MrM

Sometime In The Future The target is leaving the coffee shop. It is one I’ve come back to any number of times when I return to the old city. Back here, where my life ended and was remade into what I have become. It is a place known, appropriately, as ‘Lestat’s’. It nauseates me to find people that still glorify. . . Them. It has always sickened me that they trivialize this obscene danger in humanity’s midst by naming a mediocre coffee place after the name of something they think is a ‘ficti

The water in your warm hand Rises up into the cloud Where it becomes the snowflake That falls from the stratosphere Made of dust, ice, light, and sky Guided by fate and love back To the longing of your hand

Me too, Comsie. It makes so much more sense here than with Nicolas Cage being the homeliest angel I've ever seen.

I absolutely love this hidden gem. I included it in my ‘Billy Chase’ soundtrack I did for @Comicality because it was PERFECT for that story’s beginning parts!

I actually named a whole short story (which also became the Chapter Title) after Adagio as the story's theme is an emotional echo of Berber's Adagio for Strings.

Musical Outline or a phrase in the chapter that sums up its theme. Often these are interchangeable. I based The Seashell on a concept album by Brothertiger and so some of the titles are song names with the song included in the story itself because they are intermixed conceptually. I also put location names as a title if my story is jet-setting around the world. Each location is key to what the story is about so it becomes part of the chapter title. For Brandon Smiling, I use @Comicality's model since the story is reflective of his Billy Chase story.

Oh my God! 😮 I'm so sorry!

Halloweird is my fav too, now. Christmas and Easter hold too many sad memories for me now that my family is gone. But, Halloweird and All Souls is a celebration where I feel like they an be with me in spirit. I suppose I am becoming more part of that world beyond than the one I'm in now. I suppose that's why a lot of my stories deal with the theme of life surviving death. Halloween is every day for me. I am also an aging Goth. I'll actually be going to my monthly coven Sabbat tomorrow night (nightclub) to dance again to Bauhaus! I've been seeing more 'authentic' Naples style pizza places cropping up here in San Diego and LA. Pizza Margherita has become the favorite flavor of pizza lately over pepperoni. We have one Uno's for Shytown style, but it's weird it doesn't catch on down here too much. NYC style pizza has held rein here in California for too long and now brick oven 'California' style has replaced that thanks to Wolfgang Puck at Spagos. My NY and Jersey friends keep telling me that I need to move out of SoCal and come to where they are because I'm more of a NY Pizza snob than they are. LOL. I tend to like NY style pies and frequent the 'old' pizza places where I can still get that. I HATE BBQ Chicken Pizza! YUCK!

And this one, my young friends, will distill for you what it was like to live through the AIDS Crisis. I defy you not to cry at this one. We have a long way to go, but we’ve also COME a long way!

Long before that idiotic ‘Trolls’ movie came along, this song, originally written to be an anti-racist anthem, became THE Pride song of the 80s. It has stood with me as a support for all the years I had to stay in my closet. It affirmed that I was ok and that, no matter what I was, my ‘True Colors’ were all that mattered and that it was, ultimately, alright that I was myself. It was my generation’s ‘Born This Way’:

Here is an old one for Halloweird!

Now, ‘Mr. President’, it is time to discuss the location of your Rebel Base.

Dorky!? That was high fashion back then!

Hehehe! Thanks Val. I’m always here if anyone needs book or banner art. I’m a graphic illustrator as part of my trade. How’s that for shameless self-advertisement?

Oh @Puppilull, I am verklempt! Oy, Gosh! What can I say? ‘Thank you’ seems too silly, but thank you! Boy, this is a case where it can be the littlest and most forgotten of things that an author writes that rises up and captures an audience. I did this in, like, a couple of hours one evening after seeing the prompt. I don’t do prompts too often because I need one that I can talk to and a lot of times my alien disposition just doesn’t jive with the rest of humanity so I have to pass. This one was perfect though coz, though I love spiders, I’ve always been horrified by their dinner habits and figured the most terrible way to die would be at the spindly claws of such a creature big enough to take on a human. A giant spider, for me, is the most dreadful of monsters. Shelob was absolutely terrifying to me, for instance. The fact that the original Alien xenomorph was based, partly, on arachnids gave it an even edgier fear factor for me too. Thanks guys for reading! Thanks for the glowing review! I have other awful things coming from my rotten mind so stay tuned! I’ll be releasing a Comsie-blessed GFD short in a few days so I hope you stick around to read that. It’s not exactly scary. A little spooky, perhaps, but definitely a tear jerker set in a Halloweird setting! It made me cry just writing it, but then I’m a sissy!

Thanks guys! I wrote this last year for a Hallweird prompt, but it got buried, unfortunately. Comsie wants to host it on his web site so I made some art. That may be why it bubbled up. I’m glad you guys liked it! Thank you for that, Val! I like to write horror, but I make myself have nightmares from what shtuff comes up in my demented brain cavity so I have to be frugal with my fearmongering. 😮 My favorite Halloweird story I did was Adagio and I know some of you have read that one already. I’m conjuring a sequel that is taking shape into something seriously freaky! I’ll also be releasing a GFD tie-in for Comsie once he releases it on his web site this month. I’ve also been planning a vampire story of my own that Comsie might want to integrate into his GFD-verse too. I’ll write it in such a way that it ‘works’. Anyways, thanks for reading my crazy word-doodle!

