| |
Circuit Stories
By
Ken Cimino
Chapter
Six: San Francisco Pride
I suppose I could sit here and write about how I've been in adult videos since 1986. I could tell you how I appeared in Advocate Men Magazines five times under four different names, and I bet you'd be impressed. My stories might be a little misleading, though. For example, despite all this experience, I've never been nominated for any porn awards. That's why as I stare at the blank, lavender colored biography card in my hands, I don't quite know what to write. The San Francisco gay pride float committee gave me ten minutes to fill out the card before the Detours Bar 1998 float can depart, leading the snail-slow procession of shirtless men, topless lesbians and high drag queens down Market Avenue, celebrating gay pride this sunny June morning.
I guess I should be happy Mack, the Detour’s Bar owner, asked that I and some other has been porn stars represent the bar this year. Of course, we don’t get paid anything but free shots of jagermeister and Miller Lite. Not that those things matter to me. This is my second attempt at life without drugs and alcohol. I’ve been sober for over a year now, since the death of my last partner, Tom, so the only payment I'll get today will be the claps and stares of my fellow gay men, as they struggle to work out who the hell I am, and why it is that I look familiar. Most days I don’t get recognized at all while walking the Castro. It’s only the days I’m shirtless, with my eagle tattoo proudly perching on my left shoulder, that men snicker behind my back, or ask how much.
Is that what they want me to write?
I’m Will. I’m a forty-something porn star and recovering addict. On the card in front of me I write the details of my life as a B-list porn star who never really made it. A part time escort who spent most of his time either drunk or high – or both – with clients. Yep, I’ve traveled to the underworld a few times, but so far it’s never been a permanent home. I think the doctors have told me I’ve been close to death four times. Since I’m a sex worker, Hades is most likely my final destination.
Just down the parade route is Jim, my muscular friend from World Gym. He now goes by the porn name Jake, and is riding on the Colt float with all the other gorgeous, but roid inflated men. I’m happy for him. I really am. It was only three months ago that I helped porn virgin Jim, I mean Jake, get booked for three different gigs. I watched Colt offer him an exclusive contract right in front of me. The same Colt executives who never return my calls. I thought about changing my porn name to Rodehard or PutawayWet.
Did they hand me this stupid card to reflect on my life? I’m having a nervous breakdown filling out one card. How did I get so screwed up?
Every year it’s the same thing. Every time I attend a Pride festival, I find myself thinking about the first one, in the same way that every new boyfriend is compared to the one before. The devilish boyfriends of the past are remembered as angels in the re-write of one’s future. As an early forties gay man I often wonder if younger gays and lesbians realize the importance of Gay Pride. You see, pride is the fundamental antidote for anyone who ever felt sickened by oppression or bigotry. It’s the weapon gays use to confront the demons of shame and insecurities. As gays, we struggle with the process of coming out, and how to accept one's gayness. But one day a year gays and lesbians come from all over and experience “Pride” in who they are. Maybe it’s because we all, straight or gay, have a basic need to find companions for sex, romance, friendship or possibly just for moral support and acceptance. Even “us” sex workers search for love.
When I was 23, I was trying to get a masters in sociology at Cal State, Los Angeles. I was still coming to terms with my gayness, figuring out who I really was. It was a strange period of my life. A time when self-discovery mingled with fear of the unknown. For a long time I'd believed I was the only man on the planet who had feelings for other men. I remember a time when my parents had a construction guy come over to work on our pool. It was summer and he'd often remove his shirt to work. He looked like the typical 1970s guy. Lean, over-tan body with light brown cheat hair covering his physique, and long brown hair, worn surfer-style. He was Sean Cassidy, but beefier.
I would bring him lemonade and smile and hope he would want me to suck his dick. But he never responded. No matter how many times I brought him lemonade. A thank you and a smile was all I ever got. I even tried laying out in the back yard without my underwear to see if he would stare at my strategically placed dick, but if he ever looked, he never said a word. I spent hours in my bedroom peering out of the window and wishing this shirtless God would notice me. I guess my revenge was that I myself became a shirtless God for a while, in some young, gay man's eyes at least.
