Yum 8: Potato Salad

OK, my no-mayo, French/Bavarian-ish potato salad:

1) Boil red or yukon gold potatoes
2) Slice them into a mushy mess
3) Add some minced vidalia onion
4) Add some minced fresh herbs (I used basil and cilantro)
5) Add some thinly sliced cucumber
6) Drizzle with olive oil
7) Sprinkle with red wine vinegar
8) Add a dollop of dijon mustard
9) Add a slurp of maple syrup
10) Add some salt and pepper.

That's it.

Imagine That

I just watched "The Visitor," an indie flick that -- of course -- blows away most Hollywood shit. Essentially, it's about the primacy of individuals (as opposed to demographics or nationalities) and how 9/11 traumatized America and its ideals. It's also about how a chance friendship with one person can completely alter another person's life. Anyway, it made me long for a world without borders. Imagine that, John Lennon.

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I'm on line minding my own business tonight when somebody pops up on AIM. His nick is drlatin04. Intriguing. But I can't freaking remember anything about him. So this conversation ensues:

drlatin04: Hello chris long time where did you go?
Me: yikes, so long i don't remember your name (blushing)

9:56 PM

drlatin04 has gone offline.
10:27 PM
drlatin04 is now online.

10:48 PM
Me: hi again

10:52 PM
Me: come on ... talk to me

11:00 PM
Me: hmmm...did we meet for dinner at the IR?

11:21 PM
Me: dang, take pity on me

I mean, what the fuck? I understand that your feelings might get hurt a little if somebody doesn't remember your nickname. But, clearly, it wasn't much of a relationship if I can't recall the guy's name. It doesn't seem worth the cold shoulder. Or does it?

If You Follow The News ...

... this is fuckin hilarious.

OK, Borderline ... But Funny

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Somehow, This Works

From fiveawesomegays

Joking The Queer

One of my young gay friends -- a sensitive, sexy Latino college student -- is in love with a straight guy. Typical, no? Nature's biggest practical joke: let the queer fall for the breeder. It defines hopelessness. Here's why: Not long ago, G was walking to the straight guy's apartment -- they're best friends -- and, along the way, he picked one daffodil out of every yard he passed. By the time he got to S's apartment, he had a sweet bouquet, which he placed in a vase. Flowers, since the sun first shined on a field in spring, have represented one person's love for another person. S's reaction to the bouquet? "Nice job." He then turned. And walked away. 

Carded. At 50something.

So I got carded today at Walmart. I passed. By about three decades. Clearly, the guy at the register was a mental case. I've gone through his line before, and I like him -- he's just obviously fried. So he saw my bottle of red wine -- shut up, I can buy wine at Walmart if I choose -- and couldn't compute whether I was at least 21 years old. The salt-and-pepper hair, apparently, wasn't a good enough clue. Actually, I wasn't totally shocked that he carded me. He stared at some poor college-age kid's ID for, like, a millennium before ringing up his beer. When he asked for my ID, I just smiled and said, "You're kidding?" "No." He then took my wallet (with my driver's license behind plastic) and studied it intently before joining in the joking. I did tell the family behind me it was kinda flattering. ;) Oddly, this wasn't the first time I'd been carded at Walmart in my dotage. Another mental case did so a few years ago, this time for a video. And it wasn't even porn. (I mean, gay boys do need their porn, but, please, it's all over the Net.) Do you suppose that the whole world sees me as a 20-year-old, and only I see the old dude in the mirror? No? OK.

Um, I'm, Um, You Know ... Um, Gay

So I've become friends with a guy at the gym. Cute, smart, funny, athletic. We've had dinner a couple of times and talked a lot at the local Gold's. I haven't told him I'm gay. (And, I might add, he hasn't told me he's straight, so there.) But if we hang out any more, I'm thinking I've got to mention it -- just so we have an honest relationship. Of course, he has to suspect. Like today, he lingered to talk with me, but as we chatted, he made obvious eye contact with a woman's mobile butt. It was like he was sending a message: I, sir, am straight. Anyway, I really have fun talking to this dude, and I'm worried I'll blow it by bringing up my orientation. But, again, I'm thinking I've gotta do it. Oy.

