.
But also on paper, their gestalt is love. They have enough love to transcend buying a Jetta – a Jetta for Jett and Corin – and tastefully decorating their nice house, and parading before a Webcam. They have so much love the only way it can be adequately calibrated is through a nude photo spread.
A natural model of gay love is to be an au naturel model, open-mouth-kissing your gay lover while you squeeze his nipple, his goatee as well-tended as your pubic hair. Then the tattooed barbed wire falling off the tattooed heart on his shoulder suddenly looks quite befitting.
I am a fellow who has actually been screamed at in a meeting for being too gay online to be professional – a bit of a stretch considering the entire industry I work in is overrun by invert men.
I’m still upset about it. I’m tremendously offended. But the Corin/Jett portfolio provides evidence that I am not, in fact, gay enough, or out enough. Still.
I would probably pose for a photo spread. Because I might have to be in love to do it.
2002.12.07
EPISODE III What happens if a tall, strapping Italian fella views your “private photo” on the homosexualist chatline, then learns it isn’t really you?
It seems the biggest guys are the quickest to jump onto a chair at the sight of a mouse. Perhaps “tall, strapping Italian fella” is a synonym for “helium-heels.”
Take it away, semicloseted neurasthenic!
Him: hi
Me: Aloha.
Me: Or “ciao bello” or whatever.
Him: you took a long time to reply to my ad
Me: wait... did you send an earlier reply?
Me: I apologize. 150 responses!
Him: yes....
Him: i understand
Him: that happens when your NEW
Him: it should start to cool off
Me: Yeah, no shit.
Me: It has, now that the photo is in the private section.
Him: lol
Him: someone told me that dick shots get good replies...
Me: Evidently.
Him: BUT not necessarily quality replies
Me: Moving right along...
Him: anyway – im very masculine – women at work are always trying to set me up with some chick or another – yuck
Me: You tell them you’re queer?
Him: tell me what you want
Him: no
Me: Then they’ll try to shag you themselves.
Me: Well, they’re gonna figure it out eventually. It’s the 21st century.
Him: they think im straight BUT some closer chicks have a hunch and i rarely lie – prefer to be ambiguous/vague with my answers
Him: i really don’t care if they do know – but i love playing the part of a st8 [sic] guy
Me: I see.
Him: and the st8 men at work also love me for some reason – maybe its because i always talk about sex
Him: anyway
Him: im 35
Me: Perhaps they can smell your foreskin.
Him: lol
Him: LOVE UNCUT
Him: wish they did smell my foreskin
Him: what does “fuzzy” mean?
Me: What do you need in a man, then?
Me: apart from what you stated already?
Him: physically – love tall/uncut/euro/brits/masc/aggressive yet gentle
Him: other qualities...
Me: I’m only 5′11″ and circumcised, and an anglo.
Him: love HONESTY, shyness, romantic, intelligent, caring, simple.
Me: honest, yes. shy, no. aggressive, yes. intelligent, extremely. simple, the exact opposite.
Me: I had a Latino bf who found me insufficiently “huggy.”
Him: what is huggy and fuzzy
Me: Well, fuzzy: If you refer to hair, I’m beyond fuzzy. Think rainforest.
Me: Huggy? Well, think fawning, cuddly.
Him: well you certainly have my interest
Me: it does, however, depend on physical size.
Me: Latino bf was just a smidge too large to be “hugged” easily postcoitally.
Me: I’m going to do act like a hypocrite here and ask if you have a “face pic,” as they say, even though I don’t. That may be unfair.
Him: you mention you are cut yet your photo is uncut – can you explain that
Him: you just mentioned that your 5′11″ yet your ad says 6 feet – can you explain that
Me: Yeah, the story seems nefarious but isn’t.
Me: “Just under 6 feet,” I think. I believe I’m exactly 5′10.5″.
Me: That isn’t my photo! SHOCK!
Me: one could not even browse ads without a photo on the system, and there aren’t any of me.
Me: so I improvised.
Me: perhaps unwisely.
Me: anyway, text description is accurate, if height seems to vary (“just under 6 feet” works better than “5′10.5″,” I think).
Me: I’m sure it gives the appearance of deception, but that was not the intent.
Him: its like “deception” or lying, don’t you think?
Me: It’s like “System requirements force dishonesty for people who prefer to manifest themselves in text.”
Him: what is the intent?
Me: the intent was to sit around and browse ads *for amusement*.
Me: I put the photo up, and (fatal mistake) didn’t make it the private one.
Me: so I got 150 responses.
Me: and here we are.
Me: had it been a private photo, I could have merely browsed and been amused.
Me: Now I’m IMPLICATED.
Him: most people use the system as a means for others to see them and if they like them – to reply – you use it to check out every guys’ piks....
Me: I explain what happened. Guys either buy it or don’t. It is, in fact, what happened.
Me: yes. there are almost no photos of me. not having a camera could have something to do with it.
Him: buy what? a fake pic?
Me: It’s all very embarrassing.
Him: like have you met anyone off this line?
Me: Buy the explanation, which is truthful. Or they have overly-sensitive bullshit detectors and write me off.
Me: No, not yet. Toi?
Him: a few... and your the reason why it is only a few... bullshitters to pik collectors to shitheads, you name it – ive heard it all
Me: Pic *collectors*?
Me: a bit much.
Me: Did you, as they say, “hook up” with any of them?
Him: i hooked up with a few REAL GUYS
Me: Also tall?
Him: never with the fake adders
Me: Did you get good lovin’ from them?
Him: most were REALLY nice//did not have sex with all of them – def NOT/a few were assholes
Me: If I’m not mistaken, your tender secret is that you’re romantic.
Him: who told you that
Me: I read between the lines.
Him: actually i told you that
Me: Well, you listed that as a quality you *sought*.
Him: anyway, i have no idea what the fuck you look like
Him: and i’m wasting my time
Me: I would not say “wasting your time.”
Me: And, in all fairness, I don’t know what you look like above the nose.
Me: I thought it was going fine.
Him: i told you i love HONESTY and i even put it in capitals earlier for a reason – cuz ITS TRUE
Me: Oh, well. People are hard to read.
Me: RIGHT.
Me: The pic is fake and nothing else is. It really isn’t more complicated than that. If I were really trying to fake you out, I wouldn’t have bothered to fess up. I’m sure other guys have done that to you, but I wouldn’t.
Him: the reason I started to do internet ads was so I could see a pik or 2... or else its a total BLIND DATE like the phone line and blind dates SUCK they never work for me... I hated them
Me: En tout cas, [fella], it’s a free country. You may do as you wish. I’m happy to keep chatting, if desired.
Me: blind dates work badly for fags because we are visual creatures.
Him: let me ask you
Him: why are you afraid to put a pik of you online
Me: There’s no fear. There just aren’t any photos!
