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.

and the reviews are in

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

                                                       some old song

i've been writing guttermorality for almost five years, and have nearly called it quits as many times.  while i wouldn't trade the experience for anything, it's been in many ways a long and lonely slog.  i have few readers and even fewer commenters, and those commenters i do have--and i love you guys, don't get me wrong--tend to focus on the surface of whatever i've written, rather than the substance.

consequently, in the absence of any real criticism and feedback, i've been basically writing in a vacuum all this time.  believe it or not, i agonize over every one of these posts, try to distill 'em down to their bare essence, make 'em look offhand, layer in all sorts of subtle meaning--you know, say what i wanna say without actually saying it, and hope somebody gets it.  but i'm usually left to wonder if anybody ever does.

well, tonight i got an answer, of sorts--from not only one writer, but two.

lemme talk about paulo a minute.  i first came across his column many years ago whilst flipping through a new, cheap-newsprint biweekly weho rag called fab!, and, after lingering for probably too long over his picture,

gritted my teeth and steeled myself for whatever inane, crayon-scrawled prattlings with which this pretty-boy had managed to fill the space below.  because, clearly, he couldn't possibly be anything but a desperate, gay-affirmative action hire to draw readers to a struggling new paper with eye candy, right?

wrong.  this boy had the chops--his writing was brazen, honest, shameless, street-articulate, hideously un-PC, not to mention dead-on and funny as hell, and he had me from word one.  and i came back issue after issue not only to see what gay sacred cow he'd be (usually accurately) skewering this time--and, often as not, and to his credit, that included himself--but to snicker at how the peanut gallery had reacted to his last incendiary blast.  because lemme tellya, there was nothing more entertaining to ol' mkf than a buncha clutching-their-pearls, outraged fags writing letters to the editor week after week who couldn't decide what they needed more--to hate paulo or to fuck him.  (me?  i was conflicted too--i couldn't decide whether i wanted to fuck him or be his best girlfriend.  i settled for neither.)

sadly, fab! eventually went the way of all truly interesting gay publications--i.e., outta business--and i lost track of paulo. but i never forgot him.  i'd eventually launch guttermorality as a political blog, and, when one drunken night i tired of that shit and decided to get a little personal but wondered how far i should push it, i thought of him and how he'd owned his shit and decided, "fuck, if he could do it, i guess i can, too."

which brings us (almost) to today.  see, a few weeks ago, i got a hair up my ass to google ol' paulo, see what he was up to, and found his blog.  turns out he'd been through a lot in the ensuing years--through the ol' meth rabbit hole and out the other side, victorious--and the experience had tempered and matured his writing.  gone was the boy who had so ruthlessly lashed out at those gay stereotypes he had feared becoming, replaced by a man who had every reason to be proud of who he had actually become.

so i referenced him in a post, sent him the link.  and not only did he write me back, he actually wrote a post about my goddam blog, urging his readers (who number far more than mine) to check it out.  at least one of 'em did--a writer himself--and gave me his own mini-review.

so, do they get me?  check out the link above, compare their impressions to yours, and come back next time to see what i have to say about it.  because, after five years, i think it's time i quit laying it between the lines, and explained a few things straight-up, straight-out.

somewhere down in hell, karl marx is high-fiving freddy engels whilst doing the "i told you so" dance

happy thanksgiving, everyone.