Derek da Silva

25 June 2010 - Death to Videodrome: A Private Life

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:23:00 GMT

Brian O'Blivion: [to Max Renn] "Your reality is already HALF video hallucination. If you're not careful, it will become TOTAL hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world."

As more than a few of you have noticed, I've kind of stepped away from the public eye for a bit (sincere thanks to all for your notes of concern). Having spent the last few years of my life with my most intimate moments presented as public spectacle, I'm trying to relearn a skill I used to be very good at: marching to the beat of my own drummer. As quirky as the public life I've led has been, it's generally all been mediated through the opinions of others and how they might view me and my all too public relationship. The problem with living in the public eye is it becomes weirdly recursive with no room to move forward, to break from the pack, to do something truly unexpected. You become what people want you to be and frankly most people aren't very interesting or creative in their plans for you. In worrying about what the public saw I managed to ignore certain realities: it's certainly easier to act like you're feeling good than to actually feel good. I wasn't feeling so good anymore and I wasn't doing too well either.

But, lest you jump to conclusions, I'm really not quitting anything, just changing my working process and my goals.

I have a few video shoots for small very kinky studios lined up and am spending countless hours on my Études video project – it should be a major technical achievement in erotica if all works out. I'm still recording music and I'm still gonna be teaching BDSM, albeit to smaller groups that I'm more personally invested in. That's better anyhow for me. I'm no showman and am clueless on how to move a crowd, but I'm a great teacher with a lot of empathy for a learner's challenges. Last weekend, I taught a play piercing class and was actually able to have a hands on section, something I'd never try in a large group of people I didn't know at all. And I'm still performing as well – although I'm more interested in performances that have some artistic or spiritual meaning. I just recently lead an outdoor blood and fire ritual for a group. It combined western pagan magic with my knowledge of ancient Maya autoerotic blood sacrifice. Heavy stuff and it was all brought into the service of helping a close friend move through a major transition in his life. Blood, tears and cathartic laughter all played a role.

In the wake of my breakup, I've had to reassess my values and who it is that I care most about. First, I need to care about my own needs again – I kinda forgot about them somewhere along the way. While it's fine to serve a lover or a public, you can't be happy doing so if you lose yourself (and your self worth) along the way. The stuff I'm focusing on now is going to be more personal, more underground and serve an audience that may not be much bigger than my friends and immediate communities. That's ok – if I can be happy doing that and do it well, it's a step in the right direction and one that will bring me a greater degrees of satisfaction with greater results in the long run. I don't know what fame is exactly, but from what I can tell it fucks everything up.

There is a danger in making one's private life as public as I once did. It's not the lack of privacy that is the issue. In theory, I'm not worried about people knowing too much about me. The real issue is one I didn't realize at first. When you expose all your private matters for public consumption you act very differently because you want to present a particular positive face. At a certain point, this face you put on your private life replaces actually living a real life and being honest with your real needs and emotions - and those of the people you care most about. You may think you don't care about your private stuff being out there – but it's simple human nature to want to be loved and accepted. It's amazing what we'll sell out and compromise towards those ends. When the public face presented is so personal, the stakes get higher and behavior distortions that occur are profound.

In a world of social networking sites, suddenly one's choice of a bagel topping becomes a statement about who and what you are. That's silly but it becomes preposterous when suddenly you find yourself having to live the role you've created and find your normal behavior changed and your actual feelings suppressed. The Fame Monster indeed.

So anyhow, I'm around, I'm still answering emails and phone calls. I'm just not gonna present anything to the world that wasn't created just for the world I'm presenting it to. I'm not gonna give you the blow by blow of my daily life and creative process - but the more perceptive among you will be able to see it in the finished products of my artistic labors, I hope.

I guess I should have learned from the examples of folks like Martin Margiela and Thomas Pynchon - in the end the people that really matter judge you by what you actually create in this world, and not on the story of its creation.

4 May 2010 - A tough decision

Tue, 04 May 2010 15:52:00 GMT

Two weeks ago I made what was probably the most difficult decision of my life.

For the last three years I've worn Tony Buff's collar as a sign of our Sir/boy relationship. With that symbol I gave my whole self over to his service. I can honestly say that during this time, he has been the primary focus of my life. When we met the intense reaction we both felt was like nothing either of had ever experienced nor I imagine will ever experience again. Tony's latest blog entry goes into more depth on just what this time together has meant to us, and he speaks eloquently on how we both feel.

Last Thursday, at my request, Tony took back the collar I've worn for three years. This was hard for both of us. The reasons are complex and highly personal, so I ask that people not speculate. Instead, I hope that everyone will help and support both of us as we try our best to do the right things as we go through this difficult period.

Tony and I will always be brothers and family. And our love for each other continues to be very intense. But this change is appropriate at this juncture of our relationship. What won't change is our deep love, our very real brotherhood and our commitment to working together as activists and educators in the Leather/BDSM community.

I also want to thank everyone that has been there to help each of us during this difficult time. Our friends and family have been there for us at all hours, and their love and support has been amazing. We are fortunate and grateful that we are part of a real community that supports and nurtures us when we most need help.

12 February 2010 - new essay on public play posted

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:05:00 GMT

I just posted a new essay on playing in public - it's something we believe in strongly.

Tony has posted an entry in his blog giving the context around why I'm saying more than I've said in the past. But the gist is someone made some online remarks which everyone that loved me hoped I'd never see. I finally saw them last week and they hurt the way they were intended to. But whatever. This isn't about someone attacking me or Tony. This is about how that attack undermines something I believe in: preserving our BDSM culture in places like our bars and clubs.

Here's the Essay:
Top 10 Reasons to Play in a Leather Bar

Top 10 Reasons to Play in a Leather Bar

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:23:00 GMT

Bitch if you will, but when we are in a leather bar we like to play. Some take issue with this, but they can go fuck themselves. We're gonna keep on playing when we are out in our spaces. And we want you to do this too.

