mkf visits a gun shop

first, understand:  i don't normally participate in mass hysteria, preferring instead to watch and laugh from a safe distance.

and while i'm a staunch defender of the second amendment--if for no other reason than because of what history has taught me about what can, and often does, happen to populations who allow their governments to disarm them--up to now i've been perfectly content to allow joe bob and bubba over at the NRA to defend my constitutional rights in that regard.

sure, being from texas and all, i've fahred me a few guns--plinked at tin cans with pistols, blasted skeet with shotguns, that sorta thing--but they've never held any fascination for me, and i've always shied away from actual ownership.  why?  for much the same reason that i've never aspired to pilot an aircraft:  i  know myself, and unforgiving technology in the operation of which the least little slip-up could result in mayhem and death really has no place in the hands of someone so careless, absent-minded and possessed of a low danger-awareness threshold as your faithful blogger.

nevertheless, i've always known that my ever-darkening view of the world would require that i arm myself with at least a handgun one day, so over the last few years, whenever i came across someone who knows about such shit, i'd say, "look, i don't have the patience or interest to go out and test-fire a thousand guns to find the "right" one for me--gimme your best recommendation," and, over and over, one particular make and model kept coming up in these conversations.  spendy, i was told, but well-made and worth it.

so i started idly shopping online, and they were plentiful--even used ones, at a good discount--and, satisfied that i could get my hands on one if and when i wanted to, i went on to other things.

and then sandy hook happened, and i went online a week later to find that they had all disappeared.

which brings us to today.  after numerous calls, i managed to track one--their last one--down at a gun shop in burbank whose name immediately conjured up a ricky nelson tune i hadn't thought about in 40 years, and headed on over, singing

it's a--gun world

to myself all the way.  i figured, middle of the day, everybody's at work, should be a quick in-and-out.

yeah.

picture a tiny shop designed to accommodate maybe three salespeople and a handful of customers, divided into two claustrophobic little rooms--ammo up front, the good stuff in back--and then picture a walmart 15 seconds after opening the doors on black friday.  combine the two mental images, and that should give you some idea of what i elbowed my way into this afternoon.

the establishment, clearly unused to such crowds, had not yet devised a way to handle same--there was no "take a number" thing anywhere--so i just attached myself to the salesguy with the fewest people clamoring for his attention, waited my turn.

oh, and observed, much like an anthropologist who had just discovered a fascinating new subspecies.

i quickly divided the herd into two contingents--the seasoned pros in the front who had their arsenal already and were stocking up on ammo, cracking jokes with the clerk and rolling their eyes at the newbies pushing their way into the back who knew nothing about guns, but were determined to get 'em at least one before feinstein and obama showed up and locked the doors forever.

it was a cross-section of humanity, lemme tellya--toothless lowlifes commingling with prada'd soccer moms, all of 'em united by a common goal.

there was the kid who asked to be put on the waitlist for the outta-stock AR-15 assault rifle he'd seen in the movies, and, when told "you don't understand. there is no waitlist--those things are about to be outlawed, and they're all gone", looked like a six-year-old who'd just found out there's no santa claus.

and the ethnic-looking guy with the vaguely middle-eastern accent whom everybody watched suspiciously as he knowingly picked out his weapon of choice.

last but not least, the biker guy and his elderly mother--the salesguy kept shoving revolvers into her trembling hand in an effort to find one whose trigger was light enough for her arthritic fingers to operate. at last, click!--and with granny locked and loaded, it was finally my turn.

i told the guy what i had come for, and it was removed from its glass case and placed in my hands--a black 9mm SIG-Sauer P229 equipped with night sights (whatever the fuck those are)--and after hefting it for a minute, turning it this way and that, i handed it back to him, said, "yeah, fine--wrap it up."

and that's when the fun really began.

lemme just say that, coming from a part of the country where buying a gun is no more complicated than buying a pair of shoes, i was somewhat unprepared for the hoops the state of california was about to put me through.

"you've taken the test already, right?"

