to: body
from: Ragan who hasn't seen his good friend Allison in years
re: illness


Thanks for knocking me on my ass with a terrible cold the day my friend arrives! I especially appreciate how you're dragging this out, new symptom each day. Day 1: Sore throat. Day 2: Itchy nose and throat and malaise. Day 3: Runny nose, sneezing, and overall shitty feeling. Allison would like to thank you, too. She so appreciates your timing, especially given how this is her first real vacation away from her daughter, maybe ever. Oh, and thank you for tricking me into thinking you were just allergies on days 1 and 2. I hope you appreciate all the rum and beer I sank into your system last night as a result of my false perception.

to: man I'm kinda' seeing
from: man you're kinda' seeing
re: last night


Thank you for kissing me. I like to feel your lips and stubble against my neck. Sorry if you end up with my cold. I thought I just had allergies.

to: Kaiser Permanente
from: patient
re: automated systems


If your automated system's going to make me punch in my 10-digit medical record number seven times before I talk to a real person, it's NOT okay for the real person to ask me, "What's your 10-digit medical record number?" I'm a poet; I appreciate repetition, but this is ridiculous.

to: Go-Go Franco
from: Allison's friend
re: your circus sideshow, 12-inch penis


Please stop hitting my friend in the shoulder with your freak show cock. We like Go-Go Gustavo better than you. Please have Go-Go Gustavo call us. Tell him we like his alliterative dancer name and perfectly proportioned body.

to: guy I almost went on a date with this week
from: hot piece of ass
re: impressing me


I am not impressed that you won last week's "big, fat dick contest" at FuBar. This isn't a classy pick-up line, and I'm class, baby--all the way.

to: writer of Definitely, Maybe
from: crying sick guy
re: your movie's theme


I agree. When is more important than who.

It may come as a surprise to many of you, but I’m a pretty easy person to date. If I sense even a modest connection, I’ll give a guy an earnest “go” at dating. I’ve gone out on a number of dates over the past couple of months. This new trend’s abnormal, because I spent the last few years off the dating market. My desire to date is, in part, incited by all the positive changes I’ve made in my day-to-day life. I’ve engaged in weight training 5 days a week for over a year. I quit smoking on January 1st of 2007. I eat regularly and have put on 20 pounds. I am, overall, much happier, healthier, and more confident than I’ve ever been. Finding a partner is the one change I’d like to make in my life that’s seemingly out of my direct control.

I hate to sound cliché, but West Hollywood’s a gay man’s dating vortex. Most of the men I’ve fooled around with in this city seem to be more afraid of a relationship than HIV. This isn’t to say that I’ve earnestly put myself out there for a relationship; but it’s difficult to open myself up to the possibility of love and commitment when I get signals that tell me to stop and run away.

If you’re interested in dating me, here are some basic things to avoid:
1. In the early stages of our courtship, avoid telling me that you think other men are attractive.
2. Don’t break scheduled dates, especially in the first few weeks of our affair.
3. Text messaging shouldn’t be our primary means of communication.
4. Set actual dates and times to see me. Don’t just assume I’ll be available when you want to hang out.
5. Don’t ask me out on a date that starts after 9 p.m. That’s a booty call, not a date.
6. Don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not interested in you, 5 years down the line, cheating on me like you’re cheating on him.
7. Don’t turn everything into a joke. You have to be able to engage me on a serious, passionate level. Ask thoughtful questions about my family, friends, art, and job.
8. Don’t assume that my enthusiastic desire to pleasure you means that you get to be a lazy, selfish lover.
9. I don’t recommend Googling my name and then, on our next date, acting as though you have the goods on me.

