R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 55

Remembering Dad on Father’s Day

Remembering Dad on Father’s Day

While gay guys are supposed to identify more with their mothers and I guess that was true in my case too, my confidence in being the gay man I am today came from my Dad.

No, I never had sex with my dad nor did my Dad want sex with me. But there were moments during my adolescence that I wish he had.

Though plain featured Eastern European in the looks department (my grandparents were from Slovakia), not a giant of man at 5-7, not very interested in sports, a high school drop-out, and not very demonstrative, he nonetheless impressed me with his naturally masculine demeanor and hirsute, stocky – not sloppy – physique in the days when gyms were reserved for bodybuilders.

It was that body – seeing my dad naked as he emerged from the shower – that awakened my sexuality and gave me my first hard-ons when I turned 12 and I began to see him emerging in me, particularly the fur. Then, I felt self-conscious, but years later as I entered gay life, I wore it like a badge of honor for it was my fur – much like my dad’s in texture and abundance – that separated me from other guys, taller guys, handsomer guys and, even as I got older, placed me in a sought after league of my own.

Again my father was not the typical sports freak dad and I must lay blame for my disinterest in competitive sports at his doorstep. True, not having those skills so associated with being male in American society caused me grief in high school – had my high school featured gymnastics or wrestling I would have excelled – but that failing was more than compensated by other, far more important virtues he instilled and cultivated in me – patience and imagination.

From my slightly psychotic mother, Russian in background (yes, I’m a Slavic pedigree), I inherited my wildness, short temper, and, yes, cynicism about people and life. Ah, but from my father I learned that listening got you further than shouting, a trait that served me well in my decades in public relations where learning how to get and give was paramount to success.

And while he never graduated high school and was a factory laborer all his life, with a brief stint in the Air Force where he bailed out over Nazi Europe and became a World War II hero in the process, I think if he had had the benefit of an education, he would have become an architect or engineer, someone destined to build things. He often helped me with those “hands-on” school projects where that knack to think outside the box was needed, and my curiosity about things and visual sense ( I still assemble thinks looking at the pictures, not reading the directions) blended well with my interest in reading I inherited by osmosis from my mother, an avid reader all her life.

Unlike with my mother, I rarely quarreled with my father – he was just not the quarreling kind – and I often wonder if his patience and holding back his frustrations with his wife, an unsettled and unsettling personality who often berated him, led to his early demise at 74 from a stroke. I blamed her for his death throughout the fourteen years she survived him, but now both of them are gone, lying side by side for eternity, and there is no use in crying over spilled milk.

I never discussed being gay with either of them nor did they ever really bring the subject up despite my disinterest in women. But I often wonder to this day how he would have reacted had he known or I placed whatever he might have thought squarely on the table.

Maybe, he might have just listened.

All I can tell you, incestuous as it may sound, I still subliminally remember my first sexual awakenings with my Dad every time I kiss a man.

South Florida IS The New Southern California

South Florida IS The New Southern California

Drought ridden California Needs a Savior … I was blessed – I guess – living out in L.A. in the late sixties and early seventies when Southern California was the trendsetter for the country. I was at the University of Southern California, getting my master’s degree and loved the climate, the causal lifestyle and the gay scene which at that time was centered in Hollywood and Silver Lake, not West Hollywood as it is today. I would have never returned East if I had had enough money to buy a car, even a junk. Without wheels, it was next to impossible to get a job unless you wanted to rely on L.A. mass transit which at the time consisted solely of buses. The subway system was light years away.

Fast forward to today: Beside the drought that some naysayer experts predict may be the beginning of a thirty year cycle and tar balls on its iconic beaches (that’s why Florida has been fighting off-shore drilling for years), Southern Cal is congested, over-taxed, over-regulated (four bucks plus for a gallon of gas even though the price of a barrel of oil has dropped almost fifty per cent), and way, way overpriced in terms of real estate (a fixer–upper for six hundred thousand dollars??) and cost of living.

