Basic Training: The Big Sweat: 100 Workouts to Try in 2012

This is a repost from Basic Training's blog.



Basic Training: The Big Sweat: 100 Workouts to Try in 2012: Inspired by a little yoga studio by my house I have walked past a million times and wondered about. This blog post is a nod to 7x7's  "T...

the night I played Butterfield 8 at Numbers

As the piece de resistance to my first evening out in drag, I was witness to the most melodramatic acts of over the top machinations I had ever seen in person. I had only seen episodes of the like on Dynasty before it all erupted in in a West Hollywood bar one night. After the first round of cocktails, an argument between a couple of drag queens I had just met erupted over something inane as it was asinine. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a queen called Kylie Jean Lucille actually reach across a sea of shoulder pads and yank the wig right off another queen's head. Their escalating screeches soon gave way to the roar of the mostly male crowd who loved the front row exposure they had only seen on television during the days of Dynasty. Krystal and Alexis never did it up as grandly as these queens were chewing up the scenery and tossing insults in glasses filled with tears. From across the bar, a 35 year old broken down alcoholic the queens would adopt and name Kingsley the first time he did drag was busy snapping pictures of the hijinks in between trying to film it for inclusion on the public access television show he hosted in West Hollywood. Paul Trent had graduated UCLA film school 15 years prior and regaled audiences with stories of the way his sexuality was explored in restroom glory holes on and around campus.  He had taken a liking to me when we met for the first time in an aerobics class at the West Hollywood fag gym they called Sports Erection Connection. I had made quite an impression in my signature spandex combinations of pinks and purples with a torn sweatshirt worn off the shoulder as inspired by Irene Cara.   My meretricious apparel was meticulously chosen to match the setting in what was a microcosm of the gay universe. It was a virtual bath house amid a backdrop of hyper masculine camp carried out by muscular God-like clones in a locker room that still sported orange carpet from the 1970s before AIDS wiped everyone out. I spent every moment out of class at the gym in pursuit of a weight I could whittle down to double digits on the scale. The day after the episode and drag brouhaha, I spoke to Kingsley or Paul as he liked to be called in pants. “They’ll be friends again before next weekend. It happens all the time,” he said shrugging off the drama as if it was nothing. I would soon come to learn that that the god-awful cryorama jags of pure unadulterated spectacle were delicious in the right dose. But too much of a good thing can spoil the appetite for anything, as I would soon find out. As I drove along Sunset Blvd. the evening I had overtweazed my eyebrows, I was pleased as punch to be back in what appeared to be  Kylie’s good graces. I had looked up to Kylie as the big sister I never had even if she was a he.The Dynasty bitch contest was beneath her, in my estimation. She had vowed never to speak to me again only four days prior when I confessed that I had unknowingly slept with her ex boyfriend. I had no idea I was dishing out sloppy seconds when I bedded the beauhunk to the bane of Kylie's existence. Kylie's issues soon came to the spotlight when it became obvious that it was All About Eve as in all about me. I was Eve to Kylie’s interpretations of Margo Channing with the bravado and hubris towork the room. She could chew up a scene and spit out the lines like a bulimic puking acid.. For the rest of the time I would spend in the lair of Kylie Jean,she made it her life’s mission to have me ruined. I was crushed after she cut off our friendship and sought advice from all who would listen about ways to woo her back . So when I was invited out for a night with the “girls” the next weekend, I couldn’t hide my glee. It didn’t even dawn on me that the sickening sweet tone of Kylie’s voice was meant to mask the venom he meant for my bloodstream. We arrived at Numbers the place on the Sunset strip for daddies and their boys. Quilted tufts of red pleather lined the luxurious booths that dotted the dim night spot. The place was built for high priced Hollywood hunk hustlers to ply their trade to the rich, well-heeled and oiled power brokers of Hollywood. David Geffen was rumored to have a private booth reserved there. I had been to Numbers before, having been introduced by my college guy pal Steed who lambasted me for my lack of understanding about the high price of USC tuition as mine was always paid for. “Some of didn’t have rich parents,” he would point out. I have to work for a living.” I lived vicariously through his high priced hustler routine as I eavesdropped on more than one occasion from the adjacent booth while he outlined on a cocktail napkin what it would ultimately cost his companion to elicit his services.  He had the routine down to a science and would always call me the next day with tales of the wealth he had gained by setting high standards. When I waltzed into Numbers on the arms of Kylie flanked by the drunken Kingsley, I regarded that I was indeed noticed. Murmurs of “an all American boy,” could be heard as I walked to a rich red booth. I hopped up on the table and threw one leg over another in a kick up my heels celebratory power gesture. I loved being young, gay and single and looked it in my pink jeans that everyone thought were made by Versace. A bright, polyester top bedecked with butterflies in baby blue hue contrasted with my tight pink painted on jeans. I had youth on my side and knew I was a commodity for the moment. I was the number one It girly boy of the minute in that Sunset Strip boy bordello. I was surrounded by some of the most gorgeous seemingly sophisticated men I had ever seen and none of them were within my grasp as we were all prey to the predators at large. Soon, I found myself scrunched into a lavish center booth nuzzled up next to an overweight, aging self-described Hollywood power broker named Dick after what he tried to see of me. The drinks flowed and my lightweight frame soon fell victim to the effects of too many fruity daiquiris that didn’t feature a hint of alcohol. I drank them down like Slurpees until my world was spinning. In a surreal dreamlike sequence of images, I flashed in and out of states of awareness. The graying geezer feeling me up underneath the table was clearly trying to impress me with tales of his affiliation with ToddA-O the groundbreaking wide screen film format developed in the 1950s by Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband Mike Todd before he perished in the crash of his plane lovingly christened Lucky Liz after his voluptuous wife with the violet eyes. Entranced at the prospect that I was sitting a degree or two shy of affiliating with Elizabeth Taylor, I let myself be wooed by this poster candidate for Viagra with one foot in the grave. I was old enough to be his great grandson which would have made him a pedophile to my prepubescent prey if I was a handful younger. As the drinks clouded my judgment, I could feel myself growing under the pink Versace knockoffs. Something about being desired was a thrill. But then, I saw a would be buzz kill as a guy I had brought home to my dorm a few months prior suddenly spotted me and my hard-on being groped by the troll of Todd A-O fame. I was mortified that someone from my burgeoning fuck web should see me doing business like the type I prided myself at learning by the ropes in this working boy bar.“Glad to see you’re still in school", smiled this cute guy who had once come all over my dorm bed. “I love being a man,” he had said upon climax. It was one of my earliest conquests having been brought home from an early night out in the Weho bars. I didn't quite know the rules of the male dominated makeout room when I had hosted the hottie who now mocked me from across the table. He took up a seat next to Kingsley and glared downward at the groping grip of the gray haired geezer who was trying his best to unsheathe my candy table-side. “What are you doing now?” I inquired half-heartedly as I feigned disinterest in a been there, done that kind of weariness. He launched into a litany reciting a slew of activities he purportedly did in the months since we had fucked in my student dorm room. “What am I doing now? What am I doing now?” he repeated in seething spurts of spittle. “I’ve been…da da deed ah dah tum.” but his words were a blur. All I could hear was the laughter spat by a drunken Kingsley who took great delight in the episode unfolding before him.  with the graying geezer groping me in between tales of Liz and Todd A-O and the mad like a hornet former boy toy of my early sexual half-life spewing swords like a snake into my space.
The name of the plane that killed Mike Todd was named Lucky Liz as in the way someone was getting lucky at my expense while I did my best turn as Butterfield 8, one of Liz’s best roles.