You know, I didn’t start out wanting to be porn star. I started wanting to be a lawyer. It's funny, because both professions screw people. Anyway, my family was of Irish Catholic decent and I had been taught to believe that being gay was possibly the worst thing that could happen to a man. My sophomore year in college, I joined a fraternity. Although I would sometimes fantasize about many of my fraternity brothers, in many ways I never saw them sexually. Well, except for one. But now is not that time for that story. This is the story of my first gay pride.
In a human sexuality class I discovered that people like me, gay people, did exist. And we learned that they lust and love for their partners like straight people. I started to discover that gay people had Pride. I wanted to experience pride too. I was tired.
Tired of my Irish uncle’s mocking lisps.
Tired of my fraternity brothers jokes.
Tired of society’s negative energy towards people like myself.
No one had ever told me that I mattered, so after a while I came to the conclusion that I didn't. After I came out, my family simply tolerated me, no more. Neither of my parents ever said they loved me for being gay, and for having the strength to be myself. The most I ever warranted was a "don't worry, we still love you," which implied that they loved me in
spite of who I was, not because of it: that there was something negative about being gay and, therefore, something negative about me.
Maybe that’s why Pride is so important to gays and lesbians: because so many of us feel that we don’t matter. So many of us leap at any opportunity to feel that we're wanted. We make certain choices that aren’t the smartest, like unsafe sex, because we fear the possibility of rejection from a partner more than we fear the consequences of our actions. Maybe its these feelings of powerlessness which makes many of us believe we do not have the right to be "in control" in our lives. And somehow “Pride” gives us our control back.
I was twenty-three when I heard about the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. It was a significant turning point for gay self-esteem. We could finally look at each other and see that we were a Community of worthy and admirable human beings as gay people. We did not have to hide in the shadows and pretend to be non-gay. We could see proud men and women who looked just like everyone else in the country. We could celebrate our diversity and acknowledge our common bond.
My attending the tenth Stonewall in New York was a turning point. It was a festival with hundreds of thousands of people, all gathered in one place, standing tall as honorable citizens, celebrating their pride in public for the whole world to see. It was also the first time I turned trick to pay for the plane flight and the hotel room.
I've been to gay pride parades and festivals in other cities and they are great, too, but nothing can compare to the energy of the New York City Gay Pride Celebration. The tall buildings along the avenues seem to reflect back the energy in the streets: an energy which is amplified by the marchers and the crowds. Although I love San Francisco's Pride nothing can surpass my first New York City experience.
I still love my San Francisco Prides, though. Like last year where I stood on a random chair next to a dumpster and watched literally hundreds of men go by in just a few hours, all of them bored out of their minds as they waited in line for the porta potty. As I watched them, I'd casually suggest that they just piss in their empty plastic beer cup and dump it in the dumpster. Sure enough, pretty soon men were whipping it out, then stroking it… Usually another guy would soon join in. I must have seen five hundred dicks that say, easy. And the drunk dudes were so much fun to watch and talk to while they relieved themselves. I sucked about twenty of them. I mean I get paid to suck dick for a living and I still never get enough.
I’ve always thought it might be more helpful to address my difficulty to be with just one man. As I get older it’s still the dream. But it’s become more and more apparent that even if I quit porn I’m going to always want sex with other men. I can’t help it. I always hear its biological. I wonder if that’s true. Maybe I am incapable of loving only one man the way he deserves to be loved. The way my mother, for instance, is loved by my father. If this is true then maybe I should take myself out of the race. I shouldn’t be with anyone. I’ve always told my past boyfriends as much. And sometimes I’ve even sort of meant it.