Enter South Florida, especially Fort Lauderdale, a once sleepy little spring break retreat which in just the last twenty years has become an international vacation destination, a major gay vacation mecca, and arguably the gay capital of the U.S. right now. And we’ve just beaten out New York as the third most populated state in the country. After all, where do you think New Yorkers are moving to? We’re the warmest place in the continental U.S. in the winter with our year-round summer (even L.A. gets chilly in January), a climate the convertible was born for, and for those who bitch about our humidity in July, at least everybody’s got central air so what’s the big fucken deal? With the weather comes breezy, outdoor living, beautiful white sandy beaches, and, because of our flat geography, a smog-free environment.

As for having the reputation as Hurricane Alley, we haven’t had a big one in almost a decade (hello, Jersey), but when the day comes we do, you at least have plenty of notice to prepare or get out. Earthquakes just happen. (I was in L.A. when the 1971 quake brought down a hospital.)

While admittedly real estate and our cost of living are rising – baby boomers, str8 and gay, are flocking down to carve out their niche of paradise – we’re still one of the cheapest metro areas to live in, have no state or city income tax, and yea, you can get gas for under three bucks a gallon and a nice condo for under a hundred thou.

Fort Lauderdale, only a hundred years old, was built, not retrofitted, for the car, and our highways – mostly toll free – are sleek and modern, and our local boulevards the size of many highways back East. Sure, we can have our traffic tie-ups (South Florida has the dubious honor of bumping D.C. as the tenth most traffic prone metro area in the country; L.A. is #2), but driving around here is still mostly a breeze. I hadn’t driven in L.A. as a student, but when I revisited some of my old haunts a few years ago I was shocked how antiquated and frankly unsafe L.A.’s freeways are compared to what I am used to here.

Finally, we’ve got one of the most dynamic and eclectic gay scenes in the country, attracting both the young and old, and where, if you’re over forty, you don’t feel like a dinosaur. Or alone.

So welcome to South Florida, the new Southern California.

Yes, you can go home again.

Are you Ready For My “Been There, Done That” Quiz?

Are you Ready For My “Been There, Done That” Quiz?

Yea, I‘ve been around the block more than a few times, seen it all and done most of it. Been a Sunday school teacher and a rentboy. Been a white collar professional and done porn. Was almost kept by a Mafia millionaire and almost hooked on meth by a few broke boys. Wanted to kill a couple of guys for jilting me and have thought of doing myself in more than once.

I’m not saying that coming out with a high score on my quiz makes you a better person – hardly. But it certainly makes you an interesting one.

Are you a solo kinda guy who just goes for the sex and has little interest in an LTR?

Do you not leave your place even to pick up milk til you’ve checked the mirror at least half a dozen times?

Have you done drugs stronger than grass or poppers while having sex?

Do you take junkets primarily to score not for the sights?

Have you done porn?

Do you watch porn a lot?

Are you a hook-up sites/ phone apps junkie?

Have you ever been an “escort” by the hour or been “kept”?

Do you like your sex on the rough side?

Have you jilted a few guys along the way?

If you answered yes to:

7 to 10 questions, congrats, you’ve just been inducted into the Pigs of America Hall of Fame.

4 to 6, you’re a shy yet dirty-minded fuck who needs a daddy to show you the way.

1 to 3, you need to start your own congregation of God fearing gayboys.

Digital Natives

Digital Natives

That’s a new term being bantered around in the business world which refers to people born not much earlier than 1985 who grew up with a computer in their playpen or a smartphone up their butt and so have always been quick IT learners. A nice neat description, but human resource experts warn employers that use the term in their job opening ads that they may face lawsuits from older, but equally component workers on the grounds of age discrimination.

In the gay world, it is largely because of all this techno stuff that our own brand of “digital natives” have grown up in a sub-culture no longer centered on bars as places to cruise, or baths to connect in (notice how many bath houses have shuttered or have turned into God’s waiting rooms in the last few years?) or face-to-face encounters or conversation or even, Christ, real sucking and fucking. Instead, for them, gay life has always been dominated by pixels, e-mails, texting (not talking) and apps like Scruff. Worse, it has made virtual sex, i.e., camming and the endless availability of web porn and dirty pics afforded by all the hook-up sites not just an option but a preference.

Our obsession with our phones among both str8’s and gays has become this world’s biggest addiction. I mean, where else can you get instant gratification – or rejection – as a human being, 24/7?

