is that a vagina?

you really don’t believe me, do you, when i try to convince you, oh my god, last night was truly crazy?! you think, there’s no way that eric can manage to be so fabulous, so crazy, so, frankly, off his chain night after night!?! it’s all relative—i know—like a 38yo housewife sneaking out for a few crazy zimas with the girls after work, or the 15yo borrowing a crazy warm can of his dad’s budweiser from the fridge in the garage. friday was one of the wildest 24 hours i’ve had in a looong time, thanks mainly to my most excellent friend, the boy famous across all of deutschland as poppers-atif.

after hours of shopping and drinking and gossiping and mannying and buzzing, atif and i convinced each other to check out one of the many girls girls girls live girls! strip clubs sprinkled around soho. you know, the places with the fat/old/ugly/russian/toothless [ex]prostitutes who do their damnedest to hustle you into their sleazy dens of sin, even though it’s 11am and you’re just heading to the optometrist.

i’ve heard tales of scams and ripoffs and so on at these places, but we jumped in anyway to avoid the rain, after befriending rentboys, setting off fire alarms, rolling up lots of £5 notes and drinking our way into oblivion at edge/ku/g-a-y/escape/barcode/friendly. we strut up, and sweettalk, listen, we’re just two poofs who wanna have a laugh… how much will this cost? the 50yo dutch hostess replies oh, you will like these pussies! it’s £5 cover and 1 drink minimum, cheapest drinks are £4. fair enough, we think. we pay and descend into the seedy dark dank club.

the place smells of danger and desperation. we sit down at a table in front of the tiny stage [with the requisite pub-karaoke-style blinking disco light], and the waitress shows us the menu of de-alcoholised drinks. we order some pints for £4 each. the drinks arrive, followed by the bill. for £62.50. erm, uhm, erm, uhm, excuse me… in an obvously often-recited speech, the waitress points out three things:

oh well, we’re millionaires, and it was worth it, to see my first real-live vagina. up close. i was actually intrigued and fascinated, and not at all sterotypically grossed-out. the skinny, boobless, overly bleached/permed eastern european gal swung from the pole to some r’n'b, showing the 4 of us in the audience her, erm, most innermost secret[ion]s.

it was over quick enough, and i de-vaginaed myself by hooking up a little three-way action at the cock at .ghetto before ending up in brixton with one incredibly stunning, friendly, charming, sexy, lovely canadian named jeff. eric has decided to stop shopping in the kid’s department—he’s 28! fer real!

by all accounts, he’s pretty much the perfect match for me—self-depricating, feigned innocence, shy intelligence, and makes electronic music in his impressive music studio for chrissakes. eric’s decidedly not looking for a boyfriend, and jeff’s just broken up with his boyf, but i have a notion you may be reading more about him in the future.

and blindness

it’s friday, and here’s a feel-good story that made me a bit misty. it’s the journal of mike may, a blind man who, at the age of 46, has started to regain his vision after some serious medical breakthroughs. he tries to be blasé and professional about it, but the touching moments that he weaves into his journal entries… well… are just amazing.

start at the beginning of his journal.

bad-ass phoenix hoes

having duane visiting is pleasantly traumatic. we met back in 1998 here in london, both pseudostudents visiting london for a few months on bunac blue card work permits. eric was young, innocent, and just beginning to become worldly. duane and eric would nervously enter gay bars in soho, nervously hold hands in public, and nervously smooch in soho square.

5 years later, and here we are. i’ve survived finishing university, surviving the dot-com bust in san francisco, the trials and tribulations of xy. he’s survived getting into and graduating law school and is moving to washington d.c. to become a real life lawyer. we’ve both survived our topsy-turvy long-distance relationship, and are fast friends.

in 1998, we’d nervously queue with our flyers to get into clubs. in 2003, we zip through, vip/guestlist stylee, and slam back the cocktails like professionals. wednesday we reintroduced the boy to london [duane, soho—soho, duane] and boogied till the wee hours at .heaven with the loverly torsten. duane was dreadfully overwhelmed with my tales of hawken and michael wb and torsten and simon the biter and .gregiño and canadian mark. it’s like reading bloghserf for the first time—what the fuck is eric doing?

thursday we continued our catching up over a scrumptious meal before hitting .ghetto with .gregiño, once again till the wee hours. i was thoroughly exhausted after a week of webwhoring, and needed to let loose. the kitchen [the sequel to bis] rocked me thoroughly, with amanda bopping and singing about 5 feet in front of me. oh, i wish stuart were there.

friday we grubbed with mitch and atif at nandos in islington, before hitting the trashy bar fusion for a few. taxied into town to meet up with atif’s john, where we continued our libations before meeting brendan, .gregiño and even cousin michael before .popstarz. .popstarz was the usual unusual… crowded yet empty, familiar faces yet nobody to really catch up with. danced till closing [spot the trend?], waking up now to play tour guide some more.

penis arm—doctors have grown a new penis on a russian boy’s arm after his willy got electrocuted from urinating on a live wire. malik, you are one lucky lad.

penis tree—the latest issue of the plug features the first ever plug-umentary, exposing the conspiracy and fear surrounding the penis tree.