Brad And Evan

Preview Clip:

Sunflowers Off the Highway

After two years of on-and-off writing, I've finally finished this blasted story. Thank you Cameron for your thoughtful feedback.

Do not publish without my explicit permission.

--------------


Standing alone in a broken-glassed bus shelter in the middle of nowhere, I’m watching the rain pouring like a spilt shipment of beans and the streetlights staining everything the colour of an orange gone bad.
It’s cold.

I’m hungry.

He’s late.

And then, it happens. A bus pulls over and a body jumps off. I can’t make out his face but I know it’s him because I know that swagger. It’s the fuck-y’all attitude of someone Life liked slapping around.

His boots hit the hard pavement and the scene burns away like morning mist. Now I’m hot, I’m sweating, he’s thrusting, big shoulders slamming, the headboard hitting drywall.

Bam, bam, bam!

My eyes snapped open.

A fat swine was thumping the diner table. “Enough,” it rasped, sour-looking. “Yer disturbin’ the customers.” It heaved its flesh to the kitchen, carrying a tray as empty as the joint I was in.

I rearranged my trousers and rubbed the dull ache on my chest, clinging to the bits of my dream like an addict to a high. Loving it as much as I hated it.

My eyes floated down to my watch. The jumper cable to reality connected and a shotgun later I was on my feet, my shoulders setting the grimy lights jangling and the coffee bean snarling. I wiped the grease on my pants and lurched towards the exit with a body that felt as though it had rusted over years ago.

As chance had it, there was a jingle at the door just then and Jim Burkman sauntered in. He gave me a once over and an easy smile.

“Hey, Avrum.” he greeted in a voice too friendly to be innocent.

“Jim.” I nodded, but didn’t smile back. This baby bear howled in a chilling way when he shot his load. Better not chance it tonight with a full moon. I was late as it was with the payload.

I dragged my bad foot across the parking lot, fumbled for my keys, and finally fit myself into the snug and slightly smelly lair I’d called home for the past seven years. The weary leather seat sighed as I shifted my weight. My fingers lingered for a moment on an old postcard clipped to the dashboard, and then in went the key and I was off.

I switched on the CB as I pulled onto the highway but I was only half listening to the ratchet jaw go on about some escaped felon stalking the region. Golden lights illuminated a familiar and friendly road, but the moon cast its own ghostly glow on a landscape that was neither familiar nor friendly. It was the kind of scene that could corner a man’s thoughts and make him think about things which did no good to anyone.

Suddenly, a figure caught my headlights. I backed off the hammer with the engine still roaring and heard the rapid staccato sound of shoes hitting gravel shoulders. A burly shape materialized at the side window.

“Pretty late to be on the road, eh?” I yelled.

“You going east?” the other man shouted back, shielding his mouth from the exhaust.

“Aye, get in,” I told him with a jab of my thumb. I was six-foot-two and I hadn’t a life worth anybody’s trouble in taking.

A thick arm reached up, grabbed the side door and swung the rest of its cargo smoothly into the front seat. He slammed the door shut and I hammered down. I could just make out the outline of high cheek bones and a wide-based jaw with a week-old crop of fur. A dirty wifebeater was stretched between a pair of heavy-set shoulders and a waist narrow enough to make most women jealous.

“Name’s Cameron.” said the man, turning sharply. “Call me Cam. You got a lighter?” All of a sudden I was feeling funny. There was something familiar in that rough, rumbling voice. His restless eyes were as dark as crude oil.

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled as I leaned over with the lighter. Turning, I caught his face in the red glow of the flame.

Red like the Devil.

I hit the breaks hard.

He swore and looked at me in a fierce way, eyes narrowing into slits. “Hey, buddy, what the hell…” His arms flexed on both sides, ready for a fight.

“Sorry, Cam…” I drawled, biting the end off his name and tasting bitterness. “Thought I saw something cross the road.” I tightened up on the rubber band with my eyes fixed on nothing. I was angry. I had an idea why.

“Y’know what, maybe you’d better pull over.” His voice was like black ice, cold and tinted with danger.

I dropped the hammer and sent the machine screaming. I was shovelling coal to Hell and not even the bite of a warm knife made me care. “I said to friggin’ pull over, you motherfucker!” he yelled. His eyes were twin drums of petrol set ablaze. I almost laughed. The fucking universe had shifted and he still hadn’t a clue.

“Why don’t you teach me?” I shouted, the engine roaring at a hundred and sixty. “Teach me again.”

Then I looked at him straight; at the body he’d built to kill, the lips he’d taught to lie, and the eyes he’d made to hate.

Straight at a memory.

“Jesus,” Cam said, sounding like someone being crucified. He’d finally figured it out. His eyes ran in panic from the demons in his mind as his knife fell from nerveless fingers. A mess of hands groped frantically for the door, and then for something in his pocket. For a moment I thought it was a gun until he pulled it out and swallowed it.

He sighed and calmed right down.

I eased off the gas, feeling as though I were a ripped fuel tank with all the juice spilling out. We were in for a long night, and I wasn’t sure if there’d be a morning.

“Give me the lighter again?” Cam asked after a bit. He still sounded strained, like wheels trying to flop-flip fast. As he wiped at his brow with his forearm I got a whiff of him, a hundred miles of fresh sweat and adrenaline.

“Yeah…” I cleared my throat. We met for an instant as I handed him the lighter, (still in my hand somehow,) before his eyes stretched away into the darkness. Cam took a deep drag of his cigarette and when he spoke again, his voice had a distant quality that reminded me of the vague rumblings of prairie thunder.

“You know,” he said slowly, “Me and my pal Mur – her name was Murva – used to go driving just like this. Except we were sixteen, and we didn’t have no rig. Just my Gran’s razzle-dazzle station wagon, all patched up with the house paint.”

He rested the knuckles of one hand against the window, the other he lay slightly curled on his thigh. I knew full well they could break a man’s neck as easy as break bread.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mur wasn’t my girlfriend – just best buds – though she was definitely all girl. She had that queer sway in her hips, if you know what I mean. Always thought she’d look gorgeous in a red satin dress.” The corners of my mouth itched to betray me. I didn’t need to see to know his lips were curled.

“Anyway,” he continued through hooded eyes, “This one weekend her folks decide to take the train down South. So I thought, what the heck, why waste the free car? I was real proud of my new licence, see. Mur hadn’t gotten hers yet, though I’d already taught her the ropes…” Cam trailed off.

With an effort he tried to sit up, only making it part way. “Anyhow, I say to Mur, ‘Why don’t we go pick up some girls at the bar?’ Mur wasn’t so keen about the whole thing so I said she could pick up some pansy guys if she liked.” Cam paused, another lazy smile in the smoke. He knew I was listening. “So I drove us down that night, and I kissed-up some girls. Pretty soon we were all pissed drunk and making stupid talk, but then when we got back to the car, we saw it – a big friggin’ dent in the back of the Lincoln! Someone must have backed up and ran off. Mur started going on about her folks killing her, and I was feeling like shit because it’d been my idea. Well, we figured the only thing to do was to take it to the panelbeater. The cost of the repairs came straight from her savings.”

Cam took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled through the side of his mouth so that the smoke came out in drowsy wisps. His words were beginning to slur. “Mur’s parents came home the next day, and we didn’t say a word. But then we hear her father come in from the garage and go to Mur’s mother in this amazed kind of voice, ‘Nancy, you won’t believe this, but a miracle has happened! Remember that dent I’d told you about on Thursday? Well, the dent’s GONE! Bless our souls, the car’s dang well fixed itself!”

He chuckled, a low rumble that sent a shiver scurrying up my spine.

He could do that to me still.

