A 17 year old boy being asked to accompany an incredibly good looking Italian playboy to a private party at Studio 54 ( the very end of its heyday more a whimper) was just to cool. I read about Studio 54 in Albert Goldmans book DISCO and it was just a dream I had about dancing under the cocaine snorting moon and catwalks. I was approached in Uncle Charlies downtown on Greenwich Street by this amazingly stunning man with his incredible tan and flawless tailored Italian suit. I was kind of numb as he spoke and friends from my youth group (GLYNY) pushed and prodded me into this Felliniesque character. One of the youth groups brighter friends at the time was Willi Ninja who had many friends in the group literally pushed me into the proverbial arms of said tall dark stranger.This said stranger was Pepo Vanini club owner and one of the beautiful men of the gay lavender set Rubell,Diller,Klein,Egon and so on. I was very naive and the evening went okay and I saw New York in a way many read about and many to this day remember with that sly grin and laughter of the good times. 54 was a dying dinosaur that the gay community clung to in its final days; while movie studios would still use for its premier parties. It was a party for something or another , at that time you could find invites for any club at any trendy shop or gay neighborhood haunt. I was like Fay Wray catching a glimpse of Kong for the first time. I wanted to run and hide from the extravagant drag queens and the sort as I was Giulietta Masina wondering around Juliets dream.The club that night was filled with all sorts but Pepo stood out like a golden grain of wheat among a locust ravaged field. I was among a bevy of young men and women who sat among him like eunuchs and vestal maidens around the Emperor Caligula. I noticed a silver object being passed among the crowd and watched as it went under the noses of his harem. It passed to me and the child in me looked at it quizzically. I watched Pepo look at my expression and he smiled and asked if I wanted some cocaine; and nervously I just passed it along.
It was a part of the club scene and pop culture , from Scarface to Miami Vice cocaine was the ultimate bacchanalian favor. I was a drinker and did some pills back in 81-82 but I always stuck to my Stoli. I thought cocaine was just the devil's candy. I finally broke down ( more like leapt at) and felt the wonder of a hornets sting. It was a euphoric rush and the evening became an orgasmic knee shaking event. Cocaine became a necessity for me to engage in sex. I was the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof when high on cocaine. The fact I was cruising on the piers or at the St. Marks was lost on me as I had become the little lost boy of the West Village. Cocaine fogged the reality of the fact; that, I had become the slab of meat for the taking.
Cocaine became a way for me to run from past, numb the present and fog the future. Its a blessing for a drug addict when young and good looking because drugs are basically given to you in quantity depending on your willingness to pay with sexual favors; and with that came the price and really in the end a destruction of the soul. I was that teen who was with those older gay men with their homes on the Island or on a bay in Margate,New Jersey. I was the teen you saw run in and out of the DJ booth with the grace of a gazelle, or the teen coming out of a bath house room while a pile of flesh writhed behind him on a bed. I was one of many that would pile out a bathroom stall as if we were a latter day version of a Marx Brother's skit. Social using became a nightly thing and my benefactors ranged from a Wall Street trader, a television producer to an Atlantic City cab driver. I was willing to do anything to keep the snorting alive and my dick hard.
Reality for me was a eight ball,cock ring,and strangers. Deep inside was an inner hatred that was a factor in my total self degradation. I had become the friend whom you shook your head at once he left the room. I was a specter that haunted back rooms at adult bookstores and the popper scented hallways of dingy dilapidated Philadelphia bath houses. I kept the masques of daily living alive while behind them I had become a wilting husk. Eventually the powder turned hard and the venture down the stages of hell began. I became a human ashtray,toilet and punching bag as the need for the stem became greater and my life more desperate as I slowly sank into Dante's grasp. I was that ghost you saw on the subway as you rode to work ,while I went home ravaged with the paranoia of the drug. Video booths had become home away from home as I begged strangers for the need of sexual companionship. I was lost to the ravages of addiction and the Dickensian ghosts of childhood sexual abuse. My soul had become an abyss of those Dickensian ghosts as the prodigal son returned home to the up turned noses of a pious family.
To be continued..................................
WELCOME TO CONFESSIONS OF AN ANGRY GAY MALE.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
A Mothers Final Wish.....
I want to be wrong about this whole incident but the writing is on the proverbial wall. As a child we want that love of a Mother and through looking at photos of my youth I see the glisten in my Mothers eyes and I so want to believe that glisten. Mother's day of 2012 will see the placement of my Mother's headstone on her grave and the names of all family members with the exclusion of one name : mine, her only son.