 Just ask anybody. And on the other side of the booth sat Kylie Jean who weaved a web of cigarette smoke and smut as she described events taking place across the bar where someone was negotiating with her Argentinean heartthrob actor friend, a man called Giorgio like the perfume. "There he is,“negotiating with Giorgio”, which I soon learned was a euphemism for drug dealing or black market sex or anything ferreted across state lines in cadavers used for mules. It was all sweetly sordid and my head slimed in strawberry daiquiri Slurpeed decadence with a twist of lemon. When they rang last call for alcohol, my next moment of clarity occurred sometime around 3:00 AM on the rooftop pool deck of the West Hollywood Palms Apartments, a fag infested, overpriced ratfuck tenement on prime West Hollywood real estate that Kingsley had lived in since the decade he was sober. At my most present moment of clarity in the wee hours of the morning, I lounged languidly in the chaise as the graying geezer of Todd A-O fame tried to lure me into committing unseemly acts.

the mystique of Bellevue Housewives when I was growing up

I found this saucy little article debating the existence of a The Real Housewives of...Seattle? Having grown up in Bellevue, the second largest city and sixth wealthiest of 522 communities in the state of Washington, I was used to the mystique of the Bellevue Housewife long before Wisteria Lane was a weed in Marc Cherry's garden. Bravo was still only a bandit or a cheer but housewives that would come to be known as real or desperate depending on the network were very much part of the reality of life in Bellevue. This is a little article I found on the subject. My two cents are included under the handle "a boy from Bellevue" since I chose not to use my real name out of fear of reprisal from the community I came of age in.

Examining the odds that Bravo's infamous series will wind up in our neck of the woods. By Jessica Voelker “SEATTLE IS ALWAYS A POSSIBILITY,” says Shari Levine, senior vice president of production at the Bravo network. “But we haven’t found the right group there.” By “group” she means group of housewives—Real Housewives—like the sparring succubi from Orange County who started it all back in 2006. After droves tuned in to watch that cadre of surgically enhanced cuties shop, squabble, and sip ginormous goblets of chardonnay, Bravo took the show to New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Miami, Washington, DC, and Beverly Hills. In its juiciest moments, Real Housewives can attract upwards of four million viewers, but not every spinoff has scored: Bravo dumped its DC show after just one dismal season. So could Seattle work? Carly Chillmon, a sociologist and adjunct professor at Seattle University, says no. “Based on the demographics, I would suggest a Real Housewives of Bellevue over Seattle,” she says. Bellevueites are wealthier than Seattleites, she points out, and traditional marriages are more prevalent on the east side of Lake Washington. And while the TV housewives aren’t all actually housewives—many work, some are divorced or single—a zest for upscale shopping seems to be required. From a cultural point of view, Chillmon says Bellevue makes for a much more suitable backdrop for the show. “Take the Shops at the Bravern,” she says. This collection of luxury retailers, with its concierge service and high-end health club, speaks to a city that could provide the sort of luxury lifestyle rubbernecking that Real Housewives viewers crave. But Hermès bags and valet parking aside, there may be another reason we’re unlikely to see reality cameras lurking around our neck of the woods. And that, oh shy citizenry, is the Northwest’s notorious introversion. In the words of Shari Levine: “Taciturn doesn’t make for great television.”

