the art of the slam piece

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while you were sleeping

so the other night i had to run home on my lunch hour to grab the laptop i'd forgotten--century city to laurel canyon and back; normally 40 minutes, tops--and found myself mired in honking, bumper-to-bumper traffic before i'd even made the transition from beverly hills to west hollywood, tryin to figure out what and why the fuck.

and then it hit me--the supreme court decision knocking down prop 8 had come down today, and i was about to find out once more why santa monica boulevard on a night of gay hysteria was the last place anyone on a timetable wanted to be.

as i inched my way forward through the throngs of screaming LGBTUVWXYZ's of every stripe waving their rainbow flags and tearing their tits off with joy, i reflected once more on how much less i cared about this than about a little story i'd read online that day.

imagine you're a normal guy with a normal job who's gotten involved with the occupy movement after becoming fed up with the bailouts and get-outta-jail-free cards that had been handed out to the big banks after they'd wrecked the economy of the world.

and you've decided to involve yourself in a little mild activism in the form of scrawling anti-bank messages on sidewalks in front of bank of america branches in southern california.

hateful, inflamatory, anti-social, riot-inciting messages such as "shame on bank of america".

and, even worse, "no thanks, big banks".

in chalk.

impermanent, erasable, washable chalk.

on the sidewalk.

and how, as a result of these heinous crimes, and in spite of the fact that not one executive from the bank in question has seen even a day in jail for the consequences of his world-class greed and malfeasance, you now face thirteen years in prison for daring to express your outrage over that fact.

and how--in fact, what had brought the story to light that day--the judge on the case had chosen to interpret your actions not as the simple expression of a citizen's outrage that they clearly were, but as criminal vandalism; and consequently had just ruled that you would not be allowed to invoke the first amendment in your defense.

clear message to the rest of the sheep:  you fuck with the banks, you forfeit your rights.

because you're an enemy of the state, you see.


but that little story wasn't enough to make me write this post--i mean, maybe you people think i enjoy being a buzzkill and a Bad Fag, but i really don't.  it was the one today, coming right on top of the one the other day (and all the others much like it i've seen lately), that tipped the balance in my head.


imagine you're a kid--a typical dumb, clueless american kid--playing an online video game, and you respond to some facebook comment from an opponent claiming you're crazy with something like the following:

Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still beating hearts

and then you follow up with 

lol

and 

jk

and then you go on about your business, forget all about your little joke, little knowing that some woman in canada saw it, became alarmed, looked you up, found you lived near an elementary school and alerted the local authorities.

and then next thing you know, you're arrested for making terroristic threats and held in jail for months and months awating trial, facing eight years in prison, while your parents bankrupt themselves in a futile effort to try and get you out.

and your dad goes on television, not to vent his outrage that his son, a citizen of the united states of america, could be arrested and face years in prison for a joke, but to beg and promise that if they'll give you a pass just this once, you'll be a good little sheep from now on, for ever and ever.

but, no dice--not a fuckin' chance.

because you're an enemy of the state, you see.


i remember back when i was a kid, and the plane hijackings started, and the authorities announced that thenceforth, any jokes made about hijackings or bombs in an airport or on board a plane, no matter how light-hearted, would be construed as true threats and treated accordingly, and how uneasy that made everyone at the time, but that this abridgement of our right to free expression was probably necessary to keep us safe.

well, while you were sleeping, that little mandate's been somewhat expanded--by, first, the PATRIOT act, and more recently (and courtesy of the bestest, most gay-friendly president ever), the NDAA, to the point that no one knows what's a crime anymore--under these new laws, it can be whatever they decide it is.  and now we know the NSA is listening to and reading every word we utter. so now the whole goddam country is basically one big 747.

and as they continue to dismantle our consitution with one hand, they'll toss us the occasional shiny, distracting bauble with the other, and we'll dance in the streets in response, and wave our rainbow flags and celebrate.

so enjoy your new freedom to marry, but watch what you say, and what you do--and for god's sake, when those kids come along, make sure and teach 'em not to point their fingers at anyone and say 'bang'.