What should you do? The above list negatively relates to a number of actions and behaviors I enjoy. #8, for example, implies that I want an adventurous, assertive lover who likes to see my body quiver as much as I do his. Here are some other moves you may want to consider trying on me, should you want to keep me interested beyond a week:
1. Be happy to pick up the check.
2. Spoon me! Spoon me!
3. Introduce me to your friends. Make sure the introduction is comfortable and in an atypical setting.
4. Wait to have penetrative sex with me until after the first week, even if I beg for your dick.
5. Suggest taking me to new places. This helps to distinguish your fingerprint from the line of men who have taken me to The Abbey. You should, in fact, have lots of suggestions for where we should go on our dates. Be creative. I’d much rather see a play with you than drink until we’re blue.
6. The first few times you fuck me, we should both be 100% sober.
7. This one will be the counterpart of number 7 on the other list. Have a sense of humor. I also recommend laughing at my jokes, even if you don’t always get them.

Note: I am happy to reciprocate all the things I like done to me.

Wow! Typing all this out has been incredibly cathartic. After playing around with a number of men over the past few months, I’m ready to slow down a bit. This doesn’t mean that I’m ready to jump into a relationship. I simply need to recognize and commit to the things I want and don’t want in a guy.

I am so excited to submit Exile in Gayville to my publisher. For four years, I've been writing and revising; I've also been playing around with different creative concepts for the book. I'm so close to done. So close! The wonderful thing about taking four years to finish a poetry collection is that the time has given me the opportunity to put pieces down for months and years and then revisit words that I forgot I wrote. The distance provides clarity. Many of the poems I thought were, at the time of writing, brilliant lost their luster when I came back to them a few years later. Other poems that I thought were crap blossomed with age and revision.

Exile contains 4 themed sections. Parts 1, 2, and 4 are exactly where I need them to be. Many of the poems chronicle my father's death, academia, and move to West Hollywood to become a college professor. They are unapologetically honest; many of the pieces contradict one another. I love contradiction because I find tremendous honesty in the incommensurable. I can't wait to share this with the world.

Section 3's my Achilles' heel. Ironically, the third part of the manuscript's intended to be the most playful and absurd of the 4 parts. I say "ironically," because I normally feel most satisfied with my zanier poems. I'm just not sure if the spaghetti's sticking to the wall. Sections 1, 2, and 4 make me laugh, cry, and think; they challenge me to revisit the past and to alter my sense of future. Section 3 makes me feel like I'm reading a random chapbook somebody gave me, a chapbook I never asked for. I fear I'm being too hard on this section. Some of the poems in Heterophobia that people love and think are among the best in the bunch are some of the same pieces I came very close to leaving out of the book.

I'm giving myself another week to try to "fix" the section. After that, I'm sending it to Lethe and letting them decide. All in all, I think the second collection's better than the first.

Two Major Things to Work On:

• My compulsion to make people laugh. My first two years of high school, my perceived sexuality and gender ambiguity made me an object of torment. As I became increasingly involved in theatre and speech, the perception of my worth changed for the better. The more I entertained my peers, the more they treated me like a human being. I feel blessed to have developed this defense mechanism. My desire to titillate people has allowed me to excel in teaching, forensics, poetry, podcasting, and other forms of performance. Conversely, I feel compelled to entertain in interpersonal contexts in which my one-liners and other calls for attention seem inappropriate.
• Related to the above note, I would like to pull together anecdotal evidence that substantiates my secondary school difficulties and conduct an auto-ethnographic exploration of gay adolescence. Luckily, my father and stepmother saved almost every note from school and write-ups from teachers. I think they layout of the report would be reminiscent of my favorite book, Girl, Interrupted. This will definitely be my first project to complete after I finish my current project, an essay that chronicles my reaction to my father’s bout with and eventual death from Alzheimer’s disease.

To everyone who participated in my last entry, thank you. Many of the responses are mysterious, others are enlightening. I'm especially taken by my friend Elaine's entry. She writes: On that July evening in 1996: I would let him stand outside my door with his flowers & melting mint chocolate chip ice cream. I would pretend not to hear him knock. I would ignore how lovely he was when he waited for me; when he looked for me. I would let him go back to his rusty Camaro then I would cry for days, instead of years.

