Watching a kid on a skateboard
While feeling my ankle-length black coat blowing around my legs
Feeling powerful and eternal
Lost in a moment of Art and Poetry
When my consciousness reached my head
I was shocked and confused to find the face of a child there
Weak
Insecure
And beautiful
I settled into the feeling of this face
And had to smile
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The Model, by Kraftwerk, as performed by Big Black, from their album “Songs About Fucking”
Grey…
except when they’re Grey…
totally Zane
when i was in indiana
on the way to michigan
in my father’s gigantic diesel Ford Excursion
we listened to an Audio book called
“the Call of the Canyon” by Zane Grey
told from the perspective of a rich society lady from New York (a hundred or more years ago… more, i guess)
all sorts of heavy-handed comments about our society were made
one that has stuck with me the most was this
— she gets back to the ranch after succeeding a long horse trip on a wild stallion
there’s a big dance
so she celebrates by wearing the Wildest dress she has!
of course! the girls! like to Scandalize! whoo-hoot!
some big mexican farm hand flirts with her outside
she blows him off
and make a comment to someone else about the occurrance
her beau has a big brawl and the mexican gets fired
weeks later
she encounters him alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere waiting for her beau to show up
he says
‘well, we’re alone now, i’m gonna come in that cabin with you and make some sweet love to you’
or however cow-boy mexicans a hundred (or more) years ago would have said it
she’s appalled
and, more, frightened
and begs him not to
he’s very confused
he says
‘ you dress to stir a man’s passions… yet you don’t want to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh… you’re a Liar! why work such trickery!? why present yourself as a sexual person wanting the love of a man and then not accept it?! you city people are crazy. ‘
and saunters off into the … afternoon
some big realization is made about it in the book
and i promptly forget.
Tonight
i watched “The Wrestler”
remarkable
because it didn’t really ever make me feel terribly sad or heartbroken like the last few films i’ve seen
— i felt those ways… but not in a spirt-crushing way
the ending scene was pretty amazing, yeah…
good movie
BUT
the last time you see the dancer
really working her ass
holding onto that pole
— the director did an excellent job telling that same tale:
this woman did not want to love
did not want sex
yet was working with all her energy to make men WANT to have sex with her
and, as a dancer and -sexworker- to have men love her
(one of my cousins married two strippers (with the same name, actually) and i often wondered why or how that could have happened… i’ve never really spent time in a strip club, but this movie let me understand…)
it all kinda crashed down around my ears
as i imagined some equal conversation someone had with me in the past
… i don’t know if it actually happened
if i dreamed it
if it was a conversation that happened about someone else
or about me
in europe
or in america
in a bar
or with a Client
i don’t remember
but the FEELing of an older man talking with me about how I was misrepresenting what i wanted
how i was making him believe i wanted sex or love
but not wanting that at all. . .
indeed
when i was much younger
when i first started flaunting my nudity
i never thought of it as a sexy thing
a flirtatious thing
i just liked being naked
i wanted others to be naked
yes, sensual
but not sexual
and many men called me a tease
because i made them want me
and didn’t want their advances
— i was not actively trying to turn these people on. . . yet still, my ignorance of our social mores…
and
then there’s …
how many times have i had the conversation recently about not wanting a boy friend?
and, indeed, in the last few weeks
how many times have i joked about EVERYBODY thinking i’m their soul mate?
how many boy friends i have to fight off all the time
because people fall in love with me at the drop of a hat
how many times have i sat alone
in my apartment
at a bar
on the train
walking
and wondering why people don’t seem to like me
(my confusions)
i had a client
i meant to write about him..
he was a fat hairy sexy bear guy
sexy, kinda: he was fat in an unhappy/unhealthy way
yet i enjoyed him and found him fun
but i could tell (his emotions were loud) how unhappy he was
he didn’t really want a massage
and it was mostly sex
but mostly the attempt to make him feel loved
and when he came at the end
he cried and SCREAMED and whimpered
” i wish you were in my life always so i wasn’t alone. i wish you loved me. i wish you were mine! ”
it was so terrifying and sad
i did my best to give him love
but it made me aware of why my heart is so often worn out
i’m certainly confused and confusing about what i want in life
how i want a companion
how i want to be alone
how i want love
how i want . . .
some ideal
how i’m holding out
and holding it in (as that song goes)
earlier also
my friend Jonathan got into town today
spending the night with me
(though he’s out hopefully getting laid right now)
in conversation
he asked me how to stop doing things we know are bad for ourselves
how to stop repeating the same detrimental things over and over
i don’t know how
but i told him about two friends of mine in brooklyn
who have a pretty happy healthy relationship
they’ve been together nearly 20 years
they are both pretty happy and successful in their professional lives as well
and both of them say things like this
“oh! i did that once and what a mistake! i never did that again!”