The Low-Down On Low-Rise

OK, I'll say it: I hate low-rise jeans.

I hate them on guys. I hate them on girls. I even hate them on mannequins.

They're just so in-your-face. On girls, they look slutty. On guys, they look exhibitionist.

Now, let me stress: I'm not making value judgments on the wearers. I might be making a value judgment on the butt beneath the denim, but I'm not making a value judgment on the person. Some of my best friends wear low-rise jeans.

I just think they're totally un-sexy. First off, a woman's butt wasn't made to be contained in such a scant amount of fabric. They kind of spread and flop when so packaged. As for guys, their butts just look better when wrapped in slightly baggy denim. A little aura of mystery, as I've suggested before, is good.

Of course, people wear low-rise jeans in an effort to expose more skin. Girls show a few more inches of belly beneath the navel; guys show a lot more of their boxers and sometimes a hint of flesh here and there. But it just ain't worth the aesthetic cost.

On a related matter, I also sneer at girls who wear sweat pants or shorts with words emblazoned across their butts. The lack of subtlety is a total turn-off. (Well, I'm gay, so not a sexual turn-off because I was never turned on, but you know what I mean.) Needless to say, by putting words on their asses, they're trying to draw your eyes to their butts. Again, it's just too in-your-face. It's like the difference between bottled lemonade and freshly squeezed lemonade -- one slams your taste buds with sugar and citrus, the other tickles them with a hint of natural lemon. (Is that a bit strained?)

I guess the bottom line (heehee) is that I prefer a more natural sexuality. For instance, a lot of gay guys dress to show skin and then go out of their way to display it in front of cute guys. To me, it's far more enticing to see a guy who dresses less overtly sexy -- showing off his physique, showing a little skin inadvertently -- than one who activates Strip Mode when he sees a prospective mate.

Now, let me stress: There is a fine line here. For instance, guys who always wear their shirts tucked deep in their pants are just as much a turn-off. With them, there's no hope of seeing a bit of skin when they stretch or lean over or walk into a stiff wind. And I insist on guys unbuttoning the bottom button on their untucked shirts. Again, it's a matter of subtlety.

My Cool? Va-po-rized.

OK, get me a razor blade. I'm listening to Barbra Streisand's "People." I might as well tie a noose around my neck and kick a chair out from under my legs. Funny how music can squeeze the heart till it breaks.   The strangest thing about being in love with an unattainable guy is how the notion of sex with anyone else becomes unappealing. Case in point: A cute 27-year-old Nicaraguan -- named Alpha -- left a message on my cell phone last night asking if I wanted to "hang out" with him Saturday. Although we've never actually met, I've seen the guy. Trust me: He's A1 material. "Hang out," of course, is code for "sex."   Sadly, I have no interest in him, simply because I can't get my mind off of this other guy. It might be different if Alpha and I had already dated and liked each other.  For now, though, I'd rather jack off than have random sex.

So, I'm curious: How long will it take before other guys interest me? You know, what with the love thing. Which I still absofuckinlutely hate, by the way. I mean, it vaporizes your cool in an insta-second. You're bitchy, you're jealous, you're mopey. It's disgusting. I freakin hate myself right now. I'd chop off my dick if I wasn't so attached to it. 

OK, I wrote this (well actually it's parts of two posts) in 2006 on Livejournal. It took me until late 2008 to finally get back to normal. Tick-tock. Goodbye, life.

Love And A Bad Sports Metaphor

How tough is unrequited love? This tough: It takes you from cool to pathetic in a broken heartbeat. We all like to see ourselves as aloof from emotional turmoil. Sadly, that's not life. I don't care if you're the epitome of finger-snapping cool, aka Frank Sinatra, or the epitome of hip-hopping cool, aka P Diddy, you've got tears running down your face now and then. Love is like open-heart surgery, without anesthesia. It'll cut a hole in your chest, shred your defense systems and leave you howling in pain.

