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Cat got your tongue?

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Where the &#!* have I been?

Thanks to those of you who have sent me e-mails, pms, or otherwise showed concern as to where the fuck I’ve been. To answer the first, most obvious question: I’m fine. Life has its challenges, and I have mine, but there’s nothing there that’s debilitating.   There are three major areas of my life that can impact my writing. My health/wellbeing is obviously one of those, but as I’ve said, that’s pretty good. The next one is the relative level of activity in my life, and I’ve had an awful

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Musical Misognynism

The focus here is largely on LGBT issues, but the issues women are dealing with are pretty tough too. I heard this song on TV last night (don't remember if it was Fallon or Myers):     I suppose I should tell you what this bitch is thinking You'll find me in the studio and not in the kitchen I won't be bragging 'bout my cars or talking 'bout my chains Don't need to shake my ass for you 'cause I've got a brain   If I told you 'bout my sex life, you'd call me a slut When boys b

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

A Weird Karma Moment

I've been really down yesterday for a number of reasons, but mostly because of Vic's death.   I was having an early dinner at Mimi's Cafe last night and taking advantage of their free wifi to read Treb's post more thoroughly, along with all the responses, and to write out a comment on the announcement thread. I sat there afterwards, trying to subtly dab the tears away, when I looked up and saw this couple sitting in a booth diagonally from mine.   There were two young men there, probably in

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Writing more than one story

I rarely use this blog, but I figured this may be a good opportunity to resurrect it, even though it's not Easter. Some of you have been asking me about my Bridgemont series, wondering why I haven't posted a new chapter of Odyssey. Wondering if I've given up on the story.   I haven't given up on Odyssey, I just haven't felt like writing it. That probably sounds pretty strange. I mean, I created the story and the characters, so why wouldn't I want to write about it. What I'm finding is that my

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

It wasn't until I wrote Chronicles of An Academic Predator and 1968 that I really understood the significance of this holiday. I lived in my white-bread suburban world, aware of racial issues and tensions, but not impacted by them, at least not significantly. Then I read about the civil rights movement (riots in Birmingham, the Freedom riders, etc.) as part of the research for those two stories, and was amazed at the courage and fortitude of the people of all races, but especially African

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

A Culture of Hate

I'm starting to wonder if that's what it is....a desperate need to find people to hate. There has to be an enemy, a focus of all that's wrong. And it can't just be an individual, it has to be a group, an entire group, branded usually by their race or religion. It's amazing how the same groups seem to make the rounds too. There's always the blacks. They're a constant. Then there are the Jews, unless it's time to hate the Muslims, in which case the Jews are convenient friends. And of cours

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Things You Have To Do: Versailles fountains at night

I love French history, so you may disregard this recommendation and figure that I'm biased. You'd be making a big mistake. If you're in Paris or going to Paris, plan to see the Grandes eaux nocturnes. I've been through the palace lots of times, and gone to see the fountains run (Grandes eaux Musicales), but none of them even came close to this.   I went on a Saturday night a few weeks ago and it was a beautiful evening. Just a bit of a chill in the air, which is good, because there is a lot o

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Things You Have to Do: Detroit's Wayne County Airport

If you ever end up at Detroit's Wayne County Airport, make sure you go through the underground tunnel between Terminal A and Terminals B/C. They've got a psychedelic tunnel, similar to the one at Chicago's O'Hare airport, only better. The sides of the tunnel are lined with patterned glass panels. Behind the panels are lights, presumably neon, that change color in time to the music. As you ride along on the moving sidewalks, this music plays , sometimes new-age, sometimes almost tribal. Whil

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

A French Guy on the Metro

I just got back from an almost three week vacation. It was a long time to be gone. I don't blog much, but one little vignette was kind of esoteric, and I thought I'd share it with you.   I was riding on the Metro towards the Etoille when a young Frenchman got on the train. He was probably less than an inch shorter than 6 feet tall. Frenchmen come in all shapes, sizes and colors. The stereotypical Frenchman has dark hair and a masculine five o'clock shadow. This guy wasn't like that at

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Funny Places

This place is in Southern Wisconsin. It isn't as cool as it sounds.   Then again, it could be referring to my basement.

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Racism

I had a conversation with an older relative who, although he would never admit it, is a total bigot. He went off on a rant about "the Blacks" and their problems, and how Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson don't help their cause at all, and found that with that last sentence we actually agreed on something.   I think about racism in the 1970s and how it compares to attitudes today, and it puts a smile on my face. The younger generation just doesn't seem all that worried about skin color. It see

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Prudes

A while ago, there was a bit of an uproar here because some of the ad pictures on the home page were too racy. There was concern because the ads here are supposed to be "family friendly." Then there's always the group of self-righteous prigs who finds sex in stories offensive. What a bunch of shit. This is a site for gay-themed stories. The stories are going to revolve around sexuality, and are usually going to involve sex of some sort, whether it's implied or graphic. Does a story have to

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

About a girl...

