| A glimpse of hope for NYC? |
[Feb. 1st, 2006|03:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  upbeat | ] |
| [ | music |
| | none playing but I'm in a music library, after all | ] |
In browsing some of the profiles on Worldleatherman.com (which seems to be the site I am most frequently on), I saw someone's mention of a new leathermen's group forming in here New York City. I asked for clarification, and he sent back an announcement that led to a yahoo group called "Leather Invasion":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NYCLeatherInvasion
So far I'm the 12th subscriber, the first of which came only on Sunday. And what are they doing as a first activity? No bar night, no sex party but...a group visit to the Museum of Modern Art! Gads that sounds like heaven for me. Unfortunately it's this Friday, Feb. 3, at 7 PM - which is a terrible time for me.
Oh well, so I won't make this meeting. But maybe, just maybe, this gives a glimpse of hope for the resurrection of leather life here in New York City. |
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| Friends |
[Aug. 4th, 2005|11:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | - though I should hit the sack | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "I've Gotta Right To Sing The Blues" - sung by Lee Wiley | ] |
Ain't it great to have friends? Well, that's what everyone says. I've never been a social person, and have never had more than a handful of friends at any time in my life. I remember that when I began attending the Little Red School House in the second grade at age 7, I wasn't able to develop friends until I reached the 6th grade. And retrospectively, I realize that he became a friend in part because he felt alienated from everyone (he had a black father who left the family when he was 7, and a Jewish mother). He remained the only friend I had until graduating high school some 6 years later.
To spare everyone (and myself) my history, the topic comes up because of the medium. Here on LiveJournal one can have "friend" links. Not only that, but it's kind of the way you make yourself known - a way to promote yourself among others. So I should sublimate my puzzled and uneasy feelings at having a bunch of friends, i.e links. Frankly, I have no idea who some of people are, or why they'd link to me, other than in the name of marketing. So for example, there is ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.3) xijoeix, naylandblake, and bearlawnyc. Who are you, guys? I have no idea - they didn't bother to introduce themselves. And certainly you can't learn anything about them from reading their blogs, or their biographical information there. But I figured I'd be nice and cross link them. Then there are two others who I briefly chatted with on Yahoo - and they have me down. Then there are the rest who I know somewhat more, and occasionally met some of them (though I'm still waiting to meet you, handinglove.
It reminds me of yet another website, Tribe, where one can link to "friends." On that site I have something like 42 friends listed - even one woman! I asked her why did wanted to link to me, and she said because I looked cool. A number of people said that. (It's those damned pictures, which make me look much better than I am.) I tried to chat with two of them, but even in e-mail they seem pre-occupied with other things. So they just wanted to link, not get to know the person they're linking too. It makes me think of someone throwing out food onto the street, and all the rats and cats gobbling up whatever is there, not knowing whether it's edible and healthy or not.
Recently I found a statement on the Internet indicating that deep down, everyone wants to be with someone else. Well, maybe. I'm definitely not one to have a huge coterie of friends -- how could one treat them decently if one had so many? For me it's better to focus on a few well chosen men than a bunch of people one knows superficially.
The whole process of finding and cultivating such people seems to be lost. |
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| Where have all the leathermen gone? |
[Aug. 4th, 2005|12:38 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  - ate too much for dinner | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "I Got Lost In His Arms" sung by Mary Martin | ] |
For quite a while I've been telling people that New York City no longer has the reputation it once did of being a center for leather activities. Lately I've been thinking of this issue because it's not just New York City - it's all over. Where has leather gone?
Part of the problem as I've seen it, is that much of the leather community used to organized around physical destinations. In the 1970s Christopher Street used to be the main destinations for gay folks, all the way from the Oscar Wilde bookstore down to Badlands at the West Side Highway. By the 1980s that had already changed. Many places closed due to the AIDS epidemic, and that led to the gentrification of that neighborhood. So the area around 9th Avenue and 13th Street became a new outpost. That era ended with the closing of the Lure in 2001. Now the Eagle has a ten-year lease on 28th street between 10th and 11th Avenues, along a street that's filled with straight nightclubs, near the waterfront. There's no question in my mind that this is temporary: 28th street is (more or less) the southern border of that area that was to be the Nets Stadium. Thankfully the stadium won't appear, but so long as real estate market in NYC stays hot, that area will be well developed. By the time the Eagle's lease is up, I'm sure it will be forced to vacate. What will be left? Probably nothing in Manhattan. That is NYC's problem; but I've seen and heard similar things in San Francisco and other areas. Even Columbus Ohio, where someone once boasted that they have seven leather bars is now down to just three or four.