Pain so complete it overrides all other emotional circuits. Pain that makes you hollow, desperate. 

Ironic, isn't it, how hard love hurts? By definition, love is wonderful. But it's like a perfectly thrown pass. It might be the most beautiful thing in the world, but if there's nobody to receive it, it just crashes into the grass -- and the guy who threw it feels like shit.

There is, however, hope. Not so much that the object of your desire will suddenly embrace you, but that time will heal. And as you wait for that to happen, you can still daydream. Love, after all, is as irrational as it is painful, as capricious as it is essential.

Screwed ... Or Not?

I love being gay. I'd hate to be straight. 

Having said that, there is one thing about queerdom that bugs me -- namely, the expectation of sex whenever two guys date. 

I don't mean anticipation. I mean expectation. If you don't go to bed with a guy on the first date, he's flabbergasted. And if you're still just cuddling by Date 2, he's ready to throw his fishing line into another stream. Not that there's anything wrong with having sex 15 minutes after you've polished off dessert, but -- for the zillionth time -- I really want to develop some affection for the guy before jumping under the covers with him.

Obviously, Insta-Sex isn't an exclusively gay concept. Maybe it isn't even more prevalent in our community. Perhaps the notion of -- to use an archaic term -- courtship is dead everywhere.

The Big Tease

My fantasies have taken a disturbing turn.

I dreamed about chocolate cupcakes the other night. Chocolate on chocolate. With lots of rich, creamy frosting. 

Rarely do I eat baked goods, opting instead for fresh fruit -- especially cherries, watermelon and bananas. I do love sweets. I just don't like what they do to human bodies, so I avoid them. Which may be why I found myself fantasizing about cupcakes.
 
Not only do I dream about cupcakes. I also turn dreams into reality -- though I don't quite consummate the love.

A few weeks ago, for instance, I bought a half-dozen chocolate cupcakes from a Harrisonburg baker and brought them back to the office. Fortunately, I came to my senses and gave them to my staff -- five 20-somethings who gobbled them up confident that their metabolisms would scrape off the mega-calories belly-flopping into their bodies.

In New York last month, after drinking three glasses of wine with dinner, I stopped at a Greenwich Village bakery and bought four cupcakes -- two chocolate on chocolate, two chocolate on white. Again, despite my slightly buzzed state, logic trumped desire. When I finally got back to my hotel in Chelsea -- after walking from the Village and stopping at an 8th Avenue bar to watch the end of an NBA Finals game -- I tempered my appetite, licking the frosting off all four cupcakes, but eating only about half an inch of cake on two of them.

Kinda like foreplay.

This is from my Livejournal account, which I have abandoned for Blogger.com

Love and iPods

I was chatting with a young gay friend today who recently broke up with a longtime -- and quite insane -- boyfriend. Back in his near-native New York City after a disorienting few months of living with Crazy Boy in the sticks -- metro Providence, where my pal was aghast to discover that he had to drive a car to find food during his lunch break -- Mike has begun dating again. He thought he had found Mr. Right on the first pitch. The guy was his type (i.e., a Roger Clemensesque beefy physique) and showered him with attention -- initially. Today, Mike reported that the would-be BF has turned his life into an emotional yo-yo. 

After calling every day for a week, Beef Boy has all but ignored Mike's messages for the past several days. Mike, being gay, is in major fret mode. I counseled my fluttering pal to do one of two things: 1) be patient and let the relationship move at its own pace (in other words, give the guy room to breathe) or 2) launch a full-court press to woo the guy (you know, send him little gifts). That's when Mike informed me that he had given Beef Boy his spare iPod. I pondered that for a moment. True, it's not the most romantic of gifts. Not chocolate. Not caviar. Not a bottle of merlot. And, true, it wasn't a great sacrifice. He gave him his spare iPod, not his only iPod. Still, in the 2000s, nothin says lovin like an Mp3 player. I mean, pop in the earbuds and you can transport yourself a million miles away from the office or train or apartment. Only time, of course, will tell if the iPod will turn Mike into the Apple of Beef Boy's eyes. But, beyond pondering romance and gifts, Mike's situation reminded me how long and bumpy the road to love is for most of us. Mine has been a dead end so far -- and time isn't on my side -- but the chase is essential to my well-being. If I thought I'd never again find somebody to love -- as fucking painful as love is -- I don't think life would be worth living. So I'll keep tabs on Mike's romantic adventure, and if the iPod eventually does the trick, you'll find me in the Mp3 aisle at Circuit City. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. 