Here are 10 good reasons why:

Turf. It's our fucking space. We aren't gonna be shoved out by people that can't even be bothered to look the part, let alone play it. It's SM not S&M, the difference being the "&". There is no ampersand in Sadomasochism - but there is in Stand & Model.
Advertising works! We're not just living the life, we're spreading the lifestyle. Lots of guys are curious about this stuff and fantasize about it. Seeing that others are into this stuff is a huge life changing revelation for lots of guys. Public play validates people's sexualities and helps them out of the BDSM closet.
24/7 means 24/7. We live this life all the time. We aren't going into the closet because we are in a leather bar.
Teach safety. We can show this stuff and when people ask we can show what we do to make this edgy play safer. It's called leading by example.
It's safer to play where others are around. Every single BDSM death I know of has occurred behind closed doors.
Exhibitionism is a valid fetish. And thank god cuz the best porn is made by guys that love showing off.
Public Humiliation is a valid fetish. Don't be ashamed that you like being ashamed.
Voyerism is a valid fetish. Some people whine about show offs, but even they seem to enjoy watching. Hmmm...
We're topping all you fuckers!! BWAHAHAHA!
Out of the bedrooms and into the leather bars - or else the leather bars die.

19 December 2009 - Holiday Video Posted

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:27:00 GMT

So here is my first YouTube outing. No living trees were harmed in the making of this video.

1 December 2009 - New Essay For World AIDS Day

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:02:00 GMT

Safer Sex: A Less Nuanced Position

It is my response on why political correctness is causing us to lose the battle...

Please read it and give your responses to the email address on Contact Me (to the left).

Safer Sex: A Less Nuanced Position

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:48:00 GMT

Tony Buff just wrote an excellent essay on the issue of bareback porn in the leather community entitled A More Nuanced Position. While I agree with all that he says (indeed many of the thoughts expressed stem from our many all night conversations on the topic), I wonder if perhaps he is stating his position in too deferential a fashion. Indeed, I wonder if we all have failed to create an environment where safer sex messages can succeed, all because we are trying to be politically correct, sensitive, respectful or whatever else you want to call this weird thing where we all pretend that HIV (and AIDS) is no big deal.

Fuck that. HIV is a big fucking deal. A good chunk, perhaps a majority, of my gay friends are HIV positive and of those a fair number have full blown AIDS. These men are my friends, sexual partners and even my biological brother. While some of them are truly asymptomatic, the bulk have a good amount of extra medical drama in their lives and I'm still losing friends to AIDS (albeit thankfully less often). My biological brother is in a wheelchair and spends plenty of time in the hospital. Life expectancy and quality of life has vastly improved for poz men – no question there. But let's be honest – it still sucks. Being poz reduces your life expectancy by 20 years on average, and during that reduced time, your quality of life will have plenty of ups and downs not to mention all sorts of financial and administrative challenges. You can paint it rosy if you want but it's not just “a treatable chronic condition.” You can talk about how it's freed you sexually or made you appreciate life, but that fact is, no one honestly wants HIV, never mind things like Hepatitis C or even the more easily cured STDs.

Safer sex education is a tricky business. It seems like there are two conflicting agendas. On one hand you want negative guys to stay negative. You want them to be motivated to use condoms, even though to be honest, it's a bit more fun to do without. And idealists think this can be done without resorting to fear – although to be honest, a good rational fear of HIV is probably the only reason why I'm alive today.

You don't skydive without a parachute, and you really shouldn't have sex without a condom unless you are doing it with an exclusive partner or set of exclusive partners. And even then you need honesty and all sorts of STD testing to make it all work. To really succeed in keeping HIV negative men from seroconverting you need to portray exactly why they don't want to be positive and give them strategies that help them feel good about making the decision to use a condom every time, even if doing so has the effect of stigmatizing guys that decide to fuck without condoms (and many poz men think this is their right even if it does expose them to all kinds of hazards that an immune compromised person should steer clear of). I'm not suggesting scare tactics – I'm suggesting that the real facts are scary and we are being negligent when we fail to give out unadorned factual truths about HIV and AIDS.

While we want to show a realistic portrayal of HIV to the negative guys, there is a contrary impulse where we want to give poz guys an upbeat view that says they will make it. It's important to keep your head in the game and to not fall into guilt or self loathing when you are HIV positive. So we are sensitive and play down the impact of HIV and try not to talk about unsafe sex in a way that is too judgmental. Coming down hard on unsafe sex is frowned upon, because people we love in our community were human and made mistakes that are common and understandable. We all have urges and passions and moments of impaired judgment. Still, let's be clear: we dance around these issues not for the physical health benefit of the negative guys but rather for the feelings of the poz guys.

Those who deal with HIV education clearly are sensitive to the emotional needs of poz men even if society at large (including large swaths of the gay community) is not. But are we also being equally sensitive to the needs of HIV negative men? Are we giving them the information and the psychological support they need to stay healthy? Because if we fail in this, they may not make good decisions. They may not stay negative and thus may die early. I would suggest that in an effort to be politically correct, we are lying to them and allowing far too many to seroconvert. And we are also acting as if HIV transmission was the only reason to use condoms when it simply is not. Finally we are forgetting that information alone will not do the job – they also need the societal support network to feel good about making small sacrifices to stay healthy.

It's not easy to stay negative – it takes a lot of will power and self confidence to refuse to give in to the pressures of others not to mention your own desires. While it's great to be affirming of poz men and fuck knows much of the world isn't, I would argue that we have gone way, way too far. Yes it's a bummer to be a poz man having to hear someone talk about how important it is to strive to stay negative. But frankly, most poz men I've met are a lot stronger than that, and they don't need to be coddled. They know the costs of being positive far too well and don't wish that on anyone. They understand that we have to be frank and even brutal - and they affirm that they don't need to be handled with kid gloves.

Respecting people's “personal choices” sounds good on paper, but the fact is we are all social animals, and we don't really make our decisions alone, but rather make them with a lot of influence from the society around us. Many personal choices are more like personal mistakes that we later rationalize. I think it's more important to respect people's humanity, to allow them their mistakes, but to help them to not make other mistakes in the future. By supporting each other rather than washing our hands of responsibility for each other in our community we can all be healthier even as we make sure that the meager assets we have go to those in the most need.