After a few minutes he was dead to the world, looking as innocent as an angel’s, though I found no peace in it. Grainy images recede in my mind’s eye like scenery in a rear-view mirror. There was a small dark house with sticky floors; a pretty mother with her faithful bottle of Kentucky Bourbon; a hard-bitten grandmother; an angry, pixie-faced boy; the empty space where a father should have been…

I turned back to the road. Time passed.

“Y’know, I never did pay her back for my half of the bodywork,” remarked Cam, his words as gravelly as asphalt. “I always imagined she’d be married with children by now.”

He opened one eye, which I knew was hazel, and fingered the old postcard of sunflowers I’d clipped onto the dash. “Who’s this from?” Cam murmured, half to himself, staring at it hard.

“My bud Mac,” I replied after a moment. “We thought we’d buy up a lot one day and start a sunflower farm together… Still wish we had.” I stopped, startled at my admission.

“Huh,” grunted Cam, watching the darkness again. “What happened?”

“Well, Mac… One day he just git. Don’t know where he went. I got this in the mail a couple years later. No message. No return address. Just the card.” There hadn’t even been a name. But I’d recognized the chicken-scratch as soon as I saw it.

“Sounds like a pretty shitty friend to me.” Cam said glibly. “Why d’you keep it, anyway?”

It was a good question. But I was done answering and getting nothing to show for it. “Why you think he sent it?” I shot back, and he went as still as a photograph. The game was up and he knew it.

“Aye, Mac?” Come on, make me hate you like I should.

Mac growled like a cornered hound. “You think you can push me-”

“You sure pushed me.” I cut him off sharply, even as the searing memory of it made me wonder if this was such a good idea.

He sucked in air and tightened his grip on his pocket, but there was no way I was letting him get smashed again on my time. Touching him – even just the back of his hand - was like a shot of brandy, the kick in it made stronger with age. Mac must have felt something too, because he sat back hard, breathing between his knuckles.

We passed a bright green number thirty-two on the road and it dawned on me I’d missed a turn somewhere and I didn’t have a clue where we were.

“I don’t know what the hell was in that stuff, Avrum,” started Mac in a voice like rusted metal. “I was fucked up, that night.”

Yeah, you sure were. The night Hell yawned and swallowed us whole. My mouth went dry as I braced myself for what was coming head-on on both lanes of the highway. I saw too late we were headed for a hit.

“I never meant it to happen. I never meant to hurt…I know you’ve got no reason to believe. I don’t ask for no forgiveness. What I did... Oh fuck…”

The memory of it had a million jagged edges and screamed every which way. It was pushing, punching, kicking, breaking… I needed it to stop.

“…I didn’t see anything except red, didn’t know what I’d done ’til the yelling had stopped…”

Stop, stop, fucking stop…

“…and I was standing at the top of those metal stairs, looking down—”

I slammed the breaks so hard the wheels screeched.

We stopped.

Mac ripped the door open and leaned over to get sick. I had a mind to join him. I studied the veins in the wheel instead, until Mac pulled back in and we swung away from where we’d been straddling the lanes.

I’d wanted to see him, waking in the hospital the morning after, but of course he’d long gone by then. Now here he was again, somehow, his hands on his knees, a small dark line trickling from where his teeth had broken into his knuckles. The sheen of sweat on the back of his neck stank stronger than the toilet stalls I’d sometimes gone when the itch was just too strong to shake.

I’d once yearned till it hurt to tell Mac how much I appreciated him. But we’d let too many words left unsaid; too much time pass; too many forks in the road lead us away. Nothing was the same and there was no use trying to go back.

A faded road sign with “Service Station 20 km Ahead” printed on it reminded me we were lost. I was hoping to God that we’d find a decent Timmy’s at the pickle park. I needed mud bad and the last greasy spoon had been a place no trucker deserved being holed up.

Feeling Mac’s eyes on me – the first time since he’d knifed me earlier – I got a queasy feeling he was taking us over another cliff.

“There’s something else I gotta tell ya,” he began, soft as a heap of chicken feathers and just as unsettling.

We made a right turn on the road and the moon swung out of sight, pitching us into darkness. We were coming to that cliff fast.

“You asked me why I sent that postcard. Well, I really don’t know why I did, honest to God. But if there’s one thing I know for sure-”

And here it was.

“-It’s that I never thought you needed a red satin dress.” His breath caught.

Gorgeous. That was the word he’d used.

The ground fell away, and for a moment I felt as if I were suspended in nothing but the thinnest air. I’d thought I’d had it all figured, what was and what wasn’t possible in this life. But I’d been wrong from the get go.

“Not for me. Not ever,” spoke Mac, and there it was again, giving guitar strings to his voice and country blues to his eyes. A truth as naked as a newborn babe.

A sea of memories rose up and parted around two sun-browned boys grappling like bear cubs in a wave of golden sunflowers. I saw the flex of muscles; the sweat; the smell; the way he looked at me then. It was the same way he was looking at me now.

Some words don’t need saying; some bonds no time can break; some roads go back to the start.

We slid into the exit ramp on the wind rushing through our ears. I saw myself a kid again, riding high on an eighteen-wheeler for the first time, eyes as big as the wheels. By the time we caught sight of the pit I could have kissed the stars.

I pulled up against the grass in a dark corner of the parking lot and killed the engine. We were just two heaving shapes in the shadow of a moonlit night.

“Well, I guess I aught to be going now, huh?” said Mac, blinking away a suspicious shine. “Thanks for the ride, bud,” he said in a gruff sort of way, and before I could say a thing he was gone, striding across the empty parking lot with his wide shoulders balled up like baseballs and his big arms swinging into the orange light.

He didn’t get far.

I leapt out of the open door and whipped him around by his shirt. My fingers touched his stubble-dressed jaw, and looked at hazel eyes that didn’t know what to do. Our trembling breaths shrunk the inches till our parched lips drew the Hallelujah from our souls.

Mac broke loose and staggered back, eyes wide like deer caught in the headlights. The next I knew, I was flat on my back and pinned beneath him. My shirt came off, and then so did his. His wifebeater looked small bunched up next to the weight of him, sparsely furred and rippling with evidence. Nuzzling my neck, his course bristles scraped below the smear of tears.

With a firm grip on my trapped cock, he murmured in his melodious way, “I always knew you had a big one,” as he sniffed down my stomach to my crotch. He made quick work of my zipper, and with a few short strokes he had my stick in full throttle. He went down on it pronto, taking it long and deep and wet, his practiced tongue going around and around like gears taking me up a hill. The stars tore through my eyes and my engine purred like a high-horsepower kitten.

I tugged at his 501’s and he let go of my dick with a kiss. He stood up and kicked away the rest of his clothes, shoes and all, and pretty soon he’d stripped me too.

We rolled around for a bit, pigs in the wet grass, our lips bruising our collar bones and our sticks rubbing up a fire. “Fuck me,” I told him, and he shot me a look that could have melted metal. Up went my legs over the curve of his back as he licked my socket clean. My dick waved around, bare to the air, till he gripped it rough and played meat puppet with it.

He spat on his prick, and ploughed into my pucker slow and sure. I won’t say it didn’t hurt, because when it came to Mac, it had never stopped. But as he oiled me good with his thrusting cock, there was nothing I could do but moan to his sweet sweet rhythm. He was the Devil, he was the blesséd Lord, he was Mac with hazel fuck-y’all eyes.

With a shudder and a roar he pumped his cum into my gut. Trembling, we lay with my load smeared between our heaving chests and his cum trickled down my crack like a tear. Shit, cum, and tears, that was what we had between us, as we lay listening to crickets and highway traffic on a night that would never age a day in our memory.

By and by, the sweat dried on our skin and we shuffled to our feet. We knew better than to bait the bears. I picked up the clothes we’d strewn about and chucked them into the truck. As I stuck a foot in, I caught Mac looking at my mangled toes like a kid who’d broken the family china.