“oh, yeah, i had one boy friend and it went like this: _______. so i learned my lesson and never did that again”
really
just Once
and they learned their lesson.
some people learn
some people do it again and again
and wonder why it doesn’t get any better
the cliché’d definition of “insanity”
look at the state of the nation!
Mr welt should smoke sage
Paul is sexy as ever
But looks like a plumber… Or butcher… Or baker…
Without his beard
And some friends are always hungry
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Vintage Victorian shoes used for the F. I. photo shoot
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How could I have never met this guy before?
He lives in Jackson Heights
And has never heard of The Radical Faeries
If I could ever love a drag queen
It’d be one like this
!!!FREAKS!!!
I ran into him coming out of the casting room for a middle eastern art
magazine…
What luck!
Why were the trains so fucked up today?
Oh yeah
Mercury is in Retrograde
My brother just had a Son a few days back:
Baby born with mercury retrograde
I said
” he’ll be an artist… ”
Without mentioning that he’ll probably be dyslexic
New President
While mercury is on retrograde
It’s going to be a tough few weeks for him to get anything done
With everything snarling and fucking up
And what is a Mercury Retrograde presidency look like?
We’re going to find out.
Good times coming back?
Like Wonder Showzen “Patience”
Undo it all backwards to make it right?
Oy!
Trash everywhere today…
Why aren’t they collecting?
Garbage men on strike?
Let go?
City downsizing…?
A flash through my mind of the future where there is no garbage collection…
Now
Eating bad dinner on Houston
(wishing I could call a friend… But too sticky)
I wish he’d only give me one disposable fork…
And this big plastic disposable tray…
What is the phobia of trash?
Trash
Photos of me in this month’s Details magazine
(edit: wrong. in the April issue)
Went for two castings today…
Saw an amazing queen from Queens who’s never heard of the faeries…
I’ll drag him to a gathering soon
Columbian guy…
Now?
Now?
Go buy some magazines?
Before going Nowhere for a drink?
last night i went to see a show
some kid i read about in BUTT
and met through the faeries
i’d found him again on-line months ago
capriciously, i remember
but downloaded his performance from
spinning on air
saved it in my iTunes
and it came up randomnly two weeks ago
i googled him again
and found he was in NYC
i got two free tickets
and brought a friend
i hadn’t bathed for a few days
we sat in the audience
arriving just before the first song
but after the beginning
the boy had a high-wire voice
my companion in awe remarking
“such tension!”
i somehow love songs sung from the prospective of the mother left at home
‘these flowers’ by Martha W
what was the name of this boy’s songs?
calling the wandering child “wrecking ball”
going on
dancing with text to a Jacques Brel song
growing up with a French Father
i suppose he’s fluent
(my weakest link: only one languages; my shame)
showing us slides of his own niece
(all of his slides were moving pictures, even if there was no action)
singing a song
somehow the lyrics sticking in my head was a hammering repetition of
“i will still love you”
or continue
or not stop
somehow expressing an endless capability
some faith for the child
to know she’d always be loved
“you don’t need to be perfect”
“don’t have to”
ta
ah…
with two free tickets
i felt it fair to give him forty dollars for his CDs
happy to have some his recorded music
and on such strange little shiny discs
so antiquated already
(i haven’t owned a CD player in well over a decade… apart from what’s in the laptops i carry around)
Winter has been hard
that’s what it’s for
cold and dark
and numbing
my friend and i went to some after party
this was the end of some festival
neither of us knew anything about
free food
and some other faeries i knew
i didn’t eat
but had a $6 glass of wine
we drank and talked
and Watched
and i marveled at New York
as a child
once ( a few times )
my best friend and i got lost in Chicago
pretending we belonged
children (18)
on rooftops
in eagle’s nest bars
sitting around people with real lives
wondering…
now, here in New York
i love going to strange bars
talking with strange people
normal people
just people i don’t know
don’t know themselves
don’t know anyone
we’re all lonely here
NO!
every black boy on the subway knows eachother
they laff
and gesture with their eyes
and yell at the homeless ladies
all with the same stories
— can you fault them? they’re freezing and hungry (and fat)
someone smells of of whiskey
gone sour through a lifetime of breathing it
I’m at a party on the top floor of the Public Theater!
