Society nicety

I don’t often feel like a piece of meat, but man, I do find myself besieged by well-kept old ladies and gay men. Considering I work in the arts, am an artist and have a lot of older friends/connections, I end up at events where I’m the youngest, and if not the youngest, the most serious of the young set. I also tend to be approachable, so I find myself at the bar, trying desperately to get through the evening over a few/seven drinks and trying to have a non-art conversation with the bartender when, inevitably this/something like this happens:

“Aren’t you having a great time?” says, getting another drink. “Let’s toast: Here’s to god.”

I reservedly clink glasses and give her a weird look.

“Oh, I don’t mean… GOD, you know. I mean, spirituality, the vibrancy behind the art. The passion. The universal love manifest in art.”

“Well…” says I and look at the bartender. “I… yeah, sure.”

And then, the hunting party shows up and I’m locked amongst a twittering, impassioned and very agitating conversation. Of course I can get out of it all by being like the other people my age (if there are any in attendance) who can barely carry a conversation, who don’t look at others and barely even talk to each other. Problem is, while connections and entrées are an important part of the world, being 29 and in my position means I have to, on top of my past, either ride on novelty or nicety. I’m trying to ride both horses.

A couple nights ago, I was at a gallery for a reading and got trapped by the husband (much older) of a friend of mine, who wanted to discuss digital cinema with me. He’s involved with the whole scientific side of the adventure. I ended up nodding and pantomiming parts of his story and avoiding being in any photos. He kept telling me that he didn’t want to bore me with the details and I kept thinking: “This isn’t the boring part?”

At some point, I was asked to chaperon a group of the single older ladies and some gays to a whiskey bar. I’d actually planned on dashing for the same bar, and because I had my mind set on it, I thought: “Hey, how bad could it be?” Why do I always have that thought?

The whiskey bar was reserved for a private party, so we went to a dive near the gallery.

Upon a step in to the dive, one of the ladies said she wanted “a fucking drink” and “wanted to dance.”

Good thing dancing is “forbidden” in bars… except in the back room, so the bouncers kept escorting the ladies back, but like cats, they kept turning around and running into the main bar to groove to the awesome music…

I got caught in a conversation between a gay Spaniard and the “a fucking drink” lady regarding their secret obsession with reality shows. She kept doing some sort of birthing rite dance to explain how much she enjoyed reality shows, all the while slipping out of her black shoulder wrap and dropping her bag after every time I picked it up for her. I ended up tossing the bag into a booth the rest of the party had overran.

I was in a bit of a dilemma, though. Before I went out that night, I found out the Spanyard has his work exhibited in a space I co-founded about ten years ago, but haven’t had any connection in more than six years. To say, or not to say? While he screamed about Project Runway, and “a fucking drink” lady nattered about Sheer Genius, I downed my gin and tonic, then started in on a cosmo I was holding for someone else.

At a certain point, I got dragged into the dancing room and thought: “Fuck it.” If I was a cheeseball, I’d probably say “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” suck another Red Bull vodka out of a yard glass and take off my shirt.

After a bit of dancing and realizing this was not a good scene, I opted out and ran.

I ended up at another bar I go to occasionally, but not enough to know anybody at, and I’m pretty sure the guy who struck up a conversation with me was gay. We were just talking about whatever, nothing sexual, and this pretty drunk old fag comes up to us and sort of leers at me then at the guy I was talking to.

“Uh, no thanks man. I’m not gay,” says I.

“mummblemumblemmmmumblemmummbblle”

“Yeah man, I’m just having a beer,” the guy I was talking to said.

“mummblemumbblemuummmbbbllee [leer] mummmblemumblemumble”

We try to ignore the guy, but he keeps hanging around and tries to flirt with both of us, and… the old aggression reared:

“Hey man, we said we’re not interested. Move on.”

“mummmblemummblemummbbble” and he tries to caress me and the other guy.

“Fuck man, you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“mummblemumble I’m not trying to flirt mumblllemummble [leer and lick of the lips]“

“The fuck you flirting with, you not flirting with me or this guy, huh?”

The old guy kept looking between us and still wasn’t getting it, so I say “You don’t know? You flirting with the wall maybe,” I said, reaching behind me and tapping the wall, some football poster on it. “You flirting with these guys on the poster? Yeah, they might like your sorry ass, but why don’t you move on buddy cause I’m standing in front of this wall right now and you’re bothering me.”

The guy finally shoved off.

The guy I was talking to laughed and said that was great. I felt a mixture of coolness and irritation at talking to the poor schmuck like I had. I’m sure I could have handled it better, but at the time, that’s all I could take. The guy I had been talking to told me he was at a bar the other night and this guy grabbed the bill of his hat and pulled him closer… or something, I missed the details of the story.

“You do that? That’s how guys flirt?” I asked him.

“Yeah. Sometimes it’s more aggressive.”

“I wouldn’t be down for shit like that. I wanted to punch that guy just for being an idiot. Listen, I gotta go. Nice to meet you man.”

What to do when you get off work early.

I happen to work a lot, but I’m a happy worker.

I, in fact, wonder what to do with myself on weekends. Sure, I like to hang out with friends or be outside, scrambling up rocks or something, but give me a weekend when I don’t have a definite plan and man, I start thinking about what I could do at work.

