Warning: blog may contain nudity, semi-nude nudity, full-frontal nudity, half-frontal nudity, full-backal nudity, half-backal nudity, shirtlessness, pantlessness, wishful fig-leafing.  Viewer discretion is advised; and encouraged!

A long time ago, in a city far, far away; I used do some "nude model work."  I was a pornstar.  No, just kidding.  Although I did consider prostitution once.  But that's another story...  
Picture it: Los Angeles, circa 1997.  My Hollywood career had come crashing down around me.  I think I may have had a nervous breakdown of some kind.  I mean, when you find yourself surrounded by Paramount security guards and you're calling them "Nazis," there's a problem.  Thank God their Chief of Security was a kind and knowing man.  He took me into his office and calmed me down and sent me on my way.  He knew, you see, how stress-inducing working in the Tinseltown trenches could be.  I mean, I assume he did.  It was the feeling he gave me. Or, I might've been Sherry Lansing's nephew and he was erring on the side of discretion.
Whatever the case; it was in that moment that I realized things were not going my way.  I simply  couldn't face another filing cabinet.  I'd gotten my foot in the door at a major studio and now I was retrieving a stump and leaving.
Hindsight is 20/20.  I probably should have had some kind of Plan B set up; but I didn't.  I had almost no savings.  I had a car that was falling apart. And I refused to ask my parents for financial help.  It was a habit I did not want to get into.  I needed to make it in life by the seat of my own pants.
But I had a great little apartment in Silver Lake that had an absurdly low monthly rent: $400.00.  Your read that right.  Four hundred dollars.  A one bedroom pied-a-terre with a downtown view.  When I think back on that, I realize that my landlord must've been some kind of guardian angel.  He could've gotten three times that for that apartment.  So, it was because of that rent that I was able to maintain the "lifestyle" to which I'd become accustomed.  It certainly wasn't an extravagant lifestyle.  I suppose on some level it was glamorous.  But I was over glamour at that point.  I needed to survive.  I needed to put food into my mini-fridge.  So I started looking for something in Silver Lake.  Something I could ride a bike to (or walk...and nobody walks in L.A....but I did. A lot). 
One fine day I came across a funky looking flyer on a phone pole.  "Fine Art Models, Male, Wanted for Private Art Class" and there was a tasteful sketch of a male nude and a phone number.  I put a finger to my chin.  Should I? I wondered.  Could I?  Would I?
When I got home, I picked up the phone and dialed the number.  I found myself talking to one Mr. Nick Paul.  He explained to me that the gig was a couple of hours on Thursday night of good, old-fashioned nude art modeling.  Mostly for a small group of gay men (who were actual artists).  Yes it paid.  Not a lot.  But at least it was something.  He asked me if I'd like to come by and check out one of the classes first to see if I'd like to do it.  I agreed, and a few nights later I arrived at his apartment.  It was actually smaller than my own digs.  Let's just say that the environment was, shall we say, intimate​.  Here is Mr. Paul:

He wasn't dressed like that at the time; but the above gives you an idea of his personality.  So anyway, being an artist myself, I had brought along a sketch pad.  There were about seven other men there.  One of whom I knew from college, a wry young man named David A. (it truly is a small world, isn't it?).  The model was another young man.  I'll call him "Johnny Guitar".  Johnny really seemed to be enjoying himself.  He appeared to be completely comfortable naked.  And naked in front of strangers who were intently scrutinizing him.  He seemed excited to be there.  Really excited.  I won't get into the details (Johnny and I are still great friends to this day; but I'm sure if he gives the go ahead, I can give the details later!).*  Johnny was bringing a certain eroticism to the proceedings that weren't necessarily part of the job description.  Here is one of the pictures I drew of Johnny that evening:

During the break, Johnny started chatting with me.  He was wearing a towel, so I was able to look him in the eyes.  He had a pretty strong Southern accent.  It turned out he was from Tennessee: a state, like David A., that keeps cropping up in my life.  I explained that I was interested in modeling for the class.  "Oh!" he enthused, "we should do it together some time!"  I assumed he was talking about the modeling.  Which, it turned out later, he was.
So, I had to ask myself if this was something I could do.  It was a tough one.  I had an aunt who had shamed me as a child.  She was Japanese.  She could barely speak English but she knew that particular word.  I remember it vividly.  I was about five-years-old and was on my way to the bath; but for some reason decided to run through the house naked.  She was a house-guest.  When she saw me she cried "Oh, no, shame on you!"  "Shame on you!"  Now, she wasn't doing it to be mean, 'cuz even at that tender age (or maybe it's just looking back) I could hear the note of humor in her voice.  But I was five.  And I'm guessing public nudity, despite group bathing, is a source of cultural shame for the Japanese.  Whatever the case: it did a number on me.  I'm still shy about being naked around others (even my husband to a certain degree).  So, I thought, maybe I should force myself to do it to try and get over my hang-up.  This is what I was working with at the time:

Now I really have to let my hair down.  I will herewith be discussing my penis with you.  You might want to opt out now.  

So, you're still here.  Great!  Let's talk about my junk!  However, I first need to come up with a term for it that's not quite as clinical as "penis" or as cutesy as "wee-wee."  So after a little research, mostly lists of slang terms for it, a couple caught my eye.  So, I'm gonna go with "pink oboe" but I'm going to drop the "pink" part.  So, any further mention of my instrument will be as an "oboe."
So, here's the thing.  I'm Irish.  A race not generally known for its giant oboes.  I'm also a "grower", not a "shower."  So here I was, considering showing my oboe in its natural state for quite some time, to a group of men.  Men, let's face it, often size one another up.  They make judgments when an oboe is not standing at attention (when they're all more or less on a level playing field and as big as they're ever going to get).  So there's a lot of hero worship bouncing around the locker room for guys who "schwing."  "Shrinkage" is a real thing (and not right after getting out of a pool).  And this was going to be a room of gay men: so the sizing up was going to be truly inescapable, even in an artistic atmosphere.  But, I needed that extra income; so I decided I would do it.  If Quentin Crisp could do it, then damn it, so could I!

Except, he got to wear a posing strap.