Me: It isn’t nefarious.
Him: so why bother with M4m – why not go to gay.com where you need no pik? – m4m is a site for piks correct
Me: The original intent was to BROWSE. and that went horribly wrong. I suppose I should just cut bait and go back to frequenting the Eagle or something. I can only ask that you not be quite so horribly offended.
Him: you mean to tell me with a million internet cafes and a zillion digital cameras on the market today or even a simple $60 comp cam you could not get a pik of you
Me: this is all a mere two weeks old.
Me: one has been working, hosting a friend from Montreal, etc.
Me: I give up.
Me: No, you have no *photo* of me. you have a description.
Me: I suppose I should have mentioned black hair, brown eyes,
Me: #1 buzzcut of black hair with male-pattern baldness.
Him: do you work out?
Me: Haven’t been in a gym in a while. Average shape, the ad says.
Him: if your experiment in browsing or I should say your deception in getting access to over 150 priv piks didn’t work well, then you should have erased the ad and put a REAL ad of you and real pik in as well and sell yourself that way – or else its not fair to me and others. when I reply to an ad it’s because there is something in the pik that interests me and I want to pursue it – I have no idea what you look like – a descr in words to me is rather meaningless (I do love bald men though)...
Him: a pik tells a thousand stories though
Me: I had the photo switched to private.
Me: I almost NEVER get a response now.
Me: except from hardcore bottoms who respond to any ad containing the word “top.”
Me: Now I simply initiate.
Me: they can talk or not talk. you’re talking.
Him: of course not – your ad says very little about you
Me: because it was a placeholder.
Him: you need to sell yourself guy – a no pik ad or a fake pik ad are not good selling strategies
Him: what incentive do I have to meet you
Me: Fine.
Me: Point taken.
Me: Now, when I finally get to buy a digicam
Me: the problem will be solved.
Me: or actually, the options are (a) retain current state, (b) get someone to shoot me and scan it, (c) remove ad completely, (d) buy camera and do it properly.
Me: Anyway, I apparently have lost your confidence (after all the time we’ve known each other!) and now would be a good time to change the subject.
Me: Or we could be on our merry way.
Him: fuck you even asked me for a face pik too before you told me the truth about you, UNBELIEVABLE
Me: My exact words were ‘I’m going to do act like a hypocrite here and ask if you have a “face pic,” as they say, even though I don’t. That may be unfair.’
Me: Sounds pretty believable to me.
Me: Anyway, [fella], your bullshit detector is, I think, a tad overzealous tonight.
Me: and you’ve beaten this particular topic into the ground. I believe the point is taken.
Me: I would, however, suggest having an actual face pic of your own. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the [gander], etc.
Him: anyway have a good night – i’ve had enough – and throughout these 2 or 3 weeks of you havin your fukin fun online – I kept thinkin you rejected me cuz I wasnt good enough for you WOW – life is strange man
Me: you got lost in the shuffle.
Me: this is an impersonal service, and I apologized for that right from the word go.
Me: I don’t know any other ways of saying This-All Isn’t Quite as I Had Expected.
Him: I have plenty of piks but thank god I don’t place them on this service
Me: Mustn’t sound quite so wounded, [fella].
Me: it’s not like I stood you up at the altar.
Him: I have problems with deception and dishonesty
Him: cuz I am so NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL
Me: It is a very minor thing. the only thing that’s “deceptive” is the photo.
Me: you now have about 1,800 words of explanation.
Him: a lot of guys will look at my piks and reject me and thats fine – I understand – and I don’t care – but I would like the right to be able to do the same – to look at a pik and decide if I want to pursue it
Me: This would be the time to fish or cut bait.
Me: Unless you did something strange and human, like have a nice chat conversation!
Me: My God! It doesn’t end up in sex! Gay men can’t possibly have anything to do with that!
Him: lets see the name of this site is m4m4sex not m4m4chatonly –
Me: Fish or cut bait, [fella].
Him: let’s see
Him: im looking for a potential boyfriend or nice guy(sex or without sex) yet I may be chatting with freddy krueger or jason – that is not what I want nor do I want to chat with some professor or somebody who likes cars – I need a pik
Me: a dead-gorgeous man could still be any of those things.
Me: your needs are hereby acknowledged, but cannot be filled just at this moment, for reasons exhaustively documented.
Me: so don’t feel all “rejected” or “deceived.”
Him: alright then
Me: It’s just a gay chatline. You’re a big lad. You’ll live.
Him: the ball is in your court to deliver someday....
Him: until then, I wish thee a good night...
Him: ciao
2002.12.06
Why, it’s those surprising Gore girls and a surprising New Yorker lexicon. Where? Ten Years Ago in Spy, of course.
2002.11.27
EPISODE II Let’s wander down memory lane one more time, courtesy of dragging one’s M4M chat session into a desktop clipping.
Our interlocutor this time? A minor Canadian director and sometime actor, famous for his bit part in a wartime epic by the leading director in the United States. He’s as egotistical as he is bald, tall, and Jewish.
Take it away, boychick.
Him: heh, glad to know i have fans here. where’s the face then?
Me: Yello?
Him: yo!
Me: Or, more aptly, Oy!
Me: no, man, I’m an anglo, not Israeli.
Me: I don’t know where to begin here. The last filmmaker I met was Don McKellar,
Me: with whom I was granted an audience on December 31, 1998.
Him: ah yes, so what did you do to don mKeller?
Me: I learned just how smart and cunning Don is. He’s always thinking two steps ahead of you,
Me: and knows essentially everything about every aspect of the dramatic arts.
Me: Now, *you* I haven’t met.
Me: I wonder if I’m even your type.
Me: 5’11", 180, average shape, #1 buzzcut head, impossibly hirsute.
Me: whereas one is reasonably aware of what you look like. I find you quite handsome.
Him: yeah yeah... if you went through the trouble of putting your dick online then let’s see your face.. what are you in hiding?
Me: I expect most human beings do.
Me: no, nothing nefarious about absence of photographs. there just aren’t any.
Him: ok
Me: I suppose showing up on a chatline without full-body X-rays or a full Sears Portrait Studio wallet spread is like walking into the Black Eagle without a hankie.
Me: I’m sorry about that.
Me: you’re not the first person to be perplexed
<slash>angry<slash>suspicious.Him: no big deal hanki pops
Me: anyway, go ahead. I type 100 wpm and that tends to make me blab.
Me: So what *are* you looking for here?
Me: if I may be so bold.
Him: a reason to smile
Me: let’s see...
Him: gee thanks
Me: we’ve both been profiled by Sid Adilman.
Him: :-)
Me: I’m sure this is sounding ever more spooky.
Him: he’s a good man... he was very supportive
Me: smile... smile... smile...