I leaned back and hooked an arm around Mac’s neck, pulling him close. “Y’know, I’m real grateful I’ll never have to wear a dress,” I said softly. “Never could look pretty for the picture.” I cracked a smile, though it wasn’t easy. I’d almost forgotten how.

He looked away.

“Get in Mac.” I coaxed him gentle-like. Time enough to deal with this later.

He hesitated for a while longer, before his forearms flexed and lifted his ass onto the platform. He sat there dangling his legs buck-naked, looking the same way I’d found him on the morning his old man walked out the door and never walked back in again. He’d been just three days shy of his ninth birthday.

“Come on, buddy - on your feet,” I said, and dragged him through the curtain to my bunk. We lay down on the sheet and Mac began kissing my feet like I was Jesus in the House of the Pharisee.

Bringing his hands to my hardening cock, I made him see I was no Prophet.

He took me on all four that second time, after he’d sucked and rimmed me again. His cock went down my cum-moistened hole as smooth as the finest Whisky, sliding back and forth, back and forth, making my sweet spot sing, making me moan and thrust back and cry out till the Second Coming was upon us and we were lost.

Lost.

Riding alone in the back of a beaten-up bus, I’m heading to God knows where with the rain pouring like a spilt shipment of beans and the streetlights staining everything the colour of an orange gone bad.
It’s cold,

I’m hungry,

I’m late.

And then it happens. A body materializes on the side of the road. I can’t make out his face but I know it’s him because I know that swagger. It’s the fuck-y’all attitude of someone Life liked slapping around.

I pull the wire to signal the driver, but the bus doesn’t slow down. I see him go by, and I pull again, panicking. But it doesn’t stop. It just doesn’t stop. The scene burns away like morning mist…

I know even before I open my eyes that he’s gone.

The pain cuts like broken glass, but only in the time it takes to breathe. I roll over to squint at the sunlight dancing beneath the folds of the curtain, and suddenly I’m sure of what I want more than anything in life.

I stretch, groping for his lingering smell, and find a note beneath my pillow. I know I still owe you, it reads. Six scrawled words, two twenties and a handful of coins. That’s all he’d left.

It’s more than I deserve.

I take the note with me into the morning glare. When I can see again all I can do is stare at the mysteries of the Almighty.

On both sides of a road leading away from the highway are rows and rows of sunflowers, their yellow manes ablaze as far as the eye can see, saluting the sun, every one of them, from dawn till dusk, wherever it goes.

Knowing that Mac would have seen this too almost makes me laugh.

I put the note with the postcard and clip them to the dashboard. I dress quickly and fire up the ignition.

I look into the sun and remember -


He’d wanted to go east.

The Snickers Affair

Since I'm on the topic of advertisement, I'm bookmarking this entry on Malcontent (a gay blog), mostly for my personal reference. It's a fantastic piece which gives a different perspective on gay advocacy groups. The entry discusses the Snickers Affair, in which Mars was accused of homophobia in a gay-themed Snickers commercial. As this post elaborates, not everyone in the gay community felt the same way about the ad, despite the stentonian voice of GLAAD and others.

Sometimes we've just got to pull back and re-evaluate the scenerio.

Who represents us?

What are we trying to achieve?

Hell, is it really that important?

When an organization gets carried away by its own rhetoric, it's no longer able to discern real threats from the abstract. Not everything is black in white.

I think Bob Dylan put it best (selected lyrics from 'My Back Pages'):

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Gay Cologne Commercial

Hot again. The best gay commercial I've seen so far. I'm pretty anti-consumption, but this really makes me really want to buy the cologne.

Don't Smoke-up And Drive

The analysis of the following gay-themed commercial is pretty fascinating.

Gay Kiss ?
Uploaded by YforYerom

Interestingly, the ad was aired only briefly in Canada, since it was deemed too "edgy" for Americans, and maybe Canadians as well. Not surprisingly gays liked it more than straights, Canadians more than Americans. Other results:

· The top two words used by Canadians, both gay and straight, to describe the commercial were “creative” and “funny.”

· American gays chose “eye catching” and “interesting” most often.

· The top two words chosen by American straights were “disgusting” and “offensive.”

Some people have even gone so far as considering it homophobic, which I just don't get. Showing two guys kissing on TV is pretty brave and there are no obvious gay stereotypes being used in this ad.

There's an in depth analysis on New American Dimension's website (which made the ad for MTV), including a video clip showing typical reactions from people who viewed the clip.

My opinion? IT'S HOT!

But watch it and decide for yourself.

This is a better quality one:
http://adage.com/video/Player.php?s=OjEwNDc6N2VmZjNmMmQ6MQ

Sunflowers

This is a short story that I've picked up again. Not the first time I revised it and it won't be my last.

I keep finding new details to add to the existing story. It's like marinating food - the longer you marinate and season it, usually the better it tastes. It can be a subtle as a single word, like a hint of nutmeg. So Avrum doesn't now so much as "stumble" across the parking lot as "limps". Instead of putting his foot down on the accelerator, he puts his "foot to the hammer". The first example was to prepare the reader for new character/plot developments which I've decided to entertain later in the story. The second example came from an extensive list of trucker jargon I found yesterday, which I decided to sprinkle my story carefully with. Alongside the trucker-culture themes, I've started to integrate some drug and Christian metaphors (like "an addict to a high" and "breaking bread").

However, at the same time I'm adding detail, I've a consuming desire to write as succinct as possible. I don't want the story to be over-marinated and heavy. I'm always finding redundant sentences to cut and paragraphs to rephrase. It's all about jamming as much detail in as few words as I can get away with. It's supposed to be a fast-paced short story, not a medieval novel. Balancing the need for detail and the need for succinctness is a definate challenge.

Still, despite the gruelling pace, I really have only two more sections to go in this story - the sex (the "meat", he he he, of the story) and the aftermath. So maybe it will get finished eventually.

Oh, and yes it has a new title now. "The Hitchhiker" was really way too generic. I've also thought of a suitable tag-line for the Literotica site where I'll be posting my story if I ever git done:

Some bonds no time can break, some roads go back to the start...

---------------------

I’m standing alone in a broken-glassed bus shelter on the 401 with the rain pouring like a spilt shipment of beans. Streetlights have started throwing their light on anything they can get at, staining everything the colour of a wet orange.
It’s cold.
I’m hungry.

He’s late.

And then, it happens. A bus pulls over and a body jumps off. I can’t see his face yet but I know right away it’s him. It’s in the swagger, the splashes, the fuck-you attitude of someone brought up by the backhand.

Slap, slap, slap, go his boots on the pavement as he walks towards me. Just like that, nothing else registers. Not the cold, not the rain, not even the shit-hole of a shelter. Only his footsteps are real.

Slap, slap, slap!

My eyes snapped open.

A fat swine was thumping the diner table. “No snoring,” it rasped, sour-looking. “Yer disturbin’ the customers.” It heaved its flesh to the kitchen, carrying a tray as empty as the joint I was in.

I rubbed the dull ache on my chest, clinging to the bits of my dream like an addict to a high; hating it, loving it, both.

My eyes floated down to my watch. The jumper cable to reality connected and an instant later I was on my feet, my shoulders setting the grimy lights jangling and the coffee bean snarling. I wiped the grease on my pants and lurched towards the exit with a body that felt as though it had rusted over years ago.

As chance had it, there was a jingle at the door just then and Jim Burkman sauntered in. He gave me a once over and an easy smile.

“Hey, Avrum.” he greeted in a voice too friendly to be innocent.

“Jim.” I nodded, but didn’t smile back. The man howled in a chilling way when he shot his load. Better not chance it tonight with a full moon. I was late as it was with the new shipment.