I had to chip in my two cents albeit anonymously.

By a boy from Bellevue on Feb 28, 2012 at 4:06AM I grew up in Bellevue and constantly heard sideways comments about the Bellevue Housewives of which my mother was qualified to be affiliated. The distinction brought to light realities of the Belleuve housewife lifestyle that were true even though no one openly admitted to them. Shopping and spa references added to the sterotype that was based in truth since most of the women made a habit of vacationing at Canyon Ranch spa or Lacoste. My mother and her friends spent a lot of time playing tennis, shopping, going to lunch, attending trunk shows and going to black tie charity functions. They also worked out incessantly at the Bellevue Athletic Club with their own personal trainer who sometimes came to the house. Having the house decorated was a big deal even more so at Christmas when someone was called in to decorate the tree that family wasn’t allowed to touch. Second homes in Chelan were host to holiday tennis tournaments for people from Bellevue. Overhearing a conversation of Bellevue women when I was just 11 years old, I learned about the difficulty inherent in finding the right cleaning woman or a gardener who wouldn’t ruin the rhododendrons. The housewives were undeniable since they were the backbone of the community, running the kids to school, arranging family life and making everything operate the way it should, leaving their husbands to bitch about the cost of tuition while holding court in the steamroom of the BAC. It was a homogenous community of white people in a world of Native American names. No one had seen a real Native American up close since they were all run out of the area a century before.

Julie Christie's chagrin

This is a missive I hammered out to my old college friend Timothy Brodt upon the release of his pal Michael Sucsy's production of Grey Gardens for HBO.


 Dear Tim,


 You can tell Michael (Sucsy) he ought to be canonized as far as I'm concerned. See, like Edie, it can be said that I "only care about three thigns, the Catholic church, swimming and dancing.". Michael Sucsy has done an absolutely superb job, heaven on earth, no less of brining the sacred Edies to the narrative screen.

I have been waiting for this film to come alive since I first heard of Edie sometime in 2001 after I moved back to San Francisco. With my life up in arms again, I depended on everything Edie to right my world. I had never related to someone as much as I felt infinitely drawn as she described the revolutionary costume. Dressed for battle, she wore her full length glove to hide the fist raised in protest against the establishment that espoused long established norms of what we as people were supposed to abide by.

When I stumbled upon a niche market crowd of Edie followers, we traded observations on a Yahoo chat group. There were people from the East coast that included someone who had met the Edies personally. His name is Walter Newkirk and he has since published a number of Edie related treasures from his own dealings with the mavens.  He was the first person to tell me about the narrative film that was rumored to be brewing in pre-production.  Starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, I was thankful that it wasn't going to feature Julie Christie, because like Edie, although I'm not disputing that she is a splendid actress, if anyone's going to play Edith Beale, it ought to be Edith Beale, (or the closest living portrayal available)

For Christmas that year, I received a copy of Little Edie, Live, -- Newkirk's original college interview that he completed at Grey Gardens while he was a student at Rutgers University.

And as I've related before, there is evidence that my path was destined to cross with the Edies in the scene from the documentary where Big Edie writes the check to Brooks Hyer for $25 for three cuttings. It is dated September 13, 1973, two days before I was born. I knew the film Walter spoke of and the one I would be reading about in the trades would simply have to come to fruition for the universe to be right. And when you told me that the director was an old friend of yours, I knew that it was a Divine message that it was all meant to be. Because you are such an old and very special friend in my life and someone who has  known me since I was barely 20, the fact that Michael Sucsy was someone close to your life seemed entirely apropos. I am only a degree away from direct affiliation with the film. And how exciting is it that you had lunch with Michael and Christine Ebersole after the Broadway debut. Because I can't afford trips to Great White Way to attend Broadway shows, I am relegated to watching clips of the musical on Youtube but when I saw Christine sing Around the World as Little Edie, I cried real tears when she sang of Edie's plans to hang the birdcage for a bird that flew away. Like her, I have put many plans on the shelf that I mean to complete someday. When Edie feuded with her mother and acted out by singing "incorrectly" I knew it was a last ditch effort to stage rebellion.

I lamented her lost suitors one by one all the way down the Getty because I understand that she was a staunch character who didn't simply want to marry a stockbroker she had played tennis with at the Maidstone Club since she was `12 years old. I have scoured the Internet for scenes from the musicals first act when Big Edie sang melodies for the Junior League with George Gould Strong. Not in 20 years did he and Edie ever get along. And although it may be a hard pill to swallow, no more than the pate was really giblets for the cat, I understand how easy it is to become accustomed to one's environment even when it turns into squalor. I have adjusted to the bottom when my environment has turned to squalor more times than I care to remember and I can truly see how the mess just gradually overtook the Edies existence while they lived in blissful ignorance around it.
In the words of Big Edie, "Everything is good that you didn't do. But at the time, you didn't want it. You can't go around saying, 'sure I feel gorgeous right now.', because everyone thinks and feels differently, don't they."
And because of that, I shall have no regrets. I finally feel like the missing piece of my relationship with the Edies is bringing closure. The documentary is the historical corrective account  and the first record but Michael Sucy's adaptation will dance the Edies in mainstream culture and live into eternity. They'll go together like birds of feather, two peas in a pod, tea for two, two for two. And I loathe Marlene Dietrich, says Edie.