and if you do screw up without even knowing why, console yourself with the knowledge that at least you'll be able to get gay-married in prison.

hell, they might even let you have conjugal visits.

just when i think i'm getting tired of telling these stories...

sometime in 2007

when i met him, he was 24, spoiled and pouty and loaded with attitude.  and he has this thing he does, drives me crazy:  when i get there, even though he's usually had at least an hour to do so, he's never prepared--he leads me to the bedroom, hands me a drink, puts on some porn, hands me the remote, tells me he'll be back in a minute, then disappears for a fucking hour.

first time he pulled this shit, i laid there, did a slow boil as the minutes ticked by, kept reworking the pleasure/pain equation in my head, decided to wait him out, and when he finally made his appearance all freshly showered and perfumed and unapologetic, i got up, grabbed him, tore his robe off, threw him on the bed and ravaged him angrily.  which, turns out, is what the whole thing was all about, of course--he had (correctly) gauged me as easygoing, but wanted angry and dominant.  and he got it, and it was such an unexpected turn-on, watching his eyes go from cool and remote to afraid and submissive as he meekly complied with my every barked order, and we both had a great time.

afterwards, easygoing once more, i curled him into my arms, and we talked.  he was a puzzle--not the brightest bulb on the tree, but sweet once the shields were down. but the interesting thing about him was, unlike every other pretty, slightly dim boy like him i'd ever slept with, he lived like a fucking prince.  the robe i'd torn off him was gucci, the cum-soaked sheets we were wrapped in were pratesi, and all about the large, lavish, messy apartment he occupied were strewn the debris and detritus of a rich boy (or a kept one--i've never figured out which)--from the high vantage of his king-sized, canopied bed, i spied a crumpled vuitton bag in one corner with clothes spilling out of it, a pile of barney's, saks and neiman's shopping bags in another, and gucci (god, does this boy love him some gucci) watches and sunglasses carelessly littering every surface.

i asked him as casually as i could what he did for a living, and he told me he was in the beauty business, catered to wealthy women, gave few details beyond that, and i didn't press.  i looked around this chamber of the sun king again, considered the sheer number of rich, desperate housewives in this town, looked at his face, trailed a finger across the contours of his lush, incomparable lips as he gazed back at me cluelessly, did the mental math, thought, "yeah, maybe".

he'd grown up in fresno in humble surroundings, had met his first lover online at 16 ("he'd send a limo up from LA to pick me up on weekends, take me to all the clubs--he was fun"), and had escaped to the big city for good the day after graduation and never looked back.  he sent his family money on a regular basis; got no appreciation for it, apparently.  and this galled him.

"and it's not just my family--it's my friends, too.  i try to help them, and they all take advantage of me, steal me blind, because i'm too nice."

or too dumb, i thought, as i gazed once more around this roomful of small, pocketable treasures in which he'd left me, a guy he'd known for all of 45 seconds, alone for an hour.

"so where do you meet these people you call friends?", i asked him--and this time, i did press. eventually, he admitted that most of 'em were guys he'd met while partying, and i mentally rolled my eyes, thought about how quickly any one of a number of tweakers of my acquaintance--and i'm just talkin' the more ethical ones--left alone, coulda stripped this room clean as a whistle and been outta there before this boy'd even finished hosing out the lower chamber of his ass.

i proceeded to lecture him about the dangers of allowing druggies into his house and he meekly nodded at the wisdom of this, but not convincingly, and i understood why: he was locked into his pattern of trying to buy the love of indifferent people, and he wasn't listening to me anymore--he hadn't paid attention to a word i'd said since i'd turned from hard, indifferent fuck-dad into concerned ward cleaver.

it was time for me to go.  and as i drove home and replayed the interview in my mind as i always did, i reflected on yet one more lost boy selling himself short.  i also couldn't help but reflect on the fact that i was probably the only trick who'd ever walked outta that apartment poorer than he'd walked in.

that was a brand-new bottle of poppers, goddammit.

