preferably moist and sweet, with thick cream-cheese frosting

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a common belief in our culture is that people can change for the better; this notion has served as the foundation for countless stories, books, songs, plays and movies that have nourished our collective psyche over the millennia.

me?  i believe the idea that people can change is mostly bullshit--and understand, i haven't come to this belief because i'm a cynic (although god knows that's true), but because, having been a steadfast, careful observer of human nature for most of my life, most everything and everybody i've observed in the course of said life has served to reinforce this belief.

for instance, i believe that if you're a go-getter early in life, chances are you'll achieve your goals later in life; on the contrary, if you're lazy early in life, then--unless some major external influence comes into play before it's too late--you'll probably be a loser when you grow up.

and to take it a step further, if you're also emotionally stunted, then chances are no matter how much "success" you achieve later in life you'll always be unhappy, no matter how hard you try to be otherwise.

basically what i'm trying to say here is, i believe that your cake is baked relatively early, and if as an adult you turn out as, say, a chocolate cake, then trying to transform yourself into a carrot cake is probably gonna be an exercise in futility.

nevertheless, and even having said all that, i periodically throughout my life engage in an epic, exhausting struggle to transform myself into the carrot cake i've always wanted to be.

i now find myself in the midst of one of those struggles--and who knows, maybe this one'll be the last before i give up and once and for all and surrender to my dark, solitary nature.

in any event, that's why i'm not posting much (or doing much of anything else) these days--i'm preoccupied with other things.

wish me luck.

i couldn't make this stuff up, folks

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so last night i'm in an apartment in silverlake.  there's a knock at the door and since i'm closest i open it and i can't believe my eyes, because standing there is the last person i expect to see.

i probably shouldn't be that surprised, though--we always seem to run into each other in weird places, but it had been awhile.  and besides, the timing....i mean, talk about uncanny.

he hasn't changed at all since last we met--sleek, darked-eyed, handsome as ever--hell, he's barely changed since the first time i laid eyes on him almost fifteen years ago.  unlike me, he evinces no surprise, merely flashing that knowing grin and saying, "big mike--long time; how are ya?"

after i get over the initial shock, i pull him into the apartment, give him a hug, tell him, "you're not gonna believe this," and launch into my tale.  he laughs, remembering along with me, filling in details i'd forgotten.

as i leave, i tell him to make sure to pay a visit to my blog to read the story i'd written about him just the night before--and, of course, to give my best to mario.

because the statute of limitations has expired

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[this one's from shortly after i came out, which is the point i want you to remember as you read the following.]


hot august night, after-bar and we're all out back in the parking lot, when who should approach me but two of the cutest lil' buzzed-headed cholos you or i have ever seen, decked out in identical blindingly-white wifebeaters tucked into identical, impeccably-pressed khaki work-pants complete with identical fat leather belts, chain-wallets and highly-polished doc martens.

picking out the one i want is tough, but i finally settle on mario, only to be told that they only come as a pair; i.e., if i want mario, i gotta take cousin luis as well.

this throws me for a minute, because what the fuck am i supposed do with two of 'em? [again, sorry--i was new]

we walk back to my place, where we commence to get naked and those two sweet-faced boys teach me tricks i never knew.

later, i'm laying in bed, trying to recover. mario's getting dressed while luis showers.

realizing i'd like nothing more than to fall asleep between 'em, i ask him if they wanna stay the night.

"nah," he says, "school tomorrow."

"oh yeah--you in college?"

he snorts as he pulls on his socks and says, "college--are you serious? high school."

high school. jesus fucking christ almighty.

"um, can i ask how old you are?"

casually, without even looking up: "sixteen."

"sixteen?! i thought--i mean, if you're sixteen how the fuck did you get in the bar?"

he laughs, ties his laces. "dude, we weren't in the bar--we met you in the parking lot, remember?"

i grope for some lifeline that'll redeem me from hellfire and prosecution. all i can come up with is his cousin, who's presently in my shower.

"luis--please tell me he's not sixteen, too."

mario finally looks up, flashes that smile. "nah."

i relax a little.

"he's fifteen."

i don't know about you

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but nothing pisses me off more than to get invested in some blog and then have the motherfucker drop off the radar for no other reason than because its author suddenly finds better things to do than post regularly.

that's not the the case here; the truth is far different (and far less interesting, trust me).

i'll get back to you soon, i promise.

the obligatory post-election post

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i've spent more than a little time trying to figure out how to couch what i'm about to say in terms that won't seem churlish, because i know how much it meant to so many people, but since i (a) was so outta step with both the left and the right when it came to this election, and (b) am so completely dry-eyed and unmoved by its outcome, that's probably not possible. so let's just take the standard bullshit talking points one by one and be done with 'em, shall we?

1. this was the most important election of our lifetime.

no, it wasn't. there isn't an american politician alive who has either the ability or the guts to do what's necessary to avert the economic catastrophe that's about to engulf not only our country, but the world--it's the next election that'll probably matter.

2. we have been gifted by god with the most inspiring leader since jfk.

yeah. i almost wish i could cast my gaze upon our president-elect and see what the adoring masses see--but only almost. problem is, i don't get all misty-eyed and heart-swellingly sentimental over politicians anymore; my early enthrallment and subsequent disillusionment with the kennedy brothers long since cured me of such dangerous illusions. instead, when i try to plot a political candidate's future trajectory, i look past how telegenic they are, how well they comport themselves and how smoothly they talk about what they're gonna do, and instead focus on where they've been and what they've actually done. silly, right?