"You look absolutely wonderful, honestly."

Because the Edie's never go out of style, I decided to repost some old correspondence I had upon the advent of Grey Garden's rebirth.

H urray. Hurrah. Finally, at last the feature film version of the best thing in the whole world, Grey Gardens is premiering on HBO, Saturday, April 18. I rushed and ordered the network on my cable service as soon as I heard the news. I have long been obsessed with everything Edie. I was intrigued about the story the first time I read about the film in an unnamed festival program. The famous photo of Edie in the ratty fur coat standing in front of the mansion haunted me. Was it taken during "another winter in a summer town"? Edie's iconography astounds me. Anyone who dares ask me the question, "what is Grey Gardens?" deserves my venom as I have little patience for those who are not as culturally evolved as I am. How do I begin to explain the Edies and my inherent devotion? Oftentimes, when coming across her (during a forced viewing of the DVD) people will ask "what is wrong with her? Was she schizophrenic?" Just as there are some people born with the gift of clairvoyance, I believe there are those of us who understand the gifts that Edie had. My own biological mother, herself schizophrenic once said, "I'm not crazy, just extra eccentric". I truly believed she was. Edie was just as kooky and unconventional. Her words and phrases have transcended time immemorial.  Because of my ultra devotion to GG, I was even more thrilled when my old friend Timothy (from USC) explained that the director, Michael Sucsy was a long time friend of his. Wouldn't the members of my online fan groups be thrilled for me? Being the starfucker that I am, such a degree of separation is unbelievable. This is a transcript of the communiques passed between me and Tim with a brief bon mot from Michael, the director.

From Timothy Brodt April 8 at 11:28am
 I cried the first time Michael showed it (the feature film) to me. I'm so proud of my good friend having made something so beautiful. I'm going to the premiere on the 16th. He's even in awe that his first film is premiering at Manns Chinese and the Zigfield (sic) in NY

This is what I wrote to Michael Sucsy
. Hello Michael,
 Timothy Brodt is a friend of mine from college. When I saw your name on his friend list, I asked him if it was the same person who directed Grey Gardens as I had been following the scuttlebutt of the film since its inception. Needless to say, I am decidedly in awe of being so closely connected to Grey Gardens via the degrees of separation inherent in our lives.Tim told me he sent you an email I wrote after seeing promotional snippets of the film. You are to be commended. Based on what I've seen, you've done the Edies tremendous justice. I presume Julie Christie's name didn't come up in discussions of casting? I'm being facetious in reference to Edie's insistence that only she, herself be allowed to play Edith Beale. An interesting parallel, I noticed in the Beales of Grey Gardens, Al or David threw out a name and asked Edie if she would consider Ethel Barrymore to play herself. She responded positively although she had no idea who would play her mother. The casting of Drew was homage to that conversation. I am waiting with bated breath until the film debuts on television. I am happy Tim is going to the premiere. Thank you for deciding to pursue this project. I can't believe I'll finally be able to see what life was originally like at Grey Gardens. Grey Gardens, the brand resonates with me on so many levels. With adoration, Michael Thomas Angelo

 Michael Sucsy's reply: "You are so sweet. I hope you enjoy the film."