I was a child who followed his Mom around like a lost puppy and as I got older I felt more alone. After the rape I felt something missing and it drove me into the arms of men who saw the tender flesh of youth to exploit and innocence they could siphon into their lost souls. The sparkle of my Mother's eye changed to a quizzical look that hid her confusion over the loss of the young boy who use to laugh at the simplest things. I wanted love and the household at that time something was amiss so I ventured out too the parking garages of Upper Darby into the seats of Grand Prix's or the back of some utility van lying down among painters tarps and the smell of turpentine as he would crawl on top with the stale breath of Marlboro's and onions from his quick lunch.
This was the beginning of a lifelong search for love,acceptance and answers for why I had no place in my family,life and within the gay community. I was never allowed to mention my dreams to love another man as I watched my family as they celebrated the nuptials of my Sister. I have been in a carnival sized goldfish bowl for years watching life in a distorted view which has left me with an inconceivable way at living life.
My Mother's wishes have been met and I am left out and excluded from family.....how do I explain this pain to anyone. My psyche is shot and all that trying for the wonderbread family of childhood was a waste of time, and this pain seems like an ominous fog going across this bog of what is left of the childhood soul. Tears sear my ducts and the sobs are stifled by the pillow of a night sky. My dream that one day I would fall in love with someone who sees the child in me racing across a dew filled meadow catching fireflies along with the pain that has branded his heart. This all seems futile now that my Mothers love has been shown in her final wishes.
I was a child who followed his Mom around like a lost puppy and as I got older I felt more alone. After the rape I felt something missing and it drove me into the arms of men who saw the tender flesh of youth to exploit and innocence they could siphon into their lost souls. The sparkle of my Mother's eye changed to a quizzical look that hid her confusion over the loss of the young boy who use to laugh at the simplest things. I wanted love and the household at that time something was amiss so I ventured out too the parking garages of Upper Darby into the seats of Grand Prix's or the back of some utility van lying down among painters tarps and the smell of turpentine as he would crawl on top with the stale breath of Marlboro's and onions from his quick lunch.
This was the beginning of a lifelong search for love,acceptance and answers for why I had no place in my family,life and within the gay community. I was never allowed to mention my dreams to love another man as I watched my family as they celebrated the nuptials of my Sister. I have been in a carnival sized goldfish bowl for years watching life in a distorted view which has left me with an inconceivable way at living life.
My Mother's wishes have been met and I am left out and excluded from family.....how do I explain this pain to anyone. My psyche is shot and all that trying for the wonderbread family of childhood was a waste of time, and this pain seems like an ominous fog going across this bog of what is left of the childhood soul. Tears sear my ducts and the sobs are stifled by the pillow of a night sky. My dream that one day I would fall in love with someone who sees the child in me racing across a dew filled meadow catching fireflies along with the pain that has branded his heart. This all seems futile now that my Mothers love has been shown in her final wishes.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A Pedophile Destroys More Than Innocence
It has taken years to understand what a violent act has had upon my life. It took me from a young boy to a boy who feigned happiness to the tenth degree. I was lifted from the playground and thrust into the world of glory hole encounters, Mens room trysts and a toy for the heavy wallet. The degradation I experienced at that age; had given me a warped misconception that the attention given to me by the men was genuine affection. So for those years between 12-21 I had been passed among my so called "lovers" and their friends like a stripper at a Duke University Frat House. I would be with Gordon Fowler of Appleton,Wisconsin from 14 -16 when I was soon forgotten for another 14 year old....what had I done and what was wrong with me. In NYC I was the toy of Peppo Vanini of Xenon fame and did his scouting on the piers on the West End Highway while he sat in the Jaguar off Christopher...I would introduce him to other pier boys and would have my rent for the month....his Dear John was 1,000 and his sports coat from Parachute....I saw him later that spring with a young Puerto Rican teen of about 14. I again wanted to know what I had done to have a relationship snubbed out like that. this went on for the next few years and the men who I ended with would move on to another younger version.