Clearly the bodies willing to show up at bars are dwindling, and most people attribute this to the Internet. Why go out to a bar when you can browse and cruise online in your underwear (ok, call it leather; as the New Yorker cartoon said, "on the Internet no one knows if you're a dog"). I see this trend so clearly in myself: I hate bars. Why? Because it feels like I'm wasting time from my life, time that could be better spent, even if I was sitting on a toilet. So many pretty looking men - not a single one of them making eye contact, not a single one acting open or friendly, most of them ignoring me (since I'm smaller than the average man). How is one supposed to know who to start up a conversation with? I've long ago learned that looks have no correlation with a person's intelligence. (Actually I lie: I think there is a correlation - the beautiful guys are usually unintelligent, and the ugly ones tend to be much more thoughtful and insightful.)
But on the Internet, you can do everything: see if you like the guy, see what they say about themselves, and draw conclusions as to whether the person might be worth talking to.
Of course, the Internet is an entirely different medium in which to meet people, and requires skills which are very different from bars. There are now probably more leathermen than ever before, because anyone can buy a couple of items and "voila" - leatherman. But so many of these guys don't seem to have matured in expected ways. I'm not talking about guys in or not into s/m (some guys like to make those distinctions). I mean just general things: so many guys refuse to show their faces. What is that about? Well, I know what it's about - it's part of the medium. It used to be that physically hooking up with another man was the ultimate goal. Nowadays, people like to tease. Today, it's just the hunt and chat which is a goal. And after a few chats, the excitement has worn off, and because no fundamentals of friendship have been worked on, the parties move on to the next potential chat partner. So the hot chat has replaced the hook up, and what used to be a physical and sexual interaction has now become mostly a cerebral one.
I don't know about others, but I plead guilty here. By the time I was 18 I had had sexual encounters with over 30 men (many of them multiple times; I gave up counting when I hit 50 guys). The idea of just having sex for itself with someone no longer interests me. I need much more - I need an emotional connection. I don't want sex to be a competitive sport - I want to be moved by a guy, and I want to be able to move him. So at least in my case, that's why sexual encounters for me no longer have much interest in themselves.
But that still doesn't explain it all. From going to GMSMA, I'd say attendees' average age lies between 45-50. At MAL, the average seems maybe closer to 40. Somehow, 20-somethings (who I perceive as one of the most ageist generations I've lived through) seem for the most part uninterested in leather. I don't understand why, because most people acknowledge that their attraction to leather is irrational - it just becomes a part of one, so long as one lets it. So maybe leather is just a generational "fad" of some kind, lasting for about 50 years and is poised to disappear as it becomes diluted by being absorbed by the general populace.
Whatever the reasons, it's probably useless to reverse the trend. One just has to embrace the new situation and learn to not just live with it, but to use it to the best advantage. |
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| Mindfucking & Lthredge |
[Jul. 25th, 2005|11:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Smoke Rings" - Al Bowlly, Ray Noble and his orchestra | ] |
Way back in December 2004 I think, GMSMA
had a session on mindfucking. When I first got into the leather/fetish
scene around 13 years ago, people seemed to be more into "hypnosis." To
be sure, today there are still a lot of people into hypnosis, but I
think another crowd has recognized that what they really want is more
than hypnosis. They want the feeling that someone else has crawled into
their mind and made them do things that they wouldn't have done
otherwise. It's Svengali and Trilby. Or from a more contemporary point
of view: as horrific as it may sound, there's thrilling about Lord
Voldemort connecting with Harry Potter's mind and senses.
Of course, the bottom line is that most people do NOT want to do just
anything (e.g. scat, getting whipped until bloody, vasectomy, paying
the bills on time); they want to achieve a mindfuck so that they can
perform certain activities which they are normally inhibited from
doing. Hypnosis, or a mindfuck, lets them temporarily get into the
space so that they can achieve what they thought wasn't possible.