Marooned on the Blue Lagoon

 My formative years were grounded in a negative perception of self image and a depressive loathing that laid the path for years to come. In 1980, my divorced father and his new wife belted me into the back of their station wagon and took me to the drive-in showing of Herbie Goes Bananas.
 I had no interest in the trite telling of a VW bug's life. Bored and bitter, I peered through the rear view window to discover an angel of an image. When I saw Christopher Atkins frolicking on the beach of the Blue Lagoon, I felt a dreamy warm chill flash through my gut. Doing a 180, I read his gorgeous, full lips word for word through the back window since I couldn't hear the spoken dialogue. From the front seat, my dad growled at me to turn around and focus on the film we had bought tickets for. I was only able to catch brief glimpses of the tan, toned physique of what appeared to be a blond sun god before I was relegated to Disney doldrums.
Forbidden and banished from my evening in the twilight of the Blue Lagoon, I wept in angry tears.
"You're not old enough for Brooke Shields." my father scolded.  I neglected to tell him that it wasn't her I was interested in although I had loved her work in Pretty Baby.
Later that night at home in the dark, I fantasized about the flash of Christopher's bare flesh that I had glimpsed through the back of the station wagon, if only for a beautiful albeit brief moment. Hollywood's image was forever in my head. The bleached, athletic prowess of a California beach boy stayed in my subconscious and served as the ultimate prototype of perfection.
As I shed the poundage of a barely tolerable  childhood, puberty led to adulthood and a modicum of self-acceptance. Still,  no matter what I looked like in the mirror, an uncomely nerd stared back. This dreadful image followed me through high school into college and a young adulthood spent in a microcosm of looksism: aka Hollywood.
Slim and suddenly able to compete in a model's market, I maintained the destructive behavioral pattern fueled by an inaccurate self perception. Christopher Atkins moved on to yesterday's news but his masculine ideal remained the golden-haired standard. I became bewitched by the beefcake icon imagery set by  American Model Guild. The  tantalizing unattainable bulge in the photos  haunted me.
Upon a recent evening set in my current habitat of ennui, I met my childhood wet dream incarnate. A friend showed up at my door with what I perceived to be was some random street trade he had dragged in until he revealed  a sense of familiarity with the sexy stranger.
 I was introduced to a blond beauhunk named Bjorn who laid it on pretty thick with complimenting me the first moment we met. "Why didn't you tell me he was so fine?" he asked my friend in reference to me.
  I dried the dish soap on my ragged jeans and considered it a welcome substitute for the laundry I was too broke to do. Luckily, the faded frumpy cornflower blue sweatshirt I wore was baggy enough to hide evidence of my neglected abdominals.
Since I had been wearing the same drab dress for over a depressive week, I cursed myself and hurried to the loo to implement damage control. I remembered reading that Bette Davis was dubbed the "little brown wren" upon her Hollywood arrival and I flashed to that image. A split second later, I heard Piper Laurie's cacophonous curse in taunting tones lecturing  in my ears. Just like she did as Carrie's mother  in the Stephen King film about the telekinetic teen, she screeched "They're all gonna laugh at you,"  which I translated to mean "He's never going to f**k you." Over and over, the sirens taunted me. The blond Venus in my living room must have mistaken me for someone else.
When I finally rejoined my company I flashed on the scene from Terms of Endearment when Shirley Maclaine does a fast-switch with her hairpiece in the ladies room before she lunched with Jack Nicholson.  If she could dance the entire Nutcracker ballet suite with a broken ankle like she did for the Washington ballet in the 1950s, then I could fake my through social niceties with my childhood lover fantasy.
But then Bjorn took off  his shirt and off before I could say Paris Hilton  I had already uttered the obvious with a quip that I must have channeled from the heiress with an airhead image.  You're hot, so hot," I salivated.
My friend guffawed in glee as I shot a grim glare his direction.
I accepted Bjorn's lavished attention   much less gracefully than Shirley did in her dance of the lost cupcake.
Since I had seemingly silenced my friend in one stone like stare, he busied himself perusing the craigslist m4m postings as  I sat beholden by Bjorn. He layered the saccharine on tri-fold and lambasted me with butterfly kisses.
"I dreamed of you last week." he said. As we had just barely met, I questioned the validity of this statement.
He seemed very eager to seek my approval as he implored me to read his journal. As he thrust a tattered, careworn steno pad into my lap, I was transfixed and read his enthursiasm as endearing.  Scrawled in a  handwriting script  that was psycho Palmer method, the words "treatment journal" were scribbled in magic marker.  After flipping the cover,   I was still able to eke out a semblance of translation from his prose. I guessed it was something to the effect of song lyrics or a dream sequence but I could not be sure.  I don't know which of his boyish attributes appealed to me most, but  I sat back to  interview  him with the professional  journalistic focus I had learned in college.  I was anxious for a chance to practice my Anderson Cooper impression and jumped right into what appeared to be a brewing story.
Bjorn seemed a bit off balance. Yet, it was a quality I could relate  to as evidenced by the number 5150 tattooed on my arm. Branding myself with such a cuckoo's scarlet letter of sorts instantly identified me as someone who was no stranger to the inside of a psych ward which seemed to score me some points with Bjorn. He lapsed into a deep, throaty rendition of a Kurt Cobain tune as he revealed a revelation that he had once attempted to overdose. I brought up the obvious parallel between the wispy singer's suicide and Bjorn's own tragic trajectory.
As I probed him for sketches of a biographical narrative, it began to take shape. He made references to a broken home, a neglectful mother and tyrant father. I pictured the young, blond, curly-haired innocent Dickensian character. It was Hawthorne's tragedy of the marble faun.
Then he told me I looked like a rock star. Leaning into within an inch of my ear he confessed that he only watched straight porn as if the prospect of homo porn was entirely inappropriate to view during gay sex.
By the end of the interview, I had discovered even more parallels that seemed monumental no matter how trivial. 
As I stared into eyes that reminded me of the deep blue sea, my private longings had unintentionally surfaced.   I imagined being sucked affectionately and repeatedly followed by a bath in warm bubbly tap water
By this time, I was living an out-of-body experience or did I only want to because he said he did? No stranger to attempted suicide, he parroted other accounts I had heard about near-death as he described tales of ominous light coupled with a feeling of peace that led to the spirit levitating above the body ad infinitum.
My mind was overrun with themes of suicide, pills, teen-age delinquency, sex, psych-meds and pornography packaged in the bulging briefs of a blue eyed, blond haired walking hard on.   I was beside myself  in complete disbelief. I pictured a paperback novel with Fabio on the dog-eared cover. It would be a   hallowed story of this lusty squire.
Suddenly he was overcome with passion and we were two babes in the woods with a determined dynamism. My sexual half-life up to the present had been primarily dominated by the hurried hushes and carnal urgings uttered by straight-as-identified men. I was totally disconnected from the 'wow' factor for years. Having humored the homophobic hostility of MSM (men who have sex with men)along for so long, I could barely remember the sparkle kiss of contentedness shared with another man.
Bjorn's tranquil caress brought me to Xanadu. I flashed on Olivia Newton-John and a memory of Let's Get Physical reverberated through my physique. The Nirvana-like euphoria I experienced made me question the association Bjorn made between himself and the wispy shadow of an icon: aka Kurt Cobain.