This is not to say all young gays are without social skills. But I think that this technology has made many of us – young and old – social cripples. Or maybe it’s the technology that attracts the social cripples among us in the first place. After all, in this not so brave new world, you really don’t have to be courteous or polite or diplomatic. You’re facing a screen not a person. In an uncomfortable situation? Just don’t respond or better, block the fuck. Feeling inadequate? Create a whole bogus person, the wild boy you’d really like to be. Hey, you have no intentions, despite all your come hither talk, of ever meeting the guy, right?

A few weeks some ditz on Grindr with no pic and no profile info left me this message: “You’re an asshole, Ray.” Okay, maybe I am – as I’ve said before I really don’t give a fuck what people think of me – but are you that much of a faggot not to show your face like a man? That’s a sissie’s way of dealing with confrontation. Of course I blocked him – big fucken deal.

Worse, this abruptness and incivility rubs off on all of us, even those of us who were brought up to know and act better, and, soon, without realizing it, we become the same dispassionate, shallow pricks we complain about.

So does this make us over 40 smartphone users “digital naturalized citizens?”

Just wondering.

Here’s another Installment of My Gay Advice Column, “Go Ask Daddy”

Here’s another Installment of My Gay Advice Column, “Go Ask Daddy”

Buddy: I thought we were head over heels in love when, after dating a month, Freddie and I moved in together in a new apartment right in the heart of it all. But less than a month later, I found the slut mining the hook-up sites, where he soon found a new cutie and moved out. My heart is broken but I got a much bigger problem: the one year lease was in my name only. How can I get him to pay his share?

Daddy: They say love is blind, right? Well you were too for not protecting your own interests by making sure both your names were on the lease. Outside of beating the shit out of Freddie and his new cutie, there’s not much you can do about it if he tells you to go fuck yourself. Sure, you can take him to small claims court but it’s probably not worth the trouble.

So what can you do?

Talk to the landlord and see if he can let you out of the lease as soon as he finds a new tenant; or find a roommate; or find a roommate with benefits; or fast fall in love again.

Long term, I hope you’ve learned your lesson and from now on whenever you enter into any kind of financial commitment with another guy, both your signatures are on the bottom line. Whether it’s the neutering bill for your new pooch or a hundred thousand dollar mortgage. If he hesitates or refuses, even for legitimate reasons, don’t do it, unless you’re certain you can comfortably handle the debt on your own. And never, never be the co-signer on his loan; if the guy skips town, you’re the one holding the bag.

I know one guy who had to file for bankruptcy when his partner suddenly died and everything was in my friend’s name only.

My partner and I have always shared in our mutual financial responsibilities while keeping our personal finances separate (important, important). When G was out of work for a while, I offered to pick up the mortgage. But he refused and continued to honor his commitment even while collecting unemployment. So, yea, it can happen.

We all are allowed to be jerks at least once; but the second time around, you’re just stupid.

Is Log Cabin Republican An Oxymoron?

Is Log Cabin Republican An Oxymoron?

Hey, when I relocated to Fort Lauderdale going on thirteen years ago, I registered Republican because I have a rather conservative blue collar streak (even if I hold two degrees), but I really vote as an independent for the candidate who’s going to do the most good for me, not just gay me, but middle class tax paying me.

Now I’ve said more than once that if there was a candidate who was anti-gay but pro-economy, I’d probably be for him – or her – over some airhead just because he says he likes us.

But what gives with these Log Cabin Republicans? Other issues like the economy, immigration and terrorism aside, every current potential Republican candidate running or soon to run for the Pub’s Presidential nomination is against gay marriage and us. Sometime it’s big time, like with Carson (a black conservative and a likely VP choice, at the very least, to attract the minority vote) who thinks we choose to be homo; or Santorum, who likened homosexuality to bestiality; to more devious, smooth talking jive from guys like Rubio – the current front runner – who says he isn’t against gay marriage, but stands behind traditional marriage and feels the whole gay rights issue should be left up to the states, not the feds. (Or “these” United States of America, like we were referred to before the Civil War.)

One Log Cabin Republican, in his defense of a letter sent to one of south Florida’s gay papers which followed much the same theme as this blog, cited Big Daddy and Patron Saint Ronnie Reagan as counting dying, closeted Rock Hudson as a friend. So, who gives a fuck? First, how many guys died because of Reagan’s inaction? (I know – I was there.) And secondly, what relevance does all this have today?