"what test?", i asked suspiciously. "nobody said anything about any test."

apparently, california has in its wisdom devised a test to determine if one is competent to handle a firearm responsibly.  which worried my unprepared-for-this-development ass a little, until i actually got my hands on the test, which consisted mostly of questions of the

guns are dangerous weapons--true or false

level of difficulty.  i sailed through it in about three minutes, picking the most screamingly obvious answer for each question, and scored a 98.  [granny, on the other hand, who had started well before me, was still struggling with the thing long after i had finished.  i couldn't decide whether i was rooting for her or not.]

and once that was done, there was the paperwork.  lots and lots of paperwork.  finally, exhausted, i was told that, assuming the background check panned out, i could pick up my new gun ten days from now, but would not be allowed to transport it to my home without it being confined in a locking safe, since my hatchback had no trunk in which to secure it.

i thought about telling the guy that if i had bought the damn thing in texas i coulda walked out with it right then, loaded it and tossed it in the glove compartment, but i really needed a smoke, so i just thanked him, grabbed my papers and pushed my way out.  whole thing had taken three goddam hours.

so now i'm the proud owner of a gun i paid significantly more for than if i'd bought it a month ago. what am i gonna do with it?  i dunno--maybe if i listen to that sweet hook a few dozen more times, ricky'll tell me.

the odyssey

the setup

if you had told me a mere three days before that i'd be authoring such a text as the above three days hence [in which the discerning reader will note references to not merely one song, but two], i'd have told you you were nuts, but such are the vagaries of life.

it was the conversation with my mother that did it--the prospect of another disjointed, homeless christmas in the company of family who, no matter how beloved, were not her kids had left her bereft to the point that all the false cheer in the world couldn't mask the pain in her voice.  i hung up with my assurances that i'd see her the week after ringing hollow in my ears, and started thinking.

christmas fell on a tuesday this year, giving me a four-day weekend--so, what the hell?  on the way to work, i dropped the car off at the dealer for a full service, arranged for new tires from the guys across the street, and, three days later, headed east.

ma was gonna get a little christmas surprise.

but why didn't you just fly?

i've gotten really tired of answering this question.  because, seriously--faced with a choice between spending six hours each way on the days immediately before and after christmas packed into close, angry proximity with millions of my fellow holiday travelers, subjected to endless lines, radiation boxes, strip searches, obese seatmates and god knows what else followed by a puddle-jump to my final destination; or 20 hours in glorious, autonomous solitude, surrounded by smokes, cokes and audiobooks--knowing everything you know about mkf, gentle readers, which one do you think he'd pick?

besides, there was another factor which weighed on the decision; namely

road sex

there are two viable ways to drive from los angeles to northern texas.  i chose the northern route out, because it would put me within range of two reasonably large cities at about the time i'd be ready to stop for the night.  oh, and get laid.

last thing before heading out the door saturday morning, i placed my standard traveling ad on the two respective craigslists, complete with ETA and expectations. and while my act may be getting a little tired in LA, lemme tellya, those boys in the hinterlands love to see me coming.  by the time i hit new mexico, i had settled on a cute boy in albuquerque who wanted to put me up for the night, but all that went out the window when i got the email from

kyle

if you've never spent time in texas, then you've sadly missed out on kyle and all the kyles just like him.  for some reason, the state fairly abounds with kyles--the kinda boys that, had i known they existed back when i was in college alongside 'em, i might've never come west.

he showed up at my amarillo motel room just like i knew he would--drunk, semi-belligerent, frat t-shirt, baseball cap turned sideways, fresh from a near-bar fight and stir-crazy after a week of winter break home with the folks and of course NO KISSING.

sure, kyle.  we both know you'll be screaming a different tune in 15 minutes.

surprise

to my surprise, nobody in on the surprise broke.  walking up behind her in the living room on sunday, saying, "hey, what's up?", watching her freeze in her tracks, turn on her heel with wide, disbelieving eyes and throw her arms around my neck, made it all worth it.

a little gutter, a little morality.  it's how i roll.

oh, yeah--christmas

all i can say is, may at least one of yours be white.

sorry, but if this must live on in my head, it must live in yours too

so i'm sitting out on the deck havin' the first smoke of the day, perusing the day's news whilst sipping on my protein shake.  distractedly taking a large swig, i bite into a blueberry the blender's blades must've missed.  as a juicy, bitter taste floods my mouth, followed immediately by a hot, stinging sensation, it occurs to me that i hadn't put blueberries in my shake this morning.

so now i'm carefully studying what's left of the fuzzy, half-masticated little creature floating in the former mouthful of liquid which is now splattered all over my deck, wondering if the bite the unidentifiable, vindictive little fucker applied to my inner lip as his last act on earth will make this my last blogpost ever.

stay tuned--oh, and enjoy dinner.

from the guttermorality mailbag

comes what has to be, if for no other reason than its unusual absence of words like "racist", "asshole" and "quisling", my all-time favorite reader email:

so on some entry that you had half your address mailing thing scanned in, i searched for hours on facebook for people with those initials and i thought your last name was flores for some reason. so this one guy i found actually started texting me and we met up after i was thinking it was you cause i asked if he had a blog and he said yes (i shoulda asked which blog, but i'm remedial like that). made out a little, found out he was the opposite of hung (and not you) and i rolled out on him.

i figure it's ok to put this up because it's been awhile and i don't think he comes here anymore.  goddam stalkers--so fickle.