Me: well, my wit gets me into trouble in this very literal-minded town,
Me: but somehow I can’t muster it on command here.
Him: nothing can surprise an old horse
Me: Hung like an, etc.?
Me: never did see *that* component in [unnamed film].
Him: your wit woulda placed you better in mine eyes...
Me: well, it’s still available.
Him: as for the testicular element... eh!
Him: get a face wit boy!
Me: yeah.
Me: “Get a face wit boy”?
Me: um...?
Him: um!
Me: en tout cas, yes, the penis is slightly overrated.
Me: seen one, seen ’em all, etc.
Him: right
Me: a good strong nose, or maybe forearms or calves,
Me: are marriage bait right there.
Me: someone asked me today if there’s a celebrity I resemble.
Me: I had to say no, though my nose looks like the bastard child of Bob Hope, Richard Nixon, and Roberto Benigni.
Me: though not Don McKellar.
Me: tell me if this sparkling discourse is what you’re looking for here.
Me: I hope it heats “hey wassup?!?! what u doin”
Him: sorry man. i don’tlike talkin blindfolded. don’t take it personally.
Me: There’s always double espresso.
Him: always
Him: but you’ve given me no reason till now.
Me: Your honesty (one could say bluntness) is, I suppose, admirable.
Him: if this is a compliment then much obliged
Me: I don’t know where you’re going here. IM is a text-based medium. I don’t have a photo. I can make up for it by actually meeting you in, as they say, “a public place.”
Him: as i said, i have to reason to (yet)... many people can type fast, some of them even faster, many peeps have a dick (some of them bigger although perhaps that’s not likely) and type blabber does not impress until it is relevent to something i ’d want or need.
Me: Now would be your chance to mention what you want or need.
Me: your ad did seem to veer toward the LTR end of the spectrum. also conversation.
Him: as i said – a reason to smile
Me: well, without the usual facial expressions, body language, etc., to judge by, you’re not merely a tough room, you’re an impossible room.
Me: But how about this, Mr. Director?
Me: the other day a former bf and I were chatting on this system
Me: and realized, at about the same time, by pretty much the same bolt of lightning,
Me: that WE WEREN’T STRANGERS.
Me: “Oh, my God! It’s him!”
Me: “Oh, my God! It’s him!”
Me: There’s the gay man’s lot in life in the 21s century:
Him: huh?
Me: simultaneously hitting up exes on gay chatlines.
Me: best Oscar Wilde here can do at ten to 2:00 on a holiday.
Him: still not with ye
Me: well, dear, I’m gonna leave you to your Rumpelstiltskin exercise.
Me: you’ve got one of the few non-dullard Toronto fags on the line.
Me: say hello again sometime if I am later deemed worthy.
Me: or whatever I need to be deemed.
Him: sure. g’night.
You may be wondering why he hasn’t acted or directed more. I expect because he is waiting for casting agents and producers to give him a reason to smile.
All that gall, and you don’t even get a foreskin along with it. I don’t think so.
2002.11.16
EPISODE I Time to add to the historical record various of my online chats with lads on M4M4Sex.com, which still cannot hold a candle to Worldskins (op. cit.). Transcripts have been denominalized and are not directly traceable; the only editing involved removed identifying details and fixed the most egregious typing errors.
[And if it takes you more than five minutes to locate my ad, you haven’t been online long enough. (Is the photo mine?)]
Now, then. The catchphrase used to describe sexual encounters between tops is crossing swords. Such homosexualists are said to cross swords with each other all night, the implication being that the only kind of sex is rear-guard. It seems a tad limiting and unrealistic, not to mention doctrinaire and evocative of depilated, steroidal homunculi strung out on roids and K.
In this case, the crossing of swords was verbal. Take it away, unnamed interlocutor!
Him: I am lost
Him: it all seems so esoteric
Me: Well, your ad does seem to ask for three contradictory things:
Me: 1. a bottom
Me: 2. a fella who is sexually open
Me: 3. a fella who can give you “it all,” if you’ll forgive the grammar
Him: how are 1 and 2 contradictory?
Him: all tops are sexually closed?
Me: Take it from another top: Our whole lives are contradictions, but this is more than a usual dose.
Him: I disagree completely
Me: I think being sexually open and wanting it all are a recipe for a "versatile" relationship, to use the vernacular.
Him: I think those who don’t cherish contradictions
Him: are dead
Me: Ah. Well, good to have that settled.
Him: so it your interpretation of sexually open
Him: fair enuf
Him: I see your point
Me: In my experience,
Me: the 100% tops and 100% bottoms
Me: tend to become mostly tops and mostly bottoms once they fall in love.
Me: *That* is what opens guys up. *That* is what gives you “it all.”
Him: so you are top in love?
Him: a top in love
Him: or were a top in love
Him: and continue to be a top?
Me: While guys are playing the field, the total tops and total bottoms find it easier to stick to those scripts.
Me: Now, the versatile guys are a different story.
Him: you seem to be well versed
Me: I’ve been around.
Him: I’m not sure it is all scripts
Him: scientific studies
Him: have been done on tops and bottoms
Me: That’s news to me.
Him: and the evidence suggests that it stems from childhood
Me: Continue.
Him: one sec
Him: I am getting the reference
Me: Kettle boiling on the stove?
Me: Whoa, he’s looking it up.
Him: <-- scientist
Me: Bottoms I’ve talked to knew from the time they were kids that they were, in fact, bottoms.
Me: I’ve never heard a top say that.
Me: <-- engineering and linguistics major. I love a good reference.
Him: yep
Me: Citations are *hot*.
Him: fair enuf
Me: Actually, we should update our ads so they read like MLS-compliant scientific citations.
Him: so I have a theory
Me: I’m listening.
Him: what was your childhood like
Him: were you introverted
Him: extroverted
Him: happy
Him: frustrated
Him: lost
Him: hurt
Him: outgoing
Him: friendly
Me: With the greatest possible respect, that’s a bit *forward* at this stage of our friendship.
Him: get over yourself
Him: I think
Me: Well, that’s one response, I guess.
Him: those that were controlled in childhood
Him: control as adults
Him: and vice versa
Me: Hmm.
Me: Interesting theory.
Me: I’m not sure it really applies to me, though.
Him: http://www.nickyee.com/ponder/topbottom.html
Him: a look at ‘masculinity’ issues and tops and bottoms
Him: well you have already set yourself apart from us run-of-the-mill tops :)
Him: top/bottom is called genitoerotic roles
Him: Weinrich, James D., Grant, Igor, Jacobson, Denise L., Robinson, S. Renée, McCutchan, J. Allen and the HNRC Group (1992)
Effects of recalled childhood gender nonconformity on adult genitoerotic role and AIDS exposure. Archives of Sexual Behavior 21(6): 559–585.Him: I don’t have the paper
Him: I have to go to U of T to get it
Me: All right. Will look at that one later.