Maybe I’m staring back at the man in the mirror so hard because recently I was asked to have sex without a condom. It’s called “barebacking” sex. In the last two years the gay community has been experiencing a 70s Renaissance. The new HIV meds made the idea of a life without AIDS possible. So, barebacking porn is becoming the rage. Recently a casting manger actually came out with that tired old saying, "you're not getting any younger," suggesting that barebacking might be the only thing left for me. I smiled and informed him that the morals of bareback videos irritated me. How dare he?
But I have to be honest: I was tempted, just for a second. For the briefest moment, I thought only about the work and screw the morals. In return for being told that I was acceptable to someone, I was ready to sacrifice just about anything. Hell, I'm pushing forty-five and I'm a washed up gay porn star. Is it so strange that I would forfeit my principles to be in front of the camera one more time? I mean I came so close to working for Colt two summers ago. (Is it really that long ago?) I was just one phone call away from making the A-list of porn gods. I heard someone didn’t like my eagle tattoo. It was considered too second-rate, too trailer trash. And that was that.
I have come full circle in the adult video industry. The first video I ever made was Handcuffs for Hercules Productions. I was the boy next store type. The director had me cut my long brown surfer hair into a short preppy cut, but he still didn't like it, so made me dye it blond. It was 1984 and I was fresh out of rehab, where I'd been dealing with a little problem with cocaine. I was done with the coke, but I still needed to eat, so it was either dye the hair or turn tricks on the Santa Monica Boulevard, which was where I'd developed the cocaine problem in the first place. No, that's not strictly true. It
really started when an old Hollywood producer rented me out as a birthday gift to a famous, but out of work, old movie star. At first he bought me gifts and gave me a roof over my head. Cocaine was everywhere. But then the movie star wanted a new model and I was on the street with the ultimate gift – a drug dependency.
After the Hercules shoot, I got a porn agent who had me loose the twenty pounds I'd gained in rehab. I went from being “Willy Clark” for Hercules to “Billy Fox.” I’ve been Billy for so long I don’t think I even remember my real name, which is Will. Only those you know me. Really know me - call me Will.
I primarily worked as a bottom. My average-sized dick was never big enough to make me top billing. I did a ton of videos – probably over a hundred – and I never headlined one of them. But I was always proud of what I did. I never once complained about the "gay
for pay" hired tops, who would put Penthouse Magazine on my back as they fucked me, to make sure they stayed hard. I just smiled and nodded when they told me they wanted to place an orange street cone up my ass. It was going to be the “money shot”. I guess I should be happy that shot didn’t make it into the film.
It’s funny. My mind is so full of thoughts and memories: they're imprinted everywhere. But I look at the purple card in my hand and it's still blank. If only I could go back. If only I could be as blank as this card again.
I look up and notice two men approach two other men who are leaving the parade festival. They asked for their color bracelets. Damn, they don’t even want to pay the $3 buck fee to enter. I wonder if Bryan is still inside.
I came to the Pride Festival with my ex boyfriend, Bryan. I always thought it was surreal to attend any events with an ex, but it gave me a kick to be hit on in front of Bryan. I secretly hoped the jealousy would make him realize he wanted me back, then I could have the pleasure of turning him down. He never did, though. For Bryan, the thrill of dating a porn star ended a month into our nine-month relationship. He thought he could handle the calls late on Saturday night from guys so high they no longer could recall their last names. I didn’t care, as long as they remembered to pay me. Of course if I got high too, I'd often leave without being paid…
Bryan was on mushrooms. I no longer used, but far be it for me to judge someone who did. I had always stayed away from the crappy drugs, like coke or meth. Mushrooms, at least, were natural, and were supposed to have healing powers. There is a sacred mushroom story that says mushrooms have a therapeutic potential. They improve hearing, eyesight and blood circulation, and activate the immune system. I’ve read that many North American Indians belong to Mexican mushroom cults. Supposedly they live to be 130 years of age in hidden valleys of Mexico. So I could handle Bryan shrooming. There was something natural about it.