So, one fine Thursday night, I showed up at Mr. Paul's place to bare it all in the name of Art and Commerce.  I was introduced to everyone in the class, which was more or less the same size, handed a towel and pointed toward the boudoir.  I stripped down and after several moments of "fluffing" myself (look it up) without the benefit of an actual "fluffer," I was as ready as I was ever going to be.  I moved into the main room; dropped the towel and took the small stage that was mere feet away from the students who were going to be capturing me on paper, in my birthday suit, forever.  
My worries over my oboe and what it might or might not be doing were quickly superseded by my worries of holding the poses.  The poses were for varying lengths of time: anywhere from five minutes to thirty.  Have you ever tried to hold a single pose for an extended length of time; even on something as comfortable as a sofa?  You'd be surprised to realize how much you actually shift your position--when you can't.  I was on a small wooden stage with a few pillows to put under pressure points.  So, you get into position and then...
Well, you stare into space.  You try not to worry whether your oboe is going back into its case.  You try not to wonder if the people staring at you aren't making judgments about how you, shall we say, measure up.  Not just the oboe, but the rest of you.  And then, discussions begin to unfold amongst the sketchers and at least you can take your mind off of things by listening.  But then someone asks you a question; thus, drawing you into the social interactions; which is nice.  Except you're the only person who's completely stark naked, lying on your back with your feet in the air, looking at your oboe from a vantage point you've never seen it from while somebody is asking you about your favorite Mel Gibson movie (none; but you throw Tim out there because you saw it on cable once and Mel did a great job of playing a mentally challenged landscaper who likes to wear short shorts when he mows the lawn).

And then you contemplate why Mel (who isn't the least little bit gay) seemed to be so at home in that outfit.  And then comes the big thirty-minute pose and by the time that's over, all you wanna do is get outta there.  Which you do.  But then you do it a couple of more times to see if it gets better, but then it doesn't.  That is, not until Johnny Guitar calls you and asks you if you really do want to pose together?

So, you say, "Okay!" and then the next Thursday night you're posing with Johnny.  And it's heaven!  Because Johnny is fun and has a great sense of humor.  And a great bod and beautiful skin, like alabaster.  And best of all, you get to hide behind him and let him do all the exhibition; because he digs it.  And you find that your oboe, pressed up against him, works just fine.  But it's not really sexual, for you, because Johnny isn't quite your type.  And he's getting his thrill from being looked at.  And even better of all; Johnny turns out to be on the same creative wavelength as you and he becomes a friend and muse and someone you can talk to whenever you want; no matter how much time goes by.  Yes, you've made a friend for life when you were stripped naked and down-and-out and feeling hopeless.  And now nearly 25 years later, you find yourself actually kind of missing that feeling.  That feeling of despair that maybe was hope in disguise.

The End.


*So, Johnny Guitar said I could supply the unexpurgated account of our initial meeting, complete with pictures!  Actually, his real name is Joel Craig (andjoelcraig.com). 

​So, I did have rather explicit details here; but then I thought perhaps that might be a little too TMI.  And as I want this blog to be somewhat "family friendly" I ask you to use your imagination.

Man about Hollywood, Scott Coblio (aka Koo-Koo Boy) poses some queries for Chris Reidy re: the stage.