Him: it’s not online
Him: too old
Me: Interesting.
Me: I like your reasoning here.
Him: I think so
Me: But sex isn’t all about reason, is it?
Him: oh god
Him: don’t be emotional
Him: tops aren’t allowed to be emotional
Me: There’s an interesting request!
Him: it is interesting I often get in better discussions with tops
Him: it is part of our analytical mind, I think
Me: A lot of pure bottoms are stupid, frankly.
Me: Or hopelessly meek, or dependent on ongoing psychotherapy.
Me: I’ve met exactly *one* exception.
Him: ah
Him: I have met many exceptions
Me: Perhaps you’ve been around more than I have.
Him: as if
Him: nope, maybe just a bit less judgemental :)
Him: more accepting
Me: You realize I’m just responding here, right? in a neutral way?
Him: huh?
Him: devil’s-advocate type thing
Me: We’re just chatting. I’m not entering into some grand disputation of what you’re saying here.
Him: I know
Him: I’m not that weak willed
Him: I have a stronger sense of self than to offended and horrified this easily
Me: plain text leads itself to misinterpretation.
Him: hmm
Him: so put more :)
Him: in there
Him: LOL
Me: Now, where were we?
Him: oh I think you were slaggin me somehow
Me: No, just clearing up misunderstanding. moving right along.
Me: You sound as ornery and snappy as I am.
Me: We fit in real well in New York, but Torontonians find us quite forward, don’t they?
Me: Pussies.
Him: do they?
Him: you would be surprised if you met me
Him: I am not as forward as you are I believe
Him: I can easily sit back at a bar or club
Him: and let the world pass me by
Him: often even I see a hot guy
Him: I don’t bother
Him: often it isn’t worth my time
Him: I’d rather do my own thing
Him: and I have been called shy
Me: Well, what part isn’t worth your time?
Him: hmm
Me: Chatting him up, only to find he’s (a) combination bottom+stupid
Him: well my standards are too high I think
Me: or (b) combination top+interesting?
Him: combination bottom?
Him: c’est quoi ca?
Me: Combination of [(bottom)+(stupid)]
Him: ah
Him: we call them DB’s
Him: dumb bottoms
Me: “We” do?
Him: me and my friend who is a borderline DB
Him: you see
Him: the thing about bottoms
Me: Aha.
Him: is even tho they are dumb
Him: and in need of serious shrink work
Him: and are so dependent
Him: I am so much the opposite
Him: that people like me frustrate me
Him: they don’t relax me
Him: or make me open up
Him: get me to be vulnerable
Him: so I want someone
Me: Did you mean “people like me frustrate me,” i.e. people like YOU frustrate YOU?
Him: yes
Me: ah.
Me: go on.
Him: people like YOU frustrate me :)
Him: as you are like me
Him: (I think)
Me: Yeah. Everything’s a battle, a discussion. Nothing is “easy.”
Me: I get that a lot.
Me: but that’s a misinterpretation.
Him: yep
Him: whatever
Me: Curmudgeons say what they think right then and there.
Him: nice try
Him: you are an EUT
Me: If something annoys us, we say it and *it’s over*.
Him: emot unavail top
Me: but the nice guys-- would you let me finish here?
Him: it’s all rules
Him: ha
Him: ok
Me: Let me try this again.
Me: “Normals” and nice guys like things to be on an even keel.
Me: Curmudgeons are hot-tempered and idealistic and if something annoys us, we say so right there.
Me: But boom, it.’s over.
Him: (normals??? what the fuck?)
Him: hot and cold
Me: But that puts a spike in the graph, which ruins the even keel the normals (sic!) and nice guys want.
Me: so: bottoms I’ve dealt with
Me: (in one case, a 2yr relationship)
Me: never, EVER got used to little spikes in the graph.
Him: my ex
Him: (100% btm)
Me: they never could get a handle on the overall trend. they wanted the overall trend to be nice and calm all the time.
Him: LOVED the spikes
Him: for a while
Me: Or they don’t know how to handle them, or they try really hard to paper over their own reactions to them.
Me: then, after a while, they go SPLAT! and say they’ve had enough. Am I right?
Him: yeah
Him: no
Him: I run
Me: Oh?
Me: Well, that’s one option.
Him: I get frustrated
Him: with the dependency
Me: Frustrated with what?
Me: Oh.
Me: If he’s putting up with the spikes, how is that “dependent”?
Him: he did
Him: I should go
Me: Ah.
Me: Too bad.
Him: going to hang with my friend
Me: Well, you’re very interesting.
Him: a bit more.... bkgrnd
Him: you are challenging certainly
Me: I *like* your type,
Me: in very many ways,
Him: I don’t take well to being challenged
Me: but it seems you don’t like mine.
Me: A bit of a tragedy, really.
Him: so this is interesting
Him: don’t like your type?
Me: Emotionally, I mean.
Him: well
Me: Then there’s the “top” part, but we didn’t get to that point yet.
Him: I don’t have much experience with your type
Him: emotionally
Me: My type appears to be your type. That’s what I’m saying!
Him: I do intellectually
[Long discussion of book, etc. – trust me, you’re not missing anything]
Him: you can use all that cash to take me to dinner
Me: There’s an idea.
Me: Indian, I assume?
Him: Indian
Him: well
Him: interesting assumption
Him: sure
Him: I’m game
Him: you are told that?
Him: interesting
Me: No, I don’t eat game. I’m veg.
Him: so should I hold out for some pic
Me: [schwing]
Him: oh
Him: you are a bottom
Him: vegetarian
Later, my interlocutor and I enjoyed several pleasantly-contentious and keyed-up snatchmails. Then I linked my interlocutor to one of the few pictures of me in existence. Since then, radio silence.
When I showed the lad’s ad to Rob, he was dismissive, saying “he looks like Fag 101 to me.” Now I guess the guy feels the same way about me.
2002.11.06
Three links on usage, type standards, and onscreen reading.
Jean-François Porchez, your time is manifestly not up.
There’s really so much to talk about here. Paul Robinson talks about so very little of it. Except:
Rules are important, no question about it. But by themselves they are insufficient. Unless one has an emotional investment, rules are too easily forgotten. What we must instill, I’m convinced, is an attitude toward punctuation, a set of feelings about both the process in general and the individual marks of punctuation. That set of feelings might be called a philosophy of punctuation.
You have to love the language. Every mark of punctuation is a pin pulled out of a voodoo doll; each and every one of them counts.
The Splash Bar of course has a splash screen.
Before we go on, though, may I suggest a spellchecker, or a dictionary, or perhaps a boyfriend with a high-school education?
Have you ever gone to a club to just “check it out” and been drawn to the dance floor by Fun ,Upbeat, Popular music?
No.