I was never a big fan of eating mushrooms. One time when I was a kid I'd made the mistake of dropping mushrooms with friends right after school. By the time I got home I was flying. I went into the living room and started watching "I Love Lucy" with my older brother. It was the episode where she has to eat all the chocolate and although I had seen it millions of time, I went into a stint of such uncontrollable laughter that my brother knew there was something up. He took me to the garage to check me out, and I was amazed by what I saw: the garage was three-dimensional! I could see everything at once! He told me to chill out, and kept me hidden from my parents until dinner. During the meal, though, I discovered that I couldn't bring myself to eat the Chicken a la King that was on my plate. My father, quite annoyed, asked why and I replied, "Because it looks like cum." My Irish dad was so upset that he sent me upstairs to think about what I said. He proceeded to beat my ass the next morning. I think he waited ten hours because he knew he would have killed me if he hadn't.
Bryan was in his early 30s when we met. He had black hair and blue eyes, and wore an improvised goatee with the mustache part shaved off. Both his nipples were pierced. He had completed his PhD in engineering, and had worked as an adjunct professor at San Francisco State. Now he was a software engineer for a technology company, after quickly figuring out how little money professors make.
Bryan was the hippie in my circle of friends. Although laid back, though, he was a pretty intense thinker. I thought he was sexy because he was such an intellectual. We met two years ago at the “Cherry Party”, when Bryan offered me a bump of K near the DJ booth where he had been spinning. I had never seen anyone do so many drugs and maintain such an intense and cerebral conversation. As a recovering coke addict I worried about our relationship, but Bryan never did coke around me, and I was grateful for that.
Bryan was also a part time DJ, who had even opened for Burning Man last Labor Day weekend. Bryan’s carefree and non-judgmental attitude made him circuit boy sexy, and I used to be very attracted to him. But his intense drug use was a turnoff. I knew I would never be able to keep up with him. If Bryan slipped up even once and offered me coke, I was doomed. Every time we went out to “party,” that thought lingered. I never could escape it. Of course he could never escape the idea that I got paid to have sex. This was always ironic because he tricked with a guy almost every other day. Every week he was in love with some anonymous stranger. He'd remain in love for as long as it took for him to actually get to know the guy. Then he'd end things. I'm amazed that we lasted nine months.
Just this morning Bryan picked me up in his Jeep and was telling me about 6th floor man.
“So," he began. "There was an urban legend that this really hot, dreamy guy worked on the 6th floor of my building on Market St. My “breeder” boss happened to be in the elevator with him one day and came to tell me about him. They believed he was gay but couldn’t wait for me to see him to use my “dar”. Well, that was many weeks ago. I really didn’t believe them. I thought it was typical fag hag torment, but on Friday I finally saw him. My up-coming ex-hubby! Yummy. He is the reason why gay men want civil unions. He was all that, a bag of Baked Lays, a Starbuck’s Venti Mocha (without the cream of course), and a Jamba Juice with wheat grass shot."
Bryan had been up by Union Square, meeting 'the girls' for lunch. 'The girls' were two SFU undergrads, who Bryan had befriended when he was a teacher assistant. The 'girls' loved Bryan’s butt in jeans, and Bryan loved that they noticed. They were like a little fan club that hung on his every word. He had labeled them his fag hags in training.
“I cross the street," he continued, "and see a hottie walking out of Whole Foods on P. One look and I knew it was my boss’s urban legend man from the 6th floor. I just knew. So, I kept thinking that if I just can get eye contact with him within a year we would be adopting a Chinese girl baby and naming her Charlotte Elaine. So, I’m thinking, Bryan – go follow that hottie!”
No one stalks a stranger like our Bryan here, "I tracked him back to our building downtown. He went into the elevator and I watched the lights stop at the 6th floor. It was him...all my manly fantasies came true right then and there."
"So what did you do?" I asked, hardly believing his luck.
