Lucky

I just finished another gay-themed novel, this one about the theater world and New York in the eighties. I enjoyed Up With The Sun a lot. It's by Thomas Mallon. Street hustlers are common in the novel, and a visit to Rounds and the Haymarket are included. (Remember Rounds?) It's basically a story about Dick Kallman, a gay actor whose career never reached great heights before he and his partner were murdered. The narrator is a musician who played in the theaters of New York. Check out the reviews on Amazon. The first one says that "Enjoyment may vary greatly with one's knowledge of and interest in the subject matter" Well, duh! The theater, New York life, hustlers, etc. should get some appeal here! https://www.amazon.com/Up-Sun-novel-Thomas-Mallon/dp/1524748196/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1696529924&sr=8-1

I liked it too.

In other forums here, there is some wonder why people wait years to report that they were sexually abused. The Lookback Window, by Kyle Dillon Hertz, tells one man's story. It is powerful and depressing. Starting at 14, he was raped and abused by an older guy who sold his services to other men for three years. The book details plenty of abuse and is hard to read in that sense. It's a novel, not a memoir. But that bad things happen to young men is an inescapable fact. I quote from the review of the novel in the New York Times: At the outset of the novel, New York State has passed a new law called the Child Victims Act, which greatly extends the statute of limitations for new child victims of sexual abuse. Previously, child victims had until they turned 23 to report being assaulted. (New York actually passed such a law in 2019.) For people who sit in the gap of the old law and the new law — people who don’t qualify for the new law’s definition of “new victims” but who have already aged past the old law’s statute of limitations — there is a one-time exception: a yearlong period when they can bring a civil case against their abusers. A lookback window. That window has opened, and Dylan must peer through it. It’s a grimly effective frame for the narrative, a clever literalization of the trapdoor of trauma, how the facade of the present collapses under the weight of the past. But “The Lookback Window” is not the courtroom narrative of pain and testimony and justice one might expect from this setup. It is more like a journey into hell. Confronting the past comes with a cost. Driven by a restless, reckless fury, Dylan descends into a world of surreal abjection, of bar fights and drug binges. In doing so, he realizes the word for what he wants: “Not justice. Vengeance.” At his best, Hertz sheds the trappings of traditional realism, adopting instead a swerving, almost psychedelic style that mirrors the abrupt and mercurial perceptions of a turbulent mind. He follows the worthy example of writers like Jean Rhys, Gary Indiana and Denis Johnson (Dylan’s tattoos reference Johnson’s own debut novel, “Angels”), all of whom have written brilliantly about wounded people in degraded circumstances, salvaging a ferocious humor and a jagged, weary poetry from the wreckage of the world. “The Lookback Window” is also a novel about the lives of gay men in America today, about sex and marriage and parties on Fire Island, and the varied forms of intimacy and recovery that might be found in such things. Hertz has managed to tell a story of queer healing with all the narrative force of a thriller and the searing fury of an indictment. It’s an achievement of language, of style, in which the process of finding one’s way back to the world is considered at least in part as an act of learning to “speak the unspeakable.” It’s a matter, Hertz seems to say, of finding the right words. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/books/review/the-lookback-window-kyle-dillon-hertz.html?searchResultPosition=1

I wanna lick ass, not plastic.

I vote for @Jarrod_Uncut to find a new occupation that might please him a bit.

45 years later you want to criticize Feinstein for this? Hell, two people were just murdered and you expect perfection?

That might include me as I never tested positive and don't believe I ever had Covid.

Hey, soulless, I am not claiming to be an expert on anything except recognizing trolls. What I said here involves my experience. Six visits has as much credibility as one wants to give it. Note that I said "your mileage may vary." If you want to discourage travel to Rio, be my guest.

I just spent 12 days in Rio and 4 in Sao Paolo. Not once did we feel a sense of danger, even while waiting in a lonely Metro station at night. Six visits to Rio now and no mugging. I understand that your mileage may vary, but I wouldn't let these incidents in this thread stop me from enjoying Rio!

I doubt that you will need a whole month to read this compelling novel. It took 2 days for me as I found it hard to stop reading.

He last posted on September 14th. I doubt that makes him a "missing" member! That's just 9 days ago!

If any of us were arrested for pursuing commercial sex, I don't think we'd want our picture spread across the internet. That makes me wonder why the pictures are posted here. It's totally unnecessary, and, I think, a disservice to men who hire.

I see nothing wrong with it if it helps identify with his character.

Once again, assault allegations from 20 years ago cripple a man's career. The women are automatically believed. Innocence until proven guilty is a faded concept. which isn't to say that I know anything about Russell Brand.

Why, he's your neighbor's son!

You can buy an antenna that sits right inside your house and brings you live TV. No roof needed.

It used to be such good eye candy..the catalogue, that is. I once visited their San Diego store, but that was all clothing and no eye candy!

How does that affect the tourist experience?

The study upon which the NY Times article is based is poorly cited. The article says only, in blue line print- "a recent study." But when you click on that link, you see the study and that it is about a singular statin- pitavastatin calcium.

Not all statins have this benefit. According to this study, pitavastatin calcium is the one that helps fight for aging Hivers.

If you could tolerate it... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/health/hiv-aging-statins.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Health

Photographer Rick Castro is featured in this LA Times article today about his Santa Monica Boulevard photography of male hustlers: Cruising Santa Monica Boulevard with the fetish photographer who shot L.A.'s male hustlers WWW.LATIMES.COM Rick Castro's fetish photography has gone mainstream. A new book, 'S/M Blvd,' collects photos from another fringe — Santa Monica Boulevard's long-gone male hustlers

I broke one phone (charger port) and lost the other. So I need to rapidly buy new ones. Companies often offer free phones if you sign with them so I thought to inquire here if you are aware of any good offers? Thanks!