9/11.2

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from everyone who didn't do it.

william burroughs

i've been helping my overworked sister out on her new show, ghostwriting lead-ins and filler for the various stories she produces.  she texted me this weekend, said, "forget that piece for monday--it's gonna be all sandy hook elementary, all week long."

well, of course it is.

and why shouldn't it be?  the media and the politicians don't get to partake of a feeding frenzy like this one every goddam day, and boy, are they making the most of it.  those broken little bodies in connecticut weren't even cold before opportunistic, authoritarian "progressives" were out there shrilly demanding new laws, regulations and crackdowns to "fix" a problem they themselves played no small part in creating, helped along by a voracious, non-stop media that would never dream of examining the role it plays in creating and encouraging these monsters.

and the people?  instead of taking even a moment to reflect on the path that has led us to this sorry societal state, they eat it all up indiscriminately, their emotions high and critical faculties dulled by a half-century of ever-increasing, dumbed-down media manipulation and unearned overindulgence.  of course the guns must be the problem--easy, right?

i could go into all the reasons why the guns aren't the problem--i could go all micro and talk about adderall-addled, fatherless kids, and parents who substitute mindless consumerism for actual parenting.  i could talk about marathon stints spent in splendid, brain-rewiring techno-isolation behind a joystick playing "grand theft auto" and "call of duty", racking up rewards for every kill.

or i could go macro and talk about how politicians from time immemorial have exploited emotionally-charged crises to foist upon the populace wars and draconian, freedom-restricting laws that, five minutes prior to the crisis, the populace wouldn't have for a moment entertained--all to keep them "safe".

or i could even get specific and point out that violent crime has plummeted over the past decade even as gun ownership has skyrocketed.  or that states that have enacted concealed-carry legislation have seen the greatest drops in gun violence. or that most of the gun violence that does occur happens in those war-zone neighborhoods that are the happy product of the politicians' "war on poverty". or even that countries like switzerland in which the preponderance of families own at least one gun enjoy a very low gun-violence crime rate.

but i've already spent the weekend and much of today doing that--conversation after pointless, fruitless conversation--and i'm tired.

and i see the handwriting on the wall.  because this one--this one--will be the 9/11 of which the gun-control cadre have for so long dreamed.  i know it--and so, for that matter, does the NRA, which is laying quite low while the demagogues cry their crocodile tears and prepare their latest onslaught on what little freedom we have left.  it will happen in incremental steps, of course, like it always does, but it will happen nonetheless.

for the record, as of the date of this post, i do not own, nor have i ever owned, a gun.

this state of affairs will most likely soon change.

the apartment

"this place is amazing," i found myself breaking one of my cardinal rules by blurting, to which he replied, "yeah. come on back," and led me to the bedroom.

but it truly was--high in the sky, minimalist-modern, 10' ceilings, vast expanses of glass in every room giving out onto a spacious terrace overlooking the lights of the city beyond.

he shed his clothes without ceremony or conversation--not muscular, but even at 35, he had one of those lean, bronzed, life-long-effortless speedo-bodies i've always envied. having already put myself at an early disadvantage, i compounded the error by lamely trying to break the ice by saying,

"jesus, is there even any such thing as an outta-shape brazilian?"

instead of laughing, he looked at me like i'd just farted in church, said, "why would you ask me that?  do i look like i know ugly people?"

ah, so he thinks it's gonna be like that.

thing he'd forgotten was, his sexual needs were urgent, specific and well-suited to my particular skill-set, so it only took me about 10 minutes to break through that haughty wall and put him where i wanted him; i.e., ready to spill his guts to me afterwards.

i listened as he recounted his indulged childhood, his emerging sexuality, his emigration to america, his rewarding-but-low-paid career, made all the right noises as i waited for the only thing i was really curious about:  how he had ended up in this goddam apartment.

