Hope and Mobile

This Christmas season gave me a lot to reflect on.  More than anything else I thought about all the people that played a part in my journey.  Mostly I thought about my relatives.

 I Thought about my grandmother, who grew up picking cotton, had 7 children, an alcoholic husband and still managed to hold herself together.  I know she worked hard her entire life and wanted the best for her kids, her grandkids, and her great grandchildren.

I think about my other grandmother, born in a small one room house in rural Mississippi, dairy farmer her whole life, garden center business women, mother of two and even until her death mowed her own grass as a 77 year old woman.

When I think about these two strong women, it makes me wonder what their hope for the future of their bloodline was.  Was it their hope that their children would exceed their footsteps.  The difference between my Mom's side and my Dad's side is unbelievable.

 My Dad's side grew up very privileged, large family, plenty of money due to a brilliant but alcoholic father, and for the most part they are train wrecks.  Most bounce around from one shitty career to another and mooch every last dime from my grandmother until they have almost broke her.  Her who spent her entire life working now has to live with supporting grown children that continually beg her for bailouts.  And when I say bailouts I do mean at times Jail.

My grandmother on my Dad's side was basically the Cadillac of Angie Louisiana.  Albeit in a town of 240 thats not hard to do but she was very Queen Elizabeth.  Every year from birth I have gotten a check for $100 dollars each Christmas.  Its something she did for all 20 grandkids and gave all 7 children $500 each. Thats $5500 just in Christmas cash they she shelled out every year for the last 28 years I have been alive.  Not to mention all the gifts.

I don't need money from her, but this year her card in the mail contained $25 dollars.  I would have been just as happy with a card or phone call but she thinks she must send money, and it makes me sad to see what she has been "reduced" and "drained" to by her children who can't get their own shit together.

I know she is embarrassed and probably just wants to throw her hands up with it all.

On the other hand, my Mom's side of the family is totally different.   From poverty they have risen to the top of the food chain in Washington Parish and could buy and sell most people in a heartbeat.

Then another unique happenstance is that my dad and my mom found each other.  Fiscally like minded and totally self sufficient-built wealth out of dirt and could buy their life over and over with cash.

So how from the same blood does this happen, how does 2 or 3 succeed while 5 or 6 slack back not improving on the past generation.

Where am I going with all this.  Well this Christmas got me to thinking.  I am 28, if I want something I can buy it.  If I wanna go somewhere I go.   My life is filled with incredible thoughtful educated friends, people of genuine abilities and strengths.  People upwardly mobile in this life and going wherever they want to and designing their life to be as fabulous as they please.  I feel truly blessed that by some luck of the draw I was not content to just hang around as a young adult.

I definitely had great role models as parents.  And I can say that with my immediate bloodline I have watched from grandparent, to parent, to son it does "get better".  Each generation has learned from its predecessor, became more and more educated, built and built upon wealth (added to not drained), become more and more well traveled, and fluent in this global market and social world.

And this Christmas as I went from potluck to potluck.  Hug to hug, card to card, and the beautiful clank of cocktails with dear friends I began to feel more connected than ever to my blood.  For in it is every experience handed down and molding in to a continuum of it self as we go on.

So I want to say thanks to all those that are still alive and those that have passed on that are part of my DNA.   All of you have helped me move up and up and if I ever pass on my genetic code I know that my offspring will even have a better life than I.  I know you sacrificed and worked day in and day and to make your own life better and I saw that and will continue to live by that example.   You succeeded....my life is amazing...and I am glad somewhere deep inside me you are a part of this continuing journey of our blood.

-Seth

Front House Glitz and Glam Back House Grunge

I decided to try something new out this year.  Basically its called GoGo Dancing, or a fancy word for putting on some cute briefs, socks, and spunky shoes...decorating your arms with bands and dancing on the tops of bars for money.

Whats unique about this is....my whole life...well my first gay bar experiences were filled with my admiration for GoGo Boys.   The style, the attention they got, their physique.  I remember when I was about 18 running wild on Bourbon Street...peaking in the windows of two clubs on the corner of St. Ann...staring at the beautiful men in the briefs...too afraid to enter...I told myself one day I would be there.  One day I would have the courage to live without sexual boundaries.

I full filled my one of my little gay boy goals this summer and became a GoGo dancer at some of the South's landmark gay clubs.  It is fun.  The money is nothing to brag about, you can expect to make about $50 per hour average....probably more if you do it on a big circuit event.

What I did not know was the glamour stops after they jump off the bar.

Clubs are completely about illusion.  In broad daylight clubs would look totally different.  And when that fella jumps off the bar and goes to that un-detected door and enters the "back" of the house...its a whole new story.  From Nola to ATL to DC....front house glitz is a 180 from back house grunge. 

