Hitting Too Close To Home (Part 1: The Vibe)

Shortly before I left Cranberry Lake for Boston, I worked as a stage manager/actor/lighting designer for a theatre troupe in Tourist Trap. It didn't pay well, but it allowed me to spend several hours a day attending to the needs of a certain parasite who need not be named. When said parasite was removed from my gills, I began shark swimming through life. When the mother of one of my coworkers got wind that I was leaving for Big City, she smiled at me and said "I knew you'd be moving on soon. You're a big fish in a small pond."

I know that she meant I was a talented actor in a limited scene (there's no accounting for taste), but my subconscious interpreted the statement differently. I had lived in Cranberry Lake for nearly seventeen years that. I couldn't leave the house to get my mail without running into four people I'd slept with, two of my elementary school teachers, one of my mother's best friends, and a former coworker with a partridge in a fucking pear tree sticking out of their ass. After Ryan's death, I lost all desire to get into a relationship with someone I already knew.

I began moving on whims. Six months in Boston, a year in Vermont, a year and a half in Boston, three months touring the country, five months in Boston, five months in Pieceofshitdeserttown, and another six months in Boston. All in all that's nearly three years of the last five that I've lived in Boston. No one will ever be able to say "You're a big fish in a small pond" to me here. I live in an ocean.

The problem with the ocean is that there are a startlingly high number of beautiful fish: marlins, coral angels, clownfish, heniochis, red volitan lions. I'm at best a minatus grouper. I stand out enough to get noticed, but I'm not the fish that either the tourists, the scientists or the anglers are looking for. Discarding the fish metaphor, I'm never surprised when someone expresses an interest in meeting me because of my writing or my personal ads,then stops e-mailing me after they've seen a pic.

Last night was an exercise in frustration. I've been writing about Ryan for the book, one of my geckos died, Timmy didn't work out, blah blah blah, depressing shit. So perhaps it wasn't a good time for me to be trolling for a date, but (insert deity here) I wanted to fuck the pain away.

Enter The Internet. I had a few e-mails from people who wanted to meet me, filed away in my inbox. I sent them replies, and placed an ad of my own. Among all the thirty-eight year old obese married guys who chose to ignore the "under thirty" that I placed not once but twice in the four sentence ad, was an e-mail from someone named James. James was my age. His picture was a face. A cute face but it could have been pasted on to any body. Whatever, I was depressed and horny. We made plans to meet around 11:30.

At 11:00 I got an e-mail from someone I'd been interested in for a long time, Ethan. Ethan was Colombian. His pic suggested he was slightly chubby and a shy, fairly masculine guy. In short, perfect. Also, he'd known what I looked like for a month or so, and he thought I was cute. Booya.

Ethan's roommate was out of town, and he was horny. I e-mailed James a bullshit excuse why I couldn't meet, showered, grabbed some condoms and lube and headed down the street to Ethan's house. Down the street.

It's been a long time since I've gone to someone else's house for sex. Since the night I started this journal, to be exact. My record on going to people's houses for sex is poor. This is why I prefer to host. Last night, hosting was not an option, so I trekked over to Ethan's house.

Ethan was not a slightly chubby, shy, fairly masculine Colombian. Unlike certain Pakistanis, he hadn't lied to me, he'd just lost some weight since the photograph, and become, for lack of a better term, gayer. My gaydar has very limited range, but even I could tell from the moment that he opened the door that he would have a Madonna poster in his room. I don't know what he does for a living, but I imagine it involves flowers, choreography, or a pair of scissors. Not exactly my type socially, but the boy was hot.

We walked up to his bedroom, where we sat down on his bed. The next two minutes were a blur. We talked about how his little brother was living in Pieceofshitdeserttown, how disillusioned he was with "the gay scene," how he was really glad we'd finally gotten together.