Of course, one of the things said about hypnosis is that you have to
WANT to be hypnotized. There's no such thing as someone just taking you
over involuntarily. In other words, the individual is the person who
has to achieve it - the Svengali type can function only as a
facilitator. When I'm motivated, I think I'm pretty good at achieving
this on my own. Right now I'm going through an experiment to see how
far I can go with a certain scene (I don't like to think of it as sex,
because it doesn't involve sex). I've always been one to feel that to
be really mindfucked, you have to be thinking of it even when you
mundane things, like doing the laundry, preparing breakfast, and so
forth.
But back to the GMSMA presentation. This was a one-man show by Barclay from NJ, better known on the Internet as Lthredge. I
didn't take many notes because I assumed he would put them up on his
once-ample website (more about that below). But he did identify the
principles of a mindfuck scene, enumerated in five important steps:
- Exposure; which leads to:
- Anticipation; which creates
- Sensation; the application of which results in a
- Reaction; all of which then becomes part of the individual's
- Memory
As he described them, he experiment with an unsuspecting volunteer from
the audience. I don't know the experience of the volunteer, but he was
a good choice. For step 1, Lthredge showed him lots of elaborate
knives, carefully laid out on a table. Then the volunteer was
blindfolded (step 2). For step 3, Lthredge created the sensation that
he was about to plunge one of the knives into the neck of the
volunteer. Of course, everyone in the audience could see that Lthredge
was using a MetroCard, but the poor volunteer apparently thought there
was a real knife gently caressing his neck. The poor guy freaked out a
little bit after he got off the stage, turned a deep red, and I think
let flow a number of tears. The mindfuck had succeeded.
It was a good presentation (and there was much more detail than I'm
describing--it's now six months later), perhaps one of the best that I
saw this year. However I had the feeling that Lthredge was going a bit
hastily, as if he was cynical about the whole thing and just wanted to
get it over with. So that night I got home and looked up his website, http://www.lthredge.com.
Lo and behold, he seems to have withdrawn from things. Did he find
love? Did he find religion? Was he so bored by the whole scene that
he's no longer out there? He claims he doesn't have the time -
but then why not just leave what's there (I've barely revised my
website since 1997.) I don't know, and the few people I've asked
have found it as mysterious. |
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| Success in meeting, for a change |
[Jul. 10th, 2005|07:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | hopeful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life"-Naughty Marietta by V. Herbert | ] |
It's been a while, and I really have been meaning to have more frequent entries. But more for the hall of shame for those bastards who stand me up. You may add to the list: footfagmike - and someone else I've already blocked from memory. But the prize winner goes to:
CUNTPIGBOI - who has stood me up three times. In reality, I know that I'm at fault for talking to this guy. So after he stood me up the third time, I told him no more.
Yet, I'm writing because today someone did NOT stand me up. He was a nice guy - spooky that he shares my initials. I didn't feel a click with him, and I felt our conversation was kind of stilted (which might have been my fault, since I was tired from the heat) but it's nice to know that not everyone is irresponsible. |
|
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| Meeting people |
[Sep. 21st, 2004|11:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | music from the movie PSYCHO by Bernard Herrmann | ] |
I must be doing something wrong. Tonight I experienced what must be the fifth or sixth time that I have been stood up by someone. It's not only very frustrating but it makes me hate people.
One thing all the guys have in common is that I met them on WorldLeathermen.com, or one of its affiliated sites. But I figure there must be something that I'm not doing right. My friend Mark suggested that I speak to the person on the phone and verify with voice the time of our appointment. He suggest using language that was not casual, but was an affirmation of committment, for example : "Now, is this a firm committment to meet at ...?" Admittedly I didn't use it with this guy. Perhaps I can't expect people to behave normally and keep the appointments they make. Or maybe a majority of leathermen are severly disfunctional.
I'm in a particularly dark and angry mood, so I'll even mention the people I remember on Worldleathermen.com who have stood me up:
Lthrlevi -- never bothered to apologize after standing me up
Wescoguy -- forgot to meet -- TWICE !!
Skinleathercop -- decided to do something else without bothering to tell me
There was another 20-something who I tried to meet, but he also forgot to remember the appointment.
May these guys' lives become more unhappier than they undoubtedly already are!
Is this something that is exclusive to the so-called leather community? Or perhaps just in New York City, or other big cities?
