Happy Easter Bunny...I Mean Honey!

It's so good to finally hear from you, buddy...I was about to send out a search party!
I know you're almost thirty now, doing the final year of your Saturn Return journey, but I also know you're far too level headed to succumb to the forces of the cosmos ie. plunge into psychosis or an altered state of consciousness. Never mind if you do; we've all been there, man, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Nevertheless, I hope this blog finds you safe and sound in the arms of a well endowed snowman, my friend..it must be pretty chilly in Deutschland huh?
By the way, I appreciated it immensely, but you didn't have to write a critical analysis of my novel extract; I simply wanted to introduce you to some of the kooky characters who inhabit my seriously deranged mind; I hope you found them just as endearing as I do?
I haven't paid a visit to their crazy world for quite some time, but I have been doing plenty of other writing - posting profanities to our readers here and scribbling my name and number on the back of dunny doors across this city, hoping to bust my three year chastity wide open...yeehah!
That's if I can heal this damn fungal infection that's overtaking my asshole as we speak! I'm writhing in fits of itchy madness right this minute, pal. I'm stripping down layer by layer to get my finger nails into all those difficult places. Can you imagine trying to type a coherent post to this site while scratching your ass? I'd be tearing my hair out if I wasn't busy tearing out my asshole, man! I'm sorry to lay this on you, but it's the glamorous reality of living with HIV/AIDS, buddy; my anal health will never be the same. Every time I walk into a thrift store, that old tune ‘Burning Ring of Fire' seems to perk up on the radio. Let me tell you, it's spooky man! I just hope the doctor gets to the bottom of this infection before I score a date.
Life in Melbourne's fairly chilled out otherwise; I mean that literally. After a relentless heatwave, we've plunged into Autumnal weather with pelting rain and overcast skies. I'm through with cooking in the nude, Lars. I've started wearing beanies and socks to cover the sensitive areas but I'm still topless and bottomless underneath that apron!
I should send you a photo, man! Better still, next time you grace our shores, you and Maddy are cordially invited to a nude dinner party at my house. It is the age of terrorism, of course, so I might have to perform a cavity search before you step in the door.
I can't believe I'm actually missing Summer. My days at the beach are over and I aint feeling sexy no more. In fact, these overcast skies are making me damn miserable. I'd be on the phone to suicide help line if there wasn't an episode of 'So, you think you can dance' tonight. By the way, a fella named Russ replied to my reply to his personal ad but I accidentally hung up on him so maybe it just wasn't meant to be huh. Apparently half his tank of goldfish passed away the day before so it was a bad omen anyway, don't you think? Unfortunately, my libido has gone into hiding along with the sunshine and the speedos; maybe you can talk dirty to me some time, pal? Your extensive vocabulary and well pronounced verbs get my thighs quivering!
I had a fabulous massage from an absolute pervert on Easter Monday. He didn't take his eyes off my crotch for the entire introductory meeting. He told me that all gay men should have a best friend in Berlin because that's the only city in the world where you can get a decent fisting session; then he proceded to ask if he could go to work on my buttocks. He had strong hands and fantastic maneuvers but I couldn't help feeling a little vulnerable. Thankfully, there was no penetration, pal, so my ass is still in one piece! Unfortunately he didn't offer a 'happy ending’ after getting me all worked up but it's not good for the immune system to spill ones' seed too randomly according to the Chinese.
So what else has been happening since I returned to this Victorian state, dare you ask? Well, the Easter bunny was none too generous but I eat far too much chocolate anyhow. HIV weakens your gums as it is, so the last thing I need is all that sugar. Besides, I'm still having nightmares about the nasty ol' bunny rabbit from that film, Donnie Darko. He was one scary mother fucker, man! Hot cross buns are my favourite Easter treat; especially when they're toasted just right with lashings of butter...yummy, buddy!
On a serious note, I had a message on my answering service from my ex boyfriend who's laid up in a Sydney AIDS ward. He sounds like a geriatric or a ghost; he was so exhausted he could barely speak his name. It's a crying shame because he was a real looker in his day and a charming, creative dynamo as well. He hasn't called back but there's not a lot I can say; I can't wave a magic wand and make us all better. It's hard to have sympathy when the nerves in my skin are so itchy and burning I can barely dress myself in the morning. Most of the time
there's no hard feelings but there's not much to say either. All I can do is think of him in my prayers and send him my love.
No one deserves this illness but no one can save anyone else; one day they'll prove those damn yanks wreaked havoc with a nasty vaccine or cooked up this germ warfare as part of their find a cure – get rich quick scam. Until then, we're just a bunch of lepers contaminated with a bug that apparently jumped species and favoured us faggots and junkies, can you believe that shit? I got one serious wart hanging off my lip to testify to this global conspiracy; I got the skin rashes, the pins and needles and the hairy leukoplakia in my mouth. Not to mention my daily dose of anti retroviral agents; Abacavir, Lamivudine and Pyremethamine each morning and Reyataz, Indinavir and Tenofovir each night. Don't ask me what they do because I don't know and my doctor don't have the foggiest either. He's taking directions from some protocol in an AID$ industry journal and I'm the poor sucker who's the guinea pig in this epidemic of lies.
I hope I live long enough to see the lid blown off this multi billion dollar scandal. I hope my face don't cave in and my belly don't swell up like a bloated seal like so many other guys I see at the HIV centre. I hope I don't spend the rest of my days swallowing pills and living on welfare in public housing; receiving brochures in the mail from the AIDS council; those guys who make eighty grand a year spreading safe sex messages to educate gay men how to protect themselves from our contaminated semen – all in the name of breaking down fear and prejudice and improving the quality of life for us queers in quarantine!