Allowing people their mistakes is important as it allows truthfulness – but these mistakes are mistakes, not “personal choices.” We all have moments of impaired judgment, and no one should feel unloved because of this. Blame is uninteresting as it lies in the past, and all that can be influenced lies in the future. One mistake does not impel you to save face by saying “I meant to do that,” and then repeat that mistake and tell others they should do the same.

I will judge people based on their personal safer sex practices. I won't love anyone any less because their practices don't jive with my convictions on what I consider to be grave matters affecting human life health and sexuality. But I'm not going to tell a good friend what they are doing is fine when I am actually concerned that their behavior could harm them or harm others. The more I care for you the harsher my judgment. Why? Because I care about you and want you around and healthy for a good long time.

We also need to look at factors that contribute to unsafe sex in our community. Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant, and we need to deal with these problems as they impair judgment in ways that are often dramatic. Our treatment of each other as gay men is also a huge problem. Growing up all of us were beat down for being gay, so even as young men first coming out we tend to be emotionally damaged. Each of us has had our self esteem battered by growing up gay in a world that mostly is against us. Knowing this you'd think as adults we'd learn to love each other in ways mainstream society has not. But really we don't support each other in our moments of difficulty and frankly we can be some mean bitches to each other – as if putting each other down or just allowing others to fail makes us better.

Self esteem issues fuel a lot of the problems we see in our community. If you don't value yourself, if you are looking for approval from people that hold you in low regard and seek only to use you to feel better about themselves, then it can be very hard to have the self discipline it takes to play safe, to limit your use of alcohol and drugs, and to be attentive to your own emotional health. Instead, many of us seek acceptance in sex, and escape our emotions with drugs and alcohol.

Our public service organizations have mostly failed us. They have tended towards political correctness instead of hard facts, and seem to advocate foolish strategies like serosorting.

That is no great matter because their impact is minor compared to the impact we could have on each other. We need to love and support each other. The brutal bitchiness needs to be turned into brutal love and honesty. If all of us as community admit to what is really going on with unsafe sex, HIV, Hepatitis C, drug and alcohol abuse, all of it, then we can also start solving the problem as a community.

To get people to value safer sex we need to care about each other to poke our nose into each other's business – and this needs to be done in a caring, respectful fashion. We need to value our lives and each other's lives in a real way. Saying it's people's personal business is a cop out. If it's only a few people speaking out, it comes off as the sex police. But if all of us, positive and negative, set a higher standard for each other, if we all make it clear that practicing safer sex is worth it, if we help each other avoid excesses in drinking and drugs, we might actually stand a chance. This isn't mucking about in other people's business. This is about valuing the lives of each person in our community and loving each other enough to actually give a fuck.

I want people to have lots and lots of great sex. But I also am weary of watching people I love struggle and suffer. It's not an either or choice. It takes more investment in each other to say I care enough to tell you I think you need to use condoms. It may not feel comfortable to get close enough to someone to actually have a frank discussion about sex. But if we don't get over this, we will never solve this problem.

While I'm frustrated with the mixed messages being sent out by our HIV service organizations, even if their messages were more direct they'd still need the support of all of us. I'm fairly certain the bulk of our struggles come from the self esteem issues that are pandemic in our community. While it can be hot to play the sexual role of a worthless piece of sex trash, it's important not to believe it so deeply that you don't value your own well being. I hope that every gay man reading this leaves with a single idea. You are important to all of us, and we need you to take care of yourself. And when you've got that down we need you to spread that to others. It's what real communities do – let's start building the kind of community that “feeds our souls.”

The only way we will solve our problems is by acknowledging them as real. HIV is still a big deal and is not cured and there are lots of other serious STDs that are worth avoiding. Gay men still lack the basic info the need to make good sexual decisions and there is still a misperception that HIV is an easy to manage chronic condition. Drug and alcohol addiction are prevalent and make it hard for people to make good decisions even if they have good information. And all of this is made worse by a society that values us little and destroys our self esteem as we are young even as it fails to teach us basic safer sex techniques when we are adolescents.

All these problems require that we be honest with ourselves and each other. All of them require that we give a damn, that we support each other in safer sex, in staying clean and sober if we have addiction issues, and in caring for each other despite any past mistakes.

Respect for each other is essential to overcome the self esteem issues each of us face. I may not respect your choices to play unsafe or to use crystal meth, but I should respect you enough to be honest with you about this and to make it clear that my concern stems not from a need to feel superior or to control you, but rather from an honest and deeply felt valuing of your life and of all the lives in our community. This kind of respect goes hand in hand with responsibility. We are all responsible for the collective well being of our community. It is not meddling to hold each other to high ideals and to call each other on our shit – as long as we do it in a manner that respects the person we are seeking to help.

We owe it to every young man coming out into our community to not assume that they know the facts about HIV and how it can be prevented. We also owe them an environment that supports healthy choices even as it affirms their sexuality. We need to give them the tools to stand up against those that would suggest that HIV is cured and that unprotected sex is ok. This means growing a set of balls – because you will be mocked by some. Make no mistake, if the proponents of unsafe sex are trying to paint me as a sexual prude, heaven help the rest of you all that don't do half the crazy stuff I do. Pay this crap no heed – they are preying on the insecurities each of us has, often for their own selfish gain.

Being honest about the value of safer sex does not degrade those gay men that are HIV positive. It shows respect for the challenges poz men face, it says we don't need to create distance because we can fuck safely, and it makes sure that we are able to spread our resources for helping poz men as efficiently as possible. It also means each of us must learn to feel good enough about ourselves that we might better care for each other.

– Written for World AIDS Day 2009.

