The Mundane World

I could say my shrink made me write this, but what the fook. He's encouraged me to simply write down and spew, get shit off my chest so that it doesn't gather, and in the gathering, gain power. So I'll do my damnedest to simply write this entry. Pretend I'm Jack Kerouac -- had the worst high school crush on him in, well, high school. C'mon, we know what went on between him and Cassaday.

Over the summer, I was involved with a guy. At first, he said he didn't want a long-term relationship (having just gotten out of a three-way LTR, and having an ex-wife made it clear to him, he said, that he didn't want such a thing). Three weeks later, he said he loved me and wanted me to collar him. He had a nickname I gave him inked across his shoulders, on his back. He was the only man I played with during that time; truly the only man I was interested in. He said he wanted a monogamous relationship, that he wanted to be the only man who got my load (in so many words).

We played rough. I whipped him, I pierced him, I shoved my hand deep in his pussy and made him shoot hard. I stuck sounds in his cock, I electrocuted parts of him, I made him bleed and got his blood on my chest and belly, and goddamn did I fook him. I fooked him with my cock and balls full up in him. I fooked him good and goddamn I fooken liked it.

I started noticing certain changes in myself. I'd find myself thinking of him and I'd cuss. I'd hear a song and think of him. I'd see a pair of shorts he gave me and think of him, and goddamn I'd cuss. I'd cuss him, but mostly I cussed me. Because I could feel an attraction to him increasing. I could feel my own feelings for him develop; I am not always comfortable with this.

With me, cussing is always a sign I'm letting my guard down. A buddy of mine once said, "The tenderest hearts have the toughest armor," and fook, there it was, coming down, opening up, piece by piece. And this man kept saying he wanted to be the only man in my life, the only one for me and I was right there with him. I wanted him to be the only one.

I set aside a time to tell him my feelings. I said when I wanted to see him, that I had to get something off my chest. He asked if it was anything bad; I said no, it's all good, that I just need to say some stuff and I want to do it to his face.

I am not always comfortable being a passionate man. I enlisted in the USMC cuz I needed a job; I ended up fighting beside my buddies because I fooken loved them, not for love of country or sense of patriotic duty. I would not stand to let them come to harm, either in the field or in the mundane world. Marines wear our hearts on our sleeves, for all the world to see, although the world usually does not like to see it.

The world prefers its icons to remain iconic.

Early Saturday morning, around 0400, a message came to me via yahoo messsenger. A URL, a newspaper story, in which I had been quoted. A reporter came to the tattoo place when the man was getting my nickname for him inked on his back; wanted to do a story about Marines and tattoos.

I fooken hate reporters. I fooken HATE reporters, probably cuz I've worked in journalism, but more likely because of another part of my history I will not discuss here. Suffice it to say, I know how reporters are: they will write what they will, they will cant the story how they will, no matter how much nuance and subtlety a source may give them. So I had no trouble giving him a fake name, and letting him believe a particular scar on my body was due to a roadside bomb. I told a story to a storyteller. What I happily gave him were insights into why Marines ink their bodies; how Marines are, contrary to the popular myth, very open about why they do what they do, open about their love of their brothers. How Marines are feeling men, passionate men. It may get sloppy -- I'm not denying that -- but it is undeniable.

Suddenly, to this man, this man who wanted to be the only man for me, who wanted to wear my collar, I was a liar. And this reflected poorly on him, for he had little kids, 10-year-olds, who looked up to him in martial arts classes. HE TRUSTED ME!!! he said. And I lied. He did not look at the situation; anything I said in my defense, even as I spoke my piece to him -- online, which I fooken hate doing because it seems cowardly -- did not matter. Nothing mattered to him except the vehemence of his own feelings. He said he no longer wanted to talk to me, ever.

Three days later, I got an email from him, in which he said he did not wish to burn bridges. While any opportunities for a deeper relationship were gone, he wished to be friends. I thanked him for his grace. He wrote back saying I shouldn't thank him, that it was a mutual friend of ours who convinced him to forgive me. And wasn't this mutual friend a "hot little fucker."