Love you, Buddy X

Dear Jim,

I’m writing this to you with a new pair of sunglasses on before the guests arrive. You see, last week was the anniversary of Joan Crawford’s death and tonight we’ll be watching Mildred Pierce on the beamer in the lounge drinking gin and tonics. The last time I saw Mildred P was the day before I left Melbourne with Maddy. I thought it was the most gratuitous farewell party anyone could throw – we drew the curtains to the heat outside and the sound of cars parking in the residents’ car porch below and drank gin and tonics in glasses from Target. I’d put together a weepy double bill of Mildred P and Imitation of Life, so by sunset we were all snotty from bawling our eyes out at the sight of Larna Turner’s hearse. There’s something so forbidden about sitting on a textile sofa in hot weather, with the curtains closed and the TV on. Sebastian and I only have a leather couch (of course) and no curtains, so it’s a feeling I don’t often have a chance to recreate.

Yesterday I finally managed to speak to my mother on the phone without my father being in the room, because she’s back in Nigeria. When she picked up she said: Oh, I was just thinking about you. I asked her what she was up to. She said she was sitting on the sofa in their lounge wondering when to start the ironing before the power cuts out (they turn the generators off between 5 and 7). She said that the moment she arrived back in Lagos, her hip started hurting again for the simple fact that the roads are so bumpy that she needs to take pain killers just to take a drive in the car to buy groceries. My mother’s just come back from South Africa. When she was young she hated South Africa when she used to visit it from Zimbabwe, because being Chinese, she was classified as a ‘coloured’ and had to wait for the white women to be served first whenever she went into shops to buy anything. Now she says she loves it. She says the roads are a dream and the traffic lights work and everyone drives facing the right way.

Anyway, I know I’ve been terribly slack about this blog, but I’ve had one deadline after another and am trying to earn enough money to see my mother this year, so am saying yes to everything. But really there’s no excuse... except that the guests will be here in an hour and I need to get the eggplants ready. I’m doing Japanese eggplants for starters. Maybe you’ve had them, they’re halved, and then baked with a sweet miso/mirin coating. Delicious – another thing I first tasted in Melbourne, in a small Japanese place opposite the library on Swanston. I wonder if it’s still there.