9 July 2009 - Learning the play seen in Shock Treatment

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:13:00 GMT

This entry has been long in coming, basically because it is more or less a memorial to man who was one of the best tops I've known. While he died quite some years ago, his passing still upsets me. I'll be just using his first name - those that knew him will know who I am talking about. While I've played with a lot of legendary tops, Jon was someone that was able to really push me in ways I'd never imagined. We'd only play once a year at Hellfire's Inferno (a week long, immersive BDSM experience) and each year we felt obliged to up the ante on our already fucked up scenes. The hard really part is that he died when he was around 30 years old - he was taken by cancer far too early. Making harder on me was the fact that and he died a year after another top whose play with me at Inferno was extremely important, Tony DeBlase. For a bit there I felt cursed - anyone that gave me an intense scene seemed doomed. Unlike Tony, who is one of the most famous figures in BDSM (having edited Drummer and created the Leather pride flag among many notable things), Jon died without a major reputation on the scene - he was just too fucking young. The BDSM scene often discounts its younger players, but it does so at it's own peril. So perhaps that is why it's so important to me to remember Jon properly.

As far as why I'm mentioning him now, well he was the man that single handedly introduced me to the kind of play you see me bottoming in my latest movie, Shock Treatment, from Titan's new Rough line.

Jon was one of those people whose straight forward, level headed manner hid a certain childlike humor and mischief. I never really was able to get intimate with him although later I learned he had might have had interest in fooling around with me. At the time he thought I was only into pain, not plain old sex. Alas, I should have said straight up that I like both, and that sex is one of my favorite ways to come back from a heavy BDSM scene - good sex is amazing aftercare. But he knew I have a long term partner and I knew the same about him. I think we wanted to be respectful of that so neither us ever let on a hint of interest. He embodied that sense of respect for others, even to a fault. In that respect I think there was a little fear - doing an intense scene is very intimate. After our scenes I think both of us would recoil in awe of what we had just done. I would quickly move on with my day, butching it up and acting like I needed no aftercare, even if this one one of those rare times I really did.

It was just once a year that we'd do this major blow out electro scene, nicknamed Screamfest. Without fail we'd either have to call the DungeonMaster into the dungeon to get permission to do things that were safe, but that were on the edge of what club rules allowed - or I'd be screaming in pain so intensely that a bystander would call the DungeonMaster over to verify that I was safe and consenting (they weren't going to probe into matters of sanity since we were both clearly a little insane in that moment of play!)

The first year we played, it was just heavy use of several Tens type units turned up full bore, culminating in one side being attached to three needles pierced through my right nipple (hence the need to ask DM permission since electro above the waist can be deadly if done incorrectly and thus the rule in the Hellfire dungeon was just don't do it). The way it was set up the needles could be moved so as to short out - making the pain go from intense to excruciating. Simple, yet devious - and a really great way to make a unit like a TENS more intimate and interactive. Tapping a needle is more direct than twisting a knob.

The next year he added a magneto ( also known as a telephone transformer or "crank generator.") This device is sort of the big bad in the world of non-injurious, no marks torture - done to an extreme it can drive you crazy while leaving no marks. I can think of no scene that is as unrelentingly painful. His scene climax of counting to twenty while turning the crank generator led to what is probably the only time I've ever used my safe word. I made it to 19, and you'd think I coulda made more more count - and I probably could have. I certainly was in no danger. But somehow that level of pain makes it impossible to be rational and I'd say anything to have that pain stop - and using a safe word was a far too easy out. Oh well. We learned and adjusted accordingly...

The next year he added in the stun guns - which I loved, and I soon started collecting stun guns on my own as they are awesome edge play toys. I screamed so loud that a renowned top working across the dungeon complained to Jon. He was single tailing a guy who is pretty much the world's loudest pain pig - I guess he didn't like his bottom's screams being drowned out.

By the final time we played things were completely ridiculously out of hand. It was one of those scenes where it was excess upon excess. Excessive pain just for the sake of saying you went way way too far - no sexual energy, just the pure white light of pain slamming your brain against the wall. Four stun guns, 2 crank generators, and a few acupuncture needles. Obviously to use this much equipment effectively required two tops so Jon brought in a second to assist. The resulting play included a crank generator hooked to each leg with acupuncture needles for contacts (smaller contact points mean more pain, so this was nasty - a deep slicing pain the would go down a single strand of muscle in my leg.) The scene culminated with 4 stun guns on my cock and balls at once - and with my laying in a pool of sweat and my endorphins blown through the roof.

For the next few days after that scene I had post traumatic stress (although at the time I didn't know the name for it). Whenever a whip would crack in the distance, I'd jump about 50 feet like a skittish kitten. I hid with a hoodie blocking as much sensory input as possible and wandered about lost, finding that every social interaction left me feeling a dejected alien boy. Finally a couple of club brothers, Frank and JP, noticed me wandering about lost and glassy eyed. It was night and they sat me down next to them on a big hill ("Come here little lost boy," they said). We looked at the stars, reminding me of many childhood nights in late summer watching the Perseids meteor showers on the big hill in my old country backyard. Frank mentioned that he had never seen a shooting star before - and not 15 seconds later a beautiful one blazed bright across the summer sky before vanishing as it burnt out. It was cool to share that moment with them, and part of the beauty of my Hellfire club brothers is that they form a huge protective family, especially at an event like Inferno. You might fool yourself into believing you are alone, but they are always really there.

That was the last time I did the scene that Jon and I did called "Screamfest." We did it on a Monday afternoon. The next day was 9/11. The morning of 9/11 I had just finished my Ashtanga yoga series and was entering Shivasana - the corpse pose used to still the body after an intense practice. As I floated in space on my back, eyes closed Peter Fiske comes running down the hill to me, yelling "It's horrible they're bombing NY and the Pentagon." Experiencing 9/11 at a BDSM run was weird enough, but in my state, it was probably even more surreal. In a certain way, my mindset left me a little numb - I was in mourning, not for what had just happened, but for what I thought was certain to come in its wake. All I could thing of was all the tragedies our community had faced and our slow fragile progress around them. Right then and there we had something precious that we needed to treasure while we still could. My reaction was, oh fuck - we may never have another Inferno. Bush will use this as an excuse to send the nation into a panic and take away our civil liberties - but no one wanted to hear this or think about this. Luckily, I was only half right. Bush certainly exploited the situation, but not as much as I feared in my oversensitive state of mind.

