bareback

The story of AIDS is a romantic epic. High drama, despair, movies about it, songs about it. It is a story told to me by my forefathers, like a story of a great battle told to young men by war veterans. It's not something current, it's in the past.

On the Clark bus. Hot older gay man with green bomber jacket and 501 jeans holding free "boi" magazine.

AIDS often occurs to when I see older gay men. Like survivors of the gay holocaust, How did they survive? I would have been dead. I would have had so much promiscuous Technicolor sex all over the place in the seventies and eighties. My fate would have been inescapable.

How did he survive? Was he not out yet- reluctantly sleeping with women that looked like Olivia Newton-John? Married maybe? Or was he strictly a top (a little less risky than being a bottom)?

Is there a whole generation of top men that survived? And is there a whole generation of bottom boys in heaven, beautiful gay angels in heaven with hot butts?

The story told to me now is of happy healthy men canoeing and laughing, rejoicing because of their new found freedom with the latest protease inhibitor. It's not scary. It's something that can be dealt with easily with a little help from our pharmaceutical companies, no worries.

easter morning conversation with joey

Joey (9:27:48 AM): speaking of crucification, im expecting jesus to pop up at any moment now. sheesh it is 9:25 am, where the hell is he? LOL
Jeremy (9:27:56 AM): hahaha
Jeremy (9:28:24 AM): he stopped off at starbucks maybe? maybe hes picking up some lattes
Jeremy (9:28:26 AM): for us
Joey (9:29:10 AM): possibly, but i see his magnificence as a tea drinker.
Joey (9:29:15 AM): perhaps some earl grey?
Jeremy (9:29:23 AM): mmm, yeah
Jeremy (9:30:34 AM): his flights been delayed, hes on the el and "crews are working on the track ahead"
Joey (9:30:58 AM): bwoop bwoop bwoop
Jeremy (9:31:03 AM): hahahahaha
Jeremy (9:33:17 AM): we're waiting patiently though, like we have been for thousands of years
Joey (9:33:46 AM): right.
Joey (9:33:52 AM): a few more minutes won't hurt.
Jeremy (9:33:56 AM): ha
Joey (9:34:11 AM): But damn, how long does he stick around? he keeps popping up around this time of the year.. LOL
Jeremy (9:35:10 AM): his images on pieces of toast-- keeps teasing us
Joey (9:35:20 AM): oy
Jeremy (11:48:58 AM): HAPPY EASTER!
Joey (11:49:17 AM): u too. did you see jesus?
Jeremy (11:49:37 AM): not yet, but i have my eyes peeled
Joey (11:51:11 AM): RIGHT ON! lol

Paula Hit and Run

I don't think it was cold hearted. I think she was just straight up scared.

California Pizza Kitchen

My mom and I have been having dinner every Thursday. I meet her after her class at the Newberry Library gets out.

Over pizza at California Pizza Kitchen we discussed many things. How I should get a job, documentaries I've watched, my sister, my father, my nephews, my brother-in-law.

Somehow we got on the topic of the Department of Homeland Security.

Tonight she said, "Ugh..everytime I hear someone on television refer to 'homeland' I want to strangle them. What is this Nazi Germany? Are we living in the fatherland?"

Regressing

About once a year or so, I go through a pretty intense Madonna Truth or Dare fixation. It's not like I start deep throating Evian bottles or anything. I just develop a renewed interest in this movie that was so magical for me when I was about seventeen. Maybe I'm feeling lonely or scared with being an adult and want something comfortable.

When I'm watching it I try to pretend that it's the first time I'm watching it. I try to trick my brain into thinking I'm back at the Woodfield Mall theatres. My sister drove me and Kara there to see it for the first time. I think I was out of the closet by then, or at least telling people that I was "bisexual". Of course, everyone else knew I was gay.

I could barely breathe. It was going too fast. I couldn't take it all in. The gritty black and white, the purpley blue pink music numbers, the (from today's standards pretty tame) sexual titillation, seeing two hot guys kiss for the first time, etc. Madonna had me in the palm of her hand. I felt like I was the only one, that this movie was all for me, wanting everyone else to leave the theater please.

About six years later, my friend Cory (YROC), even drove me to the IMAX theatre at Navy Pier to see it. We were running late and he almost got us killed, speeding and dodging traffic on I90 so I could see three stories of Madonna. That was one of the best nights of my life.

Since then I've played it for every new friend I've ever let into my life. I try to resist. I try to not put it in my backpack when we plan a casual DVD night. But it never fails, "Oh..oh..what's this? How'd this get in here." I guess I want to see it, vicariously, through their eyes for the first time. That's a little sick I guess. Some form of forced one sided intimacy or DVD Rape.

Of course, it's never the same. With each viewing and as each year passes away from 1991, the movie gets a little sillier.

It's still a really important movie for me. Like Star Wars for a Star Wars fan or The Lord of The Rings or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or whatever. I guess everyone has these things, these movies or books or albums that had an impact on them- very important, not to be sniffed at no matter how ridiculous they seem.

I'm sorry. I got all caught up in myself there for a second. That happens from time to time. Carry on.

Click here for the trailer. (You don't have to if you don't want to)

that's what it's all about

eat
drink
smoke
go places
do things
repeat

Just let me know.

I'm ready. I'm willing. I'm able.
I'll be so many people for you.

I'll be Sally Ride with brunette helmet hair, doing somersalts in zero gravity. It's 1983 and I'm the first woman in Space. Don't give me flowers. I don't need makeup or designer shoes. All I need is a crisp blue jumpsuit and my space shuttle. That's all I care about.
You'll ask, "How can you be so earthy and yet other worldly? How can you be so fearless? Aren't you scared?"
"I'm not scared, she's a good ship," I'll say, "She's takes me to outerspace."