Scott Coblio: Name one person, if you can, who influenced your decision to become an artist more than anyone else, and why.
Chris Reidy: Well, besides my mother, whose job it was to buy me crayons and paper and give me her absolute support with any artistic endeavor; I would have to say Dale Shannon.  She was my seventh grade English teacher.  She encouraged my writing outside of school and even after I was her student; so like, from age 12 to about 15.  Her giving me that gift of mentorship (and friendship) really boosted my confidence in not just writing; but everything else, really.  I haven't been in touch with her in some time; but if you're reading this Miss Shannon, thank you!  Seventh grade was a long time ago; but I think the writing thing is finally starting to click.
SC: Which is the lesser of these two evils: Boring an audience or embarrassing yourself onstage?
CR: Well, I  would most decidedly say that the greater of those two evils is boring an audience.  The only way an actor can embarrass themselves onstage is to go unprepared: particularly regarding lines.  If you start fumbling for dialogue, it's over.  Sure, everyone "goes up" once in a while; but that should be a rarity.  Boring an audience is torture for everyone.  I'd rather see an actor give it all, to the point of overacting, even if it's awful acting, than the reverse.  I've done it many a time, to try and save a play I'm in, that I know is a stinker. 
SC: If an actor improvises on opening night to improve his part, at the expense of the play--but it makes him famous--did he/she do the right thing?
CR: If it's at the expense of the play (even if the actor knows it's a bad play); then it's also at the expense of his castmates.  So, yes, that would be wrong.  If an actor is good enough to improve his part through improvisation, then he or she will probably get "famous" anyway.  With a little luck that is.  I am known to improvise in parts.  But only to improve a play; never at its expense.  I know some actors don't like it. But if I am in a lead role, then I feel I have that luxury.  However, I am often asked to cleave to the exact text by the producers and I will.  I was doing the play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.  I was Vanya.  He has a fifteen-page speech that goes on for a long time.  Well, you have to make that come to life for the audience because they're going to get bored after five minutes, even if they like what they're hearing.  I never delivered that speech the same way twice.  Sorry Christopher Durang.
SC: Does it matter whether the actor feels the emotion themselves, as long as they can make the audience feel it?
CR: Sometimes.  I think the actor needs to feel the emotion to some extent in drama, love stories and heavier stuff.  But I don't think you have to "live" it every night.  You're acting.  It's all pretend.  I don't care how deep into the Method you are; but you were never the King of England.  A friend saw me in Camelot and she said I made her cry.  In the scenes she mentioned I was actually very happy; but I was emotional from the music; and I think that's what came through to her.
SC: How do you feel about "breaking to laugh" in comedy?
CR: I must confess, I love it.  I'm very prone to it.  If an actor finds the comedy or the person he's working with so funny that he cracks; he or she brings the audience along with them.  Laughter is indeed contagious.  However, consciously trying to get other actors to break because you're trying to be cute, is a bit rude. 
SC: Have you ever seen a play so bad you left before it was over?
CR:  No.  But that's not to say I haven't been to some pretty bad plays.  I find that it's usually the stuff that's trying to be "edgy" that usually goes south.  I hate the snobbery in the theater world.  Community theater is often scoffed at and that's a shame.  I've seen some and been in some amazing local productions.  I saw a friend's daughter's high school production of The Boyfriend once and it was as good as anything I've seen on Broadway.
SC: Do you think the need to perform is a method of working through some early trauma?
CR: I'm sure for some performers that is the case.  Maybe the trauma of not having had your voice heard when you were growing up.  But I think more often people get into performing because of shyness.  It's one way to overcome it.  But probably, mostly, a person does a show and they get bitten by the bug.  Because it can be a blast.  A kind of high.  For me, a lot of it is the social element.
SC: Describe yourself using three adjectives.
CR: Wistful. Curious. Affable.
SC: Is an actor's job ever truly done until they've played a witch?
CR:  We should find a crystal ball and ask Ruth Gordon.
SC: Recite the dumbest elocution exercise you know.
CR: Hmmmm.  I guess "Red leather, yellow leather" is pretty goofy.  But it sounds like a great outfit for New Wave karaoke night!
SC: What was the worst acting advice you've ever gotten?
CR: "Never put your hands in your pockets."
SC: What was the best advice?
CR: "Make it work for you."  This was advice not given to me at a theater or acting class; but when I was trying to learn a cash register at Lord and Taylor.  I have applied this advice to many areas of my life.
SC: Does anyone really like Shakespeare?
CR: Of course!  I just did my first Shakespeare play about a year ago.  It is much more enjoyable if you know exactly what is being said.  It really is like a foreign language.  
SC: If you could ask Tennessee Williams' ghost one question, what would it be?
CR: "Mr. Williams' ghost; where do you stand/float on "camp"?
SC: Do bad reviews make you want to see a play more or less?
CR: Oh more!  Unless the review is complaining of boredom.  I would kill to go back in time and see Carrie: the Musical.
SC: Have you ever "sympathy laughed" for an actor or show that wasn't funny?
CR: No.  I would be too fearful that my sympathy laugh wouldn't be convincing enough.  I had this one director who used to do that to try and get the audience to laugh and it drove me nuts.
SC: Have you ever "sympathy laughed" only to discover it wasn't SUPPOSED to be funny?
CR: No.  But speaking of inappropriate laughter: I was in Hedda Gabler once as Hedda's boyfriend/lover.  I'm a frustrated writer and at one point, Hedda convinces me to go and kill myself with one of her father's dueling pistols.  So she goes to a desk and pulls out a pistol with a foot-long barrel.  That barrel just kept coming and coming and coming out of that desk drawer.  The audience broke into hysterics.  It couldn't be anything less than a comedy after that.  But then, the audience gave us a standing ovation...so, who knows.
SC: If you could resurrect one dead thespian and put them in every show at the same time, who would it be.
​CR: 30-something Cary Grant.  Or mid-1960's Elizabeth Taylor.  Can I have two?
SC: You're delivering a monologue when suddenly you walk off the stage and fall into the orchestra pit.  You see someone filming it on their phone.  Do you:
a) Threaten them with legal action if they post it?
b) Ask them to send it to you so YOU can post it?
c) Extend the disaster as long as you can, for maximum viral effect?
CR: Well, assuming I or one of the musicians wasn't hurt or killed, I guess I'd have to say "C."  Which wouldn't have been my first impulse; but now that is the only thing I'm going to do if that ever happens!  Maybe I should do it on purpose and plant someone there to film it!!!
SC: What IS the chorus all saying to each other when they're supposed to be gossiping amongst themselves?
CR: Oh, just "murmur, murmur, murmur."

Check out Scott's gorgeous Doll World! portraits at the WeHo Wash @ 7757 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles CA or his Facebook page.

Is it weird that I based my future on an ad campaign?  "What is Remembered is Up to You"  Do you recall that phrase?  Well, actually it was a slogan.  A slogan for a men's cologne.  Paco Rabanne pour homme.  This is what I imagined my life was going to be.  What I wanted it to be.  In some ways what I still want it to be:

Yes, I was going to be a painter, living in a shabby chic loft in either New York City or Paris, whispering sweet nothings into phones to paramours who had to jet off to places like Istanbul or Hong Kong.  Or, I was going to be a writer, living somewhere like Truro or Cap d'Antibes or The Hamptons (whichever one is closest to the water).  Or, I was going to be a violin maker/body-builder/sun-tan enthusiast (although I sort of was a sun-tan enthusiast; but who wasn't back in the day?):

Or living on a boat; ready to play chess at a moment's notice:

Well, maybe not that scenario.  A boat's too claustrophobic for my taste and chess taxes my brain.
So what suckered me into this fantasy?  Well what didn't?  Actually, I believe I already had and was a fan of the cologne.  These ads only cinched my love for it (it's still my all time favorite).  I mean, how could I choose between these lifestyles?   Artist?  Aesthete?  Urbanite with giant windows?  Afternoon bed louching!

With the bed in the middle of the room yet!  Which reminds me; I've gotta go uncrate my chandelier...
I'm back.
Oh, did you catch the ray of light from the yachtsman's porthole and where it's leading your eye?  These ad-men knew what they were doing.  Another amazing thing about these ads is the sexual ambiguity.  Only one of them is gender specific (the yachtsman).  If you read the dialogue of the others, the man could be talking to anyone of any sex or sexuality.  This had to have been some kind of first.
But does Paco Rabanne pour homme actually smell good?  Well, here's what it smells like​:

The "note pyramid" is missing a key ingredient: Oakmoss.  Oakmoss is a lichen that grows on oaks and is used extensively in perfumery.  But oakmoss has been shown to cause allergic reactions in people; so the perfume industry has more or less outlawed its use.  Paco had a lot of oakmoss in it: real oakmoss, back in the day.  But now, because of the ban, oakmoss has been chemically synthesized and it's that version that is now used in the perfume biz.  Ergo, the current version of PRPH uses synthetic oakmoss.  IMHO opinion, it has ruined the fragrance.  Yeah, sure, it still kinda smells pretty much the same; but then, it doesn't.  If your brain knows the original, the replacement simply will not do.  Luckily, you can get vintage Paco pretty easily and at reasonable prices.  And the really old bottles have a puffy, chromium sticker of the old-school logo.  You can easily remove it from the bottle and use it for decorative purposes; e.g., a refrigerator magnet.