"(aside, spoken to myself  as if the fourth wall was revealed) "I enjoyed myself sexually but how could I not? He's completely unreal and I'm still not so sure that he is not one hundred percent cuckoo-loo. That explains why he claimed attraction for me. He has to be nuts. Or ulterior motives are in play. I'm out of the running. I can barely stomach myself. How can he?"

I wanted to bask in the promising pillow talk and dream of my future ex-husband. I tried to picture myself as the second half of two dads to his children. But then he lapsed into baby-talk and for a while looked and sounded like an eight year-old. He sat on the floor and surrounded himself with a Mr. Wizard-like set of drug paraphernalia. He seemed to be playing patty-cake with a witch doctor's unction. I knew Bjorn had a drug-induced past which was another trait he shared with me. The unguent combination he prepared in the spoon looked unlike any injectable substance I had ever seen. "It's synthetic cocaine," he offered. "Want a hit?"
Good Lord!! Being an advocate for junkie's rights had never exposed me to this sideshow. I soon learned that Bjorn's synthetic coke was actually a crushed-up and watered down smattering of Welbutrin mixed with another undetermined psych med, "dipped in Ecstasy" that was actually heated by flame and drawn up in clumps through a used syringe.
 I knew better than to look this "hung like a (gift)-horse" in the mouth and my optimistic dreams of coupledom gave way to self chastisement.The familiar lashings of self-doubt and hatred caustically attacked me from the eaves of my id. Bjorn was gone. Way gone. As he left upon Aurora's awakening at the break of dawn he blew me (and then a kiss) vowing to return for the nascence of our relationship, it turned out to be the nadir since  I have not seen him since. I bid farewell to him and adieu to the hateful imps wreaking havoc on my self image. I realized I could never imagine that I would somehow be worthy of the attention he lavished on me. And by the rate things are going, I'm not sure I ever will. God save me from myself.

"Supporting the decay of our once great nation."

 In honor of the topic discussed below, I have included a clip of the woman who started it all. Christine Jorgensen. The first woman to have a sex change which she successfully endured as the first MTF to undergo it, she blazed the trail for trannies to be able to match their outside with how they felt on the inside. Chaz Bono is today's public face of gender reassignment and based on the experience I described below, he's pissing a lot of people off.
Way to go Chaz.

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  Chaz Bono was a hot topic a few months back when he joined Dancing with the Stars. I came across a lot of brouhaha or I should say "bullshit" perusing Youtube. The comments responding to a clip of one of his appearances revealed the ignorance that is rife in our culture around transsexuals. There were a number of comments that rejected Chaz' decision to change his gender. I had to come to his defense and posted this under my screen name LastChanceLife.

  
  

   As a man, he continues to make tremendous inroads towards the acceptance of LGBTs, especially trannies. I admire his strength considering the difficulties he endures through discrimination.

  LastChanceLife 2 months ago

  
  

  That started a back and forth between me and an asshole who calls himself "Some random feller".   He felt the need to post the following. 

  
  

  @LastChanceLife its a she, or i suppose "it" would be more appropriate nowSomeRandomFeller 2 months ago
• Which is when I responded with:@SomeRandomFeller You are revealing your ignorance and intolerance by insisting that the pronoun used to describe Chaz Bono should be it. He is a human being and deserves to be described by the gender signifier of which he identifies, in this case, he. You on the other hand are abhorrent and therefore are better classified as a "it" and an asshole.

  
  
• That really set him off.  I received a full fledged diatribe where he left no doubt as to the depths of his complete ignorance and intolerance.      

  
  

  @LastChanceLife  Take your politically correct bullshit and blow it out your ass. Just because some freak decides to mutilate its genitals because they have the audacity to know better than nature does not mean I will support such crap. You liberals want to shove this shit in peoples faces and FORCE them to accept it. I will not. People like you support the decay of our once great nation. YOU are the problem. You want equality for everyone, unless they see things differently than you. FUCK YOU!!!
• And then he chimed in independently with a blanket statement that really summed up his beliefs. 

  @SomeRandomFeller Liberals suck ass. It's not a wonder why they argue by using race baiting or false equality causes.

  
  

  I don't feel the need to throw one back to some random feller because it would be like trying to debate abortion with the Christian cuckoos.