3. i'm so proud that my country was able to rise above its inherent racism and finally do the right thing.

bullshit. i've said it before and i'll say it again: you show me any other advanced culture in the history of civilization that has taken an entire race of people from abject slavery to full legal parity in 100 years--or hell, show me any other culture on earth in which a member of a racial minority can secure a free top-tier education and advance to the upper echelons of its society--do that, and then you can lecture me about how "racist" america is.

seriously--we're racist? as opposed to who else in the world? all this election did is confirm what i've known since nineteen sixty-fucking-four: we're one of the most progressive countries on earth as concerns race, and if this election has done nothing else, it has once and for all given me--good ol' mkf--the inalienable right to look the the racial-whiners in the eye and say, "we elected a black president--shut the fuck up already." [you can tell the alcohol's kicking in, right?]

* * * * *

i was not a supporter of barack obama--i didn't contribute to his campaign, nor did i vote for him in either the primary or the general election.

am i sorry he won? that's a complicated question; let us merely say that i'm grateful his election precludes the possibility of a president palin (at least this time around).

do i see any bright side to his ascendency? sure: our president-elect is demonstrably smart, sophisticated, focused, disciplined, and has at least a sense of america as it exists in the context of the world (a refreshing contrast not only to his predecessor, but also to his opponent).

may he rise magnificently to the challenge set before him; for all our sakes, i wish him godspeed (i.e., i figure a three-month honeymoon's fair before i start ripping into him).

joe

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[ancient history--i lived and wrote this eons ago, but since (a) i haven't posted in a goddam week, and/or (b) this blog has become so nauseatingly family-friendly of late, i'm offering up the following]


after establishing i'm not into three-ways (because i don't even wanna think about what the sugar daddy's like)--he assures me it's cool, they play separately--he invites me over to his place, telling me he prefers to play there. i balk, telling him i'm not into being filmed or watched by the lover from a louvered-door closet (because i've had some experience in this regard). he assures me this will not be the case; the lover will have long since gone to bed in a different wing of the house by the time i get there, and from the beachfront address he gives me i can totally see how that could be true so i decide to take him at his word and grab my drink and my keys.

he answers the door looking much like his pictures--latin, short, compact worked-out gymnast's body, mid-thirties if he's a day but very well-maintained.

during the preliminaries, he starts calling me daddy--and since i've gotten that all my gay life, it doesn't kill the mood.

i fuck him well, as always, fake my orgasm and make him cum--you know, my usual. then afterwards, i pull him close, start nuzzling him and playing with his nipples (cause he loves that), and initiate the standard guttermorality post-coital interview.

i make him tell me his whole sexual history, with particular emphasis on the first time he got fucked. he's reluctant to give it up; i feel him stiffen in my arms.

but i sternly persist, and he eventually does [yes, daddy]. turns out it was a trusted employee of his father's, when he was 13. i make him give me every excruciating, secret, painful detail, and as he does i re-enact it, employing verbal skills i scarcely knew i possessed--and god, i fuck him just like his dad's employee did--face-down and screaming, mouth buried in his pillow, and he cums and i cum--hard--and it's totally hot and then afterwards, even though he's in his thirties, i walk away feeling like a child-molesting perv.

[he calls me several times afterwards; i never go back]

i miss spike

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[alternate title: i miss 1991]

understand something: i am not now, nor have i ever been, one of those social, clubby fags--by which, i mean (a) i don't dance; (b) i don't like dance music; (c) i hate traveling in a shrieking pack; and (4) i'd rather shave my head with a cheese grater while chewing on tinfoil than scream conversation back and forth over background noise until i'm hoarse [and yeah, i know, i'm missing out on the whole gay communal experience--eat me already].

back in the day, if mkf was caught dead in a gay club it was for one reason only: to find somebody to fuck. and to the degree the club in question facilitated said objective, it placed higher on my list.

and in all the years i catted around los angeles, no club ever surpassed spike in this regard.

situated on the wrong end of santa monica boulevard, spike was this hole-in-the-wall joint that seemingly existed for no other reason than to hook people up. billed as a "levi/leather" bar, it wasn't really--it was just a dark, narrow space for guys to pack into and find each other when the lure of the glossy weho bars paled--plus, they were open til 4 on weekends. what more could anybody ask for?

get there at about 11:30 or so, order the token vodka/whatever so you'd have something to hold until you found your boy, fight your way through the cigarette smoke to the pool table (which had been covered by then so people could sit on it) or--like me--to the back of the room, settle your ass onto the stack of beer boxes lining the perimeter, light up and await developments.

and then--and this was the thing about spike--be unexpectedly blown away by the music you heard there.

over the course of the many years i patronized the place, i heard shit come outta their little dj booth i never heard anywhere else--such as, for instance, the one that came up on shuffle tonight and thus prompted this post:



only four notes to the whole goddam song, but four notes you won't soon forget--talk about creative minimalism.

[i would like to think that my fond memories of this song have more to do with its intrinsic goodness than with the blond boy who was grinding his ass into my crotch to its beat the first time i heard it, but that's open to interpretation.

whatever.]

and then that one leads inevitably to this one, from about the same time:



i've blacked out the artist on this video for a reason: because i want you to listen without prejudice, just as i did on that dark, smoky night way back in 1991 when it blew me away the first time i heard it.

i knew the song, and i recognized its author (b.b. king) on lead guitar, but i couldn't for the life of me figure out who the fuck was singing it.

[until i went over and asked--and then went out the next day and bought the first and only pat benatar album i've ever owned.]

and what ultimately happened to spike? doesn't matter--it's gone, as it probably should be. that wasn't the point of this post, really; i just hope you enjoyed the music.