In the following year Jon died of cancer, and as is typical with a friend's passing, I learned things about him I never knew about him in life. We always connected on eastern spirituality and martial arts and technology. Like me he was a geek of sorts. He practiced martial arts and I did yoga and grappling, He was a Buddhist, I was a Hindu. But I never learned exactly what he thought of me - or even what I thought of him - until he was gone. We each had partners, and both of us respected that. But somehow we also never connected more deeply out of that respect. Only times we connected deeply was in the most extreme play I'll probably ever do.

Perhaps that brief bright moment of connect is enough. For those of you that engage in heavy BDSM and have merged with another person in play you know the deep connection in those hours spent in a scene. It's certainly a lot, and I know I'll never forget those fleeting hours we spent on the edges of human experience.

I'd like to dedicate the last scene of Shock Therapy to Jon, just as Tony is dedicating the opening sounding scene with Element to our club brother Parker. Parker taught Tony how to do this scene on me, and then made him the plug you see today in the video. Like all great players, Parker taught as well as he played. So I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to Jon, Parker, and all the great teachers in our scene - they pass on the arcane knowledge that makes all these intense moments of possible.

We all have only a short time on this planet and Jon's time is fondly remembered by many.

5 June 2009 - Changes

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:45:00 GMT

So lately I've been doing a little searching and reconsidering. I've been taking a few steps back to take a better look at things. When you're in the middle of something it's very hard to get an objective perspective. But I've not been thrilled with my path of late. While I've been successful at all of it, now I'm left wondering is this the success I want. My parents raised me to believe that I could be pretty much anything I wanted. While they made their desires for me pretty explicit, truth be told, the stuff they wanted for me was simple and easy to obtain. A good job, a stable life, health and enough money to not worry about the day to day.

But they also knew I would do things my own way and their biggest worry was I might chase a dream that really left me successful but broke. Or that sex and drugs might become detriments to my well being. Well quite the opposite happened and at least by my mom and dad's standards I'm a smashing success, even if they don't have any grand kids.

Still my own desires for myself have been far more ambitious and dispersed. I've spent time as a musician, a promoter, a writer, a record producer, a fighter, a yoga teacher, a leader in the leather community and as a porn star. And I have a good career as a computer geek that actually pays the real bills.

Those are kind of a wide spread and none of them really intersect that well with the milieu I'm most comfortable in.

It might just be meeting J.C. that has made a difference, but I'm realizing that there are smart fags that aren't old and stodgy. The old gay cultural avant garde may not be what it once was, but there are still a few of us that like ideas and culture and pushing the boundaries. And not everyone in this category is campy and smug in a sort of misunderstood parody of Warhol.

Guys like Ron Athey remind me of this, as do a many of the writers and musicians I've met along the way. Heck there have even been a few folks in porn that have this intelligence. Guys like Christoper Rage and Fred Halsted did this back in the day. And I was pretty impressed with Chi Chi La Rue's love and depth of knowledge of the porn genre. Still I'm not certain I belong in pornoland as a full time identity. While I joke about these things, at the heart of this is a simple matter that is quite serious. Trying to gain love and acceptance from people whose values don't match your own is foolish - my modest success in adult video has never meant this was a path for me to follow all that seriously. After a few years of watching the press for my reviews and being happy when my vids won awards, I'm less impressed by it all, and I also know the days of these sorts of accolades are ending anyhow.

Still I love good BDSM play, and I love depicting it. I'm not quitting in this world, but I'm through trying to chase after the parts of it that aren't my passions. I belong to many communities, but my ties to the porn world have been tentative at best. I can own being a BDSM player, or a record producer, or even a academic writer on sex and philosophy. But I'm no porn star.

So where do I go from here? I'm still gonna take whatever fetish roles I'm offered as a performer - it's still fun to shoot good sex. But that's not my primary ambition and if the phone doesn't ring, I'm not gonna stir up action like I used to. Instead, I'm doing what all old porn stars seem to do, but I'm doing it much differently. I've been studying video production and I've invested in a nice HD rig, good lighting, editing system etc. I've been going back to the movies that make me want to do porn vids and I'm realizing they are really art vids that use porn as their medium. Movies like "My Masters" or "LA Plays Itself" or "Scorpio Rising" are hot, but they also really depict the deeper meanings of sex and depict it in a powerful way that isn't just recreation.

Moving forward my focus will be on serious films that really seek to show and celebrate the deep core of human sexuality as expressed in BDSM. It's been done before, but the results have either always been too much art or too much porn. If I can find a way to balance these, I think I might have something... Let the explorations begin. And yes, I'll be casting, so if you're a performer that wants to do something that has a little more depth, give a holler. All great film making comes from great collaboration and I'm building a team to do something new and exciting. None of this will make much money, but I at least hope to create something hot and beautiful that shows how profound human sexuality really is.

20 May 2009 - Collaring a future Power Switch

Wed, 20 May 2009 23:17:00 GMT

So it's been a crazy few weeks. I've been recording a couple of albums and been working hard to crank these out during evenings and weekends after my day job. The release of my next Titan video has been moved up to June, so hot on the heels of my Mustang video XXX, I'll be having a double release month with Channel One Releasing's "Taken: to the lowest level" and Titan's Shock Treatment (which I'm in along with Tony and Element, the pup in our leather family).

The trailers for Shock Treatment will be playing at the Titan Booth along with those for Fist and Piss featuring my brother Chris. We've been asked to make an appearance tomorrow night at Hydrate after we attend the Hellfire Bar Night Thursday at Cellblock (which is a good place to find out about how to get invited to the amazing Hellfire Dungeon Parties during IML, hint hint).

Last night I collared my boy J.C. with a collar that represents both consideration and a period of training. While the tradition may be to separate those, I'm not big on high ceremony. If things work I plan to give JC a proper collar and call him mine, sealing the lock with my blood, much as Tony sealed my lock with his own blood when he collared me two years ago.