I actually had a three-way with Paco and a guy I was dating in the early 90's.  The guy I was dating was named Walter and he rode a motorcycle.  He looked very much like a young James Taylor:

Yeah, I had a three-way with a guy named Walter and Paco Rabanne.  Well, not the designer himself; but his juice(!).  ​Paco to his friends...

One evening in Watertown when Walter and I were getting all amorous; he produced a bottle of Paco and said: "Do you mind?"  "Sure!" I enthused, "I love that stuff!"  And Walter from Watertown proceeded to annoint and ablute us both in said cologne.  It was like he was making one of those ads become real. And to answer my prior question; yes, it does smell good.  It's obviously aphrodisiacal for a lot of people; ads notwithstanding. Any perfume with its own cult has to be good; like Smucker's!  
Even though Walter didn't have Pratesi sheets, a crated chandelier or an onyx chess set: he had that motorcycle.  That was pretty damn glamorous.  My relationship with Walter was short-lived; but it was exciting.  I mean, I barely knew the guy but was willing to get on a motorcycle with him.  And we went on trips on that thing.  He didn't just give me an around-the-block-joy-ride; he propelled me all around Boston and up and down major highways.  It was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life (and why I still want a motorcycle).  It's funny, because Walter--off the bike--was very much on the sedate side. A bit too sedate for me at that time in my life.  He was very quiet and rather introverted.  Which is probably one of the reasons the relationship failed.  I really liked him though. But then who really wants to still be friends after a break-up.  Not many.

Yes, you can actually purchase a bottle of Paco Rabanne pour homme that contains 1000ml (almoust 34 ounces) at retail establishments.  This has to be the biggest bottle of fragrance commercially available.  But I mean, as much as I love the stuff; who would ever need this much?  Not even the guys in the ads, I imagine, have a bottle of Paco that big in their out-of-frame bathrooms.  The only person I could envision buying the mega-economy Paco is maybe a Saudi prince who pours it in his bath with zero concern over price or over-toiletting.

The above ad is the "Writer" scenario.  It's the only image I could find.  I can't make out the dialogue but I'm sure it's somewhere along the lines of "I was trying to write about how you smell.  Stop "borrowing" my perfume."  And then the violin maker got his ​own double-page spread:

I don't know if he's having the same conversation.  I would imagine this guy could handle an entire phone-sex line.  But phone-sex lines didn't exist, circa '83-'84, which is when these ads are from.  And would it kill him to throw his dirty socks in the hamper?  I also like that these ads feature brunettes; such as moi-self (at that time, anyways).  The vibe of the men in the ads is decidedly French, which seems strange for ads in the American market aimed at men.  Particularly the myth that the French don't bathe and just douse themselves with cologne.  But maybe that's what the ad-men were going for.  Playing on some deep-seated psychological need for males to be stinky.  I mean, like I said, these guys knew what they were doing!

So, did any of this fantasy come true for me?  Well, in some ways, yes.  I have an art studio in my house that has a fireplace.  I write: not on an antique typewriter sur la mer; but on a laptop in a home office.  Do I have a tan?  No.  I gave up sunbathing in 1985 after I fried myself at the beach so badly I feared I would be permanently scarred.
Looking back on this ad campaign, I see that the models couldn't have been more Caucasian.  It would've been nice if the Paco men were of different ethnicities; but, times were different.  Luckily they change.  At least the advertisers were pushing the envelope with the inclusive sexuality.
If this campaign were launched today you'd not only have racial diversity; you'd probably have the woman (or they/them, etc.) lolling on the bed with the bottle of Paco.  And that's a good thing.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- Geroge Santayana
Or, if you like:
What is remembered is up to you. -- Paco Rabanne

P.S.: I was able to find a larger version of "The Writer" ad.  He talks of luring "maidens" out of the woods; but the person on the other end of the phone, still, could be a guy.  Which would make the writer bisexual.  Which is even more envelope pushing.

"Pride" is such a sort of confusing notion.  It's a concept that really sends out some mixed signals.  "Pride goeth before a fall!" of course is an old chestnut (or gem; depending on how you look at it).  This phrase is certainly an admonishment.  PRIDE is one of the seven deadly sins.  Pride is a literary theme that usually plays out with the protagonist suffering some kind of misery. So is there a difference between the concept of "Pride" and the feeling of being proud?  This has always confused me.  Nowadays, we actually have a month for Pride.  June.  Gay Pride Month.  If you had told me thirty years ago that the world would be supporting a month dedicated to the celebration of gay and lesbian people (back then we didn't have all the extra letters and symbols (and bisexuality was viewed as a kind of fence sitting): L-G-B-T-Q...I've lost track of what else I'm supposed to attach) I would have scoffed.  Minimum of 50 years (from 1985) I would've offered.  That's how marginalized we felt back then.  Gay marriage?  Well, that was simply never going to happen in my lifetime.  Of course I (all of us) were wrong.

So, yeah, the concept of Pride is at once contradictory.  It's both an ultimate sin and a triumph of the spirit.  Here's me at a gay pride parade in Boston, circa 1991:

Two of my best friends had moved to Los Angeles.  My other good friend wasn't really into gay pride parades.  So I travelled into the city by myself.  I was twenty-five when this picture was taken.  It kind of amazes me that I left the house in that outfit.  I was still sort of in the closet with my family.  I think the look I was going for was maybe...Castro '74?  I'm wearing Ray-Ban aviators (which I lost at a car wash later when I moved to Los Angeles).  Army boots with striped tube-socks. The cut-off denim shorts really should have had shredded hems; but I was something of a neat freak at the time and wanted a clean-edged finish.  The t-shirt bares the image of Nathaniel Hawthorne (a shirt I had custom made.  What can I say?  I was really into Hawthorne!)  Looking back on this, I now see the irony.  Hawthorne wrote a lot about the sin of Pride.  Was I making some subconscious association by picking that shirt to wear to a parade that was all about propagating male-pulchritude?  It's interesting.  I had no idea this picture was being taken of me.  It's shot from a parade float by a person I didn't know.  I came into the possession of the photo many, many years later by the fellow that had taken it.  "I always had a crush on you..." he told me when he gave me a copy of the picture (he had tracked me down at some workplace).  I thanked him.  But I had no idea.  Zero idea that this guy fancied me.  That he noticed me in the crowd and had the wherewithal to snap a pic.  Isn't life weird that way?  What if this guy had expressed his love for me when he felt it?  Would my life have gone down a different path?  During this same time period, here's a fellow I had a crush on:

