gay life lesson #14: the trip to pomona

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[this one i didn't have to learn the hard way--i got to watch.  shame it didn't take.]

even 20 years later, i remember it clearly--my roommates and i were at rage with our friend scotty f [you remember him, noblesavage--he's the one who first gave me instruction in gay life lesson #1] and he met this boy and they spent the next three hours glued to each other in various locations around the bar until the lights came up and since scott's current home was somebody else's couch, they settled on the boy's place.

the fact that the boy lived 45 miles away in pomona didn't give either of them even a moment's pause--as we waved goodbye, they were curled up so close the kid practically had to reach between scott's legs to shift gears.

by the time they arrived at their destination, it was a different story--they were squinched into their separate corners as far apart as it was possible for two people in a car to be, they spent an uncomfortable night on opposite edges of a bed, and the trip back, according to scott, was the longest 45 miles of his life.

what happened between points a and b?  simple--given an hour to destroy whatever illusions each had built up about the other, our boys made the ultimate trick mistake:  they talked before they fucked.

from that day forward, "pomona" became an all-purpose catchphrase at 841, useful for any number of situations, such as (a) describing disillusionment ("honey, as soon as i walked in his bedroom and saw the 'little mermaid' action figures, i knew we were in pomona"), (b) an indication of TMI (waving of hands and shrieking "pomona!  pomona!") or (c) a friendly warning (if one of us left the house with lube in our pocket, somebody'd always call out, "stay away from pomona!").

sorta thing you'd think would stick in your head, right?

nah--some of us never learn.

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what prompted this post, you ask?  tonight i allowed my drunken ass to get drawn into a pre-fuck debate about illegal immigration.  with a guy named osvaldo.


excuse me while i go jack off alone.

i'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah

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content removed, but feel free to enjoy the music.

lemme get this one down while the memory's still fresh

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so tonight after work i stop at my neighborhood rite-aid for the evening's booze a few essentials--the usual kid's there behind the counter and as i reach out to swipe my debit card he says, "oh gosh, i rang it up as a cash sale--you don't happen to have cash, do you?"

i tell him i don't, he rolls his eyes and reaches for the phone to call the manager who's god knows where and as soon as i realize it's gonna be complicated i grab a candy bar off the rack and tell him to ring it up and i'll pay for it with my card and get some cash back to pay for my prior purchase and no manager will be necessary.

he's relieved, the line behind me relaxes, we do the deal and as i try to hand him back one of my new twenties to pay for my shit, he holds a hand up and tells me to wait, grabs the receipt from the first sale, flips it over and starts writing on it.  i'm thinking maybe he needs to document some irregularity in the transaction after all, so i wait

and wait...and wait...

until after an eternity of brow-furrowed scratching he finally drops his pen, takes my twenty, gives me my change--and then instead of tucking the receipt he'd worked so hard on into his cash drawer as i'd expected, stuffs it into my bag instead.


all becomes clear when i get out to the car, fish it out and observe the work of this young, bright-eyed product of the california educational system first-hand.

it's now official:  america is doomed.

the lights are on, but no one's home

still, after all this time

since one of the eternal themes of this blog is mkf getting shitfaced and casting what's left of his memory back to that period when he was last happy, and since it's been awhile since i've allowed myself to wallow in that particular trough

and since it came up on shuffle tonight just as i was getting really toasted

i present for your delectation what may well be, with the possible exception of "the green, green grass of home", the ultimate country crying-in-your-beer song of all time.

mostly forgotten today, there was a long stretch back in 1963 when it was pretty much impossible to make even a short trip to the UtoteM in any red state in america without hearing this song on any radio station you picked--and even after its heyday, i personally have seen strong men, including 240-lb former NFL linebackers [ok fine, just one--and yeah, he was drunk] reduced to tears when it came up on the jukebox.

while i can't remember the first time i heard it, "still" conjures up for me so many nights half-asleep in the darkened backseat of the family car on any number of road trips, watching the glowing tips of my parents' cigarettes up front as we travelled cross-texas and countless songs like this faded in and out on the radio.

good times.