The songs were old and new, but the common thread was that they were all Smash Hits that demanded your attendance on the floor! You swore to yourself that you were only going to have one drink, but because of that dam pesky DJ, you couldn’t leave the dance floor, much less the Club. You hate it yet you love it...your torn!
No, only one of those three, really.
SBNY’s Extreme tea is happy to have Dr. FeelGood himself, resident DJ Max Rodriquez spinning at this week’s soirée. So if you think your coming for only one drink, don’t kid yourself, if Max is spinning, you’re in for the "Long Haul!!
I see.
2002.11.05
I hate it when flighty invert Webloggers republish their SCIM transcripts. Fortunately for us all, flighty I ain’t.
contenunu: Glad Day Books here has the new one by Mark Simpson, Sex Terror, in which he dares to write that gay sex is overrated.
RobKYX: all sex is overrated
contenunu: What if you were in love?
You’re so romantic you’re frigid.RobKYX: this is true
2002.11.04
![I [HEART] Beta](I-heart-Beta.gif "I [HEART] Beta")
Steven Levy was right: Collecting is no fun anymore because, thanks to eBay, absolutely everything is now collectible, nothing is a bargain, and nothing can be discovered serendipitously. Now, none of that is an issue when you’re in Elmer Fudd mode, on the hunt for the wild Betamax.
It’s all very situationist, to recapitulate a term that turned out to be a dead end. Circa 1991, in someone else’s basement, I watched the film Empire of the Sun (the Spielberg film of a J.G. Ballard memoir, it is commonly forgotten) on a Betamax VCR. By kismet, I had read an encomium to to the Beta format and Sony’s (but no one else’s) “jewel-like” VCRs some few weeks before. It’s all true. You could hear the precision of the motors and tape mechanism.
Betas are better. The picture is better. So are the mechanics. (So is the tape, but what doomed the format commercially was a standard L-500 tape’s inability to hold a two-hour movie in highest-quality mode, called BI [“Bee-One”]. It had much less to do with marketing than is commonly believed. Moreover, I like the lopsided window of a Beta tape. VHS symmetry is trite.)
I am dissatisfied with my two-year-old Sony VHS VCR. It’s appalling in every respect – horrid stiff Chiclety detents on the fascia buttons, 1980s-style narrow remote control that stopped working after two months, and a tape mechanism that is nothing short of Soviet. I timed her: It can take fifteen seconds for recording to start after you shove in a tape. (That’s assuming the machine properly registered your pressing the button.) Know the name SLV-N71. Know it well, and shun it.
However, I adore my old-old-old Sony SLV-770HF: The drop-down front door; the jog wheel; the bigger remote (broken but functioning) that you can use purely by touch; the quick tape response; the more logical menu functions (the Execute key actually means something, unlike the newer machine). I’ve poured nearly $400 of repairs into it on two occasions, and I will run it lovingly into the ground. The 770 is not even top of the line for its era.
But we’re not done yet! No one has invented a truly usable remote control, but the old Sony remotes were a dream because they were three-dimensional. The Play/Stop/jog-wheel functions were raised like a spare tire bolted to a Hummer trunklid. Volume and channel keys felt different two different ways (compared to each other and compared to other keys); certain keys – the dangerous ones, the keys that get you into trouble, like RECORD – required two fingers or hands to press, were surrounded by keyguards, or were recessed. (My broken RMT-V140A has nearly all those features at once.)
So I’m doing a William Gibson and obsessively combing over eBay for any kind of Sony SLV-7xx VCR (my searching is somewhat broader, actually) and every Betamax. Yes. Yes, I want one or more Betas. Now, why? Because I have a digital cable box, two VCRs, and a DVD player; I tape shit; it’s my business. And I need some frigging jewels in my life. (Owning a Beta only becomes a drawback for longer-running-time programs and in exchanging tapes. Your own private stock only has to work in your machine.)
I can see another 770, plus a very good Beta, plus a multiformat VHS. I’m gonna need a switcher.
Now, you don’t believe me that Betas are gorgeous? Don’t be disputing me. That shit is unwise. SL-HF2100: A friggin’ Star Trek interface in 1991. (But don’t they get tired of tapping panels?) The SL-HF1000, with everything five VHS decks could possibly offer, which is probably how many I’ll end up with. (Deck. Don’t you love the word deck?) I cross-check with the master list.
Betas: Beautiful, still-functional, much-loved outdated technology, victim of a BIG LIE (dig the Spy-like exegetic advertisement) and as seductive as Communism. The alpha and omega of desirable electronics. I ♥ them.
2002.11.03
How do you make an homosexualist ironist queasy? Teach him roadkill recipes, as actually happened Ten Years Ago in Spy.
2002.10.29
I foolishly schlepped myself down to some hotel this afternoon for a Coast Paper–sponsored lecture with the provocative title “Why I Hate Graphic Design.” (There’s my next book title.)
Here is the salient portion of the frigging invitation (several errors corrected; unavailable online anywhere that I can find):
When: 12:00 PM–3:00 PM Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Location: The Crowne Plaza – 225 Front St. West
You are invited to a luncheon with designer John Bielenberg presented by Coast Paper, The Curious Paper Collection, and Appleton Coated.
Why I Hate Graphic Design
Tuesday, October 29th, 2002
Noon to 1:15 PM
Buffet Lunch providedAfter Hours with John Bielenberg
[...]
1:30–3 PM (optional)
PS Will be a fantastic event! John is an excellent speaker
of C2 in San Francisco
Call me if you have any questions
I expected an intelligent talk. Sort of a j’accuse, or a rousing of rabble. A kind of truth in advertising at the very least – I expected to be told why he at least dislikes graphic design.
Instead, we sat through a slideshow of this very important graphic designer’s gassy inspirations and vapid parodic work, including an “identity” for a fake dot-com, Virtual Telemetrix, that was as tasteless, unfunny, and overlong as a segment from Saturday Night Live.
Organizers’ first mistake was to hold the event in a poncy ballroom with individual tables – all the better to push ill-dressed or flat-black-dressed Toronto designers one increment outside their “comfort zone” and to encourage the Concrete/Atlanta/Taxi posses or moral equivalent to take over entire tables and engage in smug, clubby body language while chowing down on dead meat.
After driving a shy young Australian away from our table (Luke Portofina, come back! All is forgiven!), I endured 90 minutes of Bielenberg’s leaning on a lectern and burning through two slide carousels and two tedious video segments.
I take excellent notes. Years of experience. Here is the totality of what I could come up with for a lecture entitled “Why I Hate Graphic Design”:
I’ve put up with this sort of thing before. Siobhan Keaney, for example. She was invited to her event because half-arsed organizers were looking for someone female, and her name had recently come up. Her entire existence was apropos of nothing. Bielenberg was invited because his schtick is now nothing less than a lecture circuit and because he reliably plugs Coast Paper (three times today).