I had one of those retro moments today. I was driving home, reached down to grab my lighter to fire up a joint, and bumped my IPOD, jarring it into random mode. This song came on and flooded me with happy heterosexual memories.     This line "Jackie was a rich punk rocker silver spoon and a paper plate" reminded me of a friend of mine. She wasn't named Jackie, but we'll go with that. "Jackie" was beautiful, not in a spiked-heel model kind of way, but in a sexy way: her body moved like

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Religious Irony

I got sucked into watching "Amazing Race" recently. There was this father-daughter team, and in true Christian form, every time they did something well, she thanked Jesus and God and talked about how blessed they were. Blah blah blah.   So last night, on EASTER SUNDAY, she and her father were eliminated. Evidently God decided they were less worthy than the two brothers, one of whom is a raging homosexual and therefore and inferior human being destined to burn in hell. And if that wasn't

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

The New Blogs..

Wow. This is kind of freaking me out.   I'm sure it will be really cool, once I figure it out.

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Some Old Broad At a Restaurant

I was eating lunch at a restaurant a few days ago. I went by myself to get some peace and quiet while I was grading finals. Peace and quiet. Yeah right.   My table was in the corner, and there was another table to my right, set up so the person on the opposite side was facing me. There was an older woman and a younger woman at the table talking, while the old broad was facing my table so I could hear her just as well as her friend. Plus you know how some of those old people have problem

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Hot Young Guys Haven't Got a Clue.

I think it's one of the great ironies in life that when we are young and at our hottest, our insecurities simultaneously blind us to that fact. I've seen that with lots of guys on this site. Guys like Lacey (he's so cute) or Patrick (with those amazing blue eyes) or even Chase (with his faux-asshole attitude), who have no idea how amazingly handsome and attractive they are. Well, maybe Chase does.   I think back some twenty five years ago and look at pictures of myself back then, and reme

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

The Meeting (update)

After that meeting last Friday, "Jack" has pretty much avoided me. No, not pretty much. He's totally avoided me. It was funny, because he saw me in the Student Center yesterday and took off in the other direction. What a pussy. It's not like I'm going to kick his ass.   It's so f**king passive/aggressive, and so typical of academia. A colleague said he was pissed off because my proposal didn't include any of his courses, and I didn't include him in the development of some of the new on

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

The Meeting

So we had a big meeting today, with damn near all the professors and department chairs, the dean, everyone from our college. I was on the agenda to deliver this proposal on a new degree track. It's something I'd been working on, and I'd talked about it at the last several meetings, explaining the issues and trying to answer all the questions they threw at me. It was important to me, and important to the school. So after my presentation, this guy, we'll call him John, gets up and starts slamm

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

ratemyprofessors.com

That's the website. Ratemyprofessors.com. It's pretty surprising that this little resource actually works. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's a place where "students" can go and rate their professors. They have categories in ease of the class, quality of the case, and a place for comments. They even have a chili pepper for "hot" professors.   Sounds great right? Well, it's funny how absolutely despised this site is by Academia, meaning the professors. And it's not even s

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

The Beauty of the Hook-Up

We all seem to have this vision, this idyllic relationship where we find the ONE man/woman to be our soul mate, who completes us, who we can be happy, love, and have unprotected sex with. Maybe. But I was just thinking about this (Billy inspired me with that hot picture of him with the mask) and it seems that it's easy to set that as the overriding goal and to forget the fun and excitement of f**king someone new. The thrill of meeting someone and seeing if you can get into his pants, and if

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Elisha the Prophet

I went to a Bar Mitzvah today, a pretty rare event for a goy like me. I have to say that the music was awesome, a real "folk music" feel to it. I like the upbeat stuff, the mellow stuff was too plaintive.   Anyway, one of the themes of the service was the story of the prophet Elisha. The story as presented was that this barren couple gave the prophet a place to crash. He told them that within a year they'd have a kid. And they did. Then the kid got older, got hurt and died. So the mothe

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

Voices

I was walking through the halls today and this guy was standing there talking to another guy. He was ordinary looking; I hadn't really noticed him. But when I got close enough to hear him, his voice just drew me in. It was so deep, really really deep, with a melodic quality to it. Suddenly this ordinary guy was transformed, in my mind, into an adonis just because of that.   That made me think about guys and their voices. There are guys with nasally voices. Some of them are cool, in a s

Mark Arbour

Mark Arbour

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