This is from my Livejournal, 2006, as I continue to move posts to this site

Join The Holy Orgy

I was reading that 94 percent of American kids jack off. In addition to making me feel good about our nation, it got me to thinking of my own experience as a teen-ager. Let me say for the record that I was among the 94 percent who took matters into their own hands. Fortunately, I was never fed any bullshit warnings about the dire consequences of masturbating, so I simply enjoyed the moment. Or, more accurately, the moments. The many moments. 

Maybe it helped that "Hair" -- you know, the tribal rock musical -- was popular at the time. It scandalized America in numerous ways, including with the lyrics in "Sodomy": "Masturbation can be fun/Join the holy orgy/Kama Sutra." Needless to say, those wise words became my mantra as a 17-year-old. 

I did have one quirk. (Shocking, eh?) In high school -- as I fantasized about the cute guy on the basketball team or whoever caught my fancy that day -- I liked to jerk off to a certain Rolling Stones song. Much to my regret, I can't remember for sure which one. I think it was "Ruby Tuesday." I do recall with certainly, though, another musical theme: In college, I'd often listen to Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken" or "Moonshadow" in the immediate afterglow of my handiwork. As you might expect, those tunes still bring back pleasant memories.

Kama sutra.

Thoughts On A Wintertime Visit To NYC

1) I think the four biggest physical icons in New York are the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Stature of Liberty and the Washington Square Park arch (left). One represents money and power, another entertainment and commercialism (on steroids), another the hope of freedom, another an urban, Bohemian spirit. It was in that spirit that I was approached by a 50ish black guy as I sat on a bench talking on the phone in Washington Square Park. He drifted past once, muttering something. I kept talking. He circled back. "You want some weed?" he asked as I tried to concentrate on my telephone conversation. "No thanks," I replied politely. Then, after I "hung" up, another guy approached me and mumbled something. I assume it was another offer of drugs. I demurred and said, "Have a good week." (Why, I don't know.) He responded in kind. Two observations: First, both dealers were quite brazen and reasonably friendly. Second, I was happy both times that the guys were dealing, simply because I initially feared they were beggars, which would have required a mini-conversation and a few bucks. 

2) In an 8th Avenue diner at about 12:30 one morning, I sat munching on a grilled cheese sandwich when an older, good-looking black gentleman walked in and sat down at the next table. He smiled and said matter-of-factly, "You're so handsome." I giggled, said "thank you," and resumed munching. He continued to praise me. "Hot," I think, was among his observations. (As I said, he was older.) Even though I didn't want to encourage him, I also didn't want to diss him. So I chatted a little, asking where he was from (D.C.), what he did (actor) and how his cheeseburger was (OK). Then, he asked, "Are you a top or bottom." Three times. (If you're not gay and don't know what "top or bottom" means, maybe the Spanish version will help: "activo or pasivo." If that doesn't do the trick, think dicks and butts.) Each time, I rebuffed him, finally telling him I wasn't going to answer. I also gently deflected his hand from landing on my knee. I was a little embarrassed by the guy's question, but I wasn't disturbed by his advances. Sex is important. Love is important. Maybe he thought he had a chance at both in a lonely Chelsea diner.

3) The two companies that have absolutely cornered the market in NYC are Poland Springs bottled water and North Face coats. It seems like every third guy in Manhattan wears North Face gear. Even the first drug dealer in Washington Square Park did. If there's a business or culture writer in the house, it would make a good story.