I'll be Sarah Ferguson getting married in 1986. I haven't eaten anything for days so I could squeeze into this damn wedding dress. I'll hold your hand really tight while we wave from the balcony. My hand will so be cold and sweaty, yours will be so strong and stupid. For a second I have a strong urge to start throwing shit over the balcony- big ceramic pots and priceless pieces of art. Just to freak everyone out. Strip out of my wedding dress and throw it over and watch everyone tear it to pieces.

I'll be Bill Cosby writing a book of easily digestable humor in my study, smoking a cigar. It will come so easy to me. I won't be able to stop the flow of bestselling wit and wisdom pouring out of me. I'll get a little high from it. You'll be Camilla. By the time you come in and tell me it's time for bed, I'll be so turned on by myself that I'll want to make love to you on my oversized desk. But, like you said it is time for bed.

a fag and his hag

This is from a play my best friend (and roommate) Kara and I wrote and performed together at the Heartland Studio in Chicago. The play was about our friendship which started in sixth grade. We did this before I got the balls to move to Chicago. In May, Kara and I are moving out seperately and I will miss her terribly.

This is what she said about me towards the end of the play.

"I have this recurring fantasy that Jeremy lives here in Chicago with me. He works at an ad agency in the loop so we take lunch breaks together where we laugh about fax machine etiquette and co-workers outfits. In the evening, we go for a run by the lake, stop by The Pleasure Chest and laugh at the sex toys, then come back to the apartment and cook some Thai food. He gives me snappy energizing life advice you can only get from a homosexual. We take vacations together to Miami and Scottsdale and stay with old friends.

But that's not Jeremy and that's not my kind of faggot. I like homosexuals geeky, loose and out of control. And that Jeremy is. If he's not checking himself into a mental hospital once a year, well then I don't know who I'm dealing with."

Just want to give a shout out to Kara for dragging me kicking and screaming out to Chicago which changed my life. Thank you Karadear.

It's getting hot in here

I'd love to drive around the city in a car filled with hot boys, making fun of people who walk by. We could sing along to a song on the radio and smile and laugh. We'd be on the way to someone's apartment and we wouldn't know exactly why -to see some girl or to pick up some stuff from some guy.

We'd be driving real fast and we'd make a lot of wrong turns and we wouldn't really know how to get there. We'd be looking for a parking place forever and never find one. We'd stop at a convenient store to buy cigarettes. You'd steal something just for the fun of it. I'd say that you are stupid, but it would really turn me on.

I would marry you. I'd put up with your drug habit and your check bouncing. I'd become best friends with your mother or your sister. I'd move to somewhere ridiculous like New Mexico and raise your daughter while you worked at a factory. I'd listen to you say things like "I want to go back to school."

I'd love to do all this but you never asked me too.

well adjusted

I am very suspicious right now. Things are going on behind my back that I can't even begin to understand.

An architecture of lies that, somehow, hasn't toppled over onto itself. People trying to carbonate their flat, syrupy lives. Trying to shake up a Coke bottle and make it explode.

But I'm getting it all down. I'm creeping around at night taking notes, like Harriet the Spy.

The hidden agendas spoken of casually when you think I'm out of earshot. I'm never out of earshot. I've got bugs and cameras and hackers working for me around the clock. I'm crunching numbers and checking coordinates and they don't add up.

I'm doing secret experiments late into the night with monkees and mice and electrodes. I'm charting, graphing, listening, observing. I'm carefully mixing chemicals and recording the reactions while the rest of the world sleeps.

It's not going to get by me this time. I'm not going to give into it. I'm not going to be tricked again. I'm not a pawn in your game. I'm not a seatholder at your Oscars. Whatever kind of voodoo that you do so well is not going to work very well this time.

my perspective

I thought I'd take a break from my depression and comment on a few things I've seen on the television.


The Oscars- I was literally crying everytime Beyonce sang. This gives you an idea of my mental state. I've pulled myself together since.

I love that Beyonce is the only option. Everyone else has gone insane. Whitney, Janet and Mariah have lost it. Madonna's too busy attending services at the Kaballah Centre. Beyonce's like the girl at McDonalds you call when you need to cover a shift. She always says yes and she performs flawlessly. Get Beyonce, she'll do it.


During the Oscars, there were these wonderful commercials for New Tylenol Extra Strength Rapid Release Gels. The voiceover for the commercial was provided by former indie queen Lily Taylor!

Now I can pretend Lily and I are hanging out, doing some thrift store shopping. I'm not having as much fun as I could be because I've got a splitting headache. Lily pulls a box of New Tylenol Extra Strength Rapid Release Gels out of her funky oversized purse and in seconds I'm right back in the game, flipping through the racks for that perfect pair of vintage jeans.


The Amazing Race 7
The Amazing Race is turning into Gay-mazing Race! Three gay guys on one reality show. My favorite team is the mother/gay son team. A real skinny long haired earthy gay guy named Patrick (of course, of course). He is a writer (of course he is). His mother, Susan, is a forward thinking hip lady who is the Director for Judicial Affairs for Miami University in Ohio--whatever the hell that means. All I know is I love them and I hope they win.

Can you imagine being on The Amazing Race with your mom? I think my mom and I could handle all the racing to the airport stuff in cabs. I don't know about the physical challenges- trying to get Llamas to go up a hill in Peru and stuff. I don't want to see how my mom would react to that. Actually, she'd probably do better than me. I would probably end up in a hotel room somewhere crying over a Cher video.