I also enjoyed Jeff's philosophical response to the query. He argues: So hard to answer when you think about the downstream ramifications...so, for example, if I unndid marrying Pam, and then try to rewrite my life such that I come to Austin as a single man, and meet Tonie here, then there's no Dylan and no Cassidy, so the decision I could do-over that would spare me the most pain would also take away too much. Hmm. Now I have Doc Bown in my head, yelling at me about the ramifications to the space-time continum like I'm Marty Mcfly.
If we assume a get-out-of-Bifftown free card, I'd marry Tonie earlier.

I suppose it's only fair that I share my own. I would have never started smoking. I was 12-years-old when I began that nasty habit, and, although I currently live a very healthy life, I know I've done irreparable harm to my body. I spent 18 years supporting an industry that kills people, so I also feel complicit in the disease and death of millions.

On Manhunt, you have the option of locking your choice of pictures. After you've talked to a person you like, you unlock your pictures for them, which translates to: "I'd like to meet and give you what's in the locked box." Men use the lock/unlock option in one of two ways, and what they choose to lock reveals a LOT about their personality and outlook toward sexuality. The first type of guy locks pictures of his cock and ass. I'm this type of guy! I'm not going to show you my twig and berries unless I know I want you to, uh, eat my fruit and meat platter. Let's put it this way: There's a dress code at my restaurant, and, if you don't have the look, we don't have a table for you. No booty soup for you! The second type of guy posts a bunch of pictures of his dick from a number of different angles. In many of the pictures, he places his penis next to coke cans, beer bottles, and remote controls. Type 2 is the type of kid who, as a child, loved to compare his penis to things and show it off in public places. All his penis and ass pictures are made available to the public. His locked pictures are of his face. He claims he's into discretion, which is an ironic claim given his propensity to hook up with men in parks, bathrooms, and other public places.

So, I'm online tonight and talking to a gay couple who I've talked to a million times. They clearly don't remember talking to me; they don't recognize my multiple face shots or my distinctive witty banter. Minutes into our conversation, they ask me to unlock my private pictures. I happily agree to their request. Their response to my unlocked photo: "Oh, yes, we remember you now? How's it going?" Apparently, my ass is more memorable than my face. This is an exchange in the life of America's next top bottom.

The State Supreme Court has refused to delay gay marriages until after the November election, meaning gays will be married throughout the summer and fall. When doomsday doesn't fall upon us, I think the dark side will have a very difficult time garnering a majority of the popular vote needed to amend the state constitution. In fact, the emergence of gay marriage will have such a significant impact on local economies that I find it hard to believe many more conservative small business owners will put their bigotry in front of their pocket books, mainly due to the current economy. When I speak of gay marriage helping small business, I'm not just talking the immediate business of marriage (like flowers, food, and party halls), I'm talking gay tourism; I'm talking millions and millions of dollars coming from gay folks all over the U.S. who will now be able to marry in our state. Things are looking up in California. I'm just frightened to think about the impact this will have in the general election. See previous post.

Don't underestimate the role of gay marriage in the 2008 election. Unlike Massachusetts, you don't have to be a state resident to marry in California. This sets the stage for an emergent constitutional crisis involving Full Faith and Credit. Landslide victories predicted for the Democrats are largely contingent upon conservative ambivalence when it comes to McCain. Suddenly, the question for conservatives becomes, "Who/what do I dislike more: married gays in my state or McCain?" I predict numerous state elections will involve unconstitutional measures that prove incommensurable with Full Faith and Credit. The question now becomes: How much time do the Republicans have in each individual state to legally get this red herring on the ballot?

This may sound funny and I'm sorry for implicating my friends list, but I was kinda' upset more people didn't say congratulations when gay marriage was legalized in California. It's not like I'm mad at anyone, I'm just surprised. The California victory is monumental. I suppose it may be easy to overlook and take for granted the impact of marriage rights when they're a given in your own life.