I mean, there’s a lot more at stake than just gay marriage, which frankly may only affect a minority of us. (Like I’ve said before, I think most gays couldn’t care less.) There’s still much to be done when he comes to equal rights under the law in housing, employment, yea, taxes (where singles are subsidizing str8 married couples’ fucking) and a shit load of other issues that could go retro if a Republican occupies the White House and has a Republican dominated Congress neatly in his back pocket.

And while some are raising the religious freedom flag, civil rights – the fact we are all equal under the law – usurps everything else. If we are expected to pay our taxes and abide by the same laws as everyone else, then, fuck it, we should have the same rights as everyone else.

Period.

So for a gay man or woman to vigorously support any one of the current motley crew of Republicans salivating to be Numero Ono to me is not just naïve – it’s treasonous.

Any Log Cabin Republicans out there to tell me different?

Do Transgenders Belong in OUR Sandbox?

Do Transgenders Belong in OUR Sandbox?

Both the mainstream and gay media are making a big deal about Bruce Jenner’s transformation, probably for titillation purposes. But okay, what Jenner does is his business, even though some jaded folks out there think he’s on the publicity bandwagon because he’s an egomaniac. Evidence: that Vanity Fair shoot where I must admit “Caitlyn” is a hot smokin’ chick.

Then there’s the case of transgender girl-to-guy body builder and model Aydian Ethan Dowling (seen here – a hottie, huh?) who’s in the running for the next “Ultimate Guy” on the cover of “Men’s Health,” like there aren’t enough hot biologic men with heroic life stories to tell.

Again, what people do to be happy – as long as they don’t rape old ladies or young boys – is their business. But my question is: why are they in OUR sandbox?

After all the commotion and cutting and splicing, they go on to lead essentially heterosexual lives. Aydian is married – to a woman.

That’s not the lifestyle of us who love our own sex and who still encounter hatred and discrimination even in this enlightened age. Why should either gay guys or gay gals feel any bond or connection to individuals who actually hate and deny the sex they were born into. I mean what gay guy would voluntarily have his dick and balls surgically removed, huh??

Gay men and women are happy being the sex they are, in fact, relish in it; but the big and maybe only difference between most of us and str8s is that we are sexually aroused by our own sex.

Now follow my thinking here: Transgenders mentally think they are the opposite sex and are looking for their physical body to match their psyche. Consequently, they are NOT homosexual, but actually a variation of heterosexuality and they belong, abet a fringe element, in str8, not gay culture.

So again I get back to my original question: why are they in OUR sandbox?

I’m fucken tired of our own over-the-top politically correct gay media willingly lumping all of society’s so-called sexual outliers together. They only help to perpetuate in many mainstream minds that somehow we’re all a bit strange.

Let transgenders find some other sandbox to play in.

Okay?

Disney Gay Days: Gayploitation

Disney Gay Days: Gayploitation

Disneyworld Gay Days, happening this week, is another example of gays being exploited by Corporate America – and liking it.

As Pier Angelo, a columnist for my local South Florida Gay News, put it plainly: “Gay Days is not sponsored by Disney. In fact, they emphatically refuse to acknowledge the gathering actually happens … many inside (the Disney Corporation) dread its arrival every year (since) it’s a political land mine.”

That’s because, despite its very discrete liberal slant when he comes to giving money to very unconservative causes, and even featuring gay characters in its TV productions, first and foremost Disney knows as a family-oriented business it desperately needs to protect its wholesome family image, and once Gay Days descends upon it so do protests from the Religious Right, the last kind of PR Disney wants, even if they claim they have nothing to do with it.

At the same time, again from a business standpoint, Gay Days in early June couldn’t come at a better time for the Orlando megapolis. Winter vacation tourists are largely gone and the out-of- school-for-the-summer family junkets are still weeks off. Gay Days, whether Disney acknowledges it or not, means millions in additional revenue.

Now you would think that Disney might be grateful for the organization that puts Gay Days together (for a profit, of course) and drops the parks and associated businesses like the hotels a bulk slab of business by offering discounted park tickets or hotel rates to its participants.

But that would mean Disney acknowledges Gay Days do happen. Heaven forbid.

Yet, gay boys and girls flock there each year in ever increasing numbers, naively convinced Disney truly loves them.

