Previously...

Introduction:

Over Christmas, I finally decided to move back to Greensboro and go back to school. All in all, this was a good idea, but the adjustment of moving back into my parents' home was a bit hard to take at first. Once I got used to it, I left again. A lot of pivotal details are missing here, alas, because I wasn't keeping journals regularly during this time. You might notice, too, that I was a bit of a slut.

Editorial comments from the present are in grey.

SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.

The Soundtrack:

Sonic Youth, Pop Will Eat Itself, Ministry, Cure, King Missile, Wire, Alien Sex Fiend, Nine Inch Nails, Blur, Jane's Addiction, Information Society, Cramps, Geezer Lake, Sans Sobriety, Bicycle Face, Pre-Five Ben Folds, Camper Van Beethoven, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

1989

25 April 1989:

It finally happened at four in the morning after an evening of wine and song had produced a very unusual state of mind. His name was Erich. He was way too young, adorable, and a skate rat, and he'd been getting friendlier and friendlier over the past few weeks, while still playing straight. He came over to my house that night. We drank wine and I warned him I wouldn't drive him home drunk so he'd have to stay over or find another way home. He decided to stay.

I knew he was awake. I started running my hand across his leg. It all happened very fast. He didn't resist. I sucked his big fat dick. He barely touched me and I came very fast. He took a bit longer, but he shot in my mouth. Too young, out all night having sex, a wonderful farewell to Charlotte.

Erich and I didn't speak of it again until I ran into him in a queer bar a couple of years later. He thanked me and said he'd fantasized about it ever since. Guess I "brought him out". I had several other "farewells" with other people in those last few months, making up for much of the sex I missed in my first 2 1/2 years in Charlotte.

23 July 1989:

School starts in a month and I still have no job, save the occasional shift at XTC...

Greensboro in general, and Mom and Dad's house in specific, are driving me completely crazy...I miss my apartment and my friends...I got desperate to the point of taking out a personal ad: 

Slightly depraved GWM, 24, cynical, sedate, and relatively harmless, into unnerving music, shocking video, stimulating conversation, sleazy bars,and okra, seeks similar individual with whom to share these interests and perhaps others. Basic intelligence and political awareness a plus. Coke heads, Republicans, and other losers need not apply. Respond creatively.

Got my first response today. Looks promising. (Looks can be deceiving.)

I'm sitting outside the UNCG Financial Aid office at present, waiting for a counsellor to tell me I'm not elligible for any particular aid this semester. I know this will happen, but I'm staying anyway. Maybe I'll drown my sorrows by cruising EUC after my appointment.

About this time, I started drowning my sorrows in tearooms pretty often. I didn't stop until I discovered backrom bars.

19 August 1989:

What has happened to this town while I've been gone? I know it's always moved at a slower pace than Charlotte, but not, I seem to remember, at a comatose one. Bands don't bother to play here...the convenience stores close at midnight...

It's really starting to get to me. The fact that I don't even have my own place is making matters worse, of course. And now Duncan's moved to Baltimore; he was my only hope for bordom cures... Jeff and I don;t seem to have any common interests lately. I no longer have the patience or alcoholism required to just sit around Harry's and kill off an evening. Straight bars just sort of get on my nerves these days; I've realized that I'm not going to pick up a straight guy and that I don't really even want to make the effort.

With Duncan gone, there's no one around for me to be cynical and negative with.

The new job at Kinko's has potential (aaarrggghhhhh). I'm surrounded by just about the most offbeat collection of souls one could imagine.

1990

9 January 1990:

I haven't spent and entire 48-hour period in Greensboro since the year began and frankly, I believe this fact makes 1990 look even more promising.

New Years Eve/Day was spent in Charlotte. Two days (partial ones) back in Greensboro passed before my first trip north this decade. Fun in Baltimore. Fun in DC. Fun in NYC (if you don't count the fact that my car got broken into and I no longer own a leather jacket). Didn't get laid. Did get cruised.

Now here I sit, waiting for my first night class to begin. Fun "first sex of the 90's" this afternoon with my favorite EUC bathroom boy. He wants to take nude pictures of me in the locker room tomorrow. Right. I will show up though, if I get a picture of that monster dick of his. I love it. I also love that he's as sick as I am. He once got me to strip to nothing but Reeboks and a jacket and watched me beat off.