I limped awkwardly across the parking lot, fumbled for my keys, and finally fit myself into the snug and slightly smelly lair I’d called home for the past seven years. The weary leather seat sighed as I shifted my weight. My fingers lingered for a moment on an old postcard clipped to the dashboard, and then in went the key and I was off.

I switched on the radio as I pulled onto the highway but I was only half listening to the ACE go on about some escaped felon stalking the region. Golden lights illuminated a familiar and friendly road, but the moon cast its own ghostly glow on a landscape that was neither familiar nor friendly. It was the kind of landscape which could corner a man’s thoughts and make him think about the things which could or should have been.

It was then that a figure caught the periphery of my headlights. I slowed to a stop with the engine still roaring and moments later I heard the rapid staccato sound of shoes hitting gravel shoulders. A burly shape materialized at the side window. Much later, I’d wonder if I’d have done anything different if I’d a sense of what was to follow.

“Pretty late to be on the road, eh?” I yelled.

“Can I get a lift? North, maybe?” the other man shouted back, shielding his mouth from the exhaust which obscured his form.

“Aye, get in!” I signalled. Just another hitchhiker, I thought.

A thick arm reached up, grabbed the side door, and swung the rest of its cargo smoothly into the front seat. He slammed the door shut and I pressed the gas. I could just make out the outline of high cheek bones and a wide-based jaw with a week-old crop of fur. A dirty wifebeater was stretched between a pair of heavy-set shoulders and a waist narrow enough to make most women jealous.

“Name’s Cameron.” said the man, turning sharply. “Call me Cam. You got a lighter?” All of a sudden I was feeling funny. There was something familiar in that rough, rumbling voice. His restless eyes were as dark as crude oil.

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled as I flipped him the lighter. He pulled my hand close, a cigarette already in his mouth. Turning, I caught his face in the red glow of the flame. Red like the Devil. I hit the breaks hard.

He swore and looked at me fiercely, eyes narrowing into slits. “Hey, trucker, what the hell…” His arms loose on both sides, ready for a fight.

“Sorry, Cam…” I said, biting the end off his name and tasting bitterness. “Thought I saw something cross the road.” I took my foot off the break, picking up speed again, my eyes fixed ahead. I was angry. I had an idea why.

“Y’know what…” His voice was suddenly like black ice, cold and tinted with danger. “Maybe you’d better pull over, mister…”

I put my foot to the hammer. I was shovelling coal to Hell, but I didn’t care, not even when I felt something hard and sharp pressed against my middle. “I said to friggin’ pull over, you mother fucker.” His eyes were twin drums of petrol set ablaze. I almost laughed. The damn universe had shifted and he still hadn’t got a clue. The engine roared like a beast at a hundred and sixty.

“Why don’t you teach me?” I said then. “Teach me again.” And that’s when I looked straight at him, at the body he’d built to fight, the lips he’d taught to lie, the eyes he’d made to hate. Straight at a memory.

“Jesus,” Cam said, sounding like someone being crucified. He’d finally figured it out. He pulled away in a hurry, nicking me as he did. I could see his eyes still burning, but now more like cylinders spilt and running. They were running in panic. He dropped his knife and started groping frantically for the door with one hand and for something in his pocket with another. For a moment I thought it was a gun until he pulled it out and jabbed it into his arm.

He sighed as he calmed right down.

Backing off the hammer, I was starting to feel like a burnt out engine stranded in the desert. We were in for a long night.

“Give me the lighter again?” Cam asked, finally. He still sounded strained, like wheels trying to flop-flip fast. As he wiped at his brow with his forearm I got a whiff of him, a hundred miles of fresh sweat and adrenaline.

“Yeah…” I cleared my throat. We met for an instant as I handed him the lighter (still in my hand, somehow) before his eyes stretched away into the darkness. Cam took a deep drag of his cigarette. When he spoke again, his voice had a distant quality, like a siren a long way down a foggy road.

“You know,” he said slowly, “Me and my pal Mur – that’s short for Murva – used to go driving just like this. Except that we were sixteen, and we didn’t have no rig. Just my Gran’s station wagon, all patched up with yellow house paint.”

He rested the knuckles of one hand against the window, the other he lay slightly curled on his thigh. I had no illusions. These hands could break a man’s neck as easy as break bread.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mur wasn’t my girlfriend or anything – just best buds – though she was definitely all girl. She had that queer sway in her hips, if you know what I mean. Always thought she’d look gorgeous in a red satin dress.” The corners of my mouth itched to betray me. Little bastard, I thought. I didn’t need to check to know his lips were curled.

“Anyway,” he continued through half-closed eyes, “This one weekend her folks decide to take the train down South. So I thought, what the heck, why waste the free car? I was real proud of my new licence, see. Mur hadn’t gotten hers yet, though I’d already taught her the ropes…” Cam trailed off.

With an effort he tried to sit up, only making it part way. “Anyhow, I say to Mur, ‘Why don’t we go pick up some girls at the bar?’ Mur wasn’t sure of the plan so I said she could pick up some pansy guys if she liked.” Cam paused, a lazy smile.

He continued, knowing I was listening. “So I drove us done to the bar that night, and I kissed-up some girls. Pretty soon we were all pissed drunk and making stupid talk, but then when we got back to the car, we saw it – a big friggin’ dent in the back of the K-Car! Someone must have backed up and ran off. Mur started going on about her folks killing her, and I was feeling like shit because it’d been my idea. So, we decided to take it to the panelbeater and get it fixed. I drove, she paid.”

Cam took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled through the side of his mouth so that the smoke came out in drowsy wisps. His words were beginning to slur. “Mur’s parents came home the next day, and we didn’t say a word. But then we hear her father come in from the garage and go to Mur’s mother, all amazed, ‘Nancy, you won’t believe this, but a miracle has happened! Remember that dent I’d told you about on Thursday? Well, the dent’s GONE! Bless our souls, the car’s dang well fixed itself!”

He chuckled, a low rumble of amusement. Even sedated as he was, I couldn’t help feeling a shiver run up my spine from the familiarity of it.

I risked another look at the man in my truck when the silence stretched. Asleep, his expression was as innocent as an angel’s. But I found no peace in it. Images slid in and receded in my mind like scenery in a rear-view mirror. I saw a small dark house with sticky floors; a young, pretty mother never without her Kentucky Bourbon; a hard-bitten grandmother; an angry, pixie-faced boy; the void where a father should have been…

I turned back to the road. Time passed.

“Y’know, I never did pay her back for the bodywork.” Cam remarked abruptly. His eyes were still closed but his voice sounded steady. “Mur and me…” he was quiet for a minute. “Always imagined she’d be married with children by now.”

He opened his eyes for an answer. I shook my head.

“Who’s that from?” Cam asked then, jabbing at the old postcard of sunflowers I’d clipped onto my dashboard. He was staring at it hard with eyes I knew were hazel.

“My bud Mac,” I said. “We thought one day we’d buy up a lot and start a sunflower farm together.” Then I surprised myself by adding, “Really wish we had.”

“Huh,” grunted Cam, watching the darkness again. “What happened?”

“Well, Mac… he disappeared. Don’t know where he went. I got this in the mail a couple year later. No message. No return address. Just the card.” There hadn’t even been a name. But I’d recognized the chicken-scratch as soon as I saw it.

“Sounds like a pretty shitty friend to me.” said Cam softly. “Why d’you keep it?”

I’d been trying to figure that one out myself for the past five years. I shrugged my shoulders and said carelessly, “I don’t know. Maybe to remind myself to ask if I ever met him again.” I was getting tired of playing this game.

Cam’s breathing quickened like an answer, and he reached to grip his pocket as though he’d a nugget of gold inside. Meanwhile, a bright green number thirty-two flashed by the side of the road and I was suddenly worried. I’d missed a turn somewhere and Cam, or whatever he wanted to call himself, was about to get himself smashed again.