Two days after that, he told me he was flying cross-country to meet this other man face to face. One week after that, he wrote to tell me what a great time he had in the sack, what a wonderfully kinky little fucker this little fucker is.

As for me, my heart was broken each time he told me about this new guy. One week, he loved me, wanted to be the only man who got my cock, my load, my intimacy. The next, he was off and away. Had I even existed? He had previously complained of how his own ex put him in the position of being relationship counselor for the third who had entered their relationship; and here I was, being put in the same position. This new man was active-duty military. "My feelings tell me my husband has deployed and I may never see him again," not even three weeks after he had said he loved me, my hand buried up in him, up his ass, feeling his heartbeat with my fingers, my lips pressed against his, grease and mucous dripping on my tattooed arm, my own heart quickly falling after his.

And I'm supposed to be open. How do I get any more open? My feelings are there for all to see; whose fault is it when those who see them do not acknowledge them, do not recognize them?

Emerging

At long last, it's winter. So I'm coming out of my little hiatus. Live in fear.

I've been busying myself reading this book, 'Party Monster'. It purports to be "a fabulous but true story of murder in Clubland". Hoo-boy, one can hardly wait.

Now, I enjoy a good melodramatic and steamy story as much as anyone. But there is a conceit these days with memoir: one must portray oneself as having some flaw in order to make oneself believable. And the author here, James St James, has flaws aplenty, and they're not confined to his writing and story-telling skills.

In short, it's the story of a young man with borderline personality disorder who, in the course of building his reputation and 'power', did a lot of drugs, excused any and all damaging behaviors around him, and killed a man. Very titillating, to be sure. But St James never sees the obvious; he begs us, as we read, to "understand" why his pals made the choices they did. And understanding means 'look at us, we're all fabulous and high on ketamine and heroin and crack and cocaine and we made such a splash, we put downtown New York ON THE MAP and, oh, did I mention we were fabulous?'

The reader is meant to open his heart to these poor drug-addled folk cuz, well, they're drug-addled and they just can't help themselves. They can't see themselves for the messes they are, and this is meant to evoke our pity. But hey, everyone was doing it (and they were fabulous, too).

Never at any time does St James apologize for his behavior. He writes, now and then, that he is ashamed of what he does, but clearly glories in his tales of debauchery. All along, he eschews any sort of judgment, any sort of attempt at real understanding of what he's involved with, just how damaging it is, not just for him but for the community around him. It is a book peopled with those who forgot they ever left high school. Indeed, revenge on his school tormentors seems to be part of the motivation for writing the book: 'Look who's the cool kid now!'

Curiously, this story was made into a movie twice, both times by the same producers. First it was a documentary, then it was a dramatization of St James' book. One wonders why the producers would feel so strongly about presenting the material twice: money? fame? success? glamor? the sheer ability to bring to the screen the same story twice, each within years of each other?

Why would one wish to 'understand' the exploits of a man with borderline personality disorder? There is no understanding to such a thing; it simply is. We've all had the boss from hell, the aggressively needy but somehow charming friend or parent. There's nothing new here, and yet it gets lavished with attention, even when it says it does not wish to call attention to itself.

And this, at long last, is our topic: the oft-quoted line that 'drag is the mask that tells the truth'. I submit it is not. Drag -- typically gay men dressing outlandishly in order to get away with obnoxious behavior they wouldn't ordinarily manifest, but anyone may dress or behave so -- calls attention to oneself, not one's ideas. One *wears* drag; one is *not* drag itself. It is in this way that gay men (okay, fags) and fundamentalist Christians find themselves in common practice: fundies say 'marriage is an institution which must remain unsullied', and fags say, 'drag is the mask that tells the truth', when the flaw both commit is reification. (Oh, look it up.) Essentially, they hold some thing in such esteem that it becomes something more than the thing itself, more than the concept itself. It is on some high pedestal, unreachable by mere mortals, having been put there by god himself.

Ack.

Sure, we'll always have an abundance of intellectual rubbish. But dammit, this shit gets to me sometimes.