turns out it belonged to a wealthy, married east-coast biotech-type who kept it (and him) so that he could come out three or four times a year and scratch an itch that couldn't be scratched at home.  when i met him, this arrangement was entering its fifth year.

jesus god, this guy had landed the weho holy grail--a stable, distant, undemanding, non-repulsive sugar daddy who allowed him to live in the lap of luxury, hobnob with movie-star neighbors, and he only had to put out once a quarter and on the occasional trip abroad.  what's not to like?

turns out, a lot.  he'd been in love with the guy from the start, knew he'd never leave his wife and kids, and, four years in and counting, was coming to terms with the fact that he was closing in on 40, still single, and wasting the prime of his life in this gilded cage.

so he satisfied himself with the occasional trick when he couldn't stand it anymore, never saw anyone more than once.

until me, that is.  once he let me in, i found a warm, smart, funny, sweet-if-somewhat-spoiled guy i enjoyed in and outta bed, and began to entertain stupid fantasies of taking him away from all this.

once a week (or two), i'd pull up in my crappy truck, hand the valet my keys, enter the marbled lobby, announce myself to the concierge, who, after giving me an only slightly-knowing smile, would key me up to the eleventh floor, where he'd be waiting.

one night i drunkenly poured out the whole story to an acquaintance--leaving out all the identifying details, i'd thought--only to find said acquaintance three weeks later standing in the living room of that marvelous apartment in the sky when i showed up for a party.  guy looked at me, looked at him, his eyes got big, his jaw dropped as i called out his name, strode quickly across the room, pulled him into an embrace, planted my lips on his and said into his open mouth, "say one word and i'll fucking kill you."

our last date, we went to see the movie of the moment, sat close, held hands, sniffled together, went back to the apartment, had brokeback sex.  curled up in my arms afterwards, he snuggled closer, said, "that's what i want, mike--a love like they had."

my heart fluttered a little.  "so why don't you reach out and take it?"

he raised his head, looked at me incredulously, said, "yeah, like i'm gonna move into some crappy studio in hollywood, buy some IKEA furniture and wait for true love.  diahann carroll had me over for dinner last week--how am i supposed to give that up?"

yeah.

many months later, i found myself back in that elevator, pressing "11", expecting...well, i wasn't sure.  what i got was, "i forgot you were coming, so i made other plans.  hurry--we don't have much time" as he headed toward the bedroom.

don't know for sure, but i imagine the "fuck you" he got in reply as i slammed back out the door came as big a shock to him as it did his genteel neighbors.

he hit me up on adam the other night, like nothing had happened.  i did the math--it had been almost six years, so he had to be well past that dreaded 40 mark.  i asked him, "so, you still in the same place?"  he replied, "yeah--come over", and i signed off, closed the laptop, went to bed.

guess i can't blame him.  it's a great apartment.

and the reviews are in (continued)

when i wrote the first part of this post, it was with the full intention of coming back in part 2 and doing a point-by-point response to the reviews of this blog referenced therein.

thankfully, i'm sober now and back to my usual semi-indifference to the opinions of others, so i'll spare you most of it.  but i did wanna address a couple things.

first, one of paulo's readers weighs in:

what strikes me most about gregory's review of my blog--aside, of course, from its typical compassionate-liberal viciousness--is how it completely misses the point.  no sense of humor?!  this whole goddam blog is nothing but a dark cosmic joke, and i thought i'd made that fairly clear.  so either gregory's an idiot, or i've been deluding myself as to the extent of my supposed cleverness.  god, i hope it's the former.

as for paulo himself, while he professes to love the blog, he seems to see its author as nothing more than an amoral, aging lothario drunkenly crowing about all the boys he's nailed.  to this, i can only respond with the following, from an email i once wrote to faithful commenter noblesavage:

the reason you cringe at my trick stories, rob--in fact, the reason so much of what i write is cringeworthy--is because that is the intention of this long, five-year gutter-morality tale.  or, to put it another way,

oh mother, tell your children, not to do what i have done

(and yeah, will, i know--the animals did that one, too.)

where paulo nails me to the wall, however, is with the following observation:

I believe that even though one should have some courtesy to the person reading their drivel, paying a reader too much mind can fuck with your head as a writer.

boy, is he right about that.  i'm starting to care about what you assholes think, and it's clearly fucking with my head.