With J.C. it's a different kind of training period I have in mind. He already has a boy of his own, and is a heavy pain player even if he lacks lots of experience. So rather than training him to be a good bottom or sub, I'm planning on training him to be a good switch. Switching used to get a bad rap in the Leather community. Frankly though, switches are often the very best players you could do a scene with. Understanding scenes from both sides is a gigantic asset especially in more advanced play. You've heard of Power Bottoms. Well, Tony and I both consider ourselves Power Switches - and J.C. is well along the way to be another Power Switch. Teaching him how to top and guide his boy even as he learns how to sub more intensely to me is a somewhat more complex proposition than just collaring a boy in the ordinary sense. But I think I'm up to it, and I will have Tony's help as well.

This coming weekend is crazy. Here's where you can find us:
Thurs night: Chicago Hellfire's bar night at Cellblock and then over to see our industry friends at Hydrate.
Friday: Shibaricon during the afternoon, then Pantheon of Leather, then the San Francisco party at theIML host hotel (Tony is the poster man for this party)
Saturday: working the Titan Booth, going to the Grabby rehearsals (Tony is presenting), doing the Hellfire Cocktail party at the IML host hotel later afternoon, then the Grabbys. After the Grabbys we'll probably hit the Hole (downstairs at the Jackhammer).
Sunday: Titan booth early, then we'll be at the afternoon and Evening Hellfire parties
Monday: Titan Booth all day long.

We'll have our whole crew in tow: Chris, Ben, Element, and JC.

I hope to see a bunch of you - and if I seem scattered please excuse me. I sometimes get kinda overwhelmed at these things and kinda withdraw into myself as my energy for interaction wanes. While I appear to be outgoing, I'm actually a little shy!!!

Quote of the Day

Tue, 12 May 2009 03:13:00 GMT

July 15th, 2010
What is called Love.
From Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Gay Science" Book one, section 16,

Greed and love: what different feelings each of these ideas evoke! and yet it might be the same impulse twice named: once disparaged by those who already have (in whom the impulse has attained something of repose, who are now apprehensive for the safety of their "possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our love of our neighbor, is it not a striving after new property? And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the most beautiful landscape is no longer certain of our love after we've lived there three months, and any distant coast excites our greed: the possessing usually diminishes the possession. Our pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming something new into ourselves, that is just what possessing means. To become satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also suffer from excess, even the desire to cast away, to share out, can take on the honorary title of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we willingly utilize the opportunity then afforded to take possession of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this; he also calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of "love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. Sexual love, however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the unconditional, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants just as absolute power over their soul as over their body; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to exclude from all the world enjoyment of this precious good, from sharing in its happiness and enjoyment; if one considers that the lover has as his goal the impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors" and exploiters; when one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent, colorless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his own, one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times; yea, that out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most unqualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of language, there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have been favored with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then about the "raging demon," as, for instance, did the most lovable and most beloved of all the Athenians Sophocles; but Eros always laughed at such revilers, they were always his greatest favorites.

Here and there earth there is probably a kind of a continuation of love, in which this greedy desire of two persons for one another has yielded to a new desire and greed, to a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them. But who knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its true name is friendship.

Previous quote:
June 25th, 2010

Over the footbridge.
From Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Gay Science" Book one, section 16,

One must be able to dissimulate in conversations with persons who are bashful about their feelings; they have a sudden hatred of anyone who surprises them in a state of tenderness, or of enthusiastic and elevated emotion, as if he had seen their secrets. If one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them laugh, or say some kind of cold, playful witticism - their feeling thereby fades, and they are again recomposed. But I give the moral before the story. Once in our lives we were so near to one another, that nothing at all seemed to hinder our friendship and brotherhood, and there was merely a small plank between us. As you were just about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want to come across the footbridge to me?" But then you did not want to cross any longer; and when I again entreated, you fell silent. Since then, mountains and torrents and whatever separates and alienates, have interposed between us, and even if we wanted to come to one another, we could no longer do so! When, however, you now remember that small bridge you have no longer words, but merely sobs and bewilderment.

11 May 2009 - Family 3.0

Tue, 12 May 2009 02:04:00 GMT

First, a quick side note: please check out a new feature, Quote of the Day. My first quote (May 11th) is quite related to the topic of this essay...

Before meeting Tony I was sort of dubious of the whole idea of polyamory. I mean I thought it seemed like a fine idea for other people, but I was more about my long term primary relationship that allowed some BDSM scene play on the side. So it is rather odd that a couple of years later I find myself in the middle of such a complex network of relationships.

My primary relationship of 13 years is still going strong - I am still so fucking in love (and in lust) with Dougy that it's not funny. And oddly all this craziness of porn and polyamory has helped to reignite the sexual energy of our relationship. Dougy has been working out with me and looks even hotter than he was the day we met. Bringing guys like Tony into our relationship has mixed things up and thrown our own sex play into new and unexpected directions all of which makes life a lot more fun.

Tony and I are still going strong even after other boys have come and gone (and in the case or Chris, come back again). But now I have brothers in cities all over - Chris in Vancouver, Element in Portland, Rico in SF and Ben in DC. And of course there is Kitten, our girlfriend, who is hot and beautiful and who lets me express my gay side (I'm a bad fag mostly but I can talk fashion all night - oddly none of the gay boys around me share my uber gay passion for high fashion, but Kitten does). I may be Tony's alpha boy, but the alpha here doesn't mean that I'm his most important boy so much as I'm the one that must set the example for my younger brothers and must help Tony in caring for what has turned out to be a rather large family. Luckily, Chris has taken upon himself to help care for me as well - that is a nice thing and really appreciated. While I'm able to handle all this, it still can be a bit much for me, and it's good to know that I have someone beside Tony looking after my emotional state and helping me keep my balance as we all charge forward into what it rapidly turning into a very radical experiment in what family can be.