*     *     *     *     *

new year's eve, 2012

early afternoon, he called me outta the blue, said, "come shopping with me--i need some shoes for a party tonight."

it had been awhile--this was a once- or twice-a-year boy for me, at most--so i was naturally suspicious.

"why? you've never asked me out anywhere before, and it can't be for my fashion sense."

he laughed.  "you keep me grounded (which was true enough), so maybe i won't spend too much if you're there to tell me not to."

and...?

"and because you'll fuck my brains out afterwards, and this is an important party and i wanna walk in with my head held high instead of all desperate and horny and needy and shit."

kid's smarter than i'd given him credit for.

to say they knew him at barney's would be an understatement--the waves parted in a flurry of bows, scrapes and can-i-help-you's in a way that had never happened when my scraggly ass had wandered in there alone--and, once we had arrived at the destination department, he zeroed in on a spotlit pair of shoes such as i'd never seen before, gave the salesgirl a nod, and she scurried off to the back room without even asking his size.

he unzipped the garment bag he'd brought with him, fished out a fine, black woolen cuff, draped it across one shoe, looked up at me.

"perfect", was all i could say, because they were--not only for the outfit, but for him.

"i've been waiting for these to go on sale forever", he said, "and they finally called me yesterday, just in time--20% off!"

i picked up the right shoe, glanced inside--stuart weitzman, whose "mr. seymour" line i'd sold to rich women when i was in college--ran my hand over its fine, stubbly surface, held it up to the light, where it glistened with the fire of a thousand diamonds.

"swarovski crystals on black silk, mike--hundreds of 'em, hand-set over every square inch of surface.  aren't they fantastic?"

and yeah, they were--pure elegance, nothing tacky about 'em.  but only on the feet of the right guy, the guy who could pull 'em off.

he changed into the outfit, slipped into the shoes, took a few sparkling laps back and forth as spectators gawked and applauded, and i looked at him, at his radiant smile, thought about the figure he'd cut walking into that party in that armani suit and those shoes with his head held high, and i said,

"yeah.  i approve."

as an afterthought, i picked up the display shoe again, flipped it over, staggered back a few steps.

and tried to wrap my head around how much things had changed since college--and the idea of a five thousand dollar pair of shoes.

"no, no, i told you--they're 20% off!"

oh.  yeah.  wrap 'em up, then.

*     *     *     *    *

last night

when he called last night, i asked "what address this time?",  because it had always been onward and upward with this one.

it was lower beverly hills, but a nice building--one flat per floor; i noted the name that was not his as i pressed the buzzer.  he dragged me outta the elevator, through the living room, ignoring the hot, wasted-looking guy on the couch who didn't look up from his laptop, and into the first bedroom on the right--obviously a playroom, not his room--handed me my drink, said, "back in a minute", and i cued up some porn, settled in for the wait.

afterwards, once we'd stopped moving, i looked him over to see how he was holding up, and the news wasn't good.  he'd put on at least ten pounds since new year's, and the receding hairline that had been so barely-noticeable last year was creeping its inexorable way backwards.  the boy who'd been a 9.5 at 24 was at best a 7.5 at 30, and slipping fast.

"so how you been?", i asked, and he told me about the friend who'd wandered into his apartment the previous week wearing the diamond gucci watch that had been bought off the friend who'd stolen it off his nightstand a few weeks previous, and how it had only cost him $800 to get it back.

and then he showed me around the new place.  the second bedroom had become his closet (think oprah's closet), the master bedroom was bigger and messier than ever, and the master closet was...shoes.

i scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelves left to right, up and down, and--third row down, fourth from the left--there they were.

i picked one up, turned to him, asked, "so were they a hit?"

he sorta-laughed, said, "i didn't wear 'em.  boyfriend said he wouldn't take me to the party looking like a whore--he made me change into plain black ones instead."

i thought about that, thought about him, thought about how happy he'd been that day at barney's with all those people applauding his choice and his beauty, turned the shoe over, rubbed my hand over its shiny, black, unblemished sole, told him to go get me a bottle of water, snapped a pic with my phone while he was gone.