I sank into the hell of drink and drugs and my self esteem was non existent and I had become a caricature of some Tennessee Williams drama. I had become Blanche DuBois at the age of 21. My last try at love had been with a producer from Philadelphia; Stan Hurwitz a former production assistant on the Mike Douglas Show and the producer for the Philadelphia Society Hill Playhouse...I thought something would happen even though he had a lover...I was a toy among his friends and he had me get a Military crew cut , some threadbare tees and a pair of 501's that let you know I was packing a piece that was not kosher. Stan had me go into the straight bars of Margate,Ventnor and Atlantic City and pick up the drunken surfer boy or frat boy for a weekend orgy with Stan's buddies and the drug of South Jersey at the time: CRANK.......I found myself hating life more and felt I could never be anyone's love for I had become a piece of meat that slowly was decaying with age,drink and heavy drugs.
I go back to the act performed on that 11 year old boy and the humiliation of being forced to service a drunken Italian stud and perform acts that no 11 year old should perform. I found that the only way I could keep anyone interested in me no mater for how much time was to be the object of their carnal desires; no matter how perverse or degrading I had longed for the embrace that meant caring or how funny is this:LOVE. I sank into a life of cruising for men who would give me their drugs I wanted and I would be their ashtray,toilet or punching bag. I ended having that dream for the man of my dreams and now settled for the nightmare that came with addiction.
I spent years on gay social sites that when you worded your profile right you found that drug and the sinister game that went with the chase. I ended up in Crack houses for days living in basements where I could barely stand tall and portable toilets overflowing with waste and vomit. I would come home on the subway's of Philadelphia with that coppery smell of death wafting through my pores. I would stare at myself with the eyes of some anime caricature and see the darkness of hell.
January 27th 2003, I came into the rooms of NA and with explicit detail begged for help from sucking dick for that hit off the glass stem. I spent the next 8 years trying to accept the love and acceptance of others but felt undeserving and dead inside. I would go in and out of the rooms for those years and last March of 2011 when I saw myself in the mirror of a bathhouse;I had become the hunter to the stud armed with my drugs which would guarantee a night of self inflicted degradation and soulless connection. Within this year I have come to understand those connections at an early age where with pedophiles and the cease of contact was from either a change in voice or a much more mature growth in my body. I had for so long believed I was at fault and deserved the abuse inflicted upon me so willingly. It's been hard; for at 46 I feel love may never reach me before I become even more jaded and love will seem a dream lost within nightmares. I have come to the understanding I am a beautiful person who has so much to offer one and to others a loyal and true friend. I no longer need to medicate those feelings that destroyed my innocence long ago......it is a part of my story that maybe one day it will help another understand that life does get better; once the acceptance of the past is released and tomorrow is the beginning of a life without self hatred,loathing and the loss of those memories which have held you back for so long. Life is getting better with the letting go of the crutches of addiction and the acceptance that I am an addict and changing only for the better. I have a lot of time to make up from the fear and loathing which has kept me from being the person I was truly meant to be.
I sank into the hell of drink and drugs and my self esteem was non existent and I had become a caricature of some Tennessee Williams drama. I had become Blanche DuBois at the age of 21. My last try at love had been with a producer from Philadelphia; Stan Hurwitz a former production assistant on the Mike Douglas Show and the producer for the Philadelphia Society Hill Playhouse...I thought something would happen even though he had a lover...I was a toy among his friends and he had me get a Military crew cut , some threadbare tees and a pair of 501's that let you know I was packing a piece that was not kosher. Stan had me go into the straight bars of Margate,Ventnor and Atlantic City and pick up the drunken surfer boy or frat boy for a weekend orgy with Stan's buddies and the drug of South Jersey at the time: CRANK.......I found myself hating life more and felt I could never be anyone's love for I had become a piece of meat that slowly was decaying with age,drink and heavy drugs.
I go back to the act performed on that 11 year old boy and the humiliation of being forced to service a drunken Italian stud and perform acts that no 11 year old should perform. I found that the only way I could keep anyone interested in me no mater for how much time was to be the object of their carnal desires; no matter how perverse or degrading I had longed for the embrace that meant caring or how funny is this:LOVE. I sank into a life of cruising for men who would give me their drugs I wanted and I would be their ashtray,toilet or punching bag. I ended having that dream for the man of my dreams and now settled for the nightmare that came with addiction.
I spent years on gay social sites that when you worded your profile right you found that drug and the sinister game that went with the chase. I ended up in Crack houses for days living in basements where I could barely stand tall and portable toilets overflowing with waste and vomit. I would come home on the subway's of Philadelphia with that coppery smell of death wafting through my pores. I would stare at myself with the eyes of some anime caricature and see the darkness of hell.