I had lots of fun with this bathroom boy on many occasions. He was one of only about five people I've made it with in my parents' house. We took pictures with my Fisher-Price camcorder.

13 March 1990:

Another lovely Tuesday afternoon in EUC. Mondo traffic today, but only minimal response noted... So why am I here? Alas, it's the thrill of the chase again.

20 March 1990:

Here again. An ex EUC trick of mine (someone I fellated about a month ago) is ordering a class ring. He said hello. I remember him being partucularly friendly and appreciative when we first met too.

1991

21 January 1991:

Four-way with Todd and two trendy boys in Winston Salem. We met at the Edge. All I remember clearly is Corn Huskers Oil and one of them looking up at me and saying "hi, sailor".

2 July 1991:

Fax to Jeff T:

Oh the tales of debauchery which have arisen from my visit to Charlotte:

1. A guy from a strange New Years Eve tryst is, I now get word, in the throes of a major lust attack for me. We went out drinking until 6AM Thursday night, but were too drunk to do anything afterward. I'm not sure if we would have otherwise, but...

2. In 1986, I met this sex god named Ralph from Rock Hill. Young, pretty, and nicely assembled. We talked for a few minutes. I was in lust. He then proceded to spend the next THREE YEARS pretending not to know me. I ceased to carre and completely got over him. In 1991, we met again. No attitude this time. We talkd for about five minutes until it was quite understood that he was coming back to my room. Return to the Comfort Inn-City Center. We talked for five or ten more minutes and proceded to fuck like dogs for two solid hours. This boy was fabulous. I fucked him, shot up his ass, and then rolled him over and did it again.

Turns out, Ralph was the guy that Larry (the 15-year-old) dumped me for in 1985.

23 July - 5 August 1991: San Francisco CA:

Tuesday: Depart Greensboro about 3PM. Arrive San Francisco about 8. Bars: Lone Star, Stud, Deour, Cafe.

Wednesday: Sightseeing with Steve and Todd (Wharf, Castro, Haight). Detour beer bust, Overpass, and Badlands in the afternoon. Polk Gulch, QT, Giraffe in the evening.

Thursday: Lunch at All You Knead. Rented car, drive to Stinson Beach. Tonight: Lion Pub, Castro Station, Badlands, Phoenix, Detour. Met guy named Kyle at the Detour. Sucked face in an alley. He couldn't find his apartment key. Nothing further.

Friday: Sightseeing with Steve in the morning (Nob Hill, Twin Peaks, Coit Tower). Drove toward San Diego in the afternoon, stopped at Stanford, a non-smoking mall in Salinas, and Denny's in Pismo Beach. Slept at overpriced motel in Los Alamos.

Saturday: Drove more. LA freeways were awful. Arrived San Dirgo 3PM. Drove around with Stan and cruised Balboa Park. Went to Flicks, Peacock Alley, and the Eagle. Got cruised more in San Dirgo than in SF. Vulcan Baths afterward. Watched a little sex. A cute, trendy Mexican guy loved me. I found this out too late, alas...

Sunday: Breakfast at a coffee shop near Stan's. Drove to LA in the afternon. Saw West Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard, all the freeways, dowmtown, Venice Beach. Also walked around Rodea Drive and Beverly Hills. Dinner at a Sizzler which had VALET PARKING.

Monday: Took Stan to work. Drove to LA, revisited West Hollywood and Venice. Bought some books and a T-shirt. Couldn't take 101 back to SF due to a tanker spill, so I took I-5. I now know what hell looks like. Got back about 8. Met two lesbians on the street and played tourguide. They gave me cookies.

Tuesday: Thrift shopping in the Mission and roaming in the Castro. Bought shoes. Had beers (Badlands, Phoenix). Cable cars with Todd in the evening, and more drinking with Steve later (Badlands, Phoenix, Midnight Sun, Detour). Cruised Collingwood. No action.

Wednesday: Ocean Beach cruising: two old men, one young one. No action. Visited the Haight and the Castro. Hung out with David in the evening (Badlands, Phoenix, Detour). Late fod at Orphan Andy's, Crashed at David's.

Thursday: Too many bars (Wonder Bar, Firehouse 7, Doctor Bombay's, Twin Peaks, Badlands, Phoenix, Detour, Overpass). Walked around most of the afternoon with David looking for apartments (for him). Bought nifty 1970s vintage gay mags at Community Thrift.