because somebody oughta get to see those goddam shoes.

and i'm gettin' old

why? doesn't matter--he'll know why.

i'm getting tired of telling these stories (part 2)

so i've been tryin to come up with some way to make the lorenzo half of this post at least somewhat less dreary than the joaquin half, and that means serendipitously presented itself today in the long-lost form of this boy (not the first one in there, god forbid--the second).

and now, after a long, langorous afternoon of a steady transfusion of the most potent joaquin anti-venom i coulda hoped for (because, god, sex with joey is just so fucking perfect, and even more so after a long absence), i am ready to finish this sucker.

because my afternoon with joey served as more than a mere palate-cleanser; he's also the one who, a few months after that first text exchange, inspired this little back-and-forth.  which sets this post up nicely, because said little back-and-forth coulda just as easily been about lorenzo, or all the the thousands of other lorenzos out there just like him.

including the one typing this.



i don't usually attract guys like lorenzo, or if i do, it's rarely more than a one-timer.

a classic LA hipster, lorenzo is one of those skinny-jeaned, offhand, ironic types who cares a lot about not seeming to care about much--you can see it in the attitude, in the walk, in the random, eclectic, thrift-shop outfits (the perfectly-chosen shoes, of course, always being the dead giveaway that there's nothing in the least random about any of it).

there are other clues, too--the artfully tousled just-got-outta bedhead, but the five-day stubble meticulously groomed; the mercedes key on the cheap, kitschy fob, stuff like that.

and then there's the face--el greco, always slightly haughty and amused by something you're not in on, until you say something sufficiently funny that the facade breaks in spite of itself to reveal a big, goofy grin that lasts just long enough to hint at the sweetness buried under there somewhere, before it's gone just as fast.

so that first night, i walked in, looked him up and down, got attitude back, took the place in at a glance--2,000 square feet of prime loft space, creative rubble strewn everywhere, maybe three pieces of actual furniture--figured i was a one-night aberration for sure, got down to business and discovered, to my surprise (and maybe his, who knows), how much passion could be unleashed in this boy if you hit just the right spot.

whatever--as is usually the case with guys like this, the heat of his passion pre-cumming was equally and oppositely matched by his aloofness immediately afterwards; and, no stranger to this phenomenon, i dragged myself off the mattress before the globs had even started to run, headed to the lavatory, ran half a hand-towel under warm water, wiped and dried myself, rinsed it, wrung it and tossed it at him, sorted my clothes outta our collective pile, dressed quickly, gave him a wave over my shoulder and a "call me" as i headed, unaccompanied, for the door.

and two days later, he did.  and two weeks after that, when i called back, all pretense of aloofness was gone, and he was all over me from the moment he opened the door.

i made him wait a month next time, and another month after that, and mostly ignored the interim phone calls and "are you mad at me?" texts, until i finally told him i was involved and couldn't see him anymore.

and that, as they say, was that.

did i behave like an asshole?  yeah, maybe, but i had my reasons, and they were good ones.

in the first place, i really was involved at the time; my heart, or what little of it was free to give, belonged to v back then.  but the bigger reason was, i had learned the hard way, and more than once, what happens when you drop your guard with a boy like this.

 and time, as it often has a habit of doing, would prove me right.

*     *     *     *     *

a month or so ago

he hit me up outta the blue, and at just the right time, and i did the pleasure/pain equation, thought to myself, "i'm single now", and then, "why not?".

he looked almost the same as he had the last time i'd seen him so long ago, except for the new close-cropped hair which revealed his bone structure and set off his fine features in a way the shaggy mop had not.  and the sex was good, as good as it had ever been.  and afterwards, when i surprised him, finally took him up on his long-standing and oft-repeated offer to stay the night, he acquiesced with a sudden uneasiness that didn't surprise me a bit.

and when i tried to hold him during the night and he rolled away, that didn't surprise me either.  and when i reached for him the next morning and he said he had an early call, i merely got up without reply, headed for the shower, then headed home.

i walk in the door, and jeannie, my roommate's girlfriend, is already there, supervising the workers on day two of the demo and remodel of our only bathroom.

