so what happened to my guy?

[ok, enough obama-bashing for now; let's turn to the other side.]

so, even now, i get the questions all the time: "you think your guy's gonna get the nomination this time?", "you think paul ryan will help your guy?", "you think this todd akin thing will hurt your guy?", and, of course, the ever-popular, and usually said-with-a-sneer, "so whaddya think of your guy now?"

it doesn't seem to matter that i broke it off with mitt four years ago; the fact that i carried such a huge, flaming torch for him for so long sticks to me like stink on shit, and i can't shake it no matter what i say now.

*     *     *     *     *

i remember the first time i laid eyes on the guy; it happened back in 2002, shortly after the close of the salt lake city olympics.  he was giving a long, informal interview about his role in transforming those particular games from a massive too-many-cooks clusterfuck into the fine swiss watch they became under his leadership.  he was relaxed and loose under the camera's gaze, and spoke easily and articulately, outlining the process he undertook to turn the event around, and relying very little on the words "I" or "me" in the telling of the story.  i watched, spellbound as i always am when confronted with that rarest of human qualities--true competence.

as the interview ended, i turned to the guy i was watching it with and said, "holy shit, this guy's gonna be president one day."

and why not?  his dad had almost made it--hell, probably would have, had he not told an inconvenient truth before the american people were ready to hear it.  and mitt seemed to be his dad's son--an honorable, self-effacing guy who just happened to have a knack for fixing complex things that were broken.

i cheered when he became governor of massachusetts.  my admiration only grew when he and his team crafted a badly-needed healthcare fix for that state that not only received the full bipartisan support of its legislature, but even earned the endorsement of his arch-enemy, ted kennedy.

i admired his discipline and his character.  here was a self-made guy who hadn't relied on daddy's money to make his mark on the world, and had seemingly avoided all the temptations to which so many rich, powerful men are prone--there was no hint of scandal in either his personal or professional life, and he had managed to successfully adhere to the strictures of a demanding religion without rubbing it in everybody's goddam face.

when he threw his hat into the presidential ring in 2008, i cheered once more.  finally, my dream candidate--a fiscal conservative/social moderate, non-career politician who, unlike all the aforementioned assholes, had actually proven himself in the real world and knew how it worked.

and then he opened his big, fat i'd-sell-my-soul-to-be-president mouth, and it all went to shit.

[part 2 to come--excuse me while i go sob into my pillow.]

mkf weekend in review (so far)

[sober update:  back in the drunken glory days of this blog, it used to take at least sixteen ounces of alcohol to get me to a state of sufficient inebriation as to be capable of producing a post of such smug, pedantic, self-aggrandizing obnoxiousness as the one which follows.  now, i can apparently get there on a quarter of that amount (progress of a sort, i guess).

and since the morning-after policy here at guttermorality is to remove only those drunkenly ill-advised posts which have the potential of harming or embarrassing others, i'm gonna let this one stand--if for no other reason than to serve as a reminder to myself and others as to why mkf should never succumb to the temptation of a twitter account.

besides, it's what happened.]


from a similarly-titled email to my friend rob:

so this afternoon i'm trolling around adam and it's slim pickings as usual (saturday afternoons being a traditionally low point in the weho weekend sex/drug cycle, as i'm sure you'll recall), when to my surprise i get hit up by a boy i'd never seen online before.  mutual interest is quickly established--he's happy because, well, you know; and i'm happy because i'll finally get to scratch that robby benson itch i've had since i was 14 (see attached pics).

he lives in anaheim, and, as is typical with such boys, has neither a place to host nor a means of travel.  this does not deter me--i tend to favor boys from the wrong side of the OC tracks (as opposed to the laguna/HB/irvine assholes) because they're generally unworldly, unaffected and so cut off from the gay milieu as to be unruined by it, and thus worth the drive--and i ask him if he knows of a cheap motel nearby.  whaddya know, he does, so with that, i'm off to disneylandland.

i pick him up, and he doesn't disappoint--a young 27, and he's let his hair grow since the pics were taken, so that when he cuts his eyes up and smiles adorably at me from under that shaggy mop, he's not only channeling robby at his twinkiest, but i get a little taylor lautner thrown in for good measure (so there's another box i can check off).

on the way to the no-tell, he surprises me--this boy is well-traveled.  starting at age 18, he's taken solo trips to each of barcelona, madrid, paris, rio and australia, saving up between each adventure for the next one.  "a car would be nice," he tells me, "but i'd rather have experiences while i'm young."  (on the other hand, he had never heard of laurel canyon, much less knew where it was--i suspect that will change, and probably next weekend if i have anything to say about it.)

that first kiss tells me everything i need to know--this will be good. i decide for this one, i'll pull every tool outta the bag (so to speak), give him everything i got.

you've asked me more than once how my nondescript, aging ass has always managed to move with such seeming confidence and ease through the cutthroat, youth-oriented minefield that is the LA gay hook-up scene, and i thought about that question tonight on my way back from anaheim.  it comes down to three things i can put my finger on, rob, and at least one thing i can't.

first, not giving a shit about much of anything does have its upside; the resulting detachment allows all the inevitable rejections that force so many older gay men outta the game to roll right off my back--i really don't care that much one way or the other, guys sense it, and that gives me power.

the other thing that detachment has done for me is made me a keen observer, and thus, a good lover.  when it comes to sex, i never get lost in what i'm doing; i'm too busy watching--facial expressions, body language, tension, breathing--all the little signs that tell me when to plow ahead or pull back.  for me, it's always a performance, and while i've never derived as much pleasure from my sex life as i would have liked, i can console myself with the fact that i've damn sure made a lot of people very happy.

and then there's that last-but-far-from least, the "pleasurable peen" factor (a term i picked up from one of my favored bloggers/commenters, who apparently has one too).   simply put, a big, fat dick that functions reliably is the great equalizer in our little world.  i don't care how young and/or pretty you are, how much time you spend in the gym, how extensive your toy collection or practiced your techniques happen to be--there really is no substitute.

anyway, back to our story:  two hours later, we're lying in a puddle of sweat and cum and he looks up at me with shining eyes, says, "that was unbelievable--you're the best i've ever had."

i raise an eyebrow. "including rio?"

he laughs, snuggles his lithe, limber lil' yoga-body closer to mine and says, "yeah, including rio."

oh, that fourth thing, the one i couldn't quite put my finger on? i dunno, but whatever it is, i've apparently still got it.