At home in Chicago, I have taken on a boy who really fills a particular gap in my life - he's a culture geek like me and it makes me happy to have a boy that I can beat the crap out of (he's a real pain pig) and also take to both the opera and Throbbing Gristle. He has a very sweet boy of his own - which is a good thing since at times my time is spread so thin I worry about being fair to my boy. But he is well taken care of when I'm gone, so it's all pretty beautiful.

While these kinds of relationships are demanding, in a strange way their multiplicity helps balance out the demands they place on Tony and me. No one has a reason to do without attention because there is always more than one family member that they can turn to for their needs. It's not always perfect and I'm still working through a few of my own speed bumps, but it looks like something that will work in the long run once we get it all figured out.

I'm working on a paper that Tony and I will be presenting at a queer studies conference in October at UCLA. The central section of the paper is on leather families as we've experienced them - the problem is that our family keeps evolving and giving new revelations. So it keeps changing and I keep learning new things: no faster do a finish a draft than I realize I've still missed the whole picture and failed to show how all the complexity of all this is really simple and basic and primal and obvious. Hopefully I'll get it all figured out before the deadline for our paper. If not, well, we'll still be presenting something and we'll also being doing one of our performance art pieces for an art audience which should be interesting since our "art" really is something we've done for ourselves and for our leather brothers and sisters. Since we aren't capital A "Artists," our performance art isn't much like most formal performance art. In certain ways we're ultimately about living as experimental art, and our family is our magnum opus. Our family is our greatest performance of life as an act of art.

It's a performance seen in bars, and leather event demos, and on the street and in the various porn movies our family has been in together. (Might I add that many of our fellow porn performers are like our extended family and our affection and concern for them is very real.)

The world is our stage, and we are creating a radical deconstructionist performance of family living, one where the rules are all out the window and every time we find a routine, a new relationship enters the picture and rewrites the whole thing.

9 May 2009 - Flame: is this cool or what??

Sun, 10 May 2009 03:08:00 GMT

So the banner ads and preview clips for my XXX: Flame bonus clip are out.

(NOTE: this scene is online only so if you click the link wanting to see it, you have to click on Buy a Scene and download XXX: FLAME director's cut).

I spent a lot of time envisioning something totally new for this scene and then engineered how to do it safely, so it's really exciting to finally get to see how beautiful it is:

Special thanks to Steve Cruz, Leif Gobo, Mustang and Falcon for making this happen. And very special thanks to my amazingly hot (literally hot?) co-star Scott Campbell for trusting me in this crazy fucked up scene.

As far as what you are seeing in this scene? The swinging chain is electrified and Scott's chest was painted with alcohol. When the chain swings across his chest, the "X" I painted in alcohol is ignited. This did burn his chest hair off in an X pattern! Please don't repeat this scene unless you are taught by someone familiar with both electric play and fire play - it's an advanced scene and we had a lot of precautions in place on set to make sure Scott was safe.

8 May 2009 - Single Boys (put a collar on it)

Sat, 09 May 2009 02:13:00 GMT

Who says porn couples don't last?

This weekend Tony and I are celebrating the second anniversary of when he collared me. It was the day before Mother's day 2007. We were on set with Zeus in Palm Springs and had just finished shooting for the day - some very brutal bondage and body punching, followed by a lighter water torture CBT scene. Tony and I were on the back patio chilling by the bar when he brought out the collar and put it around my neck. He took his Kershaw knife, cut himself and wiped it in the lock to symbolically seal his commitment to me. While this was moment equivalent to marriage we were almost casual about it - but just as we are the most giddy and giggly about really fucked up BDSM play, we are the most nonchalant about some of the most deep and meaningful things in our relationship.

It was simple, it was sudden - and it was perfect. Realize that this was really only our third time together. I met Tony at Inferno and instantly was obsessed with him (and oh how many boys have I heard say the same thing!) Still we didn't manage to meet up again until over 6 months later. He had held onto my stun gun as a way to convince me to come visit him. Truth be told, I forgot about letting him borrow the stun gun - I just wanted to see him again really really badly. We had a mindblowing weekend and for me it was truly life changing. I learned how to be a boy and learned the joys of a D/s relationship. Taking me to the airport to go home, I asked Tony if he'd do a video if it was with me - he thought he didn't want to do vids cuz they might just pair you up with people you don't find hot. After consulting with his leather family he said yes.

Daddy Zeus made sure we had the perfect set up to make this more than a porn shoot - it was also a romantic getaway. The guys at Helios put dungeon equipment in our suite and we stayed a few extra nights after the shoot to have down time alone. We were in that insanely passionate point where love is an all consuming mania. So when he collared me, I didn't think twice even if I had no idea how much of a commitment I was making - I just knew that I trusted Tony so deeply that it had to be right no matter what.

Now all this goes against what I tell boys who come to me for advice. I tell them take it serious, find out what it really means and the actual parameters of your relationship. Me, I found out as Tony told me and he'd redefined the terms several times in a very unilateral fashion. But somehow it's all good and I wouldn't have it any other way. While constant negotiation is supposedly the correct way, being able to trust someone enough to just let him make the rules has its own joys.

I do miss those early days of being in love to be certain - they never last. And I've had to realize that Tony is human, which frankly was tough for me. You make someone your God and it's bound to happen that way I suppose. We've grown closer in so many ways that it often feels more of a relationship of equals. This is something that is perhaps good since we get more done that way (and damn do we have a lot to get done). But for me it's often hard - I don't want to be equals in this relationship.

I remember sending Tony an interview with Fred Halsted and Joey Yale. While they were sort of the epitome of the 70's D/s couple, it was clear that even with them their roles had blurred, with Joey running their business and trying to keep Fred from drinking himself into a hole. On one level they were the picture of the cute older gay couple - but their dysfunction was apparent and both Tony and I saw that too and knew to steer clear of that. Heroes are great, but the realities of their lives are often not anything worth emulating.

I'm hoping this weekend become an opportunity for Tony and I to reestablish some of that magic that we felt two years ago. After a couple of years, a relationships become more comfortable than earth shattering, but Tony and I still have our share of intense moments and these continue to fuel our love and passion for each other. We work for those moments, to be sure. But they are so worth the effort.