"What do you mean what did I do? I went back to work before my breeder boss asked why I was so late," he explained. "But I know he was totally checking my ass out in the lobby. Everyone who sees me in these jeans checks my ass out. I can’t wait to trail him again. I hope next times he goes into Barnes and Noble so I can see if we read the same books. This is the beginning of a fabulous co-dependency,” he ended triumphantly.
"My shrink says there are new meds out there for hunting people down," I told him. Bryan was too carried away with his story to even listen to me.
"Y’all, I can hardly wait to do a hit of Ecstasy with him and kiss," he said. "He is so good looking.”
I reminded Bryan that he had only recently been in love with the guy who worked at Rolo in the Castro.
“That relationship ended when I didn’t get the ten percent discount on the Violet Gemni tie-dye bikini. I’m still pissed that I paid full price for that tired thong I wore at the Blue Party in Philly,” complained Bryan.
"Well, I think he was really pissed that you hooked up with some tired old Philly accountant at the Blue Party," I countered. "So I guess that makes you equal."
"Anyway," I said, another thought occurring to me, "I thought you were dating one of my customers – the guy who sold you the leather chaps. Hank, wasn't it? The guy who works down the street at the Mr. S He was like a Bear porn star."
“Yeah, well Mr. S guy wanted a three way with me and Rolo guy," sighed Bryan. "And I was all into it, so I arranged for all three of us to accidentally meet up at Pleasure Dome last Sunday night. But it turned out Rolo Guy had messed around with Mr. S’s ex boyfriend at Hole in the Wall like a month ago." He shook his head, annoyed. "Besides, it totally brought the ambience down to a negative vibe and I had just done a bump of K…” Bryan voice trailed off as we almost hit a shirtless guy with tattoos everywhere as he tried to park the car. The guy yelled at him, but he simply smiled and shrugged, before asking the guy for his number. The guy walks over and gives it to him.
“Hey, I’ll meet you after the parade is over at the car. I’m in love with this guy. I think he is my future husband. He’s got some mushrooms. And I love tripping at the festival. I’ll see you in four or five hours around 7ish. If I get the time I’ll come by the Detour float and wish you luck,” said Bryan.
I hadn’t seen him the entire morning. I doubt I would see him until tonight and way after 7ish.
Okay, it's back to the card. I need to write something about my life.
How about my being HIV positive for four years? I've had to hide this little snippet of information from the gay adult industry. It was the purple elephant in the room that no one ever talked about in porn. I mean, I knew a lot of men in the industry who were also positive, but we knew to keep that information to ourselves. In 1995 I was diagnosed with Karposi’s Sarcoma and was told I finally had AIDS. In a way it was a relief. Over the years I had battled PCP, CMV, cryptosporidium and many other abbreviated diseases. But only three years ago I had a hand full of T-Cells left. The week I was planning my morphine smoothie to leave this earth my doctor called about a new study for protease inhibitors. Within six months I was better. Once I'd put some weight back on I was in front of the cameras. Like a good foot soldier I was back to work.
Maybe that’s why I’m so angry. I really love what I do. I’m actually proud of my work. I’m proud of all my films. Even the ones where I was high as kite as a huge dildo was placed in my ass, or as some guy pissed on my chest. I’ve been loyal. I’ve always played my part. Now, all that’s left is barebacking videos and riding floats representing one night stand bars.
Doesn’t this industry realize I’ve forfeited my reputation? I’ve sacrificed my relationships? But most of all I surrendered my health. For what? The money shot?
But the reality is I was never in the money shot. And I’ll never be in the money shot.
I look at the many faces lining up and down Market Street. I search the crowd for something. I want something, but its not here. It never was. It will never be here.
I jump on the float. No one will remember me on this float thirty minutes from now. Another B list porn star smiles and waves his hand as he disappears into the memories of San Francisco Pride. A hundred porn stars before me. A hundred more after me. As the float begins its voyage down the street. I look at the card one more time.
Then I drop the blank card on the ground.
Copyright © 2006 Ken Cimino
|