But I was dead wrong, as it turned out. Cam was about to take us both clear off the map.

He let out a breath and began. “Y’know Mur and me, we were real close. Close like some brothers are. Trusted each other with almost everything. I thought we’d be there for each other, always.” I glanced at him. He was talking through clenched teeth, as though he was trying to lift ground pressure.

“Gawd dang it. It ended so badly,” he burst out then. That’s when I knew where we were headed. I got cotton mouth and every part of my body went stiff. I might as well have been pedalling in the middle with another truck coming head-on.

And the truck wasn’t stopping. “That night… A friend of mine had given me the stuff earlier. I still don’t know what it was. But it messed me up bad. It made me see things, things which weren’t there.”

His voice was going faster now. The thudding in my ear was going faster too. Everything was going full throttle. “Somehow I ended up in my room. I don’t know how I got there. But somehow I was in my room, and I saw a guy standing there, staring at me. He looked just like me. It was me looking scared, like I was seeing some kind of thing from Hell. It was like I was staring at a mirror, except that the guy in the mirror backed up when I stepped up, and that’s when I hated him. Hated him like I’d never hated anything before.”

We were going to hit. Here it came –

“So I hit him. Full upper-cut. And then I hit him again. And again. Knocked him down, kicked him. I heard him yell, but I wasn’t listening. I threw him down the stairs. And that’s when the yelling stopped. But then I realized something. Why wasn’t I feelin’ the pain?”

His voice was breaking up. Breaking into pieces. Everything had closed in like a tunnel. Bloody images screamed at me, pounding me into a bleeding pulp. There were no breaks on this one. The breaks were broken.

How much time passed I don’t know, but when I began to make out muffled noises coming from where Cam was, I knew I needed to turn and see. It was hard though. Real hard. I was like a P2 driver making the bend at top speed. It was so much easier to just go straight on, to end it all. But I wasn’t ready to crash and burn. Not yet.

Cam, though, didn’t look like he was going to make it. He was sitting hunched over, rocking. A small dark river trickled down from where his teeth were breaking into his knuckles. I watched as he fed on the pain, fed on it to keep sane.

“Mac,” I said, when I had had enough. “Stop.” I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. Feeling his warm skin beneath my palm, I felt a stirring and realized just how long I’d gone without. The stab of guilt almost made me let go. I couldn’t even touch a guy without turning it into something dirty. But Mac needed help now and there was no one else. So I held on and spoke to him again. “Don’t make me pull over, Mac.”

With a real effort he pushed his hands away and sat on them instead. I knew what it felt like, not trusting your hands.

I listened to his ragged breathing as I kept the wheel steady. A faded road sign read “Service Station 20 km Ahead” and reminded me we were lost. I was hoping to God that we’d find a decent Timmy’s at the pickle park. I needed mud bad and the last greasy spoon had been a place no trucker should ever have to visit.

But as things turned out, I wouldn’t get a chance to find out.

I felt an electric shock when Mac put his hand over mine. He was looking at me for the first time since he’d knifed me earlier, and the way he was looking was making me uncomfortable. I tried to move my hand away but he held fast.

“Y’know, Avrum… I’ve always known about you.” He said softly, soft like a goose-down bed. I was getting goose-bumps all over.

“You known how I knew?” he leaned in close, his breath hot against my neck. I took a shallow breath, and immediately regretted it. After all that had happened, after trying so hard to forget...“Because every time you thought I wasn’t looking, you’d look at me like a starved man looks at prime beef.”

My mind spun, like tires stuck in the mud, going nowhere. I wasn’t sure what to think. Seven years ago I’d have denied it. Denied it to high Heaven because there was no way in Hell I was going to loose Mac. But there wasn’t anything worth saving now. Too many words left unsaid; too much time passed; too many forks in the road taken.

I wanted to say something, anything, but when Mac started talking again there was a catch in his voice which made me listen. “Y’know Avrum, no one’s ever looked at me that way,” he said. It was the kind of catch that opened dusty, dangerous doors that lead to God knows where. “And you know something, Avrum? You know something…I never thought you needed a red satin dress.”

And just like that, I discovered I’d been wrong about everything. The truth was in his voice, naked as a newborn baby. “Not for me. Not ever,” he said, and it moved into his eyes. He looked away and sat back.

How much it had cost him, I’d never know. But there was another truth too, and this one sat just over my heart. I’ll never forget the look he gave me when I moved my hand into his. It was as if he’d seen a miracle – one part wary, like he was trying to figure out the catch behind it, the other part in awe and maybe a little afraid. So I let him see it all for what it was, because it was what he needed, and because deep down I’d wanted him to see it all along.

Some words don’t need saying; some bonds no time can break; some roads go back to the start.

A Different Universe

I've always been impressed with Ethan Gray's blog. His sophisticated humour and ironic, melancholy entries make him one of the best gay bloggers on the net. I can't help feeling jealous and a little ashamed sometimes, and not because of my inferior writing skills; I'm jealous because he's fucking porn stars while I'm sitting here writing about him fucking porn stars; I'm ashamed because he's living the life that I could never dare to live, nor live even if I dared. I'm simply socially inept.

Well, if I can't imitate Ethan's life, I can at least try emulating his writing. But what's his secret? Jotting down a list of book titles he mentions, I make for the local branch library, my mother's card stuffed in my pocket. The library is in an aquamarine crystal which until some five years ago had doubled for the Nepean City Hall. Inside, a fountain ripples beneath a winding staircase while a nearby gallery shocks passerbyers with its harsh and abstract art.

I was hit by a wave of nostalgia.

I was a reader too, once. Back in grade school I used to tear through books by the dozen every month. I was the kid who read at recess, who left orange stains on the pages of library books I'd left too close to my lunch. Wasting a single minute in mundanity was unbearable when a universe full of fierce dragons and triumphant kings beckoned, always, just beyond the next page. This library was like a second home to me.

But things change. Since moving to Toronto, books for leisure have been few and far between. Its not just the lack of time or opportunity. I seem to have lost the desire. Those fantasy worlds which once filled me with such wonder now seem somehow cheap, excessive, artificial, like makeup on a prostitute past her prime. And like so many other things in my life contaminated with doubt and self-deception, books now rekindle dark and despairing thoughts which should have no place in a healthy twenty-two year old. A man can't be healthy if he's given up seeing a psychologist because he's become so anti-social he's terrified of leaving his house, if he's quite university because he breaks into panic and cold sweat just seeing an assignment, if he escapes to the library looking for a fantasy only as a last, desperate resort to stave off inevitable self-destruction. If he writes in his blog what he's just written.

So there I am, sitting on the library's thin faded carpet, looking for a book in the fiction section. A find it. "The Lost Language of Cranes". But it's the book next to it, which hadn't been on Ethan's list, which really catch my attention. I turn to its first page. I can tell its a different kind of book, different from the stories I'm used to reading. It's about a mother dying from cancer, a father who wants to leave her, an older daughter travelling the world, and a thoughtful gay son. It's about love, family, and the things which are said and the things which aren't. "Equal Affections", it's called.

I check it out. It's a different universe that I need exploring now. Questions I need to ask. A universe like my own.

"In Search of Dustin" Version 0.1 Release

Download Preview Game -
In Search of Dustin
A gay game made by a gay guy for gay guys.

If you're just joining me now, you can read more about Dustin in the blog entries below this one.

If you're here for PORN, go to my entries here or here to download the clips. You pervs.

So, I've decided to release "In Search of Dustin" Version 0.1. I'm releasing it not because its good or even close to being finished, but because I've decided to stop developing the game with Blade Engine. I've found a far better engine called "Ren Py". And its better in almost every way possible.

Things to keep in mind when you're playing:

• The game is incomplete, so some selections will end up nowhere.
• The selection menu is bugged.
• If you want to skip the movies, right click the screen.

