Manhattan Offender

2007: It was a year that started with a two and ended with a seven: Part Five, the year in pictures (of me)

2007: It was a year that started with a two and ended with a seven: Part Four, resolution review

Following are my resolutions, as published last year, and their current status.

1. Finish and have published either a long-form or a short-form fiction piece.  STATUS:  Done.  Wait.  Undone.  Everything published was nonfiction.  Fuck.
2. Become fully fluent in either Spanish or Portuguese.  STATUS:  Full fluency?  Are you kidding me?  Improvement made, but status remains undone.
3. Travel internationally.  STATUS:  Undone.  I'm really on Fire Island way too much.
4. Go to Provincetown.  STATUS:  Undone.  For no reason.  Almost went for New Years. 
5. Go to Montreal.  STATUS:  Undone.
6. Quit smoking.  STATUS:  Done.
7. Be more human.  Admit personal flaws. STATUS:  Done.
8. Learn CSS.  STATUS:  Undone.  And no longer a priority.
9. Ask for help more often.  STATUS:  Done.  But I still don't read directions or look at maps.
10. Drink a V-8 every day or eat more vegetables and fruit.  Take vitamin, fish oil pill, and aspirin everyday (just like last year).  STATUS:  Done.  Except the last few weeks.
11. Kiss more strangers, if possible.  STATUS:  Done and done and done.
12. Do not pull out the cock at the Dugout unless asked.  Same for the Eagle.  And Big Lug.  And Nowhere Bar.  And Phoenix.  And Eastern Bloc.  And Metropolitan.  STATUS:  Done.  I think.

2007: It was a year that started with a two and ended with a seven: Part Three, the friends

Without them, I would fall apart.  They are the reminder to me that I'm not a bad person, not mentally unstable, not a problem.  And they like to send text messages.

This past year, like many gays, I bought an iPhone.  Unless cleared out, the messages remain in the phone forever.  In fact, I have messages from the first day of ownership.  Below are some of the messaging exchanges from the last six months:

EB:  Hi.
MO:  It lives!
EB:  It's dead inside however.
MO:  Moisturize.
EB:  It did.

MO:  Does it work late?
EB:  No, off to Splash.
MO:  Splash?!?!?!
EB:  Not really.

MO:  Detox was swellegant.
MO:  I keep typing retox and silly phone keeps changing it.
DH:  Phone is run by mormons.
MO:  But isn't the apple a sign of temptation or devil or ???
DH:  Sin!

MO:  Time change bullshit.  Fuck the farm kids!
DH:  I'd gladly fuck the farmers.

MO:  Ugh ... Couldn't wake up last night.  Sorry for flaking.
DP:  No worries.  You only missed the most awesome night ever.  That's all.
MO:  I'm allergic to awesome.  It makes my pancreas fidget.
DP:  That's your hepatitis.

MO:  Let's utilize as many media as possible to communicate.
DP:  Without actually talking to eachother in real time.  Good idea.  Nonconfrontational.
MO:  It's the white thing to do.
DP:  I love it when you make christmas a race issue.
MO:  No one ever dreams of a yellow brown or black christmas.
DP:  I had a yellow christmas once because of my hepatitis.

MO:  Bring me some snacks.  I'm stoned and it's cold outside.
DH:  Am baking cookies, but fucked my knee up hard so not going anywhere.  Sorry.
MO:  Ah, Booger!  I'm so sorry.
DH:  Hope you are well.  Do you watch Dirty Sexy Money?
MO:  Nay.  The gayest thing just happened.  My new teapot just whistled for the first time!
DH:  Obama drinks tea in public.
MO:  Does he keep his pinkie finger aloft?
DH:  He really might as well.
MO:  I teabag in public.
DH:  I cobag in public.
MO:  I pay per bag.
DH:  My bag is half full.
MO:  My cat is in the bag.  Please do not let her out.
DH:  Tyra to Alicia Keyes, rapping:  "I thought we were a family, me, you and kimora lee."

2007: It was a year that started with a two and ended with a seven: Part Two, The Rod

The following lists may help me understand myself if I fall victim to amnesia.

Names of people with whom I went on proper dates/made out/met up in the past year in alphabetical order as found on my phone:  Alex, Alex, Alex, Angel, Antonio, Damon, Eric, Gary, James, Joe, John, Jon, Luis, Malcolm, Mike, Punit, Raul, Regis, Robbert, Robert, Ronaldo, Ruben, Scott, Stephen, Steve, Xavier, Zamir

Diseases for which I was tested in the past year:  AIDS, Syphilis, Anemia, MRSA, Lupus, Lung cancer, Gall bladder dysfunction, Spleen ailment, Kidney problem

Diseases which I had:  Staph infection.  It changed my life.

