Hey! I feel like I need to post something on here given how dormant this blog has been in recent weeks/months. I haven’t been writing much lately, though I did bust out an entire story in like four hours the other day – a highly erotic story, no less. This was comforting to me because I’d been feeling like I’d outgrown erotica or something – the two major projects I have in the works at the moment are definitely about sex but definitely take some detours from straight-up porn writing. But I just got the urge the other day to turn myself on, so I went with it and it was so fun. I need to revise it and then I might submit it to Handjobs and then of course I’ll post it on this website. Mainly I’ve been taking the time to see the world and meet new people, which seems like a good thing to do for the spring and summer. In the fall I plan to start serious work on a major project which I am so, so excited about. Thanks for reading!

Photo by Walter Kundzicz

Look out, I’m about to spew words about recent things I’ve consumed.

Netflix movies

Death Race 2000: Pretty goddamn brilliant. Proto-Starship Troopers-style sci-fi exploitation with a nice satirical bite. There’s a lot of Roger Corman productions on Netflix these days and I’m eating em up. The Big Bird Cage was another good one, also Switchblade Sisters. I love exploitation’s total embrace of excess and feeling: it’s horror, sex and violence congealed and lobbed right at your face. Which doesn’t always make it palatable, but at least it doesn’t pull any punches.

Theater movies

Gone: I saw this with a friend who has a thing for Amanda Seyfried. Afterwards I totally got it, because Seyfried turned in a great peformance. She was crafty, intense and unreadable. The movie kept me entertained. Low expectations are always a good thing. I loved Amanda Seyfried’s blue car.

We Need to Talk About Kevin: What a weird-ass movie. In fact it was best in its most weird and abstract moments. The problem was it was so fucking looong. I loved the fact that it was a movie about a school massacre where we won’t supposed to give a shit about the victims, it was all about the mom. It was a maternal horror story, but the horror stuff, especially toward the end, wasn’t punchy enough, it dragged and groaned. The brutal office party scene sticks with me, as does the opening sequence.

Books

The Hunger Games: Clearly readable, an achievement that one shouldn’t gloss over (even though I just did). I’m sure a million amateur pundits have weighed in on this already, but it’s truly a testament to how far we’ve come as a nation that an exploitation story about teenagers killing one another (and not having sex, of course) is one of our most popular stories among kids and adults. The romance was weak, as was the fact that they changed the rules halfway in. On the fence as to whether I’ll read the next two.

Champion, Photographs by Walter Kundzicz: I haven’t said much about my trip to New York a couple weekends ago, but geez, it was kinda brilliant and I kinda kicked some ass. I sold copies of Backwoods at the Rainbow Book Fair, and my table happened to face that of photographer Reed Massengill. After I got over my jealousy of how many books he was selling we had an enjoyable time in one another’s company. He has several books of photography and they’re pretty brilliant, erotic and human. But before the day was over I traded him one of my collages for this book of photographs, which he edited. It’s fantastic not only for the brilliant Kodachrome colors and hot dudes. Kundzicz has a sense of humor and poses his dopey muscle men with all kinds of esoteric fetish objects: football helmets, pitchforks, dish racks, eye patches, binoculars, telephones…the list is endless. It’s absolutely hilarious and unique.

Shirtlifter by Steve MacIsaac: I picked up several issues of this comic when I was Chicago some time ago and I’ve been meaning to write about it since. Anybody who enjoys stories of modern gay white men (re: Weekend) would do themselves a service to check these comics out, which are unflinchingly honest and crisply told. Lots of sex, though whether it’s erotic or not is sort of up for grabs. I’m more a fan of the strong, melancholy narration.

It’d be nice if I wrote every day, but it’s also unrealistic if I want to maintain my full-time job and semblance of a social life. So I’ll skip a day or two, usually during the work week. If I skip writing for two days in a row I start to feel it, so I usually don’t skip three.

I was shooting for 1,000 words a day and actually meeting it, for a while. But I lost my mojo a bit over the past couple weeks, so I brought it down to 500 words a day. Done. Better to work less than not work at all.

When I skip a day I try to make up for it the next day, so that I’m still writing my requisite number of words per day. If I’m revising something I increase my per-day word count because revising isn’t as taxing on my attention as composing. I’ve been alternating frequently between composing new stuff and revising old stuff, and it’s good to know that I can switch easily between those two modes. Soon enough I’m going to be delving into revising a 30k word project, so that’ll be taking up most of my time for a good month or so (that’s ’691 Suburban Dr’).