Have fun. Whatever you think of the story so far, the next version will be WAY better.

Edit: Crap, I just noticed a music file playing where its not supposed to be. Oh well.
_________________________________

My rant about why I'm abandoning Blade Engine

The first reason up to bat is that I've just about had enough of Blade Engine's bugs. When you play my game, you will likely notice the most annoying one: the gibberished selection options. Blade Engine says its working to fix the problem, and I actually believe they will. They're customer service seems fairly good. While there's no guarantee than I won't find bugs in Ren Py, the likelihood is much less as Ren Py's been used to develop hundreds of games already (amateur and professional) while Blade is completely new product.

Second, Unlike Blade, Ren Py is completely free. No annoying company logos and window bars.

Third, I can way more with Ren Py than I could ever do with Blade. With Ren Py, I can make images spin on the screen. You will be able to click on different locations on a map. You can get points for your actions. I can even make snowflakes fall from the sky. The sky is literally the limit.

Finally, and this is the clincher: Blade advertise itself as the most user-friendly Visual Novel creator. Not so. I've just tried RP, and the tabs and script program is way better than the increasingly cumbersome notepad documents I have to generate.

So basically, its Ren Py: 4, Blade Engine: 0.

Anything...

The gay visual novel I'm creating, "In Search of Dustin", is coming along nicely. The mystery and intrigue is thickening. And some parts of the story may cause something else to thicken as well. This is Akbala, my latest character, whom you may or may not meet, depending on the choices you make. He will fulfill your deepest desires... at a price.

Akbala: Hello, Master. What is your pleasure?
You: Er... is Dustin there?
Akbala: Dustin? Perhaps.
Akbala: Anything is possible with Akbala Services.
You: Anything?
Akbala: Anything.

I've also created a two-minute movie for his scene to the tune of Madona's "Erotica". Some of the things on that clip are quite provocative. *grin*

In Search of Dustin

Meet Valerie: She a manipulative little b*tch who hates your guts and will do everything in her power to ruin your chances with your dream guy. She also happens to be your ex-girlfriend.



Meet Stacy: Your dear friend, who's always ready for a laugh and a rockin' good time.


Meet Ben: What a beautiful face and body... Unfortunately, that's pretty much all there is to him.
Meet Phil: Not sure what he's trying to say here, but whatever it is, it'll be important.

As you can see, I've started to compile the images I will be using for the game. Good images are really hard to come by. Only a few sets of the thousands I've skimmed through are suitable for character-construction. The main reason is that I need more than one image per character. I need preferably, a set of images showing the a person wearing different expressions - ie: normal, surprised, upset, sad, happy, etc, images consistant with those you'd find in a regular Visual Novel. The bigger the role of the character in the story the more images I need for that character.

Those that I've found have proven to be quite useful in shaping a personality for my characters. Like they say, a picture paints a million words. Unfortunately, I have yet to find an image for my "Dream Guy", the guy you've fallen in love with and you're trying to track down. I've come up with a tentaive name which I think's pretty hot: Dustin. The title of the game will (possibly) be "In Search of Dustin (insert last name here)". The fact that I've been unable to find a suitable "Dustin" isn't me being too picky. There's plenty of pictures of pretty girls and pretty guys, there are even pretty girls with personalities. But there just ain't no hot guys with personalities. (Art imitating life?) Have you noticed how few pics there are of good looking guys wearing expressions other than "sexy" or "I want to fuck you"? Take this guy:

I'd love him to be my "Dustin", but I've only got a few pics of him and they're not really that different. I need him to cry, laugh, or whatever! This is really important, 'cause Dustin can't keep looking as sexy as hell while he informs you that he's serious considering suicide because you ruined his life.

The best I can find so far is this guy. What he's got going for him is that he's pretty good looking, and I've got pics of him showing a dozen different expressions. He looks like a guy I'd want to meet, rather than a guy I'd just want to fuck (ala Ben). The only thing is... he's an itty bit too old for my liking. I mean, I originally planned for "Dustin's" to be in his twenties. This guy's got white hair at his temples already, though admitedly his true age is more obvious in some pics than others.

Oh, and it seems that most of the character, if not all of them, will be Caucasian. I've no real choice in this matter, as there simply aren't that many images of minorities to choose from.

Also having some technical difficulties, which has been reported to the Blade Engine forum and is currently being investigated.

You knew he was different

I made this video for the intro to a new visual novel I'm planning. The plot will be completely different from Gaydar.


You begin this game by waking up the morning after a party in which you met the man of your dreams. Unfortunately, he's gone. Your goal in the game is to track him down and ultimately try to convince him it wasn't just a one night stand. Its the third phase in the boy-meets-boy, boy-looses-boy, boy-gets-boy sequence. There will be a number of possible alternative endings depending on the decisions you make. I think this storyline will allow me to be more focused in my plot development, as compared to Gaydar, which I now feel to be too ambitious.

Update...

Ok, I've added a sex scene. I'm particularly proud of the sound effects, which by the way are NOT mine. *grin* Its wrong on so many levels, but whatever. lol. This is just for fun, since as you'll realize immediately it doesn't fit the story line AT ALL. Anyways, my game is now officially X-rated. And you now have options to choose from! :D One day you may even be able to choose your favourite position...

Also, I've decided to officially put this little project on hold. I've wasted WAY too much time on this already.

You can download the latest version from megauploads.

Gaydar: Latest Version

Visual Novel

I've been having fun the past couple of days creating a visual novel called "Gaydar" (Cheezy, I know, but bear with me). The objective of my game is to determine which male characters are gay (not all of them are!), and if you're luck, get them in bed. ;) This may well become the first gay english-languaged visual novel ever made by a gay, amateur programmer! lol

Gaydar uses a free software I recently discovered which allows you to create your own interactive games much in the spirit of Japanese dating games. You have to learn the language of course - its much like learning Java or html - but so far I've found the software pretty friendly, powerful and flexible. I've been able to integrate images, sound effects, music and script into what I believe is the beginning of a cohesive story... Eventually, I hope to add alternate story threads, and the option for the reader to make choices along the way. I might even add a "Bonus" (aka: adult) video clip to successful readers/players. :D

You can download the game from megaupload, and play it by unzipping the file and clicking on the "Gaydar" icon.

LATEST VERSION - updated 1-26-2007
Older Version2 - updated 1-25-2007
Older Version1

Please comment! Your input would be going towards making the game better!

Beautiful

Just came back from Green Drinks - that social for educated, middle-classed toadies with green sensibilities. Like always, it was a blast - interesting people, interesting conversations, interesting ideas. But it was on the way back, at the corner of Spadina and Bloor, that I had my most fascinating discussion of all.

She was middle-aged, black-haired and large-eyed, the suggestion of youthful beauty still there. "Have a good night," she said, and immediately I was struck by the absence of desperation. I asked her if she'd like anything, and she said a Double Double would hit the spot. She thanked me for the coffee. It turned out she was Objibway. I mention that I'd noticed the Native community center nearby and the large number of Native Americans in this vicinity. She responded by inviting me to a drum dance at the Center tomorrow night at six. I was then treated to a narration on discrimination, abuse, residential schools, and family break down. At some point in the conversation, I'd crouched down, feeling it ackward and disrespectful to stand while she sat. So when I rose again to go, I belately realized I'd forgotten to ask her name. I introduce myself with a handshake, and she does the same. Her name's Becky.

"Go to the drum dance tomorrow." she said, "You'll get some looks. But don't mind them. We Native Americans open our doors to everyone. I've done my healing. The drums, they're beautiful."

I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow night.