But at the same time thats part of the fun of it...you get to see both sides of the club.  There is the part of getting ready.  You won't be the only fella dancing that night.  You will be among others that have traveled for the hope of $1's and $5's and the occasional $20.  So don't expect a fancy dressing room.  You may be in the broom closet, or an old storage room, or staff bathroom on the third floor with a slanted ceiling so you have to duck the whole time your fluffing.

Don't expect privacy.  You will all be in there together, swapping out briefs, re-doing your cock ring, re-fluffing, flexing, etc....getting ready for the next 55 minutes on the box.  Whats more fun...is the honesty....you will get off your shift and stuff all your wads of money into your bag...which is incidentally in the same room as theirs....and there is kinda an unspoken honor code.  Once I was sharing a small bathroom with 3 other guys.  I was sure my money would be stolen but to my surprise my stuff was left completely alone.

The other amazing part is you become part of the "landscape" of the club.  After you leave the "back" of the house....or the motor of the club.....you have to change gears and enter "Front" house Glam!  You become interwoven in the fabric that gives the club is soul and heartbeat.  Patrons expect you to be there, smiling, seducing them.....making it fun for "them" to give you a dollar.  What I have found to be more effective than anything is personality.  Sometimes its not the best looking dancer that makes the most but the one with the right amount of spunk, sparkle in his eye, and willingness to bend over and actually talk the person tipping him and make them fell good on their night out.

If you start to have so much fun you wish you were down off the bar dancing with the patrons....then you are doing your job right.

So Good luck if you choose to give it a try.  Its fun, rewarding, and you get to meet some of the older gays that have made that famous club beat for so many years.

Someone

Its been a while since I had someone.  I have amazing friends I love with all my heart.  I am speaking about a crush.  A crush that I could just call up and drive over and see at a moments notice.

I have forgotten what it felt like to slowly lean in on someone, bodies touching....approach their lips, make-out to the point of animalistic arousal-but with an enduring quality of genuinely liking them and feeling something for them.

Sure hooking up is fine, but you know whats really hot sometimes...taking the time to buy a new shirt, take a shower and really try to look ones best....cause you have a crush.

I have not felt like having a crush since Feb 2010...but I find myself more and more this winter wanting to have someone to get hot chocolate with...watch a movie in bed...dance and get drunk together....and then kiss.

Alas......I am the only thing standing in the way of making this happen...I just gotta get out there and find him.

The human body does not have to be taboo...

Where do I go from 28

I am 28...I have lived in Raleigh for 4 years.   Where do I go from here?   What is next?  I have definitely outgrown what this wonderful place has to offer.  What saddens me is the people I may leave behind.  I have really been blessed with a core group of people in Raleigh that I trust, love, and hold dear in so many ways.   But life cannot stop and other discoveries must be made, thus I believe it is time I exit the scene.

I need dirt, soul, history.....a kinda of grunge-voodoo...a heartbeat.  I need cultural resources and traditions...I need seafood and accents....I need brick, iron work, gulf breezes....I need the deep dark mysterious dirty South.  Raleigh is made up of transplants from all over the country all coming for one thing and that is the great jobs/education.  These jobs are all science and engineering based and it has driven the art out of the city.

What that has left Raleigh with is a liberal leaning social attitude toward civil rights while holding on to a staunch/conservative/uptight feel.   I have yet to see a back room at a nightclub here, or people dancing to beats-jock straps exposed.   This is gay without the pure sexual raunch.  I am not a new construction/cookie cutter/I need smooth black pavement with no potholes type of person.  I want a city with a heartbeat...a city that rumbles alive with history...a city that smells of coffee, piss, gumbo, and sex!

Me to We

My first word, my first step, I learned to ride a bike, I graduated kindergarten-high school-college, I got a driver's license, I wanna be this when I grow up, I, me, my! From the moment we arrive on this planet its all geared to me and my. Parents, teachers, mentors strive to incorporate ethic and self accomplishment into the minds of young people. Be independent-make your own way-stand on your own too feet-design your own life.

Then just around the corner comes the pull on those oh so powerful little heart strings. This from "me to we" phenomenon that happens when we reach adulthood. As we are programed to be singular we somehow strive for plurality and desire a "we" aspect to share our incredible "me's" with!

How does this work and how do you decide to give up the "me" for the "we". How do you give up the flirt, the freedom, the excitement and anomaly of each new "me" you might discover and settle on a "we" for life?

Its complicated and I have no clue. Each time I think about the "we" some exciting new opportunity for the "me" comes up and so the inner mind battle begins. But my approach is going to be this, before I agree to a "we" the other "me" is going to have to be ok with the crazy me that comes with it ;-)