January 27th 2003, I came into the rooms of NA and with explicit detail begged for help from sucking dick for that hit off the glass stem. I spent the next 8 years trying to accept the love and acceptance of others but felt undeserving and dead inside. I would go in and out of the rooms for those years and last March of 2011 when I saw myself in the mirror of a bathhouse;I had become the hunter to the stud armed with my drugs which would guarantee a night of self inflicted degradation and soulless connection. Within this year I have come to understand those connections at an early age where with pedophiles and the cease of contact was from either a change in voice or a much more mature growth in my body. I had for so long believed I was at fault and deserved the abuse inflicted upon me so willingly. It's been hard; for at 46 I feel love may never reach me before I become even more jaded and love will seem a dream lost within nightmares. I have come to the understanding I am a beautiful person who has so much to offer one and to others a loyal and true friend. I no longer need to medicate those feelings that destroyed my innocence long ago......it is a part of my story that maybe one day it will help another understand that life does get better; once the acceptance of the past is released and tomorrow is the beginning of a life without self hatred,loathing and the loss of those memories which have held you back for so long. Life is getting better with the letting go of the crutches of addiction and the acceptance that I am an addict and changing only for the better. I have a lot of time to make up from the fear and loathing which has kept me from being the person I was truly meant to be.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Up All Night.......
It is funny when the night is silent and your thoughts race through your head.....life starts slapping you in the face and telling you "Snap Out Of It". 46 and I still have the low self esteem that has stricken me most my adult life. I want to scream at the world and ask whomever if we can rewind about 35 years and start down a different path.I tell people what I really want is to have my name on the cover of my memoirs with said title above and I want to tell that cautionary tale. It would happen that I finally decide to move on with my writing when it seems the book is soon becoming extinct with the closure of many large bookstores and being replaced electronically with the Kindle and such. I look back on things and still seethe at the fact that one man and one action can destroy innocence and turn a potentially good person into the stagnant adult I have become.
I so much wanted to have my parents be able to go into a store or library and find my writing on the shelf next to other authors etc... Instead I have turned into that stereotypical writer who hides behind defeat as if it was the Congressional Medal of Honor. I watch and listen to those around me and say to myself why cant that be me....I then hear that thud of defeatism and dreams vaporize and I am back in my prison which I have created. I have been told by so many, including a former journalist from the Philadelphia Inquirer that I am an amazing writer and said journalist wished he had my talent. It is the sword that so many artists die from which are wielded by the artist themselves. I may bask in the critiques but I carry that sword all the time against my throat. It has been called self sabotage and I can be its poster boy up in Times Square. I have always loved anything dealing with the written word and the dream of one day accomplishing my publication seems to keep me on this earth.
I discussed what drives me and it is the tale of a lost youth and the pratfalls of addiction that can fill up a volume of my prose. I see the faces of those lost to the greed of political ambition in the time of the struggle of gay youth in the early 80's to the lows one makes in order to feel a part of this world. I want to write of the dank corners of hell one travels too in order to keep sane among the denizens of his own personal demons. I want to fight back at those who destroy youth all for their own carnal needs not caring for the destruction of that fragile psyche innocence. I want to examine why a Father can destroy the ruins of what was into the dust of despair. I want to find out why love has eluded myself while others bask in its splendor on a 24 hour axis switching partners like torn socks. I want to investigate how the ill informed can get so close to deciding the fate of this country. I want to stay above the surf as I feel myself slipping away with the undertow of everyday living. I want to find out why I have let words of put downs mold the man I have become. I want to find out how to break away from the stranglehold of fear before I have become to old to enjoy the spontaneous ways of life. I want to have that spirit of that child I once was a year before I got into that strangers car. I want to go to sleep at night and not wish it was all over. I want to be proud of who Michael is and was. I want to have friends and not acquaintances. I want to feel worthy of love from a man who will not judge on the sins of the past. I want to be able to stay in a room of people if one there does not like me. I want my family to respect me for my struggles and not condemn for my failures. I just want to go the fuck to sleep because it's a busy day today.
I so much wanted to have my parents be able to go into a store or library and find my writing on the shelf next to other authors etc... Instead I have turned into that stereotypical writer who hides behind defeat as if it was the Congressional Medal of Honor. I watch and listen to those around me and say to myself why cant that be me....I then hear that thud of defeatism and dreams vaporize and I am back in my prison which I have created. I have been told by so many, including a former journalist from the Philadelphia Inquirer that I am an amazing writer and said journalist wished he had my talent. It is the sword that so many artists die from which are wielded by the artist themselves. I may bask in the critiques but I carry that sword all the time against my throat. It has been called self sabotage and I can be its poster boy up in Times Square. I have always loved anything dealing with the written word and the dream of one day accomplishing my publication seems to keep me on this earth.