His name was Matt.  I worked with him at a video store on Mass Ave. in Cambridge.  He was gay.  I nearly broke my face flirting with him but he wasn't interested.  He had a type: skinny, blonde boys.  I simply didn't fall into any of the circles of his romantic Venn diagram. He had the thickest head of hair I've ever seen on another human being. And, like Morrissey, the lead singer of The Smiths, he wore a hearing aid. His wasn't just a prop, however.  He was a man of few words. A bone dry sense of humor. The vibe he's giving off in the above picture is exactly what you got in real time. Was I intrigued by Mister Matt...? Does Dracula leave a hickey?
But maybe he did like me a little.  I notice right now that the image on his shirt bears a remarkable resemblance to my family crest. What if all that time he had subconsciously held a torch for me and hadn't realized it?  Yes, life gets weirder and weirder!  I wonder what Matt is up to today.

When I first started going to Gay Pride celebrations back in the mid to late 80's, the parade would start in downtown Boston (with "Dykes on Bikes" leading the procession), near the Common, wend around the city for quite a ways; and then end up back at the Common for the celebration (stage, speeches, booths etc.) and then everyone would wind up at the Chandler Street block party next to a bar called "Fritz."  There was day drinking!  There was dancing in the streets!  There was an even more intensified S and M vibe: as in "Stand and Model."  It was summer and it was daylight.  A large percentage of the men were more interested in flaunting their gym pumped bods and perfect pusses then they were in meeting new people.  This was a drawback of the gay male lifestyle that was always a bummer for me.  Being more beautiful and bodacious then the next person was always, it seemed, the goal.  But there was always someone more beautiful and bodacious down the line.  You couldn't win.  Talk about prideful.  That picture of me is of a very lonely person in a crowd of thousands.  I bought into that world and simply couldn't compete.  It drove me to the verge of something.  Thank God I moved and became preoccupied with making my way in the world.  I didn't have time for that misplaced thinking anymore.  Today, I'm completely over it.  But the gay world of the 80's doesn't exist anymore.

Now, if you can even find a gay bar it's going to be nearly empty.  The few people that are there are probably going to be staring into phones.  Yes, you used to have to actually go out to where other people like you were and force yourself to interact with them.  Eye to eye and through a process known as communication.  It taught you how to socialize.  And it was exciting, meeting people in the flesh without already having a preordained goal.  Grinder and other hook-up sites have really pretty much killed gay life as many of us knew it.  And miss.  I can't think that today's process is better.  It's two steps removed.  It's somehow made anonymous hookups not just anonymous but non-interactive.  "Hotel room door open.  Lights off.  Head down, ass up and ready.  Do your business and go."  This is an actual thing now.  It's called a "Hotel Pump and Dump."  Not to be gross (although it's pretty gross); it's the Arby's drive-through of hook-ups.  I don't get it.  At least we got to have a beer and dance if we were having trouble getting laid.  But who am I to judge?  I suppose the HP&D is what some people are into and that's their right and if it's not hurting anyone, well, go for it.
But back to Pride.  Around the mid 90's, corporations started wising up, realizing there were a lot of gay people on the planet and they were just as voracious of consumers as straight people.  "Gay dollars are just as green" was a phrase I recall hearing at the time.  And then this started happening:

Once the corporations started "underwriting" gay pride events; in a way, it was all over.  The Gay Liberation Movement had officially achieved acceptance from the Establishment.  There wasn't a lot to rage against anymore.  In 1985 the gay pride parade marched through the Establishment's neighborhoods; forcing them to see that gay people existed and they weren't going to take it lying down anymore (so to speak).  When I moved back to Boston from Los Angeles in 1998, I went to the Boston gay pride celebration that June.  The parade route had been changed.  It now marched through the South End.  The South End was the gay neighborhood.  "Well," I thought, "this is preaching to the choir..."  The corporate logos were everywhere; but it seemed to me as if they were saying: "Yeah, we get it--you're gay.  Drink Coca-Cola."  It reeked of opportunism to me.  AIDS was still killing people in 1998 but everyone was so tired by that point that it was like, yeah, I'll Have a Coke and a Smile instead of AZT.  There were people who were still fighting the good fight, though. People like Matt, who was a member of ACT-UP.

It was Matt and all the people like him who showed up at pride parades that have the most to be truly "proud" of. I recall a lot of looking down the nose at those folks.  A lot of "they're wrecking the party" vibes.  But if it wasn't for ACT-UP a lot more people would've died.

I think "Pride" is the wrong word for the Gay Liberation Movement.  I mean, what's there to be proud of if you're gay?  You're born that way.  It just is.  It makes about as much sense as Straight Pride.  Or Mineral Pride.  Or Vegetable Pride.
I think what the Gay Liberation Movement is really about; has always been about; is acceptance.  It's about getting the prejudiced world at large to accept us, yes.  But more importantly it's about accepting ourselves.  Growing up gay in the 1970's was tough.  Being queer, a sissy, a mama's boy, a pansy, a faggot; anything else you wanted to call it...  It was simply one of the worst things in the world you could be.  The shame that engendered I still deal with.  I'm still, in a way, accepting myself.  However, Gay Acceptance Month doesn't have the same ring.  So, I'll guess I'll have to live with Gay Pride.
Ever hear of Paul Cadmus?  He was a painter known for his provocative scenes of carousing, sensuous (and somewhat grotesque) men and women:

Cadmus was queer and super ahead of his time.  He was kind of the Tom of Finland of America. He did little to hide the gayness in his work.  I mean, how many phallic symbols can you count in the above work (Coney Island)?  Cadmus painted a series of paintings called The Seven Deadly Sins which includes "Pride," of course.  I won't post it here; it's simply too creepy to look at for very long; but I encourage you to look it up.  It's interesting that in a gay man's interpretation of Pride he presents a figure that has a micro-penis.  I don't know exactly what that means; but I think it means something.
In 2019 I happened to be in NYC for the weekend.  I wasn't even thinking that it was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.  So it was kind of startling to see that the entire city was decked out in rainbow colors.  Macy's even had a rainbow tunnel.  I have a picture of me in it somewhere; but this stock photo will have to do for now:

I wish I had planned a little better.  I wouldn't have had to run through the NYC Public Library's (another place I'd never visited) really cool exhibition about gay history in NYC.  It was the Evelyn Wood Speed Gaying Tour 2019.  I've still yet to visit the actual Stonewall Inn.  Now those people have something to be proud of.  They actually put their lives on the line.  They invented Gay Pride, although I don't think they knew it at the time.  But I think those rocks hurled at the police definitely sent the message that you WILL accept us.  I bet Matt would've thrown rocks at the police if he'd been at Stonewall.  I wonder if I would've.  Probably not; but who knows.  Who knows what you're capable of when you're pushed to a breaking point?
Here's a couple more Cadmus paintings.  It seems he too had a type.  Just like Matt's.  :(

But you know, I made it clear to Matt how I felt about him.  I didn't just flirt.  I initiated some decidedly 19th Century romantic overtures.  When I think back on all the boys I've loved before; I made it clear to all of them how I felt about them.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  But I tried.  Now of that, I'm rather proud.

The last time I was at a gay pride event was the West Hollywood event circa 1999.  I went with my new boyfriend at the time (I'm now married to him).  I remember I wore cut-off denim shorts (again) dyed purple; which were actually rather demure by WeHo standards.  That event had a cover charge.  Something seemed fundamentally wrong to me about charging an admittance fee to a gay pride event.  And less than a decade after the '91 experience; the whole undertaking was about selling shit.  Not just a lifestyle; but goods.  It was now a more commercial undertaking than political (not that I'm particularly political).  That's not to say that I'll never go to another gay pride event.  We still need them.  As far as we've come and accepted as we've become; there are still those that would like to take it all away from us.  We can't forget that.  And even if gay pride events nowadays are more about the corporate hard sell, it's still a great thing that we can have them without even really thinking about what they were for in the first place. 
​Take the win Chris, take the win.

Yeah, so I went back to the old drawing board for version #4 of 83 In the Shade and I finally think I've come up with the overall bestest version ever!  I'm gonna reload it as a Kindle book too.  So, fingers crossed.
Let me know if you have any questions.
​Chris

Well, my last missive was a little on the whiny side.  I don't want to come across as whiny.  Even as I was writing it, I knew it was a bit of a pity party.  So I'm going to rephrase it all.  But I have to confer with my webmaster first.  My webmaster is in the other room.  He's my husband.  He is the de facto arbiter of this website; and why not?  He set the whole thing up.  I'm about as computer literate as Granny Clampett.  He's also my default manager and agent; but he only takes 3%.  He also has great intuitive business senses; and so he advised me to put on my big boy pants (although he put it somewhat differently!).
So, moving forward; did you know that the praying mantis is a symbol of patience?  It is.  It sits patiently praying for prey, stock still, holding a single pose for however long it takes (and I would imagine one second in bug time is like a human hour).  Until finally, some poor cicada comes bumbling along and, well, you get the idea.  I really do believe in signs from the Universe.  The praying mantis comes to me quite often.  The other day it was an image on a t-shirt at the Goodwill store.  One time I turned to see one in my garden, in the deepest dark of night, shedding it's former skin.  That, I must admit, was a little TMI.  It was a bit disturbing.  I think that experience was a whole other set of messages.  The praying mantis starts out as a teeny version of its fully formed self.  There's no larval stage, or cocooning.  It just grows, splits out of that body, grows, splits out of that body and so on and so on.  Thankfully there's a point where it stops growing, thank goodness.  Did you ever see The Deadly Mantis?    

Well a mantis that big I think would try anyone's patience.  Or maybe one that big is telling you you need to be REALLLLLY patient.  I'm a very patient person.  I've had dentists compliment me on my ability to endure reallllly long oral undertakings(!).
Here's another recent visitor from the Universe.  A Red-bellied Woodpecker.  A most gorgeous bird who visits our feeder every now and again. About the size of an American robin, he has a bright, red head (his belly is just dusted with a roseate glow):

When a red-headed woodpecker appears in your life (and I think the majority of them have some red on their heads), according to the legends, you're being reminded of strength, reliability, wisdom, resilience, kindness and determination.  And duh, opportunity knocking.  And one sage got quite specific: "In general, the Red-headed Woodpecker is symbolic that you are illuminating the world.  Through your work."
Hmmm.  That's quite a message.   But I must make the distinction that I was visited by a Red-bellied Woodpecker; not a Red-headed​ Woodpecker, which I have yet to see one of (I'm a bit of a bird-watcher).  This is the other guy:

This little guy's population is declining.  He/she's reached "Near Threatened" species status.  Which kind of makes sense.  I mean how many people are there for him to visit that are illuminating the world with their work?  But I still hold out hope.  I mean, there are a lot of us out here, still trying to shed light on something.
Hey, at least the bird wasn't yellow-bellied.

Oh, and here's a pic of Prince in one of his early concert looks...just because.  He famously liked birds.  Doves of course.  And who knows, maybe woodpeckers.  "When Red-Headed Woodpeckers Cry" wouldn't have had quite the same ring to it though, I'm thinking.