Pets:  Sybil.  She's recently learned to wear a harness.  Next step is a leash.  Yes, I want a cat that I can walk.

2007: It was a year that started with a two and ended with a seven: Part One, the blogging

Many a blog shut down over the past year.  Others changed content ever so slightly.  Granted many more opened up shop, and those that didn't blog updated their Facebook pages on an hourly basis.  Then there were those of us that kept chugging along.

The past year saw this site try on a few different outfits.  There were the restaurant reviews.  The flesh peddling didn't take off the way it should have.  And neither did the gossip.  I had almost forgotten the surrealtrocity of Wonder Woman Wednesdays.  Or the fun had with The Pussycat Dolls.

Many enjoyed a path to self-discovery.  My big discovery was that writing movie reviews will get you invited to mostly bad, publicist-heavy movies.

For whatever reason The MO Interview slipped into obscurity.  That was a mistake and it needs to be brought back.  As does "That Notebook on my Coffeetable".  Basically what happened was the summer was taken off.  Then I came back at blogging with some new ideas that I wanted to try.  Gossip Gaffes, Add Vice, The Week in Cock, The Kitchen; all concepts that will continue. 

Any review of the year would be remiss without mention of the Gawker work.  Or of LOLGay. 

Essentially, the blog has suffered, first from identity crisis, then from lack of time from its owner.  For those of you that continue to read, I thank you.

Ho

Anyone else just not feeling the holiday thing this year? Don't get me wrong. Everything's great. Just have a very 'meh' this year. And I'm giving good gifts. Hm.

Wonk wank

Wouldn't it be nice to have a fuckable president?  Gawker's video ho-ffesional Richard Blakely called me in to discuss the current slate.  The results are up at Wonkette.

World of Insults: Croatia

Ru na si da te ne bi kliknija mi em preko Interneta!

~ You're so ugly, I wouldn't even click on you on the internet!

Future, Tense

Have I really not written about this?  Ugh, what a busy couple of months.

First off, Past, Over ended at Gawker.  Not that anyone wanted it to do so other than myself.  It was reaching a point where I was running out of topics.  In its place I proposed that instead of The Past calling, now The Future would call.  I've created a landscape of a New York circa 2018, exponentially extrapolating current events in local and national news.

But don't call it a feature.  The key thing about everything at Gawker is that it must always be reporting.  Past, Over told the story of what some 1990's icons of New York have become.  Future, Tense tells of potential outcomes of the present.

This week's installment tells of the Bleecker Street Mall.  On a random afterwork stroll with a friend, the changes in this area were striking.  Brash and vapid women filled the streets with shopping bags in tow shouting out, "Oh my god" like a poorly trained macaws of fanciful plumage.  As we walked down the street we noticed all the shops that evoked excitement from the shoppers.  And began to make parrot noises at them.  The experience stuck in my head and evolved, in part, to this piece.  (Other influences include riding a Colonial Transport van with Jason Preston and Sex and the City shooting near my office recently.)

The wall

About ten years ago, I was friends with and secretly in love with an amazingly talented artist. Brilliant and crazy and sexy as all hell. I did press kits for him and hung out with him whenever he was around. (He would disappear for months at a time.)

There were shows on the far west side of Spring Street and parties in warehouse lofts in Williamsburg and Long Island City. At one of those parties in LIC, we had both taken some acid and ecstasy. While I was on the roof professing my true love of the symmetrical beauty of water towers, the artist of my affection was sort of having a freakout, taking off his clothes and standing on top of the kitchen counter.

It was decided to take him to my place. Two friends joined the artist and I as we walked the mile in the cold Sunday morning. We passed people filing into churches and noticed little glimpses of beauty in trees, architecture, and pebbles. The artist was still agitated when we arrived to my place.

To calm him, we gave him crayons, markers, pencils and paints and a large blank wall of my place. He drew in a mad frenzy and created a garbled dimorphic cataclysm filled with rage and confusion and anger.

A couple years passed, and I'd met a more stable business-minded person. In time he moved in with me and, partly from dislike of the piece and partly (perhaps more so) from knowing the work was of a past crush, he demanded the wall painted over. The wall was covered in a cream nondescript paint.

The relationship lasted six years. The artist disappeared forever around 2002. The wall remains covered in the nondescript paint. Occasionally, when every light in the room is on and I'm looking at the right angle, I can see a slight flush of red in the center of the wall. Those are good times.

*The above started as a comment on Gawker, but seemed suitable.  It brought back memories of an interesting time.