Fragrance

Pure sin. That was what I thought as he rubbed against me in the dark heavy heat, in that chair-sized closet space. But that was enough for what needed to be done. He'd left his mark on me with his writhing, fragrant body. It was some kind of perfume. Or maybe body oil. Taking the subway back, legs still unsteady, I was careful not to stand too close to anyone. I was afraid that if I did, they'd somehow know. I had tangled with sin. But that was not what preoccupied my mind, afterwards. What unsettles me more than anything else was the realization that I'd smelled that fragrance before... on someone else, in a different time and place. It could not have been mere coincidence. Coincidences aren't found in dark, vibrating rooms full of desperate, aroused people. Coincidences don't linger like a sweet scent on denim jeans or make sudden cries in the middle of the night, leaving wetness behind. There can be only two explanations - either my mind has decieved me into drawing association where non exists, or alternatively and more disturbingly, the man that I thought I knew was not quite what he seemed.

Youtube

You may have noticed that my utube vids don't work. That's because my youtube account was deleted a couple of days ago. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but I admit I'm still irritated. This began as a kind of experiment to see what the effects of linking from a popular site would be on my blog, but I ended up becoming attached to both places, and investing considerable time of utube as a result.

Traffic has dropped off alot, to about 100 a day according to my more conservative counter. Actually, I'm really surprised I'm getting any traffic at all, considering that I had virtually zero traffic before I linked from utube, and utube was the only significant site where I've posted a link. Hmmm. The mysteries of the web.

Night life, night longings, past and present

Its nice to have one's fantasies visualized. This is a flick about two roommates, one straight, ther other gay, who challenge each other to sleep with "the other".

This film made me smile and remember. Almost a year has past since that night. He's still my best friend. But now he's also my roommate. After coming back from the club, we ended up having a conversation, first about asian cinema and then - of all things - euthenanasia. Cheery subject. Ironically, things have gotten better now that we live together and he is no longer the object of my unrequited desire.

Maybe it was watching this flick which made me go out tonight, looking for a strip club. While re-reading my "Becoming an Escort" entry (for some reason its my most popular non-porn blog entry, going by the number of hits it gets) I'd come across Remmingtons'. I recognized one of the dancers on the site as a porn star. I wasn't expecting too much.

I admit, some of the guys turned me on. One of the cute college dudes who strutted across the strobe-lit dance stage caught my attention. He didn't have the six-pack of the others, but he made up for it with his dance moves. Two hulking guys asked if I wanted to go private, but I wasn't ready and I didn't have time - had to catch the TTC before it closed for the night. One black guy, naked except for a thin pair of black and purple shorts got chatty:

"So, what do you like to do for fun?" he asked.
"For fun?" I echoed.
"Yeah. Do you like sports, television, music, what do you like to do?"
"Watch porn." I replied, only half joking.
"Corn?"
"No. Porn."
"What?"
"Nevermind."

Every nights out has always ended more or less the same way. Waiting for my train at College Station, I saw two guys get into the opposite cars. The doors closed, and I ran up to the car to get a better look. Through the glass doors I saw them embrace. And then they passed me by, leaving me behind.

Ah, well.

"Boyfriends Putting on a Show"

It's here! The doubtlessly (is that a word?) much anticipated uncensored version of 'Boyfriends putting on a show' has been uploaded on megauploads.

You can download it HERE.

Benjamin Bradley and Roman Heart sure are hot. Interestingly, I read in an interview that Roman's actually pursuing some kind of environmental degree, while Benjamin has already graduated from college, in some kind of computer-related field (can't remember exactly, though I think it was graphic design).

Miscellaneous Uploads

I posted this on Youtube a month ago and its since generated more than fifty thousand hits and loads of email. I'll be uploading the full version in two weeks when I go back to Toronto, so for those people interested in this kind of thing, stay tuned. In the meantime, you can download the Brad and Evans clip if you haven't already.

Incidentally, I've just gotten my old hard-drive back up and running. It has to be more than 7 years old. Found some irreplaceable music... and I've uploaded it onto Megauploads to be transfered to my computer in Toronto for me personal listening pleasure. They're mainly soundtracks.

I've also re-discovered other relics from my recent past. Little games and programs... and my old stash of porn. ;) Back in the day, I was still in the denial stage of my porn-evolution, so most of it was straight, softcore stuff. Funny, they used to turn me on so much, but now they hardly do anything to me. There are a few exceptions, however...

I've bundled the mescellany of programs and short clips in another zip file, mainly for memories sake, but I suppose you're welcome to download if you wish.

Five-Hour Fantasy

So I'm back in Ottawa. Been going back and forth a lot this year because of Mother. I still haven't entirely gotten over how much she's aged since the operation. Oh, she still acts the same - driving me up the wall as usual, but her hair's gone white, she's lost weight, and there are so many wrinkles which I hadn't seen before.

I've generally enjoyed those five-hour bus trips between Ottawa and Toronto. They're opportunities to daydream and fantasize, often of the hot guy that I end up sitting behind. Last time, it had been the construction worker. He's had massive, rippling back muscles and a sexy country accent. The time before that, it had been the red-head with spiky hair dyed blond. But this time, Lady Luck must have been feeling particularly mischievous. For lo and behold, who was to get onto the bus but an old high-school jock?

I plopped right into the empty seat next time him. He didn't recognize me - Not surprising since most people who meet me for the first time don't think twice about it - so I knew the ball was in my court, despite not knowing his name. He was one cute Asian, that was for sure. We looked together at the darkening night and the rain that was coming down. I didn't say a word until we stopped at Scarborough Towncentre:

"Hey, you go to U of T?" This was usually a safe assumption. Except that this time it wasn't.
"No, I'm graduating this spring from Carleton in engineering."
"Oh." Pause. "What are you doing in Toronto, then?"
"I work for the Ontario government."
"In what, specifically?"
"I'm a project coordinator. It has to do with E-Government."
I'd heard that phrase before, but I didn't know where. I suspected we had little in common. Oh well. I decided to pull my wild card anyway.
"May I ask which part of Ottawa you're from?"
"The South." Green light.
"You didn't by any chance go to Merivale, did you?"
Shocked expression. Bingo.
"Yes... What's you're name?"
I told him. He could see him wrack his brain but come up empty. "I thought I recognized you. What's yours?"
"Colin Chan." A light bulb goes on in my head.
"Oh. You're a year a year older than me. I guess you're 22, no 23?"
"Yeah... I'm surprised you remember me."

We talk a bit more, with him politely asked what I was doing, but I could tell he wasn't the talkative type. Still, silence isn't always a bad thing, even amongst strangers. Because it was dark and I had nothing to do, I did the most logical thing: take a nap. Greyhound seats really aren't that comfortable, and I tossed and turned until I belatedly discovered something. If I positioned myself in a certain way, it would almost be impossible for his arm to avoid touching mine unless he did so deliberately. And if I positioned my face in a certain way, I'd be close enough to see him without him seeing me... in fact, I could even smell him. For the next hour I let myself enjoy the changing pressure on my shoulders...

About half-an-hour before we arrived in Ottawa, I made the motions of "waking up" from my "nap". While we didn't talk much afterwords, I felt as though something had changed. Though the ackwardness was still there, it was somehow less intense. It was as though, having slept together, we'd broken through some kind of barrier. As though we weren't quite strangers anymore.

It was raining freezing rain in Ottawa and some places glistened in the orange street light like sheet metal. As I said good bye to him at the bus terminal, I couldn't help wondering if, had we been in a different place and time, we might even have become friends.

Forever Blue

Coop: We got something here. And it ain't going away.

Jimmy: I got a family.
Coop: You think Eileen wants to be married to a stranger? You think if she knew she'd want to keep living a lie?
Jimmy: I ain't leaving my kids, Coop!
(pause)
Coop: I'm not asking for that.
Jimmy: What then.
Coop: Remember what you were talking about? Living a different kind of life? This is our shot!
Jimmy: That was just talk. We're cursed with this thing.(Pause)
Coop: My folks. Been married forever right? But whatever they had died years ago. Now I look around and I see everyone like that. Staying together because of the church. Because it's expected. Because they got nowhere else to go. Cursed?
Coop: We're the lucky ones, Jimmy.