I live in a community that has had almost an entire generation wiped away from the AIDS pandemic. In my community, many men bolster the stereotype that gays sleep around and can't commit. I think--no, I believe quite strongly that a significant portion of the gay community's sexual and relationship-oriented indiscretions can be explained by a lack of formal and recognized legal commitment. When gay marriage ban advocates talk about the destructive habits of gay men outlined above, I find their arguments utterly ironic because legalized gay marriage would help challenge many of the lifestyle choices they find so unhealthy and deplorable. (I'm not saying that I think these things are deplorable, I only mean to point out the paradox.)

After gay marriage was legalized in California, I thought of my new potential and weeped, literally weeped. A husband? Kids? People to take care of me and love me as I grow old. Growing up, I never had a future. I never dared to dream of life past 30. I'm almost able to do dream of these things. I'll exhale after the November election.

I normally love watching presidential election results. To me, they're like the Olympics: they happen once every four years and I normally cheer for the underdog. This year will be a particularly difficult year for me to sit through the results. In November, a simple majority of California's population will determine whether or not gay marriages will continue to happen in my state. Watching the vote results on TV will be heartbreaking, regardless of the outcome. I can't sit and watch these numbers go up and down, numbers that affirm and negate my humanity, my rights, my future. While, in the state legislature, it takes a super majority (2/3rds) to amend the state constitution, the document can be amended by a SIMPLE MAJORITY of the popular vote. I'm dumbfounded by anyone who has the audacity to suggest that the rights of less than 10% of people should be put into the hands of a SIMPLE MAJORITY of the population in a popular vote, even if that simple majority contradicts the will of the state legislature, governor, and state supreme court.

Soon after gay marriage was legalized in California, I hear a conservative pundit ask Dan Savage if he planned to raise his kids gay. It's a stupid, cliche, shameful, and ridiculous argument to ask gay parents. The obvious retort: "If all kids copied the sexuality of their parents, Savage would be straight." I've given a lot of thought to this pundit's question and have made some sense out of his idiocy. Of course some straight folks think that gay parents will raise their kids to be gay. They probably think this because our culture rigorously raises children to be straight! Heterosexuality is taught in almost every U.S. institution, from churches and the Boy Scouts to public schools and sports clubs. Gay children face the threat of being ostracized and cut off from their families. Gay parents have gone through the burdens of a socialization that does not coincide with their natural inclinations. Because of this, they know the importance of not pushing a sexual identity down the throat of a child. Still, the routinization of HETEROSEXUALITY is inescapable, even for the children of gay men and women.

I write all this today because I was (and in many ways continue to be) a kid who never saw my future reflected in TV shows and movies. "Happily ever after" never included me. But I'm starting to believe that it can. Despite my fears, I think gay marriage will prevail in the California's November election. I believe that, with all its faults, marriage will have tremendously positive implications for gay men and women. I believe.

goodbye, no a/c!
goodbye, microwave cutting off the electricity in the ENTIRE unit!
goodbye, dust flying in from the under the floor because the unit was built in 1920!

hello, 2 blocks away from Fubar!
hello, granite countertops!
hello, underground parking!

"Workers begin taking apart the Santa Monica ferris wheel."

This, to me, reads like, "Workers begin taking apart Statue of Liberty."

Okay, maybe it's an unfair comparison; but the ferris wheel at SM pier's iconic, too. And it was just featured in IRON MAN. AND my heart always flutters a bit when I'm driving down PCH & catch a glimpse of it. Couldn't they have sold that shitty ride that shoots you up in and brings you down, up and down, up and down? Why the ferris wheel? The pier needs the wheel and the coaster. Just sayin'.

“Attack of the Clones”


Oh, God, I’ve become one of the them,
one of those buffed-up, cliché, WeHo-cloned fuck bunny bottoms
whose online profile reads, “Looking for love,
or a blowjob.”

My food pyramid now includes a protein supplement
called Muscle Milk, because, in WeHo,
biceps are like babies in need of suckle.  

I am one of them,
one of those, “Hey, bra!”
“Hey, bro!”
“’Sup?” guys I used to despise.      

I work out five times a week, eat six meals a day,
wear too-tight t-shirts, and own an ab roller;
I used to drink 6-packs, now I try to make them
appear on my body.