(sorry, i got lost for a moment)
i’m a white boy
but i can talk to anyone
so i know everyone as well
(a million times said to me ” i don’t know why i’m telling you this ” and last night i understood: it’s because i can hear you and i will desperately wish, in my heart, that you hear yourself and do something to bring yourself into integrity with your wishes or pains… and Be Alive… i hear you: i see you: Be Alive.)
I’m at a Party on the Top Floor of the public Theater
and I don’t particularily belong here
i’m not here for the free food
or to mack on the faerie kid i hardly know
who i just saw performing
— i don’t need to sit around the creative kids
to absorb their creative life-force
though i may take pictures of a boy i find beautiful
(in his meaty/pretty way)
i just love sitting here
surrounded by all the strangers of New York
some other pretty boy a few tables away
that my friend has a relationship with (they’ve never met, but for their eyes)
alone
many others in groups
many others hungry and lonely
we sit and talk
entertained by eachother
surrounded by all of these beautiful strangers
then leave
for a bar
already near 11pm
what bar?
it’s snowing heavily
heavenly
it’s beautiful
we laugh at St Mark’s street
and go into some silly automat
buy things with coins, pull down the doors
eat stale lifeless food
with bright colors!
remember when this was normal?
a few lives ago for us…
we land at Area 8
or Section 8?
and sit and talk
here
i buy us both Manhattans for $6 a pop
which is a good deal
though we don’t get to keep the shaker
(there may be only one behind the bar, i have compassion)
we drink two
and a glass of water
while watching a few episodes of The Golden Girls
— i haven’t seen it in so long:
Horny Old Ladies!
wow!
those wide faces..
Bea Arthur IS Beautiful
and “Rose” reminds me of my mother…
my companion seems to know more about TV than i would have suspected
telling me “sophia” had a stroke that allows her only to say the truth
“it was in the pilot episode”
?!!?
getting a little drunk
talking about how America’s racist past is being white-washed
and an artist i met a few nights ago is sure to include these in his paintings
a can of Uncle Remus Syrup (they actually made that?)
painted next to a face-mask of Aunt Jemima
mentioning Obama turns political
and i make the pickinini joke
“Rick Warren and a gay marching band! and Pickinini’s eating watermellon!”
and some beautiful black boy is sitting next to me
(I thought he was TRICKY when he came in, but no, a young 20-something from St Louis)
Saint Louis!
what’s life like for a queer black boy growing up in St Louis?
American, i’m sure.
then Dynasty comes on
at which point i wish i were in amsterdam
but walk outside to stand next to a shy guy
and smoke some pot i intended to bring to share with some friends staying in the Trump Tower
but now it’s way past their bed-time i’m sure
and we miss our seats at the bar and head to the bathroom
where we piss
then i suggest we smoke some Salvia
— in a tiny tiled room, the two of us (my friend of the evening)
looking into a mirror
talking about the experience of not being the self
but seeing the self there, yes
but being the self that is animating all of us
feeling the hand on the back of the head
the puppet head
the baby being cradled by the mother
ever touch is magic
everything is LIFE
we head out
back into the snow
the slushy sidewalk
past Phoenix (no thank you)
it looked like the gates of hell!
but walking along 14th street
i decide i am finally hungry
and go to get some Artichoke pizza
in there we meet DandyLion
(who we’d spoken of earlier in the evening, now living here in Layard’s old room)
by the time our pizza came
it was too hot to eat
i suggest we cool it outside
they suggest we eat it in NoWhere
so in we went
back room
tonight
lit by red lights and a huge heating lamp
there was a drink there waiting for us
– we were thankful
DL said he’d never tried Salvia
so i gave him some
and a strange leather queen (“skiing the slopes”)
stood around
looking at the pipe
having no idea what it was
but wanting some
i smoked again, my friend smoked again (i should have just used his name earlier, it would have been easier, but now i must keep up the enigma)
the leather queen stared at our crotches
occasionally trying to touch us
we shewed him away
so strange
and i was so relieved when DL became talkative again
and was able to describe his experience with familiarity
even though he prefaced it with “i’ve never felt anything like that”
he was able to talk about the layers of reality and dimensions striating with a common grace
— the last two people i’d smoked out before tonight both spent the entirety of the trip screaming and fearing their death!
(no fun)
our pizza was gone
it was still snowing
it was near 3am or 4am?
no no
i took the Q to the 1
and got home at 3:44
my apartment
so warm and cozy
i nuzzled on the day bed a bit
then put myself to sleep proper
New York
so exhausting
so lovely.
(clicking on any photo will show the rest i took)
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I followed You here
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Taken from a wall of photos in a main street cafe in a small town
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