This was the moment of the film where everything turns around for the hero. After a particularly tragic time involving lots of rain and tear-stained introspective brooding, the main character meets someone he finally clicks with. Fuck you, Timmy. I'm so over you, Elvis. Look at this extremely hot guy who likes me for my looks and my personality. I'm going to fuck all the ghosts away.

Camera zooms in on the protagonist and his love/lust interest. They are sitting together on the bed. Both are smiling. The camera pulls in tight on the love interest's lips as he says "The vibe is all wrong." Pan out. Protagonist is clearly rattled. "You should leave."

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/41848.html

CSB

I don't think I'd ever refer to something as The Kiss of Death. Depending on who they get to play Death in Good Omens, I can't imagine Death being kissable. Let's review the people who've played Death in TV shows and movies: Norm Macdonald, William Sadler, Jason Alexander, and Adam Corrola. None of them are on my top million list of guys to fuck.

If there were any characteristic of a person that I would even consider labeling "The Kiss of Death", it would be the use of patchouli as a bathing substitute. Even before I lived in Vermont, where showers are viewed with a disdain that Republicans reserve for a gay marriage ceremony involving a black guy and an Iraqi civilian, I couldn't stand the vile smell of patchouli. Even typing that word makes my nose hurt.

On the first night of my Acting class in college, I caught a whiff of something patchouliesque. Something *sniff* *sniff* almost like patchouli, but somehow not displeasing. Nasal gaydar. When I turned around I saw the hottest, obviously gay guy I had ever laid eyes on. I made small talk with him, and bided my time before I went full on flirtatious. This was back before Whore Month, before Ryan came into play, before I had dared do anything remotely gay near where I lived. Sure, there'd been Victor at boarding school, and Alex at college, but those were faraway places.

After a couple of weeks, the boy in class had done some obviously gay things. He had rapped the complete lyrics to Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby", he wore tight fitting t-shirts, he kept mentioning that his friends said he looked like Leonardo diCaprio. He couldn't be gayer if he was walking around with my dick in his ass, something I was hoping to prove with extensive testing.

We started hanging out a lot. More than a lot. When he went through a rough patch with his mother, he moved in to my condo for a while. Neither of us were yet twenty-one, but I looked old enough to not get carded very often. So every other night or so we ended up plastered and sharing the pull out bed in the living room. It was on one of those nights that I decided to grow some balls and tell him how I felt. Why that night? I was hammered. How hammered? Hammered. I was hammered. There were nails buried in plaster mumbling "That guy is hammered." That's how hammered I was. Hammered. I was playing some sort of show tune on the piano, the boy was singing along. He was singing beautifully. (I later discovered he was practically tone deaf, but it sounded amazing while I was hammered) At one point he leaned in real close and started close crooning. I turned my head toward his and leaned in to kiss him. Well, that's what I did in my head. In real life, I turned toward him all googledy eyed, and we started laughing.

He'd been in the house about two weeks when I finally said "I am so in love with you" in a way that I could pretend it was a joke if he didn't feel the same way.

"Dude, if I was gay, I'd be all over you." He said. I hate that phrase. You have no idea how many times I've heard it. Usually from guys who later came out as gay. This was the first time. It stung like a wasp with a harpoon gun on his abdomen.

"You're not gay?" I asked with mock mock horror.

"No. But every gay guy I've ever met crushes all over me. You should meet my friend Tom." So a couple of weeks later, after Cute Straight Boy had mended fences with his mom, and moved back into his garage apartment, he took me to hang out with his friend Big Gay Tom. It was hate at first site. I find uber-queeny gays annoying, Tom didn't like guys who weren't flamboyant. Tom was insanely jealous that CSB had lived at my house for a few weeks, I was insanely jealous that Big Gay Tom was always giving CSB the option of getting kissed or hit, and CSB usually picked getting kissed. We each hated the fact that the other person was crushing on their not-gay boyfriend.