John Bielenberg: Why I hate graphic design.
2002.10.27
We approach the twelfth anniversary of my sojourn on the wrong side of the river. Circa 1990, my friend Ross Laycock moved to California temporarily. His spousal equivalent, Cuban émigré conceptual artist Félix González-Torres, had scored a six-month teaching gig.
1990 – moved to L.A. with Ross (already very sick), Harry the Dog, Biko, and Pebbles, the Ravenswood, Rossmore, golden hour, Ann and Chris by the pool, magic hour, rented a red car, money for the first time, no more waiting on tables, Golden Girls, great students at CalArts, Millie and Catherine, went back to Madrid after almost twenty years: sweet revenge
Now, how did I meet Ross? Through the hamstrung and also high-strung activist group, AIDS Action Now. (Yes, longtime readers, the same tawdry cabal that refused to represent wee Ron Kelly.) Ross had a Mac Plus with a gigantic external hard drive. He could never get it to work. Hence I was regularly invited over to unfuck his computer. If you think someone who cannot understand a Macintosh has to be pretty dim, I would take exception. Multiple intelligences, remember?
Ross was a tall, strapping man with black hair and a regal demeanour. (“You like my overalls? They’re Girbaud.”) He and his dog Harry took up a lot of space. A very New York kind of guy, he moved back in 1988 or 1989 for the free health care, which he rather needed. These were the days when the dead giveaway of an invert with AIDS was the dispersed mottling of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease that was not to be trifled with. (I’ve seen photos of livers with KS. If it failed to spread from the skin, you were OK.) Today, the dead giveaways are sunken cheeks.
(It’s always the face, isn’t it? And it’s always only the fags, isn’t it?)
We never did anything, of course. I was too young (this was pre–age 28) and he was already married. (I was, however, exactly his type. I see a pattern emerging.) I was not freaked out by the KS lesions, which feel no different from surrounding skin, and would provide back massages on demand. He needed them. We were regarded with incipiently malign curiosity on the streetcar.
I loved Félix, who, like so many artistes (see his work), was totally open and normal. (That’s the secret antidote to being a stuck-up arsehole: Become a famous artist.) He was fascinated to learn that his stacks used poor typography. These blue letter-sized sheets bore only a couple of words, always typeset in Trump Mediæval Bold Italic. But Trump Mediæval did not have a bold italic in that era, and I had to tell him he was getting an electronically-slanted version. (Actually, I remember now that he also used the Italic in the regular weight, an actual Trump variant, here and there.) You were meant to visit the museum and take a page from the stacks. There is a small chance I still have a few in my files.
Ross needed his apartment housesat, so I did it. And what an apartment. At 59 Roncesvalles. Bright-puce bedroom walls, deep-blue living room (even the floor), a drafty, narrow kitchen with ancient porcelain sink that was easily as womb-like as a Maritime kitchen. A Bang & Olufsen stereo. (I distinctly remember buying Flood and Strange Angels on vinyl. But that’s not all: I remember waking up, turning on the television, and watching in shock filtered through a fog of slumber as Laurie Anderson sang “Beautiful Red Dress” on the Today show, complete with letter-perfect real-time captions.)
You couldn’t take a shower without adjusting the water flow to an exact degree of arc, otherwise you got scalded or froze to death. I eventually reached the point where I could adjust it within two minutes of fiddling. Technically, the building had a laundry room, but I was stuck dealing with the laundromat up the street, which I loathed – but not as much as the two housecats, Mary and Bruno, loathed me. If I hadn’t tried to detangle their matted fur, they never would have decided to spend the rest of my time there hiding under the chairs.
“Roncy” remains a fine Toronto boulevard. It a plummets headlong into the lake (watch that left turn at Queen) and is ancient enough to feel rooted to the ground; you aren’t walking on a shell of concrete and rebar over sewer and cable caverns. Old houses and low-rise shops compete with giant trees for title of most pleasing spectacle of a summer evening. Sunday nights, you’ve got the street to yourself. It’s magickal and otherworldly, or at least unlike any other street in Toronto save for Palmerston, which lacks the needed streetcar tracks.
It is, however, too far away. It was not home. I still took the subway to the Big Carrot every week to shop.
In fact, my memories have only two themes: Geography and struggle. I had no work, no UIC, no computer, and nothing to do. I think I may have OLed here and there. I did not quite have no friends; I nominally enjoyed a black boyfriend during that era, who, as every paramour eventually does, would later tell me that he had not appreciated me enough.
The local Poles had no time for me and were perfectly happy to show it. You’d have to live there 20 years, and so would your kids and grandkids, before they’d bother to smile when you visited their shops. I get a greater degree of simple acknowledgement in Chinatown. Don’t bother making eye contact walking past the church on Sunday, either, because the middle-aged throng on the sidewalk pays you no heed. Any number of mom-’n’-pop joints could ship your shit back to the homeland.
I walked along Queen St. most days. I knew every dive, diner, dépanneur, old-clothes store, and antiques shop from Roncy to Spadina. Man, was it cold. And tiring. The streetcar was an option, but it cost money, and didn’t I have more time than that?
It was winter and I remember the light. There’s much to be said for clear winter days. Much more to be said for clear winter days when one has enough money to avoid rationalizing a two-hour walk five times a week, but it was Glenn Gould–like nonetheless. The Parkdale IDEA OF NORTH is an hodgepodge of retail on an ancient main drag enjoyed while wearing earmuffs, boots, gloves – and shades.
The light is not the same here because the geography is not the same. We’ve got different shadows. It came back to me with a start during luncheon with Jeff on Friday, where he did indeed confirm wearing a van de Graaf generator codpiece to the Northbound Leather party. Queen St. West has gone a bit upscale. Everyone complains about it, right? because it pushes the poor people out. But the neighbourhood was always “mixed-use,” and nobody seems to have imagined that the (former) poor residents might earn some money someday and want to move back. Do you want longtime residents and returning residents, or do you want Parkdale to become Newfoundland, a place where people are “originally from” that is inhabited only by those who can’t get themselves out?
I was in fact in New York right after the work for which Félix became most famous was unveiled, a simple set of billboards showing an empty bed with a pair of pillows recently slept on. Ross died in 1991 and Félix in 1996. I don’t have so many friends that I can afford to have them die on me, and it’s happened twice already.
MEMO TO KEITH FROGGETT: At Ross’s memorial party at his and my old apartment, your son ran off with a snow globe of Ross’s that I was gearing up to ask his mom for permission to take home. Who knew Ross better, your kid or me? It was a spur-of-the-moment thing as your boy was galloping out the door. (Wow, another snow globe. That’ll keep me interested for ten full minutes.) If he’s still got it, I want it back. I’ll trade you for the only possession of Ross’s I managed to get: A Mickey Mouse telephone cord. I think I need something more substantial to remember him by than that.