Friday: Too many bars again (Polk Gulch, The Edge, Badlands, The Bear, Detour, The Eagle, Lone Star, Rawhide II, Decadance at the End-up). Sex with Robert: no orals at all, but he slapped a rubber on me and let me fuck him. Fun. Slept in the Mission. He's supposed to cut my hair on Monday. We met at the Detour and he got me into Decadance free.

Saturday: Evening's bars: Noc Noc, Toronado, Detour, the Eagle.

Sunday: Dore Alley Leather Block Party, followed by Detour, I-Beam, Phoenix, Badlands, Uranus at the End-up.

Monday: Robert cut my hair.

The 1970s magazines were a direct precursor to Folsom Street in the 1970s. The haircut Robert gave me was my last one until late in 1993. And, no, I didn;t know any better than to hang out in the Castro, thank you.

26 August 1991:

Letter to Steve and Todd:

A rainy afternoon in the Triad...In case you hadn't guessed, there's nothing going on here. Saturday night brought a late night drinking session with Jeff T and Dan.

So how goes life in the capital of Queer America? Am I missing anything? Should I maybe have stayed?

I've had remarkably good luck since I got back. Maybe it's the hair. Or maybe I've just developed that California style. Then again, maybe it's the Ultra Slim Fast. It worked for Tommy Lasorda.

Very little has changed in the past seven days, unless you count the three new eastern European countries and one less country music vocalist in the world. And the fact that Brad Davis died today, precluding the possibility that there will be a sequel to "Midnight Express" in which he re-encounters the Frenchman in a nother shower and finally "does it".

Boy do I wish I were back on the west coast...

Dan would grow up to be my roomie of 6 1/2 years when I moved to SF. Steve and Todd put me up for the first month.

1992

12 January 1992:

I've become extremely troubled lately. I've just graduated fom college. There is no reason for me to remain in this shit pit called Greensboro. It's not good; I get madder every time I go out here. Redneck queens and preppies in sweaters. If I don't get out of this house (town? state?), I'll go out of my mind. I'm trying to pick fights at the fag bar.

Devlish, aggressive mod, counterbalanced with a desire to stay home, lock myself in my room and read a book.

15 April 1992:

Tomorrow morning I need to begin looking for a job. Or a life. Or something along those lines. It's not that I don't have a job. I do have one. Sort of. And I do have a semblance of a life, although it's not proving completely satisfactory at the moment, which may explain my obsessive need to discuss it on paper at two o'clock in the morning.

I'm tired of lacking a discernible puropse in life. Four months ago, at age 27, I became a full-fledged member of Generation X. This milestone was not marked chronologically, but through my long-delayed graduation from college with degrees in Geography and Sociology. With these degrees in hand, I managed to moveto full-time position with the same national chain of copy shops which financed my undergraduate drinking binges.

By returning to my parents' home, I've eaten well, remained warm, saved money, and given up even the vaguest notion of a social life involving "my place". But there's hope. The hope of all overdeucated slobs of my age range. Graduate school looms large in my future. I'm tired of my future.

My geography and my sociology are in constant conflict.

This was my first journal entry written on a computer, as it happens.

29 May 1992:

Fax to Todd in San Francisco:

I'm getting a new car this week. A 1990 Ford Tempo with music, cruise control, functioning A/C, a real back seat and less than 30,000 miles for only $5000...

I've put in my notice ay Kinko's and will be leaving Greensboro by July. Haven't decided where I'm going yet. I'm faxing resumes as we speak. If nothing else, I'm going back to Charlotte. This is a last resort.

I'm also talking to management at both Kinko's in San Francisco. So have you moved yet? Actually, this is a long shot and is only moderately likely, so don't count on me. We'll talk on this subject soon. I haven't even mentioned it to Mom and dad yet. But I am definitely leaving the flaming pit of hell within a month or so.

14 October 1992:

Fax to Jeff T in Greensboro:

Greetings from San Francisco. Things are great here. The living situation will have to change soon. Todd's in Europe now, but he'll be back in ten days. The bars are fun and NOT dance-intensive. I won't try to explain the backroom bars - it's a voyeur thing. I've been lurking around with Dan quite a bit; it's very odd that I've moved 3000 miles and I'm hanging out with so many people I already know so well. I kind of thought I might meet some new people here. We'll see...

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