Here’s a link:

http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/ferncliff08.htm

It’s for a Joan Crawford fan website where my friend Ollie donated flowers for her grave on my behalf as well. You can see my name in a close-up of the pink roses. Ollie’s from the Rhineland and his grandfather was a member of the Nazi party in Cologne. He’s the first German to say his family were Nazis. Anyway, he’s obsessive about Joan Crawford. I’ll tell you more about him later. And by the way Jim, I’m not going to call you Jimmy, because I don’t want you to get too hot, especially when you might have a few guests round of your own and who knows what they might find in the salad if you get too aroused while cooking nakisch.

Lots of love,

L

If You Got It, Flaunt It!

If You Got It, Flaunt It!

Hi Darling!

I’m back in Melbourne and I’m letting it all hang out! We’re currently sweltering through a week long heatwave above 35 degrees and I’ve stripped down to my birthday suit to prepare the evening meal! It’s mighty weird, cooking in the nude, but that’s how we deal with global warming in the south. Tonight I’m gonna fry marinated tempeh and soba noodles, butt naked! My place already feels like a sauna and there’s still six days to go; I guess I should order pizza tomorrow. Right now I’m curled up in front of the fan, sucking on a fruit tingle; remember them, those fizzy life saver things? I brought them from the Asian grocery boy down the street. I think he likes me; he always gives me a dirty wink when I bend over to pick up the bok choy.
I can’t believe you’re getting around with a hole in your crotch, honey – that’s just asking for trouble! Then again, you were always a bit of a tease underneath that cutesy facade. You Deutsch folk never cease to amaze me with your lewd, lascivious behaviour; it beats the hell out of the stuffy old rednecks down under. If you were here, they’d stitch you up good and proper, buddy.
I was a little despondent after leaving the magnificent shores of Sydney Harbour and finding myself here in Melbourne, by the murky waters of the Yarra, holding my nose for the pollution! Aside from the river, everything’s so peaceful and proper in this city. I’ve gone back to wearing chequered vests with collared shirts, tucked into neatly ironed pants, shoes and socks. Melburnians are so damn pleasant; they’re far more reasonable and courteous and polite and considerate than anyone up north. It’s so quaint, it’s not funny!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be home, I’ve just had to face up to the practicalities of being chronically ill and welfare dependant. Thank God the new Labor government introduced a utilities allowance for us disabled folk. Now I can afford to buy clean underwear that hasn’t been fished out of a trolley in a thrift shop. Mind you, most of the second hand shops in Melbourne have adopted a new corporate vision and they’re pricing us charity cases out of the market. No kidding; the staff get around like pompous queens on Chapel Street, trying to out sell the expensive boutiques, even though most of them are just volunteers or ex cons on probation.
Of course, this part of town is as seedy as ever. Victoria Street became the centre of the heroin trade when you left, honey, and now it’s impossible to buy bread and milk without running the gauntlet of dealers and addicts. I once felt alienated by my drug addiction, now I feel isolated in my abstinence! Some mornings I have to step over syringes on my way to collect the mail. Lo and behold, a new shipment of cheaper, more pure smack has recently graced our shores from Afghanistan and the junkies on Victoria Street think it’s Christmas, man! Every homie in the city jumps off at North Richmond station, scores a rock, throws back a can of Jack Daniels and kicks up their heels till the next train comes and they nod off back to the ‘burbs. Meanwhile, I’m fetching my greens and shitake mushrooms and flirting with a Vietnamese stud in the same old store they’re scoring the shit! No thanks, man. I’m already on a cocktail of drugs; it’s called antiviral therapy and it’s just as potent as any o’ that shit!
To escape the heat and the junk, I go to the beach to commune with mother nature, my friend. In Melbourne, that means I wade into a bay that comes up to my waist, as still as a dead donkey and as murky as the swamps in Kakadu. All you can do is untangle yourself from the weeds and paddle around like a dog till you cool off, buddy. That’s what we have to contend with on Port Phillip Bay; the abbatoirs, the oil refineries and the monstrous factories dumping toxic waste into our beloved playground. On a hot, stuffy day it smells like a sewer just burst on St Kilda beach and the European backpackers are knee deep in shit!
I tell you what, Lars, this has been the Summer to end all Summers; if this is a sign of global warming, we’re well and truly fucked, man! Aussies are going down like flies because of that hole in the ozone layer and it could happen to anyone. I’m more afraid of dying from a cancerous mole than an AIDS related illness these days. I’m so tanned right now I’ve been accused of being an Iranian terrorist, can you believe that shit?
Being around all that flesh has got me hot under the collar, pal. The smell of that suntan lotion, the sand between your toes, the speedos, the butt cracks, the biceps; it’s mouth watering, honey! I even answered a few personal ads in the queer press. One was a guy from the Tasmanian wilderness who said he was a Sagittarian stud that likes art, op shops and recycling! The other guy kept it simple; he said he was hot, hung and horny and that’s fine by me. I was drooling so bad, I licked a whole row of postage stamps, slapped them on an envelope and shoved them in the mailbox; let’s go shopping, honey!
Then again, who needs a sexual conquest when you just got published, man! I had my second article about living with HIV/AIDS printed in a new age magazine called ‘Dare To Dream.’ I know it sounds corny, but I put my heart and soul into that article and earned myself 125 dollars. I dig writing uplifting, inspirational stories just as much as I dig purving on half naked men at the beach.
By the way, man, can you call me Jimmy on this blog; it gets me all hot!
Love to you, buddy.