2002.10.24
From the current Fab (naturally, not online – just try connecting to their site, as “connect” one must): At
the Northbound Leather fetish fashion show at the Docks... [w]atching from his wheelchair was Jeff Adams [op. cit.], in a most electrifying jockstrap. He was shooting volts with his Science Centre–like ball. Adams, you may recall, recently climbed the CN Tower in his chair, raising over $100,000 for charity.
What the fuck?
Jeff’s going to have some explaining to do at luncheon tomorrow.
2002.10.20
Now moved to its own page, because this is gonna go on a while.
2002.10.16
Building Accessible Websites: It’s here!
Marc and I spent the afternoon flipping unbelievingly through actual printed copies of the book I wrote and he designed.
We are flummoxed by the fact that a year and a half of effort has resulted, as we promised, in “a beautiful object you will love to read.” It is and you will.
2002.10.14
We hereby continue what appears to be a burgeoning habit of transcribing ancient but telling Homicide snippetettes.
You will of course recall that Adena Watson was a school-age girl who was molested and killed on Tim’s beat. In fact, it was his first case, and remained unsolved yea unto the day he backed out of the office carrying a box full of his belongings five years later.
Take it away, Tim.
TIM: Wait a minute. I don’t think dirty, so I can’t understand the criminal mind. Is that it? Huh? I mean, I don’t want to kill someone, so I can’t get into the killer’s head. Is that it, Frank? I don’t think about molesting some child, so I don’t know how to investigate Adena Watson’s murder? Is that what you’re saying?
FRANK: Sometimes you really are a moron.
– No, I’m not a moron, Frank.
– OK, let me tell you something. We’re all guilty of something – cruelty or greed or going 65 in a 55 mile-per-hour zone. But you know what? You want to think about yourself as the fair-haired choirboy, you go ahead.
– All right. OK. So what are you saying, huh?
– I’m saying you got a darkness. You, Tim Bayliss, you got a darkness inside of you. You got to know the darker, uglier sides of yourself. You got to recognize them so they’re not constantly sneaking up on you. You got to love them, because they’re part of you, because along with your virtues, they make you who you are. Virtue isn’t virtue unless it slams up against vice, so consequently, your virtue is not real virtue until it’s been tested. Tempted.
It will be noted that neither Kyle Secor nor André Braugher has been properly used since Homicide. One wonders if they’ll ever score another decent role.
2002.10.09
True to form, I am weeks late in providing gripping You Are There!–style reportage about an underreported news event. You know, sometimes journalism works best under deadline, so there’s a before (when you write it) and an after (when it’s published).
Thursday, September 26, the CN Tower. Sexy red-haired wheelchair racer boy Jeff Adams climbs the (spirit of) 1,776 stairs of the CN Tower. Step Up to Change, it was called. (We fixed up the Flash-heavy site to be passably accessible. Also see oogleGay.) Jeff is my friend, and I am lucky to have him.
I gave myself an inordinate amount of time to get to the surprisingly remote CN Tower for the 4:00 “VIP” reception. Now, press credentials I’m used to, but this “VIP” business I question. Little did I know that 30 minutes will pass from exiting the Skywalk to arrival at the top of the tower. A third of that time passes in getting lost due to absent wayfinding (where is the entrance to the tower? right under you, but why should they tell you that? your time and frustration are not valuable); another third passes by queueing up to pass through air-jet bomb detectors straight out of the Mars spaceport in Total Recall; and a third third passes while you kick yourself for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Why? After the machinery proved that I had not, in fact, coated the hairs of my body with explosive, I hustled to the distant, tiny elevators, passing three very handsome, fit young lads in tight sleeveless T-shirts. “Excuse me. Would you take our picture?” I was asked. Twice.
“Sorry. I’m in a rush,” I replied, while at once realizing Fuck! These are out-of-town fags! The only kind that ever likes me. Off I went, as though the guys were Texas sailors.
Self-recrimination tastes best when served cold in a pressurized 52-second elevator ride to the VIP deck.
Outside the reception hall (the curved and cramped perimeter of the Tower) sat Jeff, receiving well-wishers as if he were royalty. I stood unnoticed behind him and his very acceptable wife unit, a wee butch Amerikanski platinum-blond-dyed former 82nd Airborne Marine paratroopeuse/photographeuse and current police. And stood. And stood. I gave up on the element of surprise and started kicking his right wheel.
And kicking. And kicking.
He’s used to this sort of thing. He wiggled the wheel, then, assuming it was Wifey being all wifey, fondled her hand while chatting up some bore of an American in a wheelchair next to him. Finally I was noticed. Greetings were exchanged.
“Big day for you,” I told the Wife. She agreed.
Kibbitzing reached its natural end. “Time to get shitfaced on cranberry juice,” I declared, and waded into the cramped curvature.
At the bar, after espying some grungy, suspiciously thin and undernourished Queen West type who was obviously the most interesting fellow in the room, I returned my attention forward and noticed a poster tube sticking out of a woman’s purse. (VIPs received autographed posters. Even I did.) I read the nametag.
“ ‘Adams.’ You’re related, then?” I asked, knowing the answer by Woman’s Intuition.
“I’m Jeff’s mom,” she replied.
I flashed back to bumping into Miss Meryn Cadell on Queen St. an enormous span of years ago. She introduced her dad. “You must be very proud,” I said. Later, Meryn reported that daddy-o was all curious about me. “He’s very interesting. Who was he?”
So I did it all over again. You must be very proud, I said. Yes. She was. It’s just the latest in a series of biggest days in Jeff’s life, isn’t it? I said. Yes. You never think you’ll get used to all those things happening – Medals, records, Olympics, I interjected. But you’re like “Oh, there’s Jeff again,” she continued, beaming and nodding happily.
I offered congratulations and moseyed off. Jeff thanked me for coming.
We then enjoyed presentations from various ministers – and Senator Joyce Fairbairn, who rocked enormously hard, demanding that we all do more every day for accessibility, which, she reminds us, is not “a nice thing to do” but involves the rights of citizens! Photographs, applause, a very long and (surprisingly) scripted speech from Jeff.
We mingled. There was not a single thing I could eat. The sketchy lad from Queen West turned out to be Jeff’s neighbour. He took pictures with an oldschool 35mm camera, then later dropped his snifter. It’s not as though I was using my drink ticket, so I made his day.
I mentioned the redhead cluster phenomenon in the room to one of the redheads (who had actually read my site!) and left.
I then made the mistake of reading Mark Pilgrim. I had to write something.
My “issue” is procrastination. I am an honest vegan straightedger. What other vices could I have? This one’s big enough.