Here’s an excerpt from a funny story I finished a couple weeks ago. I think the best ideas can be summed up in a sentence, and the one I came up with when I thought of the idea for this story was “cum as protein supplement for college gym bunnies.”

The other day Johnny came in to gym. I was at the desk, being a gym monitor, which is what I do for work – putting weights away, cleaning off machines.

Johnny was there to work out. He’s my bro. We have a couple classes together and he lifts as much as I do so we’re always hanging out.

I said something to him about his shoulders because they were looking good.

“I’m not juicing if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said.

“No, no,” I said. His shoulders looked uber pumped but Johnny didn’t seem like the steroid type. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Biff is one of our bros and he shoots up. It looks good on him, it’s just not for me. “I just meant, are you doing something different?” Johnny gave me this look.

“Not exactly. I’m doing supplements, but a different kind.”

“Ah okay,” I said. “Is it from GNC?” Johnny looked around. He leaned toward me and talked low over the clanking weights, whirring treadmills and grunts form the guys doing dead lifts on the other side of the room.

“I’m eating my jizz,” he said.

“What?” Johnny just laughed.

“I read about it on the internet. It’s protein, you know? And testosterone. I put it in with my shake.”

“Dude,” I said. Then I had to laugh. “That’s sick.”

“It’s natural. It’s, like, putting back in your body the helpful stuff that goes out when you cum.”

Johnny was still working out when my shift was done so I did some squats and bicep curls with him, then we hit the shower.

“So if it’s supposed to be so good for you, how come my girlfriend doesn’t get all pumped and jacked and shit when she swallows my load?” Johnny shrugged. He ran his soapy hands over his smooth and bulging torso.

“I’m not saying it’s a miracle. It’s just an extra boost. Plus, be real – how often does she really swallow your load, anyway?”

When I got home I tried to find the article on the internet that Johnny was talking about but I couldn’t. Still, it seemed like it sort of made sense. And actually, if I’m being honest about things, the idea of it sorta turned me on. I figured it couldn’t hurt, and Johnny was doing it anyway.

Me at the coffee shop right after I finished writing this post.

Thanks for voting in my poll! I look forward to writing about the bachelor party that everyone tries to forget. Maybe I need to watch ‘The Hangover’ to prepare – Bradley Cooper’s douche-tastic personality may take a concealed starring role in the finished story.

I’m working on thangs. Finished ’691 Suburban Dr’ a couple of weeks ago and I’m letting it sit for a few weeks more before I start revisions. It’s novella length and, I might as well warn you, features copious bisexuality. I don’t know how that’s going to go over with my regular readers, but what are you gonna do. I’ll probably talk more about it in the future, but it seems borne of a need to explore female characters. I like women! I’m tired of writing about dudes all the time, even if I do find them oh-so-fuckable.

While I’m waiting for the rough draft of ’691′ to cool I’m working on another project, this one a story collection tentatively titled ‘College Town USA.’ I’ve written notebooks full of stuff for it ever since I finished ‘Backwoods’ and now I’m getting down to revisions. It’s erotica, but a bit more experimental with regard to style and narrative. Not sure what I want to do with it yet, but it’s a nice thing to have on the back burner.

So yeah, I’m on a writing bender and it feels so good. Gonna ride this wave for as long as it lasts.

I exercised my constitutional right to disable my Facebook profile yesterday. I’m on Twitter so if you want to follow me feel free to do so: @nattysoltesz. Though I almost never post on Twitter because I don’t understand its purpose, beyond attempts to get the attention of people more famous than me. Am I missing something?

I’m feeling focused lately, which is one of the reasons I’m trying to minimize my distractions. Man, I read this great book yesterday – and I mean I really did read the entire thing in one day. Dream School by Blake Nelson. I got it from the library and I was holding off on reading it, because I knew it was going to be good. Finally I picked it up yesterday morning and I read it all day. It was so wonderful. I’d do something, take a break, then come right back into that world because I never wanted to leave.

Anyway it was inspiring because it’s about this college girl discovering that she’s a writer. And the voice is just effortless, and Nelson doesn’t waste any time on events, he just plows right through this girl’s life and goes on to the next thing that happens, then the next thing, then the next thing… It’s rare for me to get inspired by a book I admire, usually I just feel crippled by greatness that I’ll never live up to – bad books are typically more motivating.