Hi Jim,

I just got home after watching a movie, I’m Not There, with Susanne. To wake ourselves up a bit after it was over we went to a bar in Mitte called Kim (I think) where everyone was well dressed but the walls were disgracefully dirty. Susanne (who by the way is a doctor of psychology) is recovering from a mental problem and despite the medication, she sometimes says funny things. When we walked in past a row of lockers, she said: ‘There is no barman in this bar,’ in a voice that was as stern as Old Testament and I laughed loudly across the bare room until a barman popped his head through the door flicking water off his fingers and stepped out to serve us two beers. We took a seat on a black sofa and I suddenly realized I was stroking my right testicle. I had no idea that the tear in my jeans would have that effect on me. I warned Susanne and said, ‘Don’t look now but my balls are showing’ and after that she talked to me as if her head was in a neck brace. Thank God at that moment the DJ played a breathy Bryan Ferry song (which in Berlin is ultra arty because in this city they nearly only play beats) and I squealed and sighed and wondered why on earth had we gone to see a movie about Bob Dylan when we both can’t stand him? But as it turned out, Susanne said that the song was actually a Dylan cover so I suppose there was some point to the evening after all.

Dear Jim,

I think you’re giving Sydney a hard time. I remember having a great time when I flew up there six years ago. It was the last time I ever went on holiday alone. I remember I didn’t have a clue where I was going to stay the first night. I had this vague plan that I’d hook up with someone and wouldn’t need to book a hotel. So at 4 a.m. there I was, my eyes bloodshot and a look of desperation in my eye. I remember entering a bar, finding the drunkest man in the place and telling him to take me home. He was a mess but he lived just round the corner. He was so drunk he couldn’t even undress properly and the last thing he said to me before passing out was, ‘You won’t steal anything, will ya?’ He had a collection of expensive looking vases in the lounge on a very low table and I remember thinking that he should find a more sensible place to put them where he wasn’t going to knock them over.

Finding Nemo

Hi Jim,

I know you're still in Sydney, so I thought that while you're still there I could send you a poem about someone I was once in love with.


FINDING NEMO

Disney has consigned me to write to you.
There’s a film of Sydney. You’re not in it,
of course. It’s about fish. But even water has to
touch some definition and it’s time for a new
sensation. I’m sick of sublimated jealousies, of
looking at parents and thinking what ugly
children. The fuel tank of my Sacred Heart has
been punctured before and leaky, but I never
thought I’d end up killing coral with my
poisonous chemicals, when all I wanted to do
was fertilize everything.


It’s a shame things have to die. Why don’t you
contact me? We never knew each other but it
was fun being close. I still know your breath:
loving and damp as a jersey worn out in the
rain. It’s a shame that mere one kiss didn’t shut
my mouth proper so that by the time the meal -
a real spread! – was over, I’d blurted out the
death of us. Like the paralysed practising his
legs, Peter: the memory is still always worth it.
It’s only with the past between us that I wish I
could have told you then.