I discussed what drives me and it is the tale of a lost youth and the pratfalls of addiction that can fill up a volume of my prose. I see the faces of those lost to the greed of political ambition in the time of the struggle of gay youth in the early 80's to the lows one makes in order to feel a part of this world. I want to write of the dank corners of hell one travels too in order to keep sane among the denizens of his own personal demons. I want to fight back at those who destroy youth all for their own carnal needs not caring for the destruction of that fragile psyche innocence. I want to examine why a Father can destroy the ruins of what was into the dust of despair. I want to find out why love has eluded myself while others bask in its splendor on a 24 hour axis switching partners like torn socks. I want to investigate how the ill informed can get so close to deciding the fate of this country. I want to stay above the surf as I feel myself slipping away with the undertow of everyday living. I want to find out why I have let words of put downs mold the man I have become. I want to find out how to break away from the stranglehold of fear before I have become to old to enjoy the spontaneous ways of life. I want to have that spirit of that child I once was a year before I got into that strangers car. I want to go to sleep at night and not wish it was all over. I want to be proud of who Michael is and was. I want to have friends and not acquaintances. I want to feel worthy of love from a man who will not judge on the sins of the past. I want to be able to stay in a room of people if one there does not like me. I want my family to respect me for my struggles and not condemn for my failures. I just want to go the fuck to sleep because it's a busy day today.
Monday, February 6, 2012
THE OUTSOURCING OF MY SOUL.
I'M CALLING TO SEE WHERE I HAVE OUTSOURCED MY MORALS , DIGNITY,AND MOST OF ALL MY DREAMS. MY SOUL SEEMS TO BE A BARNACLED VESSEL; THAT HAS SAILED THE SEVEN SEAS ON MANY A JOURNEY AND HAS SEEN SO MANY PORTS. THE VESSEL HAS ARRIVED TO AN EMPTY PIER AND THE WELCOME BITTERSWEET. I LOOK UPON THE TURQUOISE SEA; AND THE REFLECTION I SEE IS SLIGHTLY BLURRED BUT BEHIND THE REFLECTION OF ME; I SEE AN INNOCENT YOUTH WITH EYES OF PUREST BLUE. I SEE THIS CHILD AND HE SLOWLY DRIFTS WITH THE TIDE AS A WAVE WASHES BOTH OF US INTO FLOTSAM UPON THE DESERTED SHORE.
HAVE I SOLD OUT MY DREAMS FOR MEDIOCRITY.HAVE I GIVEN UP SO EASILY THAT LIFE SEEMS TO JUST GO BY LIKE A TUMBLEWEED ON A SALT PAN. FACES OF THOSE WHO TOLD ME OF PROMISE ARE BLURRED LIKE THE FADED CARNIVAL MIDWAY SIGN THAT HAS TOLD US OF THE MANY WONDERS OF A WORLD FULL OF TREASURES. I SEE OTHERS WITH SUCH DRIVE AND WISH I COULD BE SO DRIVEN. I AM THOUGH LEADING A LIFE THAT EXPECTS HIS LIFE CHAUFFEURED WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL.
WHEN MY CALL IS PLACED I HEAR A VOICE WHOM I DO NOT KNOW. I ASK WHY HAVE I GIVEN UP SO EASILY. THEY CAN NOT ANSWER FOR THEIR LANGUAGE DOES NOT COMPREHEND THE FEELINGS I FEEL OR THIS EMPTINESS AT HAND. THEIR VOICE IS LYRICAL AND FULL OF A BEAUTY THAT I REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND. HAVE OTHERS TAKEN OVER FOR ME TO TRY AND MAKE A BETTER PRODUCT OF MYSELF.
HAVE I GIVEN UP SO EASILY THAT I HAVE OUTSOURCED MYSELF TO LIVE THROUGH OTHERS LIVES. HAS MY VOICE CHANGED SO MUCH I DO NOT REALIZE WHAT I WANT FROM MY SOUL. THE PHONE CALL I HAVE PLACED IS FOREIGN TO ME BECAUSE I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE VOICE WITHIN MYSELF ANYMORE. HAVE I GIVEN UP IN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND OR WILL I JUST GIVE THIS VOICE THAT SECOND CHANCE I SO RIGHTFULLY DESERVE.
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