  
  

  I used to be ambiguous in my own gender presentation and it used to make me feel like a celebrity while I pretended that the stares and murmurs emanating from the public were in response to them having just seen a celebrity because that''s what it felt like to affect so many people by virtue of being myself. I felt like I ,must have been pretty important if so many people felt the need to express an opinion about the way I should dress. If I was able to set the tongues wagging, I could imagine what a real celebrity must endure in the same situation. Chaz is such an example. But don't let me give him too much credit because another high profile FTM objected to Chaz being the only public spokesperson of the trans topic. Stephen Ira Beatty, the trans son of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening is in the process of switching genders from the one he was born with who was called Kathlyn. "I just don't want anyone thinking that he's qualified to offer Trans 101, you know?" he said  

  
  If Stephen resents Chaz getting all the credit, he should get booked on The View, at least to start. Chaz is in the spotlight because he out himself out there and put on a brave face at risk of being assassinated by some Christian fundamentalist like the type shown on Youtube.
  Being the spawn of Cher gave Chaz a prime platform to talk Trans 101 but Shirley Maclaine's former niece who became a nephew would make an equal impression on the masses and attract his parent's fan base to boot. So speak up Stephen and take Trans 101 to the next level.

a mother's letter

I swiped this letter from a stack of photos belonging to my biological father on the second occasion we had seen each other

Dear Tom, How are you? The next time you come to San Jose, I wish you would come see me.My birthday is coming up June 17. I will be 39 years old. Huh, like Jack Benny. What I would like for you to do is mail me another picture of our 8 year old son, Thomas Charles.  He will be 9 years old September 15 of this year. Because I don't have a picture of him and I'd like to use that to get four copies made in slightly larger sizes and in color. I would appreciate it if you would do this for me. I don't ask many favors from you or my brother and don't see you much either. I am up to 150 lbs again, eating to compensate for the loneliness and such. Well, I will send you a Father's Day card. Take care, Sincerely, Kay Domino Best wishes and many happy returns

   Most people who know me  know I am adopted.
 It's a part of me as innate and identifiable as my name.  In a nutshell,  I grew up with virtually no information about my heritage until I unearthed it all after undergoing a search when I was 20. A reunion ensued as one by one, relatives began coming out of the woodwork.  The first to be revealed was my biological mother Kathy who I discovered living in a run down halfway house in downtown San Jose. It was a Victorian mansion that must have been very stately in its day. By the time it was taken over as a board and care for the indigent, time and decay had weathered it just as it affected the residents who came to occupy it.  Kathy had lived in a series of such places since being released from the fortress that was Agnew Insane Asylum when Ronald Reagan was elected governor in 1967. His LPS legislation was implemented as a cost cutting measure under the guise of a human rights campaign that would allow mentally ill patients to exercise the right to refuse treatment. Kathy was sent there after being diagnosed schizophrenic and her family moved away without giving her the new address. They were frightened of the person she became and allowed the state to take over her care. Without the strictures of medication that fogged her mind, she was free to wander the streets and forge her own relationships. In the early 1970s, while staying in one of the government subsidized halfway houses that was opened after the asylums closed, she met Tom who had checked into the place after coming off a drug binge. He didn't realize he had checked into a snake pit of off balance women and fostered a few quickie romances with more than one tenant until Kathy caught his attention. They became an item that resulted in her becoming pregnant with a girl.  He remembers the time as idyllic as he was still under the delusion that they would run away together, get married and have a family. Then things started to go terribly wrong as the reality of her mental illness reared its head. Finally, he had to accept that it just couldn't be, despite the heaviness in his heart. He said he knew he had to leave after he came home to a room full of broken dishes that was the aftermath of her destructive delusions and temperament. He was a member of a construction union that took him away for long jags after which he would return to visit her at the halfway house and romance was rekindled at least for a night or two. That's how I came to be conceived but this time they made no pretense about playing a family. He didn't bother coming to the hospital when I was born like he did with my sister. He didn't bother because he knew they would turn him away again.
That's why the contents of this letter are so puzzling. Somehow in Kathy's mind, she fell under the impression that he had contact with me and an arsenal of pictures. She wrote that letter when she was 38 which is the same age I am now.At the time it was written, as I was about to turn 9 years old, I was between third and fourth grade living in Los Gatos with my mom and soon to be stepfather. They were working for Atari and I was about to be enrolled at the South Valley Carden private school for 4th grade. We had just put in a swimming pool and I would celebrate my 9th birthday with a Superfriends themed swimming party. The identity of my biological mother was as foreign to me as anything related to the story of my origins. Of course, I knew I was adopted and loved to pull out the giant box of photographs from underneath the guest bedroom where I would pore over the history for clues. My baby book was written for adopted kids and instead of a birth announcement,, my parents had sent out a card that said, "We've adopted someone special."  My parents were very open with the fact that I was adopted and I accepted it as a proud part of me as relative as my haircolor. Being adopted was celebrated and I was constantly reminded of how lucky I was to have been so. There were vague references to my biological mother having possibly been "sick", but no one offered information beyond that.  "Didn't you ask questions,?" I would implore to my mother. How could she not have asked questions? She explained that it didn't matter to her where I came from because she was concentrating on getting me. The person I was ceased to matter as much as the person I was going to be after they took me home from foster care. That was the end of it. Nothing was asked. Nothing more was offered.  To appease me, I was given a book called Why was I Adopted?, which was lovingly inscribed with a message of love by my mom.
To think that Kathy, my bio mother was less than 5 miles away in another part of the same city is unthinkable today. I imagine her alone with a tub of half eaten ice cream which she is bingeing on in an effort to distract her mind from thinking about the son she gave away. The level of delusions in her schizophrenic mind is evident by her insistence that he send pictures of me as if to imply he was holding out on her. "I don't ask much of you or my brother,:" she said. Her brother was my Uncle Fred, an attorney who once presided as judge in San Jose. His trajectory through Bellarmine, a private Catholic boy's  school and then on to the Univeristy of Santa Clara where he studied law and became an attorney was typical of boys from well to do families.  He shouldered the brunt of her care after the death of their mother and took on the burden.  He would bring her supplies in the halfway house now and then and tried not to worry when she disappeared from the radar for months. Released from the asylum, she was on her own free will to be as unpredictable as that may have been.  I think, clearly,  she must have been lucid enough to carry on a romantic relationship and bear children. I think the illness grew consecutively worse throughout the years. But in the 1970s, based on pictures I saw, she was still relatively young and attractive. No one would know from looking at her that anything was wrong.
Underneath the letter, there was a black and white photo of the two of them standing behind a facade made to look like they were a muscleman and mermaid.