Ok - I'll only loose emotional energy by dwelling on it. Rather, I have to take specific action so that this won't happen again. So:
1. I intend to have voice verification of the place and time.
2. I intend to ask "Is this a firm committment to meet at....?"
3. I'll think of otherways to impress upon people the gravity of making a committment and keeping it. |
|
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| Folsom Street East, VIII |
[Jun. 21st, 2004|12:57 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | satisfied | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Big Broadcast - pop music of the 20s & 30s | ] |
How wonderful that the man who created Folsom St. East (FSE), John Weis, after an apparent hiatus from the leather community (due to burn out if not more), was back as the primary organizer of this years' event. I think there was a bigger turn out this year than ever before, and the new location provided for much more space, including more vendors than in previous years. It's a great way to lead up to Gay Pride, always a week later.
It boggles my mind that the leading leather event in New York City is held usually on or within days of the summer solstice, when the weather is always guaranteed to be uncomfortable for wearing clothes, let alone leather. The way to survive hot humid weather in NYC is in tanktops, shorts, light shoes. But leather obsessives don't want to see that. Hence a day that underscores the incongruities and compromises (stupidities?) that one makes to live in New York City - leather and boots, when everyone else is sensibly wearing shorts, light shoes and shirts.
I'm not a fashion queen. For me leather clothing is not different from cloth clothing - it has to be comfortable, otherwise there's no point. Thanks to Atkins I can now fit in all of my leather pants/breeches, yet I would have been a fool to wear them today (I don't need heat rashes). I wore a light pair of jeans, and even that was stupid - I should have worn cotton shorts. I have to douse myself in sunblock, which makes me feel greasy and smelly. I have little tolerance for this kind of discomfort, especially when there's nothing to do.
Maybe I was just irritable because of my foot. Recovering from surgery (I had an operation on April 26), today was the first day that the swelling had calmed down enough that my foot could fit inside a pair of Wescos, so I limped around in them. After walking from 7th to 10th avenues and then up and down 28th street a few times, I felt my foot throbbing so I headed home. My entire FSE experience fell within slightly less than two hours. (Confession: I suspect I would have spent the same amount of time even if my foot was in perfect condition.)
As usual, I tried my darnest to keep expectations low. That helped because I was surprised to see some of the new vendors. Jorge Rubio of Rubio Leathers was attending for the first time, and seemed glad to be there, although he should have had a better vendor stand (I want to get a custom fitted long-sleeved leather shirt from him). There was a new (to me) NYC-based motorcycle club, and a few others of mild interest.
I was surprised at how many people I knew there. Not just people from GMSMA, but unexpected places -- Dan, my former co-worker, "the ska librarian," (although he has a crop of hair now, in anticipation of job interviews), a number of people I had come to know vaguely from Hayyim's Pesach sedarim (including Hayyim himself), and three people from Big Apple Ranch. When I saw them, I wished that Big Apple Ranch had set up a booth with demonstrations of line dancing. That would have made me feel more purposeful. Perhaps I will suggest it for next year.
But my attitude -- of searching for something to do -- is the wrong attitude. Just the other day I was chatting with someone online. He asked where I hang out, and I said that I don't. Not believing my response, I had to explain that I don't hang out - I either go to a place for a purpose, or I go home. I have a visceral hate of wasting time (e.g. on the subway, so how much more so in a social situation like a bar). I always have materials to read or plan with me, for those free minutes in between events. So it's a struggle functioning at a gathering like FSE. One just hopes to meet people and hope that they'll be in the mood for talking. Unfortunately with many people I get bored from talking to them for more than a few minutes (that's probably not a wise thing to write in a publicly-accessible blog :) ). Then there are those who can't stop talking or can't work towards a mutual dialogue or exchange (who can guess at the emotional issues). That's always been frustrating to me and I put such people on my personal blockout list.
I'm reminded of the opening scene in War and Peace - how Tolstoy describes the hostess of the salon Anna Pavlovna as being a virtuoso in the art of guiding people to make the proper social connections, to keep the conversation interesting and flowing. Part of the secret is never linger too long. So I made sure I was cordial, particularly to those who I'd not seen in a while. For those people who I really wanted to speak to (like Mark from New Jersey), their similar impatience for extended conversation pulled them away. A no-win situation.
I am amazed that so many people seem to enjoy hanging around, seemingly doing nothing, but making conversation and drinking beer. Of course, if I were with someone or a group of people, that would change the entire nature of the event, for it would then serve as a shared experience with the person, totally shifting its function. For some reason I wasn't in the mood for man/boy-watching. I noticed a few interesting tats, but very few men that attracted my interest. At one point I actually did talk to someone who I'd see around, perhaps at GMSMA. I admired his boots, we talked a bit about them, but couldn't get beyond that, and parted ways.