The British tradition used to have an All Hallows thing it did waaay back, but I think it fell out of favour at some point. Protestants have always had a fear of Halloween since it was such a blatant mix of the pagan slathered with a thin veneer of Christianity. Samhain is not uniquely Celtic as we might think, though our Halloween tradition seems to anchor itself there in America. I'm afraid that is your biggest culprit in England, Halloween caught on big here in the States, probably because of candy manufacturers, but, also, because it was an Irish tradition that sort of caught on. Similarly to how our Christmas tradition follows a lot more with the German celebration over the British one. it's a part of the melting pot thingie. We then exported the idea with movies and pop culture, etc. Here in SoCal, however, we have an even more potent elixir of Dark Magick that brings Halloween a particular power here that is deeper than other places. Here in the Southwest of the United States, Halloween is enhanced by Dia De Los Muertos, the Mexican holiday commemorating the ancestors who have passed beyond and yet have a chance to come and visit on the Day of Souls, a Catholic holiday. This is also an ANCIENT tradition in Mexico dating to the pre-Colombian age where the ancestors were venerated daily and death and life were a mixture of the same reality. The palpable feeling of the Thinning of the Veil between the living and the dead has had a profound impact on our understanding of Halloween here in San Diego and other parts of the Southwest of the US. There is a real sense of mystery that those we love are near to us once more! Even Euro Americans here feel it this time of year. So it is rather special and not at all macabre or spooky (except in a fun way). It is the celebration of All Souls! A time to remember that death is not the end of all things and that life goes on in a myriad of different ways. Since Coco came out by Pixar, this gift to us from Mexico has become better understood and enjoyed in the parts of the United States with a Mexican population and beyond. In a lot of ways for us, it's as big a holiday as Christmas or Easter, or . . . dare I say it: PRIDE! 😮

Postnatal Abortion time.

I’ve also experienced similar things in San Diego and LA. In San Diego, we have one Gay club left, Rich’s. I don’t go there much anymore because the straight girls like to come up and dance there. I don’t mind that. I understand this. They can come and dance with guys that aren’t interested in only getting into their pants and they can ‘cut loose’. Unfortunately, they can cut loose too much and they become loud, rude, and sometimes sexually harrassing to us gay guys. I know that sounds weird, but it has happened upon my observation. There are also the ones that think they can ‘turn’ you back to the ‘straight’ side of the Force. I wish it worked that way for me, but not really. I’m not Bi, which might be what encourages some of the girls to do this as there are plenty of Bi guys at Rich’s too. But, that said, we try to be as gentle and kind about our rejections as possible. It’s really a question of space, really. Rich’s is not a big club and yet any given Saturday night there will be hundreds of girls trying to get in. They displace the gays fromt the only club they can feel really comfortable in. I’d say a solution is to open more Gay/Flex Clubs, but economics in our area make that a risky business. Clubs are closing due to economic and, I suspect, political pressures. I have also experienced the rudness of straight guys in our one lesbian bar (only one?). In the bathroom generally considered the ‘men’s’ room at Gossip Grill there are actually courtesy posters up reminding straight guys NOT to hit on the girls. By and large they aren’t interested and they won’t ‘change’ just because of your (the drunk-ass straight guy’s) specific charms. Very rude and I’ve seen Security ‘escort’ any number of straight assholes out the door for their rude behavior.

This. Too many guys in ‘straight’ clubs and bars still get violently homophobic if asked out by a gay man. When this kind of behavior is better controlled then we can ‘normalize’ singles bars and clubs so that everyone can participate without fear of a fight or worse. Amsterdam is a good model for the ‘sexual fluidity’ idea for bars, taverns, and clubs. Homophobic violence isn’t tolerated there and people are generally pretty easy about saying if they are into a homosexual experience or not. Sort of ‘Oh, no thanks, I’m not Gay, but do you want to have a drink?’ That sort of thing. I know this isn’t universal, but this has been my impression of the dating culture in a lot of places in Northwestern Europe, particularly in the urban areas. I live in SoCal, which one might expect to be fairly progressive and in some cases it is, but I find I’m uneasy in straight places still and seldom venture far from my gayborhood. The Trump Effect has had a lot to do with this, unfortunately.

Strangely enough, I was in danger of Eton myself, at one time. My father was courted by the oil sultans of Dubai to come work for them as an Engineer. They promised him a great home, a greater salary, comfort for my mother, and the opportunity for me to go to any school in England that he might want for me. Eton included. Wisely, my father turned down that job because it was filled with hidden dragons, not unlike Eton itself. After reading any number of noble accounts on Eton, I was to learn just how lucky I was avoiding that place. Thanks Will for reading!

An interesting idea for a film. It’s a topic I’ve thought about often, especially when I’ve talked to Danseurs like @Mikie or a friend of mine who runs and teaches in a ballet school. I seem to meet a lot of Danseurs, for some reason, and not only enjoy their grace and beauty, but appreciate their struggle. As Gay men we are usually the only ones that have the courage to brook the societally imposed struggle to become Danseurs, but this should not only be a Gay dominated art form for thsi reason. Straight men should have a right to be as graceful and beautiful Danseurs as Gay men without being emasculated by general society. What are your thoughts? http://danseurmovie.com/

Mr.Kitty He’s Gay!