I’m inspired to finish this novel I’m working on which – fuck it – is a sequel to 428 College St, and it’s called 691 Suburban Dr. I’m also working on a new ebook called Daddy/Boy, which is going to be a collection of my intergenerational/incest stories, most of which have already been published but I’m going to include at least one new story, plus an introduction, plus a section of annotations and notes on the stories which is painfully self-indulgent but fuck it, it’s my ebook and I can do whatevah I want.

So those are my two main projects at the moment. Daddy/Boy should be out around the beginning of February. ‘Suburban Dr,’ who knows, but I know I’ve found myself drawing out the process of writing it because I’m so happy to be working consistently on something, but I think it’s to the detriment of the book. So I don’t want to say too much about this but I am determined to tell the story a little faster and not worry about length so much and just tell the damn story and get it out. So hopefully that’s good news.

What else? By the way I should be leaving for work right now but I’m putting it off, because it’s my Monday (I work Tues-Sat) and I’m not looking forward to it. Basically, I’m trying to become a full-time writer. I haven’t mentioned it extensively on this blog, but Str8 but Curious has been successful beyond my wildest dreams, and it’s made me believe that I could actually support myself solely through writing, and that is an incredibly exciting prospect to me. So I’m optimistic about the future, and also pretty damn scared because there is so much to consider.

I dreamt last night that President Obama and I were in my backyard and he smoked me up with this incredible weed, and I was so stoked because I’d get to tell my grandchildren that President Obama got me high. Plus he was so cool and chill and we were just hanging out. I was disappointed when I woke up. He’s totally getting my vote this year.

Repost from old blog, 2/16/2007

Is there anything sadder than a pedophile?

Born with his predilection, the pedophile is forced to make a choice: submit to his desires, either through pornography or child rape, and live life as a criminal, most likely ruining young lives in the process. Or, remain a slave to his sexual proclivities for the entirety of his life, always knowing that he is a freak and a degenerate, never able to truly accept himself or love himself in a society where he is unilaterally demonized.

In a country as oversexually stimulated as America, to maintain a neutered state of mind must be a challenge. We are bombarded with the sexualized images of young children – youth is put at a premium. It’s all “look – but don’t look too closely – and certainly don’t touch.”

As a gay man, I sympathize with the plight of the pedophile, even as I see their actions as repellent. I know what it’s like to be born differently, to not have any control over your desires even when you most want to. There was no way I could have lived a straight life. And there is no way a pedophile can live a life any other way.

This makes me question nature. Isn’t nature supposed to make sense? If a person is born with certain desires, shouldn’t they be able to act on them?

No. Nature doesn’t make sense – nature is as chaotic and uncompromising as it is beautiful and nurturing. So living beings will always have to die to keep other beings alive. So violence is essential for creation. So we’ve been given brains large enough to devise things (nukes) capable of destroying all of this.

It’s life. I guess no one ever said it was easy, but I’m going to say that sometimes: Life Sucks.

First off, usual disclaimers apply: deactivation is temporary, I’ll probably be back on Facebook before you know it, etc etc.

The short answer to the above question is: people on the Internet annoy me. The answer that requires explanation is: because I believe the Occupy protests are the most important thing in the world now.

I can’t help it. I’m smitten with this movement, I was made for this movement. My fears, when I have them, tend toward the major – by which I mean the catastrophic, the End Times, the point of no return. Atomic weapons. Irreversible ecological degradation. The forces that conspire not only against me, not only against humanity, but against life itself.

You could also say that the things I fear most are the things I feel helpless to change. So when something like this comes along – when a mass of people find one another and simply acknowledge that SHIT’S FUCKED UP, it uplifts me. It gives me some fucking HOPE. Go ahead and ask me “What is it these people want?” I’ll be glad to offer several hundred suggestions.

And now, as the movement gains momentum and coverage, I increasingly get subjected to dissenting opinions on my Facebook news feed. Let me be clear: dissent is healthy, skepticism is good. And: the Internet, particularly Facebook status updates, is not the ideal venue for a productive conversation.

On Monday afternoon I stood in downtown Pittsburgh with the Occupiers, holding my sign (“Accountability, please”) and facing the passing-by hoards on their lunch break. This was not an easy thing for me. I’m not comfortable putting myself center stage. I feared being challenged.

And people did challenge me. They offered dissenting opinions. But they were framed in the form of a conversation, with people who genuinely wanted to engage. Sure, one guy scoffed at my sign, people screamed “Get a job!” from their cars – the real-life equivalents of a pithy Facebook observation. But in the face of real people acting like interested humans, they faded into the background.