4) January in Manhattan is a minimalist time. The air is squeezed drier than in summer, allowing only a few dusty snowflakes to drift from skinny clouds. Trees strip down to their skeletons, transforming themselves into finely lined etchings rather than thick oil paintings. Oddly, these traits accentuate the city's beauty. Don't get me wrong: I'd jettison winter in a heartbeat. Give me spring and fall, despite their melancholy.  And give me summer, give me summer over and over and over again. Winter? I like about a month's worth, just enough to see naked trees outlined against icy blue skies, just enough to make me long for the first blossoms. But I'm glad I saw the city in the dead of winter. Buildings seemed more stark, more muscular without makeup, without leaves and flowers to mask their spindly fire escapes and rough exteriors. In the thin January air, the Empire State Building looked sharper than ever. And there's another plus: Those trademark summer street odors were gone, leaving only the sweet aroma of onions and peppers caramelizing on vendors' grills.

5) I'm so fucking happy, so freaking proud that I'm gay. I went to dinner with a beautiful, charming young Trinidadian, a budding journalist, and couldn't have imagined a better life. Gay to de Bone.

From my Livejournal blog, January 2007

A Biology Lesson

Why are we we such saps when it comes to love? Because, someone said, we're biology. I think that's an apt summation. As embarrassing as it is to read some of the entries from 2006 and 2007 on my old Livejournal page, I realize I had absolutely no control over my feelings. That's kind of scary, but it's an unavoidable part of being a human being. At various times in life, you're going to become obsessed with another person. You'll do things that you would otherwise mock. You'll lose any semblance of cool. You'll cry your eyes out. You'll wonder what kind of fucking joke God -- if you believe in a god -- is playing on you. You'll look in the mirror and see a face transformed into a tear. You'll think of the guy all day, all night. You'll pray. You'll scream. You'll pout. You'll beg. You'll turn into a fuckin pussy. Is it worth it? Hell, yes.

Gay Flicks 5

8. Broken Sky 2006 
    MY TAKE: If you want to see the complexities of love condensed into 2 hours and 20 minutes of jaw-dropping cinematographic beauty, check out "Broken Sky." Along with "Angels In America" and "Trick" -- yes, "Trick" -- this is my favorite gay movie. It's unforgettable. Never before have I sat in front of a screen and been so stunned by the artful beauty of a film. You become a drop of blood in a pounding heart.
   PLOT: Set at the National Autonomous University of Mexico -- a dramatic campus with 144,000 undergraduate students alone -- the film luxuriates in its three chief characters, a trio of seriously lustful gay students longing for love. Its frank portrayal of gay sex -- frank but not pornographic -- would turn off many people. So would its pace and depth, both of which make "Brokeback Mountain" look like a romantic comedy. You could print the movie's dialogue on a gum wrapper. Everything is expressed through the actors' eyes and bodies, through the camera's mournful lens.
   FAVE SCENE: I can't pick one. Check out the video below.

   SEX QUOTIENT: Intense.

Gay Flicks 4

7. Adventures Of Felix 2000 
    MY TAKE: Sami Bouajila plays a cute, gay, HIV-positive Arab who lives in an English Channel town on the northwest coast of France. The film is a classic character study, weaving homophobia, racism and AIDS into a meandering 95 minutes. In a cool touch, it's set in spring, so the skies often are dramatic but the scenery dew-fresh, which fits the flick's tone.
   PLOT: Felix loses his job and decides to take a five-day trip -- via feet and thumb -- to the South of France, hoping to meet his father for the first time. En route, he finds a new "family" of sorts.

   FAVORITE SCENES: In the beginning of the film, the camera follows Felix as he rides his bicycle along the oceanfront in his English Channel hometown of Dieppe. It's the sort of scene that would probably be chopped in half or less by an American movie-maker. But it evokes wonderful feelings of youth and freedom. At the end of the film, Felix is reunited with his boyfriend after his journey to Marseilles. Their playful warmth is every gay guy's dream. 

    SEX QUOTIENT: Nothing overt, though there is full frontal nudity in one scene. But, hey, Sami's a beautiful human being. Enjoy.

    MORE: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/adventures_of_felix/