I was much more interesting when I was a chicken train wreck:
118 pounds,
    long, greasy hair,
        drunken stares at straight guys,
            a black eye from a girl in a bar fight,
                Bud Light breath,
                    Zima dreams,
                        high-pitch screams,
                            one-night stands,
                                stoned paranoia,
                            auto-asphyxiation,
                        mutual masturbation,
                    unsafe sex,
                not a regret in the world,
            Liz Phair blasting from HiFi stereo,
        countless internet hook-ups,
    overdose,
cocaine,
    insane,
        fuck my mud bucket,
            new queen on the slam poetry scene,
                painted toe nails,
                    funky smell from lack of bathing,
                        tea-stained fingers,
                            Marlboro Light mouth,
                        uncertain future,    
                    “I puked here once!”
                “I have to use the ba-froom!”
            “I’m.Okay.2.Dive.Driv.Drive.”
        “If I’m so drunk, why can I do a back flip?”

These are the things we keep
All in the Family; oh,
“Those were the days!”

“Be Mine”


On February 12, 2008, 15-year-old Lawrence “Larry” King
sat in his first period class at E. O. Green Junior High School.
Two days away from Valentine’s day
isn’t easy when you’re young and gay.
To whom do gay kids give their candy hearts away?

On February 12, 2008, Larry
sat in a computer lab and dreamed of graduation,
a time when gay birds fly away from danger,
away from the sharp teeth of prey’s mouth,
away from the ridicule of schools that routinely turn blind eyes
to the soul demise of gay boys.

His peers picked on Larry for being queer,
flamboyant, and girly; I am
all too familiar with Larry’s tale.
I know the blows thrown at face when
voices creep two octaves too high.
I, too, memorized come-back lines, like
“I know you are but what am I?”

I understand why Larry responded the way he did
when a fellow student made fun of him:
“Why do you care if I’m gay?
You want to be my Valentine?”

Maybe Larry’s response was half-real, half-joke.
Many of the boys I coveted in school
took pokes (so to speak) at me
for having the audacity
to be. I know
the paradox of wanting to kiss
the fist hitting my face, to lick
lips that spit the words “fairy, fag,” This
is a gay boy’s mother’s milk.

The next day, February 12, 2008,
Larry’s ill-fated, early Valentine took the shape of a gun,
and bullets in the face.
A day later, doctors declared him “brain dead,”
from gun shots to the head.



Lawrence “Larry” King, I thank you
for reminding me how lucky I am to have survived high school.
I thank you for every day you took attacks in stride,
for every smile you managed in spite of being spit on.

For three days, Larry was kept alive on life support,
so that his organs could be donated
to folks who need eyes and a heart.

How many gays need to die,
how many eyes and hearts need to be harvested,
how many bullets need to fly,
how many names called,
how many fists,
how many kicks,
how many punches,
how many tears,
how many funerals,
how many more families broken,
how many more of my kind need to donate their insides for eyes and hearts to open.

“Year of the Cock”