84 ON THE FLOOR

CHAPTER 1: SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBRIBUS

I dreamt, unbidden, about Akiva Fleischmann quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong; I was always happy to see him, even if he was just an overloaded brain synapse firing into the void.  But then again, maybe he wasn’t.  I have always been of the opinion that dreams are not just the brain dumping data: clearing the circuits for a new round of useless information.  Call me eccentric; but I really do think that the “dream-world” might actually be a real place.  Another dimension, if you will.  Cue Rod Serling please.  No, seriously.  How can the brain create, in every minute detail, a person that you’ve never met before?  A stranger with whom you can have an involved conversation.  A voice you’ve never heard before; and voices are so distinct they’re as good as finger prints.  Real or not, extra-dimensional or not—it’s a very real place to me.  One I like to visit as often as I can.  Which is why, probably, that I’m a sleep addict.  Even nightmares are appealing to me.  Kind of like seeing a really great horror movie (in 3-D, Cinerama, Odorama, Emergo and Sensurround) for free!  And in my dreams, Akiva is as real as he can be…in Technicolor and 6-track stereo.
When we visit, he always seems to be slightly distracted.  And he’s always carrying a book, more often than not his nose pressed into it.  It’s like I have to take him by the shoulders and make him focus; usually on some unanswerable question I’ve put forth.  And then he’ll start to answer and then disappear somewhere, leaving me to interact with the other people in the dream, the extras.  But the extras are just as intriguing and I’ll forget about Kiva while I play shuffleboard with some middle-aged woman who can control the weather and is a close personal friend of Gary Cooper’s (who is now living amongst star-nosed moles).
When last I saw him, he was a lifeguard at The Concord hotel; a huge Borscht-belt resort in the Catskills.  It was an enormous indoor pool so the light was diffused, which meant he didn’t have much in the way of a tan.  His skin was very pale, but it had a touch of olive so he didn’t look sickly.  In fact, he looked quite handsome sitting in the tall chair, in his orange trunks, spinning his whistle absently on its cord as he gazed up and not down at the swimmers. Or at a book. He was starting to fill out too with the natural, God-given muscle development of adolescence.  He was turning into a hunk!
            “What are you reading Kiva?”
            “You wouldn’t understand it…”
            “Try me.”
            “Michael, I have to finish this chapter—”
I asked Kiva to show me the book, which he did.  On the page was an equation.  A formula.  A formula for what was the question.
            “Is that algebra, calculus, or trigonometry?” I asked.
            “A combination.  But as a language.”
            “Can you solve it?” I asked.
            “You don’t solve,” he said, “you accept it.”
So, it was always thus.  These cryptic (to me) responses to my apparently jejune queries.  But I didn’t begrudge him his academic focus.  He was trying to graduate, it seemed, to a higher plane.  One higher than high school, anyways.  So, I let him be.  Fine with me.  I wasn’t an attention whore.  Quite the opposite in fact.  I generally preferred to fade into the woodwork.  I observed better unobserved; even amongst friends.
            “Should you really be reading?” I asked, looking down at rotund elderly woman with bright red lipstick and a flowered bathing cap floating by.  “Shouldn’t you be watching the swimmers?  What if someone drowns?”
            “They can’t drown.  They can’t…die…”
            “Then why do they need a lifeguard?”
            He sighed.  “I thought you were going to see Lenny Bruce in the Night Owl lounge…”
            “I don’t have anything to wear—” But when I looked up again the chair was empty.
            “Dahling,” the floating lady said from the water, “you look like a nice boy.  That Lenny Bruce is too blue for you.”
“Oh,” I offered, “a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
“Why don’t you take a dip dear?  You’re schvitzing.”
I had been to the Concord in the summer of 1981.  I was there for a week, visiting an older cousin who worked there.  She was on the recreation staff.  It was an interesting experience.  They were filming a movie there at the time: Soup for One.  It starred the lady who had played Mrs. Kotter on Welcome Back Kotter.  I saw her once, from a distance.  In retrospect I would’ve thought I might have been a tad more impressed by the presence of a film production with a bonafide TV star; but I wasn’t.  I was busy with other things that week, particularly observing the hotel guests and lusting after a friend of my cousin who was also on the staff. His name was Danny and he looked a bit like John Denver (without the glasses) but John Denver if he didn’t look strangely like a woman.  I was also fascinated by the presence of Morris Katz, who I suppose was the hotel’s “artist in residence.”  Mr. Katz was (and I’m not making this up) the internationally celebrated Toilet Paper Artist.  He was in some World’s Record Book for having painted the most paintings of any living artist.  That is, I suppose, if you count smearing paint around a canvass with wads of Charmin, painting.  His pictures were campy, as you might expect.  The kind of thing you might expect to see on the wall of a dentist’s waiting room.  Or to be more precise, a proctologist.  But who was I to criticize?  Here was a man making a living off of his art, while he was still alive.  So, more power to him.  He was the Bob Ross of the Catskills!
The highlight of the trip was an inner-tube expedition down a nearby river.  Danny and his friends were all slightly older than me. But to me, at sixteen, with them in their early 20’s, it seemed like there were light years of distance between us.  Joints were passed from inner-tube to inner-tube. It was the one time I had smoked pot that it had agreed with me.  But not completely.  The day, as lovely as it was, seemed to go on forever.  Too long.  It was a kind of psychic torture.  Because I was sure my lust for Danny could be seen by all and I was flushing from it the whole day.
 
