So bored.

I am starting to see the reason for mid afternoon Bingo at the local gay bar hosted by a community drag queen.

On Gay Pornography

Out of all the consumption determining and desire conforming media that exists, commercial pornographic films may be the worst. Porno flicks effectively reduce the acts of sex to the superficial surfaces of bodies. Any coherent or plausible glimmer of human personality has little to no influence on the sex acts that are at the center of these poorly constructed, superfluous narratives. For commercial pornographic films, sex is about only bodies and acts: Not people who engaged in the complexities of social existence.

Literary pornography allows for human interiority. Epecially if written in the first person, erotica (as the genre is so aptly named) inherently involves fictional persons with personality. Literary convention requires the logics of character and intelligible motivation. In erotica, desire is a product of personal need determined by the presence of human personality.

The image, almost always pornographic in nature, dominates gay culture; Pornographic films or photographs saturate gay bars and clubs; adult bookstores selling porno magazines and sex toys are a staple fixture in gay neighbourhoods. The reductive power of the pornographic image bleeds out from these dens of debauchery into the streets, infecting the gay community.

Dominant identity categories prevalent in the gay community privileges superficiality over personality. Sub cultural niches are articulated in strict coded detail: any homo can discern between a twink, a bear, and a muscle mary by physical appearance (or onlin dating profile) alone: No need for conversation. The need to get fucked is serviced by an aresenal of well honed strategies informed by the fantastical desire inspired by the pornographic image, which could be captured in a photo or a commercial sized video clip.

The gay community is plagued by watching, not reading. There is a fundamental difference between the two; watching is passive while reading requires active discourse; watching is satisfied with immediate effects while reading requires time and patience; watching maitains safe distance while reading requires determined engagement.

Desire isn't the problem: the pornography that informs gay desire is. Abandon the immediacy and superficiality that exists at the heart (or should I say cock?) of mindless porno flicks. Pick up an erotic novel that teases and arouses, both mind and cock, over the hours it takes to reach climax (pun intended). Stop watching. Start reading.

! . ? , *

An odd gift! A good idea? Memories...
Retrospect doesn't always offer clarity.

I gave them each a T-shirt with an iron-on punctuation mark amateurly emblazoned on the chest. The sleek, minimalist design of a Times New Roman question mark or exclamation point had an aesthetic quality that catered to my sense of style; clean lines, clear and definite, and with a clever reference to the linguistic. (Roland Barthes taught us that fashion could be read. Maybe this was an effort to provide some punctuation for the text clothes offered to us for our reading enjoyment.) Misguided teenage creativity may be an excuse for the poorly made, badly designed, Christmas gifts I gave to my closest friends that year.

I wonder if they wear them? I doubt it. I wonder if they ever wore them? Maybe to bed. If they were sleeping alone. I wonder if they have kept them as a keepsake? (Not that I would want them to remember my pathetic gesture) I doubt that too. These white tees are probably strewn across the country hanging amidst the other second-hand store items that still remain too ugly even for the thriftiest of shoppers to buy.

Some people write bad poetry or are forever doodling in the margins of their much under-used math notebooks. I made bad t-shirts as Christmas gifts for my close friends as an outlet for my cliche need for teenage self-expression.

I still love the subtle pleasing shape of a Times New Roman question mark.

I'm Not There

I was depressed.

Why did I choose "to cry out as the quasi-anonymous Bedroom Prince alone from the privacy of his bedroom into the vast virtual abyss of cyber space"?

Why blog about such deep and dark thoughts and feelings?

Because I was too ashamed and embarassed to come to you in person.

This public forum was the only way to speak to someone behind a veil of quasi- anonymity.

Stop Making Sense

"Such drama," you will say.

"This is over the top and excessive," you will think.



The logic of depression and the emotions that it produces may seem incredible and ridiculous, especially if articulated in a public forum.



But these thoughts, these feelings, were very real to me. No matter how much they may not have made sense to you. They barely make sense to me, if it is possible that they make sense at all.



So please. Abandon judgement for a moment and find understanding in admitting that you can not grasp the pain and ache I have gone through. I wish I could make sense of it. For you. For myself. But the logic of depression is immuse to reason.

It's Over

Feeling better. Or at least less paralyzed. Maybe even nihilistic now.

There is nothing I can do about it. There is no way to escape. Might as well keep going.

Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Push it down so far into the depths that it becomes buried and forgotten.

Don't Cry in Public Part Two

Not only do expressions of sadness and despair undo themselves in a public forum, but they are discredited as either being foolish or transient.

"Why do you feel so sad? There is so much to be happy about!" they say.

"Come off it! Soon you will figure things out and it will all be ok. This is just a stage you have to pass through." they say.

Sadness and despair have no place in this world.

I am sad. I have no place in this world.

Three Days

and then he'd move on.

Feeding my friends cat, student loan debt that would be left for my parents to pay, furniture left for my room mates to dispose of, the shifts at work I'm scheduled for, might as well finish my Undergrad, wouldn't want to emotionally destroy my parents, my new room mates would have to find someone else to sublet the room I agreed to sublet, the people whom are excited about the short movie I decided to organize would be disappointed, the cost of a flight for my parents to come here and deal with the mess, people who care about me would be sad, someone would have to close my Rogers account and cancel my cell phone.
I think that's all.

Don't Cry In Public

Sadness is not permissible in public.

Writing about personal sadness and despair in a public forum undoes itself: If I truly feel as inadequate as I do, if I truly feel that I have no pride nor dignity left, if I truly feel as mediocre as I do, how can I expect anyone to read what I write and to care about it?

And so, in a final act of sadness and despair of such a degree that it has become saturated in selfish, over indulgent, self loathing, I concede that I can not expect you to care, nor even to continue reading these words.

The sadness I feel sits like a Sisyphean boulder that I couldn't care to push an inch more weighing down on my crushed and hollowed being. With no pride nor dignity and a numbing self loathing, I can not bring my self to express myself even in the social privacy of my most intimate relations with friends and family. The only thing I can think to do to ease the pressure of the incredible weight pulling me down and down is to cry out as the quasi-anonymous Bedroom Prince alone from the privacy of his bedroom into the vast virtual abyss of cyber space .

I do not care to consider if I am or am not the person whom you think I am.
Whatever I am is not enough.

What do I want to see?

Struggling to choose a film at the local video rental place exacerbates the problem. Comedy? Tragedy? Hollywood? Foreign? Something I've seen before? Or something new? I never seem to know what I want.

from "The Last Kiss"

Stop talking about love. Every asshole in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing. It still doesn't mean anything. What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love, that's what matters. It's the only thing that counts.

Future Tense

No Pride. No Dignity. No Success. No Prospects.

Is this what they call freedom?

I woud rather have the constraints of a promising future, then be left with the freedom of having nothing at all.