On Facebook it’s a little harder to ignore, particularly because these are my “friends.” I’m not being melodramatic when I say that I feel like our collective asses depend on this movement. When Internet-people deride the movement as pointless or idiotic a part of me (rightfully) says not to take it personally, while another part of me thinks they may as well be calling me a faggot.

To them I say: it’s unfortunate you lack for imagination. And if you really, truly believe that everything in this country, this world, is dandy, is kosher: get your head back in the sand, your ass back on the couch, your eyes off my fucking webpage.

I’ll see you on the other side of history.

Comments disabled: Fuck the Internet and fuck this guy.

I was invited to a straight wedding recently. The bride was an old high school friend, but other than her and my date (one of my best friends from high school) I didn’t expect to know anybody there. It was to be held near my rural home town, and while I had no reason to suspect that those present would be anything other than friendly and gracious, in the weeks leading up to it, I found those old gay fears surfacing just this same.

Maybe this is something queers of my generation never get over. What was I afraid of? That I’d get called out for looking/acting/dancing like a fag. That some burly group of backwoods groomsmen would take me behind the reception hall and beat me up. It was irrational and I didn’t let it get to me, but still it was.

My date was a bridesmaid so I sat alone during the ceremony. A group of guys sat in the pew behind me. One of them opened his mouth and talked and though visions of gay bells danced in my head, I still assumed he was straight.

My assumption that I wouldn’t know anybody proved true, but by the time my salad was served at the reception I was too buzzed to give a shit about that or anything else. At my table was the wedding photographer. A few weeks ago she refused to photograph several high school seniors who’d posted bullying comments on another girl’s Facebook page. She wrote a blog post about it that went viral, then made national news. She’s going to be interviewed by Anderson Cooper in a few weeks. Others at the table reflected on the fact that something we’d had to simply suck up and deal with when we were in school – bullying – is now a cause, an issue.

I danced like a goon and then danced goonier. I sat out the slow songs. The last song hit and that’s when I spotted the guy I’d heard behind me at the ceremony, slow dancing with a young man who was clearly his partner. They weren’t hiding behind anybody else – they were right up there, on a stage, for the whole wedding party to see. I swooned.

The DJ shut down so me and the rest of the professional partiers headed to the hotel bar, where a cover band played popular radio hits. The place was packed – eighty percent with the bro-iest bros imaginable and the rest with girls enjoying/enduring their drunken attention. Some girl pulled at my tie on the dance floor then tried to rip off my shirt. “This is my good shirt,” I said, wrenching away. She managed to pop off one button – I was more annoyed than flattered (but flattered just the same).

The band started in on Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” A group of bachelor party brahs stood right up front, pumping their fists to lyrics that shout out to sexual minorities – that shout out to me. Were they paying attention to what they were dancing to? Were they sneering inwardly? Did it matter as we danced together and it washed over us all in a wave of pop bliss? It’s only music – I know this – but just then it felt downright revolutionary.

The news of R.E.M.’s demise hit me like a shock. Why? In this day and age it’s presumed that bands never really “break up.” How likely is it that the members of R.E.M. will never play music with one another again, will never mount a reunion tour? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they recorded another album in the future.

So it isn’t that. I thought it could be that I was looking forward to what they’d come up with next - their most recent album is fantastic, and on par with some of the best music of their career. But I don’t think that’s what’s affecting me, either.

This evening I was going through their back catalog, reminiscing, when I hit on this song and immediately burst into tears.

It’s a great song, but moreover it’s a song that reminds me so specifically of my youth. R.E.M. were formed one year after I was born. They were the cool, weird band that my older brother listened to when I was in elementary school. Then they became huge and he disowned them (cause that’s what he always did when the bands he liked got famous).

They’ve been around ever since. Me at thirteen, listening to Automatic for the People in my best friend’s bedroom, making up stories and dreaming about the future. Me at eighteen, driving around and getting high and playing Electrolite on repeat, bored with my life and small town and waiting to escape. Me at twenty three, paying attention to the lyrics of “The Lifting” for the first time and realizing they spoke to some repressed and sickened part of my psyche that I longed to transcend – I cried then like I cried today.

Unlike any other band I’ve ever listened to, I grew up alongside these guys and their music. And unlike any other band breakup I’ve heard news of, this one feels like losing an old friend.

A photo from a recent trip, where we found an abandoned tavern that had caught on fire. Go here to see all of them.