After a particularly funny remark that CSB made, Tom brayed like a donkey while I said "I would so have his babies." And the claws came out. Tom's claws. I let him go absolutely crazy and catty and vicious while I sat quiet and reserved, imagining that CSB wold think I was classy for not stooping to Tom's level. When he realized how not Gay I was, he'd surely fall in love with me, and we would have hot hot sex in his mother's garage. That would be so hot.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/84348.html

Slow Flashes (Part 5: King Of The Apemen)

My two years at Pilgrim's Academy proved that it wasn't the public school system that was lacking, it was my attention. So, in ninth grade, I began my career as a Freshman at Cranberry Lake High School. The nerdy kids that I'd hung out with in elementary school decided I was too popular to hang out with them now. And while the popular kids appeared to like me, I never felt comfortable hanging out with them. Since I was failing at playing the role of myself, I threw myself into the one thing I felt I was actually good at: acting.

My parents had taken me to an audition for The Bogtown Players' production of Our Town when I was six. Since then, I'd played Linus in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the narrator in a bunch of kids plays, and even had the occasional small role in shows like Bye Bye Birdie, and the horrendous stage version of the popular TV show, M*A*S*H. Near the end of my days at Pilgrim's, a bunch of actors from M*A*S*H decided to try and redeem themselves by getting parts in the UMass Cranberry Lake production of The Crucible. My mom decided to let me audition, since the show was supposed to be for college students and adults, and the odds of them casting a thirteen year old were slim. Of course, nowhere on the audition sheet, did they ask your age.

I got not one, but two parts. Admittedly, two of the smallest parts in the play, but when combined were...still, one of the smallest roles in the play. But I was ten years younger than the next youngest cast member. I was invited to parties where I got to watch people get drunk. And since I didn't have much stage time, I did some homework, and some writing during rehearsals.

On Wednesday nights, while we rehearsed in the main theater, an acting class took place in one of the studio rooms. The teacher didn't seem to mind if the upstairs actors crashed his course, so I sat in and watched grown men and women perform terrible monologues, improvs, and terrifying acts of mime. On monologue night, most of the students got on the makeshift stage and performed something from Shakespeare or Sophocles. They didn't get into costume or use any props, they just boringly recited a familiar set of lines. I was about to go back to the dressing room to do my homework, when one of the students said "I'm going to do a reading from Tarzan, King of the Apemen." He, then, ripped off his t-shirt, and wiggled out of his jeans, revealing a leopard skin g-string. This was going to be worth sticking around for.

I don't remember any of the lines from the monologue. It was something that was supposed to be funny. But the lines were trite, the jokes were predictable. And while the actor showed amazing energy by leaping around the stage, he had the verbal delivery skills of a tracheotomy patient. He kept pausing for laughs that didn't come. And then, during a dramatic leap into the air, something magical happened. His left ball swung out of his g-string and hung there while he said something stupid. The class began to chuckle. The chuckle grew into a murmur of laughter. Encouraged, the student leapt more frantically, delivering his static lines. Then his right ball fell out. Chaos of laughter. My face was red rocks under a waterfall. The professor was applauding. When the monologue ended, the actor did a sort of half curtsy-half bow, and it wasn't until his head was pointed in the direction of his crotch, that he realized what everyone was laughing at. I caught every class after that, but nothing exciting happened.

A week before The Crucible opened, the director scheduled an extra rehearsal on a Tuesday night. "I don't think I can come." I told the director. "My mom is going to Florida to visit her parents, and my dad has to work."

"Can't you borrow one of your friends' cars?" She asked.

"I'm thirteen." I told her.

"Holy cunting fuck!" She said.

When my mom picked me up that night, the director apologized for all the times she'd swore in front of me. "I thought he was eighteen!" She said. "I knew he was a student, I just assumed he was a student here. I mean, he always goes to that acting class during rehearsals, and I thought he was in the class or something."

"Don't worry about it." My mom said. "I can assure you he's heard worse."

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/229248.html