 It's a cute indicator of their courtship and evidence of what might have been..    Kathy didn't show signs of trouble until after the summer she returned from  studying art in Europe. She was 15 and her family explained her behavior as a combination of teenage melodrama and the effects of European influence. "It was just weird," recalled her brother.   I  don't know exactly when she was institutionalized but it was the only viable solution after she attacked her brother's fiance and put her in the hospital. Her behavior was increasingly erratic and they were beside themselves with worry. While she disappeared behind the iron gates of the Moorish castle like fortress that was Agnew, her family moved to a new part of town and kept it a secret.

When I discovered this letter and read that my biological mother was asking her ex boyfriend, my father about me as if he had any information, I was puzzled. Hadn't I been given up to the system? He purportedly wasn't even around at the time having confessed that he refused to believe I was his child until he saw a picture. But during my delivery and subsequent shuffling until I was adopted, granted a real life and turned from a wooden puppet into a real little boy, he was away on a construction gig denying my existence. It broke my heart to read the last sentences, that she was eating to curb the loneliness. When she confesses her weight at 150 lbs, I could feel her pain and the self-hate she must have felt. By that time, from what I eventually discovered she had given up all of her three children and was living a vagabond life

Heroin Chic and Me

A little over 15 years or so ago, I was an anorexic wanna-be part-time photographer's model living in Los Angeles. I was a client of the then burgeoning agency Dragon Talent. The "it" look of the moment gracing all of the fashion magazines was a controversial mode called heroin chic.According to Wikipedia: "Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, and jutting bones."
At the height of the phenomenon, when I was released from the hospice off Melrose after nearly a month stint at Cedars-Sinai I was 95 lbs soaking wet. At the onset of my debacle, a paramedic responding to my 911 call had asked me why I was "so thin". Without hesitation, I responded something to the effect to indicate Hollywood was to blame.

The look, which promoted emaciated features and androgyny, was an alternative that stood in direct contradiction to the healthy and vibrant look of models such as Christy Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, and Heidi Klum. A 1996 article in The Los Angeles Times charged that the fashion industry had "a nihilistic vision of beauty" that was reflective of drug addiction, and U.S. News and World Report called the movement a "cynical trend".


Heroin infiltrated pop culture through such figures as Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and River Phoenix, whose fame brought attention to their addictions in the early 1990s. In film, the heroin chic trend in fashion coincided with a string of movies in the mid-1990s – such as The Basketball Diaries, Trainspotting, and Pulp Fiction – that examined heroin use and drug culture

Rise and fall of the aesthetic
This waifish, emaciated, and drug-addicted look was the basis of the 1993 advertising campaign of Calvin Klein featuring Kate Moss. Film director and actor Vincent Gallo contributed to the development of this image through his Calvin Klein fashion shoots. The trend eventually faded, perhaps in part due to the overdose death of a prominent fashion photographer of the genre, Davide Sorrenti. Sorrenti was known for his photographs of seemingly strung-out models in stupor-like poses that some felt emulated the blank look of the heroin addict and glamorized drug use. He fell in love with teenage model James King, herself a heroin addict, and began abusing substances himself. Vulnerable due to a lifelong blood disorder, Sorrenti died in 1997 after an injection of an amount that was "not normally considered unusual".

Heroin chic fashion drew much criticism, especially from anti-drug groups.Fashion designers, models such as Kate Moss and Jaime King, and movies such as Trainspotting were blamed for glamorizing heroin use. Then-U.S. president Bill Clinton condemned the look. Other commentators denied that fashion images made drug use itself more attractive. "There is no reason to expect that people attracted to the look promoted by Calvin Klein and other advertisers...will also be attracted to heroin, any more than suburban teen-agers who wear baggy pants and backward caps will end up shooting people from moving cars," wrote Jacob Sullum in Reason magazine."

At the time the ads surfaced, I had never tried heroin. I was a self-described speed junkie and attributed my lanky, emaciated frame to the drug as well my many anorexic habits.
Today, I am HWP (height-weight proportionate) for my size and have been in contact with a host of heroin users more so than in the chic past. it may be a twist of \rony that causes my personal trajectory to come full circle in the way of heroin use and its implications. None of the addicted people I have met through SFAF Needle Exchange or my other drug outreach are as glamorous as I tried to be that long ago season of heroin chic. I look back on my experience with a bittersweet envy and nod to nostalgia. Long Live Kate Moss and the era of the androgynous waif. To think for a brief moment in time, I was the It ticket.

If this offends you, don't read it.

  In the back of my mind, I somehow knew a day would eventually come that the writing I do about my life would come back to bite me in the ass.  If any members of my family are offended, I would suggest that you don't read it. Those who shall not be named know who they are.