It would be negligent to be critical and not suggest alternatives. Had I been in better physical shape, I would have volunteered to help, even for Leather Pride Night (which I skipped altogether). That is what I must aim for next year. That would certainly be a way to foster socialization. Perhaps there will be opportunities at the November Leatherfest (definitely a better time of the year).
Between my foot and my impatience at such events, it's probably best that I'll spend Gay Pride at home being productive. |
|
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| MAL 2004 |
[Jan. 30th, 2004|01:10 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | thinking of Brahms 2nd symphony conducted by Muti | ] |
The best experience I had during the MAL (Mid-Atlantic Leather) weekend was the several hours I escaped from the main hotels to go country-western dancing at Remington's, the country-western bar in Washington DC.
While I was there I was wondering why the entire experience was not working for me. To be sure, it's a great feeling to be around hundreds of men dressed in leather. We create our own space where leather is the norm, so unlike the rest of the year when ostentatious displays of leather can be considered peculiar and raise a few eyes. To be in that environment is definitely empowering.
But it's frustrating when you don't know anyone. Unlike last year, this year I wound up going by myself. I now realize that to maximize enjoyment of the weekend, I need to go with someone. There I was alone, and quite paralyzed in my deficient social abilities. The experience clarified for me that I have a serious social problem--I am almost totally unable to walk up to strangers and say hello and make conversation. And though I knew a handful of people, I somehow convinced myself that they wouldn't be interested in talking to me. Someday I have to get over my phobias.
What was so wonderful about Remington's was that the people were so very friendly. It was almost impossible to be a wallflower there, where I felt I was in an environment suffused with the fabled Southern hospitality. My inability to initiate conversation didn't seem to matter, because people just came up to me and were friendly. I participated in the line dance (I love line dancing), and that helped even more.
I didn't have sex or any intimate time. I did meet someone I had chatted with on Yahoo messenger, but lost all sexual interest upon seeing him. I liked talking with him in person, but I think he was upset that I wasn't taken with him sexually. I didn't understand his attitude; we don't have control over our arousal. One just has to accept that.
I also met someone I had extensive chats with back in 1995-6, who was the person who really introduced me into the Master/slave world. It was nice meeting him in person. But I found I couldn't penetrate didactic discussion. Something was preventing me from feeling more relaxed with him. Again, my social paralysis.
One can always learn from experiences both good and bad. The MAL weekend taught me that as much as I love leather and boots, that in a public arena, the point of being present is about relating to people socially. For example, I skipped GMSMA's social on Jan. 28, because I didn't think I would know anyone, and therefore my social paralysis would make the evening a waste. (As it turned out, I did know someone I met via Gaydar who attended.)
So I hope to work on my social ineptitude in the coming months. I hope that by the time of Folsom Street East in June, I will not feel as if the event is a total waste. |
|
|
| First entry |
[Jan. 13th, 2004|12:03 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Before The Parade Passes By" (HELLO DOLLY) - Ethel Merman | ] |
I've been keeping a private diary for 15 years. Last year I awoke to the blog craze, and found Drew's blog on leather living. As I'm trying to integrate myself more with people, I figure keeping a blog might be a useful way to keep an "observing eye" on what I'm doing and where I'm going.
This is a propitious time: Mid-Atlantic Leather (MAL) is this coming weekend. This will be my second time attending. Last year it was a fun event because I went with my friend Mark from San Francisco. This year I am alone, and am concerned about my abilities to connect to people. I've begun making a list of people who I know will be there. But the problem with such an event is that one can't go with the hope of finding some really interesting people. Everyone is there, looking at everyone else, seemingly unable to focus on any individual. In every conversation that I had at MAL last year, I found that the eyes of the person to whom I was speaking could not maintain eye contact very long. Instead, everyone was constantly looking at everyone passing by, just like commuters on the subway whose eyes appeared neurologically impaired because they are looking out the window at the rapidly passing signs in a station.
So one can go with the attitude of seriousness, but rather one has to have a devil-may care attitude, not seek anything resembling companionship or friends, but simply hedonistic pleasures.
On a more practical level, I have to call Rubio Leathers to see if they've finished re-hemming my pants and chaps. They (well, George, the owner) said it might be ready Friday; they had not called as of today, Monday. I'll call them Tuesday morning. |
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