It doesn’t.

At least not them. But certainly their discretionary income.

As I’ve said too many times, all this new tolerance and acceptance of our kind may be more the result of the pragmatic realization by mainstream society that we’re a goldmine to mine, than that we should all “just getta long.”

But hey, as they say, it’s a free country. So, go have fun with your brothers and sisters from across the country and around the world, cavorting in an environment which is even more fantasy than most of our love lives today, thanks to the “marvels” of virtual sex.

Just don’t – please don’t – kiss Mickey Mouse’s ass.

Sue and Joe and Tom

Sue and Joe and Tom

Chief Justice John Roberts, during the oral arguments made in April before the Supreme Court regarding the issue of gay marriage:

“If Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can’t. And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?”

This notion that laws against gay marriage may be based in sexual discrimination, that is discrimination by reason of gender NOT orientation, is a new twist and one that might have far reaching consequences beyond the whole gay marriage case. The justices met on May 1 in private conference and took their vote on whether gay marriage should be legal in all fifty states, but we won’t know their decision till the end of this month. But based on what went on in the oral arguments, legal experts predict the vote may even be a 6 to 3 majority, with Roberts siding this us.

Wonder what the odds the bookies in Vegas are giving.

As for the opposition, it appeared they made a case as wimpy as a methed-up cock coming down from Viagra. Besides the silly procreation argument going south (how many str8 couples marry for companionship or money, not to have kids?), opponents claimed legalizing SSM would “reduce the rate that opposite sex couples stay together.” Why? Because a lot of DL guys would leave their wives for their boyfriends? Also total bullshit is the tired old states rights claim that such change in the institution “imposes a substantial burden on the state’s ability to self-govern.” Huh? Aren’t they going to make the same money off SSM licenses that they would off of heteros’? If states rights ruled supreme after the civil rights legislation of the sixties, Alabama would still have white water fountains and colored water fountains.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito did make the point that if “we rule in your favor … and then after that a group consisting of two men and two women apply for a marriage license, would there be any grounds for denying them a license?” Maybe not, but from what I hear, polygamy is still alive and well out West. And again, who cares? The only complication as I see it is who sleeps with who when.

I remember liberal Associate Justice Elena Kagan last year, when the Supreme Court stopped short of making SSM the law of the land, commented that it was a social issue that needed to “percolate.”

Well, I think that coffee pot has boiled all over the stove by now, wouldn’t you say?

Testosterone Therapy: Five Years Later

Testosterone Therapy: Five Years Later

I think most if you know that a guy’s testosterone levels begin taking a nose dive once he reaches 30. Well, it’s been five years since I started doing something about it, at a rather advanced age, first with a cream that predated Androgel that I got from one of those health jock centers in Palm Beach that subsequently got shuttered for selling steroids. When my gay doc here in Fort Lauderdale told me that my hirsute nature was actually working against me and converting Mr. T to Mz. E (estrogen), I switched to pellets implanted about twice a year in my butt. One of my buddies shoots himself up every week but I just can’t do it (I guess that kills my chances of becoming a heroin addict) and I find the pellets, which keep you Mr. T high for 5 to 6 months, convenient and something you don’t have to worry about.

The problem is the jury is out just what your levels should be. Some, not all experts, say a typical 25 year old male should be around 800, but my doc, who I trust, likes to keep me at 1200; too much over that and you may be playing with fire when it comes to prostate issues. (Mr. T fuels prostate cancer which is why it is almost always fatal in a guy under 40.)

The major negative about pellets is that while Androgel and T shots are covered by insurance, pellets are not.

But, okay, bottom line, does all this do any good? When it comes to my libido and energy levels, I think it’s been a draw (maybe I was just an oversexed Type A to begin with, ya think?), though I do notice a bit of a drop-off in my interest in men and sex about the time I’m due for another implant. (Hey, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.) I’ve gotten over my sudden spikes in anger like the time I nearly came to blows with a guy in the twenty items or less aisle in Wal-Mart because he had 22. But I have definitely seen the difference two ways: I’ve gotten hairier – like I need more hair – anybody need a transplant? – and I’ve gotten leaner and meaner in the muscle tone department.

But judge for yourself. The first pic was taken in 2008, the second a month ago. What do you think?

Hmm?

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