From the "Forever Blue" episode of the Cold Case TV-series. The ending gets me every time.

I'm not usually a fan of cop/detective dramas. This is the only episode I've watched, but I knew I had to watch it after I saw that clip on Youtube. Its a romance remininscent of a certain Oscar-winning film, but told in an original way and while the acting I found to be mediocre, the cinemetography, script and music was superb. Actually, the acting was OK, though I thought the guy playing Jimmy could have been better. Then again, Heath Ledger set the bar pretty high. The flashbacks to black-and-white are exquisitely done and very profound. If you were crying "I wish I could quit you" after Brokeback, you'll be thinking "We're the lucky ones, Jimmy" by the end of this one.

I've uploading the full episode to megaupload for your viewing pleasure. You guys will love it:

DOWNLOAD (350 MB)

Zippers

I took a sip of loneliness tonight and decided to venture into The Village. I thought it might make things better. Last time I'd been there I'd been drunk. Even then I'd been too chicken to check out the bars.

How things have changed...

I dressed up. I fixed my hair, and put on tight pants, more or less trying to look sexy without looking as though I was trying. Sure, I was nervous. I hadn't done this before, baring a few sweaty nights half-way across the world... but that's another story.

It was a warm night for December, so I put on a button-up shirt and pretended I wasn't shivering. Taking the subway down to Wellesley, I saw men walking in groups, pairs, or alone in the dimly lit sidewalks. It was Queer as Folk brought to life. There's even a Woody's.

I had no clue where to go. I randomly ask two older guys (geeze they were gay), and they looked me over. "What are you looking for?" A smile. "Leather?" I said no thanks. They pointed me towards Cruise. I was somewhat disappointed. There was no DJs or go-go boys, only a drag queen singing Cher. A few of the guys looked at me as though I was fresh meet. I left, though not before the Long Island iced tea kicked in. One drink and I was buzzed... you know what they say about Asians.

Somehow I ended up in a place called Zippers. This was more like it, I thought: Men dancing in the dark to a thumbing rhythm, sexuality in the air. Still no go-go boys though. Next time I'll have to ask.

But something else was missing too. I was sitting on the subway musing about the two guys I'd seen making out at the bar, when that it hit me like a truck. I tasted a kind of bitterness in my mouth.

I'm still alone. Nothing is going to change that.

Gas and God

I don't know what the heck is going on right now. I'm generally not tolerant of people who feel the desire to describe their maladies in graphic detail to anyone who's willing to listen, but this being my personal blog and all I think I have the right to express my bewilderment.

Ok, so the day before yesterday I threw up four times and made over twenty pilgrimages to the washroom, once every hour. Big deal, I had stomach flu. My ass still feels like shit from shitting so much and I didn't even get the pleasure of being fucked. But that isn't the problem either. The problem is that instead of feeling slightly delerious and farting every five minutes, I now feel fine but bloated like a balloon. Until today my gas had somewhere to go. Now it seems to just keepbuilding up in a little cavity just below my rib cage. Not only do I feel as though I'm gonna burst like a cute little bubble at any moment, I've also been feeling this strange aching in my shoulders... I had trouble sleep last night, and when I did sleep, my dreams of watermelons been cleaved had me waking up in cold sweat in the middle of the night.

Dear God, I ask for your forgiveness. Return to me my power of anal or oral release and I will never underestimate Thy holy gift or use thy gift wantonly in Thy House on Sunday mornings ever again.

By the way, I did actually go to church this week. Its been a long time. Went with a friend on a whim, since it was right across the street from our apartment, and my friend was curious because being an international student from China he really didn't understand the whole Christian thing (Once, I asked him what he thought people did in church, he said, "um... they sing some songs, right?") United Church, however, is um... rather different from the Christian churches I've been to, I must say. Though in a good way. There was an hour of activism for left-wing causes (aboriginal rights, gay-marriage, social justice, etc, etc) with no attempts at political correctness (The pastor just about said everything short of calling Harper the Antichrist), followed by a sermon prophesizing environmental catastrophe from global warming unless people didn't wake up. Yes..... very good indeed. Now if God would just let me rediscover my inner farting abilities, I'm all ready to be a born-again Christian.

My friend, incidentally, thought the singing was awesome.

Dion: The Green Revolution Begins

I can't believe it. I can't fucking believe it. The underdog of underdogs, the long shot, the "nice guy" who SHOULD have finished last, the guy who ran his campagn with a shoestring budget, the boring, clumsy academic... beat them all at their own game. Stephane Dion, the man who's platform was all and nothing but environmental, stood amongst green signs and scarves in a party which had never before strayed from red. We have the makings of an incredible, sincere, architect, an achitect of Canada's Green Revolution and a Quebeker with integrity who will ensure that Canada stays united for the foreseable future.

And the way he won is political art that will studied by political scientists for decades to come. I was glued to my internet screen, scanning every new blog post for the latest update. For me, politics has always been my sport. Dion entered the convention 4th... the drums are rolling. He slides into 3rd and there's a shocked silence (just 2 votes!). A surprise endorsement from Martha Hall Findlay increases his lead on the second ballot, and the crowd goes wild! Then Kennedy jumps boat (a secret alliance!) and Dion leaps to first and all hell breaks loose. And so its the soft-spoken Dion who ends up facing off against Ignatieff, that pro-Iraq, evil architect of the "nation" fiasco, the guy who has lead for so long and whom everyone expects to win. But its Dion that wins.

I voted NDP in the last election, but no more. It'll be Liberal for me all the way from here on end as long as Dion stays at the helm.

You're the man, Dion.

PS: Since this is a gay blog, I can't help commenting on a certain traitorous gay candidate who systematically attempted to sabotage Dion throughout the convention. For those who don't know, I'm talking about Scott Brison, our
good-looking-married-with-a-husband-Conservative-turned-Liberal MP. When it came to making his speech, he suddenly turns green - all the political commentators on CPAC were like, "where did THAT come from?". Then he goes and saddles up with Bob Rae, clearly intent on becoming the next environmental minister in Bob Rae's cabinet. But when Rae's forced to drop, he goes and joins Ignatieff, clearly favouring anyone BUT Dion.

So to Scott Brison: Green just doesn't suit you, honey. I'd calling you a fag but that would probably be giving you way too much recognization.

As Promised: Brad and Evan

Alright, as promised: An explicit clip. Brad usually bottoms online, so this one is a particular treat...A very HOT treat, if I might say... ;D

You can download it from Rapidshare HERE.

Remember, if you guys want to see all the clips, you've got to go Brad and Evan's site at Twistedstuds.com . I ain't going to post them all because I feel they deserve the money, considering the quality of the material and the fact that its really their own material. I want to entice you to join their site, not exploit them. Besides, I don't have them all anyway.

For those few who aren't here for the porn, let me just say for the moment that there's a method to my madness, I just can't give too much details yet. As soon as I've collected enough data (which should be in a couple of days), I'll give my analysis of this little experiment.

Edit: Analysis postponed.

Crazy

Awwww... Aren't they cute? More vids of Brad and Evan coming soon.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so **PLEASANT** about that face
Even your emotions had an echo in so much space

And when you're out there,without care
Yeah I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
possibly

And I hope that you are havin' the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice

Come on now who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you
think you are, ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control

well,
I think you're Crazy
I think you're Crazy
I think you're Crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to live their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinkin' I wanna be like them.

Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And there's no considence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

But maybe I'm Crazy
Maybe you're Crazy
Maybe we're Crazy
Probably!
Probably!