                                                                                             ****

​One day in early September someone else (also unbidden) showed up at the front door and rang the bell.  It went unanswered for several minutes, then a sustained pounding began.  I was lying on my bed reading GQ.  I’d just finished an article about Faye Dunaway and her “quest for perfection in everything” and was currently eyeballing a fashion spread on the new Japanese menswear aesthetic.  Most men, even in Japan I would think, didn’t really want clothing that was “architectural”; constructed with whalebone stays.  That was a bit much, even for me.  I peered at the fine print.  The retail price of a Matsuda bolero jacket was $2,350.00 U.S. dollars!  I mean, I knew that Japan was way more expensive than most places, it being an island nation and all; but come on!  It was one of the things that bugged me about the magazine.  If you added up the prices, they were asking for a simple business look by a mid-level designer the average price was like at least a grand.  And that’s not including the shoes.  “Shirt: $350.00” Yeah, right.  For one dress shirt.  I was lucky if that was my entire clothing budget for a year.  I threw the magazine to the floor in exasperation.  The pounding on the door was now being accompanied by the door-bell.  Then they must’ve discovered the door knocker…
            “Mom?  There’s someone at the door!” I bellowed.  She didn’t answer; and I knew my father was at work.  And Tiger, forget it.  “Anybody?” I yelled.  I got up and went down the stairs and opened the front door.  On the other side of the glass storm door there was standing a young woman, maybe a little older than me.  She had brunette hair with auburn highlights that was so stunningly “BIG” is would’ve knocked over Francesco Scavullo.  It was crimped and flared outward from her face and at her forehead she had both bangs and a crescent shaped, free standing hair fan.  All of it cemented into place with ultra-hold hair-spray.  Or perhaps model glue.  She was blue-jeaned from her earrings to her Lady Cortezed feet.  She peered at me expectantly a she blew a little pink gum bubble that was popping as quickly as it was inflating.
            “Yes,” I said, doing my best Fritz Feld, “can I help you?”
            “Yeah,” she said with a wink, “I’m a Girl Scout.  You wanna buy some cookies?”
I looked at her more closely.  She seemed too old to be a Girl Scout, I thought, but what did I know?  Maybe she was a den mother or whatever it was they had.  Troop Mom? 
            “Uhmm, I love those Do-si-do ones, the peanut butter ones, you know.  Do you have those?”
She looked at me again and I realized she wasn’t selling cookies.  My gullibility seemed to have trumped her apparent wiseassity.
            She gave me the once over.  “Are you screwing with me?” she asked.  “Oh, wait—you’re the gay one, right?”  She gestured towards me with an index finger and in the process, dropped the car keys she was holding.  When she crouched down to retrieve them, her jacket popped open and I realized she was pregnant.  Like six or seven months along, maybe.
            “Do I know you?” I asked.
            “I’m a friend of Tiger’s,” she smiled.  “Is he here?”
I didn’t know if he was home or not, so I just said he wasn’t.
            “Well,” she continued, “could you tell him Sheila from Lynn came by?”
            “Sure,” I said.
            “I’d be ever so grateful!” and then she laughed.
The storm door closed with a hydraulic ssssssssssssss.  I watched her through the glass as she climbed into a beat-up blue Mustang II that left a gunmetal cloud in its wake.  I closed the front door and then wandered around the house, absently looking at random pieces of mail and out of the windows at the sun behind the trees.  A group of crows was gathered in the top of a high tree, taking turns swooping down at something on the ground.  I went out to the deck to try and get a better look.  The crows were beyond agitated; they were apoplectic.  Something on the ground was moving and then what emerged from the grass and started up the back lawn was our cat, Jerry Garcia.  The little bastard had a crow in his mouth.  As he slunk up the grass in the back yard, the crows were dive-bombing him: obsidian missiles of grief, swooping down as if to reclaim their brethren.  He ignored them, and I watched as he cleared the grass then trotted up the asphalt, hung a left and bounded up the stairs.  At first, I thought the bird was dead and that Jerry was going to present me with an offering.  But instead, he went to the middle of the deck and dropped the bird onto the wood.  The bird was alive, its chest was still bellowing in and out with shallow breaths.  Jerry looked at me and then he placed a paw on the bird.  He was barely out of kittenhood and he’d taken down a crow nearly as big as himself.  He batted the bird and its wings flared out.  Apparently, this wasn’t enough of a response for Jerry so he pounced on the bird and began kicking at it with his hind legs.  Black feathers floated upwards as I stepped forward.  Jerry instinctively knew what I was about to do and closed his legs around the bird and bit into its neck.  When I crouched down and reached for the crow, he growled. 
            “Don’t you snarl at me you evil son of a bitch…” I said under my breath and ignored the cat’s claws as they dug into my flesh.  I pulled him off the bird and then hauled him up by the scruff of his neck and put him in the house.  When I returned to the bird it was nearly dead. Its chest was matted and moist; the gray flesh exposed, smeared with crimson streaks.  I gathered up the bird and clutching it to my chest, I walked back to the woods with it.  The crows circled above me, watching my every move.  I felt like Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels (“…I don’t know anything about their brain-pans but those birds attacked the children!”) as they screeched and proceeded to swoop at me.  I went to the tree they seemed to be congregating in and sunk to my knees.  I put the crow on top of some leaves and it started to breathe again and make a shallow gurgling noise.  I picked up a rock to put it out of its misery but who was I kidding?  I couldn’t do it.  I dropped the rock and covered him with leaves and then left the woods, which were quiet now—except for the flapping of wings.  In the house, I found Miss Waldie’s book on Ancient Rome and looked up augur.  This is just what I needed at the start of a new school year: a portent in the form of a dying crow.  Thanks Janus!  But there was nothing in the book about augury, augurs or auguring or dead crows or taking auspices.  So, I decided to just put it out of my mind and the best way to do that was with The Boob Tube!  I went into the TV room and started searching for the remote control.  I had become so dependent on the device I didn’t know how to actually control the television with its own attached buttons; and I was too lazy to attempt it.  The remote had a tendency to sink beneath the couch cushions but it wasn’t in that hinterland of lost things.  “Nothing is lost in Christian Science!” I said aloud three times.  I started to search again but then the phone rang.  I went out to the kitchen and answered it.
            “Hey…” it was Scooter.
            “Hi.  What’s going on?”
            “Have you ever read The Mayor of Casterbridge?”
            “Ah, no…nope.”
            “Cry the Beloved Cunty?” he laughed.
            “By Larry Flynt?”
            “No, someone named Alan Paton…”  I could hear him riffling the pages of a book.
            “No.  Wait…maybe…but I don’t remember it.  Why?”
            “I’m supposed to read them…by Monday.”
Monday was less than a week away.
            “Well, the Paton book is about someone looking for their son or something in South Africa,” I said, “that’s all I remember.”
            “You wanna come with me tomorrow while I get some CliffsNotes?”
            “Sure.  I might have the CliffsNotes for Cry the Beloved Country…”
            “That would be awesome.  Take a look.  It’ll save me five bucks.”  He laughed again.
            “Let’s go to Filene’s too.  I gotta get some new school clothes.”
            “We can hit Paperback Booksmith at Liberty Tree—”
            “Oh, I was thinking Filene’s in town…”
            “Oh, Mike,” he sighed, “I don’t want to go all the way into town.”
            “We could go to Stairway to Heaven—” A pause I couldn’t read.
            “That’s kid’s stuff…”
            “No, it’s not!”
            “Kinda…”
            “Fine,” I said, tamping my irritation.  “No, really it’s fine.  I just need pants, not a bong.”
We agreed to talk the next day but when we hung up, I felt a little stab in my heart.  He didn’t want to do something that yes, was essentially “kid’s stuff.”  The official end of some kind of era, I supposed...

Want to read more?  Let me know.  I feel like I'm pontificating into a void.