In the gay community, young men are called “chicken,” like, “Turn that chicken back to the barnyard, she’s too young to fly”; as in, “Chicken is food. Consume, consume, consume”; like, “Once that chicken’s of age, it goes to slaughter”; like, “That chick’s got beautiful plumage! I want that chicken as a pet.  I can train that chicken, change that chicken.”   
When I was a “chicken,” I could jerk off three times a day.  
When I was a “chicken,” I lived in a circus.  I could wrap my legs behind my head and contort the contours of my slim frame well enough to fit into a locked box.  When my callers were done feasting on my thighs, they’d drop me in a bottomless ocean, close their eyes, and watch the chicken disappear.  All smoke and mirrors.  
When I was a “chicken,” I learned the fine art of escape from a ringmaster who called me his “skinny boy,” his “neat freak, meatpacking, sac-o-disaster.”
When I was a “chicken,” I believed in romance and Meg Ryan happy endings and Julia Roberts in knee-high boots and prom queens fucking quarterbacks fucking queens like me on the side fucking boys from the wrong side of the track marks.
When I was a “chicken,” I baked in beach suns and burnt my white meat into a dark crisp.  My spicy, crispy chicken skin was torn apart by the teeth of a thousand men.    
When I was a “chicken,” I was anything but domesticated.  Hate for my kind transformed me into a fighter.  I strapped razors on hands and pecked, pecked, pecked.  That’s a fighter chicken’s survival.
When I was a “chicken,” I was too timid to visit porn stores.
When I was a “chicken,” porn wasn’t purchased online.
When I was a “chicken,” I bounced checks like they were kangaroos.  I had to claw into the crevices of my couch to find enough change to buy Ramen noodles at 7-11.  This chicken didn’t have enough meat on its bones for a feast.  I’d tell my suitors, “Poke me with a stick and see for yourself.”  
When I was a “chicken,” a special kind of bird flu swept the nation.  Several chickens died, and the government turned a blind eye.  Chickens of my feather still weather this storm.  
When I was a “chicken,” I never had hangovers.
When I was a “chicken,” I was naïve enough to believe all the shittiest things people projected onto me.  My ego swam in a sea of, “He’s too skinny, too simple, too gay, too young to say anything of importance, too angry, too affected, too much personality, too, too, too, too queeny, too mean to consider other people’s feelings, too self-involved, too manipulative, too pathetic, too, too, too.”  And I was/their fulfilled prophecy.  
When I was a “chicken,” I wrote poems about one-night stands and hands of men that touched but never held.  I wrote these poems until I learned to get a hold of myself.
When I was a “chicken,”
    When I was a “chicken,
When I was a “chicken,” my mistakes knew the rhythm of repetition; because mis-taking’s a chicken’s intuition.  
When I was a “chicken,” I hated myself.  I marinated in a stew of vodka, cheap wine, and tobacco.  I killed myself slowly.  This chicken ran around with collapsed lungs and its head (or at least good sense) chopped off.
When I was a “chicken,” I wanted to be seen as more than just meat: thighs and legs in a red and white bucket.
When I was a “chicken,” I vowed that, when I grew up, I would never lick my lips and treat young gay men like meat hanging on hooks and primed for the kill.  
 
 

I. I love my new tattoo. I've already received a TON of admiration because of it. And y'all know how much I love attention. I'm like Anna Nicole Smith; I love my paparazzi.

2. Guilty pleasure: "See You Again" by Miley Cyrus. I'm so ashamed.

3. I got WASTED last night. Oh, another night at Fubar. Checking my "sent" box on adam4adam.com is my favorite Sunday morning activity. I never--okay, RARELY--hook up with guys that I meet online, but I love cock teasing when I'm drunk. Well, this morning I woke up, check my sent box, and saw that I sent MYSELF a message that read, "I want to fuck." Apparently, I propositioned myself. As Mr. G would say, "She can't help being a slut on a Saturday night."

4. While eating brunch at Eat Well, this hot trannie mess walks by:



Somebody's been stealing clothes out of Rachel's closet.

Many of my friends know that I'm a lesbian expert. I know the TRUTH about lesbians. Recently, my friend Beth asked me the following question on MySpace:

my dearest dr fox. can you please tell me what the correlation (sp) between being a lesbian and attending a renaissance festival would be? is it written in the labian handbook somewhere? since i'm not a full time muff-diver, i was not granted access to all chapters.

is it mandatory? judging by the girl on girl action present at opening day of the arizona ren fest, i'm assuming it is required.

anyhoo, just thought you could shed some light on this subject for your dear ol' pal.

My answer:

Well, Beth, this is something of a trick question. See, all lesbians are born AT the Renaissance fair. They have to spend the first five years of their lives cutting the lumber that makes the makeshift Renaissance cities.

Most lesbians don't return to the fair after they visit Santa Fe and learn the mysteries of turquoise jewelry.

_______________________________

If YOU want to know the truth about lesbians, feel free to ask a lesbian-related question in response to this post.

this journal is friends only