when, in response to her remark that i look well-rested, well-shaved and well-showered, i reply, in my best mae west voice, "yeah, and i'm not particularly proud of how that happened" and she shrieks, "you can be had for a SHOWER?!", all banging and hammering comes to a halt in the bathroom as laughter breaks out, and i give the boys a wink as i sashay by on my way to my bedroom and slam the door.

he texted me a week later, invited me over; i didn't reply.  a week after that, they started coming every three days, and then every two, and now there's at least one a day.

nah, i'm not mad at you, lorenzo, and i'm not playing power games.  i'm just tired of this shit.




and nah, i'm not sayin this song is particularly appropriate to this post, but it's the random it-came-up-on-shuffle set to repeat that got me through it.

oh, and this:

i swear, you put this shit through a brita filter twice, you get grey goose.  seriously.

a brief snapshot in time

this is what you said you wanted, america:

i hope you'll be happy with it.

and this is what you've brought into your midst, my cousins across the pond:

and you've freely given up your guns.

i'm getting tired of telling these stories (part 1)

or maybe it's more i'm getting tired of living 'em.  whatever--


he called outta the blue last week--a very pleasant surprise, because joaquin is special.  when last we'd spoken, he was preparing to head down into mexico, the land of his parents, to research indigenous ingredients and recipes for a cookbook he was writing--joaquin is a fine young chef--and he'd call me when he got back, fix me a great meal. that had been almost two years ago.

he was back in LA, he told me, working as a private chef for a family in the hills above sunset plaza, they were outta town, he was without a car, he'd love to see me and could i come get him?  we arranged for late last night, and when i texted him that i'd arrived, he emerged from the house looking much as i'd seen him last--lanky and cute, with thick, black hair falling over his eyes, and that smile.

and those lips--he gave me a hungry kiss when he got in, and as we drove the narrow, twisting back route connecting his canyon to mine, i remembered how it had been with him, and sped up a little.

he'd done a lot of living in these last two years, he told me during the drive--from mexico, he'd gone on to work on film locations all over the world (sixteen-hour days, nothing glamorous about it, he assured me), and was happy to be back home in a low-stress job that would allow him the time to finally finish his book (and maybe even spend some time with me, i hoped).

and then at my place, in my bed, he broke away from me at a moment in which he would have never broken away before, to reach into his bag.

"you don't mind, do you?", he asked, as he started fiddling with the paraphernalia.  "i wanna feel it with you this way--the instant the needle comes outta my arm, i want your dick going in."

and i just said, "well, we'd better time it right, then--gimme a minute, 'cause i've lost it."  and he did, and i put it outta my mind, rose to the occasion like i always do, and then we did.

and it was wild, and he was wild, and not joaquin at all.  i entered him much faster and harder than i would have joaquin, and his tightness gave way and i was deep and he was clawing at my back and gasping into my neck and sweating and bucking and straining for more, and his eyes rolled back and he was off into some place that didn't include me at all.

but whatever it was he was experiencing, it wasn't sex, i know that.  sex with joaquin had always started slow and sweet and ended with him coming like a freight train, all the while kissing my lips and looking into my eyes.  but this--whatever it is these walking dead experience, and as transcendent as it may be for them, it's not sex, or at least not human sex, because the dick always knows what sex is--and when the mouse stays soft, small and sleeping inside its little house when the body it belongs to is doing what we did, it's not sex, and i don't care what anybody says.

afterwards, drenched in sweat--mine and (mostly) his--i asked him if he's gonna be able to sleep, and he said yeah, it leaves him quickly.  and it did (after he showed me all 68 apps on his ipad in three minutes, that is), and he fell asleep in my arms, and as he snored gently like he used to, i pushed the wet strands of hair out of his eyes, looked at his face, kissed his mouth (he responded in his sleep, just like he used to), and wondered what would become of this boy whom i'd once thought was so focused, so grounded, so together for his age and so immune to this shit.

oh, joaquin is 25 years old.


stay tuned for part 2, and lorenzo