Mark “TECHNICAL EDITOR” Pilgrim:
Addiction is taking a box that my parents gave me engraved with the words GRADUATE WITH HONORS and using it to store pot, pipes, papers, cigarettes, rolling tobacco, and ashtrays.
The problem with self-employment is the lack of structure, which manifests itself in the lack of milestones. Actual milestones could be dug up, as perhaps by comparing file sizes on the project you’ve been nibbling away at for weeks. But if proof of your existence can be measured in bytes, you’ve got a problem.
Graduation is a milestone, one that brings into relief a constant, your parents. I didn’t attend either of my graduations. (B.A. in linguistics, diploma in engineering.)
I do not remember my last birthday party, and I haven’t been near a Christmas tree in five years.
But now a milestone beckons: Publication of the book.
Am I being a downer? I’m trying not to be a downer.
From the associate publisher (dates re-rendered in words for clarity):
Your book is scheduled to be bound about October 8 (give or take a day or two).... We’ll have your book in our warehouse on about October 15 which means it will get to bookstores about 14 days from there (by the time it goes through their warehouses and such).
October 29 due date?
Building Accessible Websites: The Hallowe’en Edition!
Actually, that’s a pretty good milestone, come to think of it. I can dress up as my own cover illustration. I am perhaps not altogether sure about the wig.
But what am I going to do to celebrate? I asked this already:
“How does a nondrinker celebrate finishing the book he’s writing, 141,000 words later?” I asked the 6′5″, salt-’n’-pepper-haired forklift operator at the Eagle last night. “I dunno,” he said irritably in his dead-giveaway gay voice. “Eat a chocolate bar.”
Well, I’m eating bittersweet chocolate as I write this. Does it count?
By the end of the month, I will have the capacity of holding the “beautiful object you will love to read” in my own two hands. (The same holds true for Marc, the designer.) While still an inanimate object, possessing the finished book will embody the Barkerian principle that we are artists because, though conventionally barren, we need to reproduce. One’s baby will have been delivered to the world, Hoovered clean, and finally unloaded from the incubator.
I don’t know what I’m going to do at that point. What is there to do?
I dunno.
Jeff’s got a lifetime of milestones behind him, plus parents, a wife unit, a sister and brother, and a neighbour.
And what have I got?
Jeff, I suppose, which I am hardly discounting.
For an author, I am embarrassingly poorly-read – in fiction, anyway. I just don’t have the attention span. But I found a mysterious message in my snatchbox. I had mailed myself the Amazon page for Charles Nelson’s The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up (1981), an amusing and essentially unknown epistolary novel about a Louisianan who quits the Detroit Tigers to join the Marines and go to Nam. He’s queer, of course.
(There’s virtually nothing available online about this book or its author. I’ve looked everywhere. And I don’t know what prompted me to look up the book in the first place – a Weblog posting of some sort? It’s mysterious.)
Our man Kurt Strom – a corpsman, hence de facto Doc to his company in country – finds that pretty much everyone he serves with dies. (Probably an accurate representation, actually; Nelson was apparently in Vietnam himself.) Kurt takes custody of one of the dead men’s letters. Barry was a big ol’ country boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Dear Mom, Dad, and Ginger,
Sure wished I had been there for Star’s foaling. I miss that old mare.
Only eight more months to go. Sure will be glad to come home.
So Ginger liked that picture of the Doc. He keeps himself in pretty good shape. I don’t know why he don’t like basketball. He’s about the best friend I ever had.
I was thinking we might put some sheep out there across the arroyo. The grass is there. I know you don’t like sheep, Dad, but I have plans.
The Doc gets out of the Navy next fall and promised to come visit for a couple of weeks. I bet he’ll make Ginger forget old Tommy Ross. I’d like to have the cabin fixed up by the time he comes. I sure will be glad to get home.
– Your loving son and brother
“He’s about the best friend I ever had.” That nearly killed me.
I am horridly sentimental. I would be a maudlin drunk. Walking past a kittycat on the sidewalk turns me to sap.
“What about Barry?”
“Nothing.”
“Kurt?”
“His dad wrote. Said they missed me. Told me that Dick Smith did this and Tommy Ross did that. I don’t know who the fuck Dick Smith and Tommy Ross are.”
“Kurt, people are watching us.” Steve laid his hand on mine. Sheila took my other hand.
“Mr. Barry told me that he’d gone ahead and finished the cabin down in the cottonwoods and... and I can live in it when I come home.”
Sheila wiped off my cheeks with a napkin. Steve squeezed my hand. Nobody said anything for a few minutes.
I need me some of that.
2002.10.08
2002.10.02
You thought I’d skip it?
Oh, not a chance.
Volt: The maudit anglophone fan page is back and better-organized than ever. Hackable URLs, no less, and brown hair on every lad in sight.
2002.10.01
It is only by stepping back Ten Years Ago in Spy that we come to understand why cabal has become the most likely word to follow gay when discussing secret, self-congratulatory, disproportionately-powerful politburos. That is because we tried using gay tong and it didn’t stick.
Plus Tipper Gore lectures us on how to bake cookies. It’s win–win.
2002.09.26
Letter to the editor that, embarrassingly, induced fits of laughter in public:
I haven’t seen it yet (I will), but saying that Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is a contender for worst title of the year... come on. This title is a very definite nod to the Asian action film genre. But then, my all-time favourite movie title is A Sudden Gust of Wind: Miniskirt Patrol (a Japanese production), so what do I know?
I want to see titles that are 30 words long, have fractions in them or can be represented only by a Pantone colour swatch....
– Matthew D. Bennett, Toronto
2002.09.25
R. Baldwin writes, ostensibly obBarnes&Noble:
Basically, it’s only fun to hang out with other writers as long as you don’t talk about business. And you can bet at Barnes & Noble, there is zero conversation.
Word to your editor. I was always a little let down when people invariably and without exception did not give a shit to hear that I was a writer.
I always thought that’s what everybody wanted to be. I nearly went broke overestimating the public, as it were.
2002.09.22
Uncommonly enough, I was busy enough in the last two weeks to be forced to put off writing comments on an accessibility standards manual (what kind of accessibility? take a wild guess) till the weekend before it was due.
I worked 11 hours on it, hurt my arm in the process, and wrote 19,000 words.
You think I can believe it, either? Nineteen thousand words?
I’d say this has consternating implications for my “life’s work” thus far.
2002.09.20
Ancient, heavily symbolic gem from Homicide, the show that was all about Tim. Frank walks in on a very chummy conversation between his partner Tim and an homosexualist source in a gaybashing case (Peter Gallagher, eyebrows and all). Later:
– What did, um... what did he want?
– Nothing special. He just, uh... invited me to dinner.
– What do you mean he invited you to dinner?
– He invited me to dinner.
– Like a dinner-date dinner?
– Uh, he really didn’t specify t