Thankfully, I have a wide open range of tasks in regards to my career. I can spend a morning fabricating metal or wood

,

fixing a skateboard

,

flirting at a cafe

,

spend my afternoons at lunch meetings

,

or lunch meetings with lots of wine

,

or site tours

,

or at electronic stores

,

or more site tours

,

and then various meetings

,

and flirting with coworkers

,

get in uncomforatable positions to take photographs

,

ride scissor lifts

,

on climb on scaffolding or ladders

(see, the deal is I kind of hate heights),

then afterward, there are work related parties and such

and so on.

I actually started this post yesterday. I was going somewhere with this, but have now forgotten why I put so many images in.

I did see the types of things people are searching for and happen on my blog. In my estimation, I would say there are a few paedophiles out there. I talk about puberty in one post and those searching are looking for something along the lines of puberty, but from a more odious direction: “gay puberty male in shower” / “hung puberty” / “boys showering”.

That said, I’ll never write about puberty again and in fact will change one of the images I found — this great Russky graph of male adolescence from some old text book. It’s now replaced with a picture of a turkey. And, here, I’ll add in a video.

First off, I’m pretty down on child molesters. I’m not much for the death penalty and I’m pretty obviously not into prosecuting “victimless” crime. (One can make all sorts of arguments against that nebulous term of victimless crime, but that’s another post / another time.) That said, I think child rapists should encounter a particularly bleak and lasting life contained in general population of some violent crime centric prison, a life that does not allow for state sanctioned death penalties and only allows for a long and incomprehensible destruction at the hands of the worst murders, rapists and psychopaths. I’m all down for the particularly inhumane torture of those who diddle children.

That said:

HEY, HOW ARE YA?!

()

So getting off work early. What do you do with yourself? I… am lost. And I head to… wait for it, wait for it…

THE BAR.

A buddy of mine met me, we ended up between a few bars, one of which was a truly hidden treasure, described somewhere online as being a good place to make a handful of bad decisions. Perfect. It’s on, ostensibly, a dead end, to the side, set back from the street and in what I think is an old bank building or something. It has a vestibule with a marble floor, then through a doorway and you find a wooden bar all the way down, not much light coming from behind the bar and really the only orangish light coming from the back where two pool tables sit. Though it was Friday (by this time, we’d wasted quite a few hours and it was getting into night), and the place was tight, it’s not too tight to easily move to the washrooms in back. And the washrooms themselves unbosom some more serious past to those sidling up to the old-style urinals set up from the floor and implanted into the wall, those type that start about elbow high and drop all the way down.

My buddy’s friend bought me a drink even though he was a total tool. He’s going to law school. Great, whatever. The girls he was with were varying degrees of friendly and one was super cool. For some reason we decided to change bars and the group dispersed. Fine by me. The place we were headed is some sort of race-fan sausage fest

and my buddy and I ended up at one of my favorite wine bars

where we met a few girls, but no one particularly mind blowing until we both saw this early-stage coug with some tool. Actually the guy was cool, I guess. Sort of drunk and friendly, a loud standard-issue guy. We spent too much time talking to his lady, which at first seemed fine and since I was running wingman, this guy Patrick, he was, sort of bears into me and tells me about women, all the while punctuating his speech with a finger driven into my chest and spilling my sancerre all down my shirt. Funny thing, he apologized each time, but kept doing it. When my buddy and I traded places, I told the woman “You gotta break up with this schmo” and probably something else about how she’s too classy for a guy like that… ’cause I’m classy like that, yo. Instead of smiling, or arguing against me, she gave me a look like “I know.” Bingo. So we do a bit of back and forth, me always reiterating how she’s much better than friend-Patrick over there… and then suddenly, I get swung around and introduced to some hag I’d ignored an hour earlier and there stands my buddy with the hag’s haggy friend. Pat whispers that the girls are wet and want to take any guy home. Mine looks maybe three months pregnant.

Downer.

I do a bit of the chat, then wander off, leaving buddy-boy to fend for himself. The washrooms are packed out, so grab my friend and try to drag him out so I can take a slash in the alley, but he begs off. Strange, he’s still chatting the haggy friend. That’s… cool, but I know I have to rescue the night. After finishing, I go back in and try to pull him away again, but he’s too busy chatting this girl up, so I head out front and perch on some car waiting for him. He finally comes out, leans into me and says “They have pot, beers and want to fuck.”

Well…

I say “Let’s think about this.”

And we lean there and ponder until he says “Pot, beer and fucking, man.”

I ask if he wants to fuck either of those hags. He considers this an amazing counterpoint. I then ask if he wants to smoke out, which neither of us are that into. It’s obvious beer could be more than enough to get us anywhere. Then, he says “Slap me hard.” I do and then he says “What the fuck was I thinking? We got to bail.”

I happen to have let a house across the street in college and know of a secret parking space, and since it’s a fucking trendy street and late enough on a Friday night to be impossible to find parking when we came in, all we have to do now is cross the street and down the alley, turn at a ⊥ alley, c’est ça. But then… from the heavens: “Hey boys!”

We look up and hanging over the roof of this new modern house are two girls in bikini tops.

“Hey ladies!”

They’re having a pool party, and the thing is, I think I know the people who own the house and these ain’t them. They say they’re staying at the house and that’s when I see a dude lean over the edge. Odds are set spinning. Possibility of getting laid high, possibility of an orgy high, possibility of a bit of the ol’ male on male high.

We do a bit more chatting back and forth with the girls and the guy, who has a bit of the gay affect, tries to convince us up. My buddy and I consider, deciding the gay guy won’t mind if we hook up with the girls, almost head over to the side gate and finally decide it’s time to head home.

Shit happens.