POSTSCRIPT, June 2010:
The moral of this story is always follow your own advice. Recent events have humbled me. Having given lots of advice to boys that saw Tony and I as some sort of ideal, I know now the cost I paid for not following the very correct advice I would tell any boy. I'm human like anyone else of course, and it's easier to give advice than follow it. I'm a walking example of life lessons learned the hard way.

1 May 2009 - A season of adjusted expectations (subtitle: working in a velvet goldmine)

Fri, 01 May 2009 14:47:00 GMT

The Wolverine movie comes out tonight. Like the Watchmen movie it won't be bad - but it won't be all that amazing either, and certainly won't live up to any of my hopes. But, really, this entry isn't about superhero movies.

This weekend I'm finishing tracking on the metal punk album (well I hope I'm finishing as this has already been a lot of work). Which means next week I get to get to work on guitar and vocal tracking for the glam band's record. [cue: elated anticipation]

I think this glam project has me the most excited of any music project I've ever worked on - ever. With Vee Dee I warmed up as we went because we shared so much musical background and because they are such talented musicians - and because the album concept they presented was so ambitious and challenging. The results were pretty amazing, and the Vee Dee record has done extremely well by any standard (besides, perhaps, my larger than life hopes for it and there is still time for that).

But back to the glam record. Mickey isn't a dress up and be silly glam rock band. It's the real fucking deal. It's T.Rex and the Sweet and Bowie and Slade all rolled up together to rock your fucking balls off. It's pure rock and roll, raw and over the top at the same time. The kind of glam rock that kept a torch burning bright in the dark days before punk came along to save us all.

Still when my hopes get this high I'm setting myself up for a fall. Vee Dee snuck up on me and before I knew it I was part of creating something that deserves to be a classic, no matter how it actually goes down.

I have to manage myself and keep my feet on the earth. There is a reason why the old Junior Murvin song "Cool out, Son" is a theme song of mine:
Son, don't put your hat/ where you can't reach it / it doesn't make no sense
Good things come / to those who work hard for it / adjust yourself to the life you can afford to live
The road to the top is long and wide - yeah
A foolish dog barks at the flying bird
Patient Men ride donkeys
Cool out son.
You have to creep before you walk - where there is life there is hope
Cool out son.

Of course I often feel like my time is running short. Porn, pop music, MMA. These are young men's games and I'm not so young anymore. I'm still young enough but I do see my time ticking away. After busting my ass for so long, I'm wondering if my star rose and fell already in my years as a queer punk figure in the 90's. Yeah I've been through this modest fame thing before, but this time it's a smaller pond and one in which I'm far less important - so I just have to remember to enjoy the ride for what it is.

Getting a GayVN's nom was fun, but it was also a bummer cuz I knew I couldn't win - I'm just not known by the folks that generally judge these things. Case in point, I met a couple of that judges - neither knew who I was, and one apparently hadn't actually seen any of the four nominated movies I was in - or at least not my scenes in them. Which creates a picture in my head of a dude running down the noms looking for names he might have heard before. At least this is just porn awards voting - I have a sneaking suspicion this is how we elect our government as well!

So back again the the topic lest I digress too far. The vocals for this record are gonna be tricky to record. Mac easily has my favorite voice among Chicago punks - heck, he's even better than that, he's an all time great. He also likes using lots of low-fi effects on his voice. It's going to be a tricky balancing act capturing all the over effected fx processing madness of his stage voice, while still creating a good proper vocal that sits up front and really drives the song. I've done it with him before, most notably in the amazing Daily Void single "Surprise Suprise" on Horizontal Action records (aka Hozac). But still it's tricky. My normal inclination is to leave the effects to mixdown, but when they become part of the performance it's not so simple, and once you've added the kinds of effect he uses, you really can't take them out. I'll probably cheat and record two tracks, one with effects looped in and the other dry as dust. Enough of the geek speak tho... anyone that actually likes talking about recording music should probably just write me as I could go for days.

So, as usual I'm stuck between cockiness and insecurity about my ability to meet my own standards. I guess that's the human condition though - and even when you've got it, it never feels that way, because they only way you get anything is by shooting higher. I see a band like the Rolling Stones who did a string of records long ago that are among the greatest popular music ever. The band members are rich and will continue to be rich just from these old records. But they still create new music and tour. Why? Do they just love it? Or do they think, "this time I'm gonna do the best show ever," or "this record is gonna be another classic." Cuz, well it ain't gonna happen - Mick and Keith will never top "Let it Bleed" or "Exile on Mainstreet" or "Sticky Fingers." I wonder if they know this and I wonder if it makes them unhappy - or if they're just happy to be the Rolling-fuckin-Stones.

My hope for them is that they just keep doing it for the joy of doing it - and I need that to be my goal as well, so that maybe I can just be happy with what I have.

Cool out son...

30 April 2009 - Rope, Bondage and Power is out now

Fri, 01 May 2009 04:55:00 GMT

Yes, it's true. Porn stars can write.

Tony and I just wrote a chapter in the new book, Rope Bondage and Power. It contains a lot of different perspectives from a bunch of well known people in the bondage scene and is very much worth checking out!

For more info (or to buy it!) click below:

28 April 2009 - Instigator article is DONE

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:42:00 GMT

So Tony and I got to see the final layouts for our newest Instigator column, "Anatomy of a Scene: Bondage." They looked amazing. Thorn's layout was clean and allowed Clive Barker's amazing photographs of our bondage suspension blood art ritual to dominate. As usual, the article is about the psychology of a particular area of BDSM play, about the limits and about how we strive to mitigate risks when we play at the limits. I think people will enjoy the article as it gets into some of the dynamics of our play that are commonly misunderstood. In early revisions Thorn wanted us to show how the come down period at the end of a scene allowed us to reconnect. But the fact is, it is in deep play that Tony and I connect most fully - indeed when we don't get to play heavy I feel less connected to him. So a good chunk of the article ended up being adapted from our conversations with Thorn where we tried to explain to him how it really works for us.

Now to be certain, some people play in scene where they become someone else or where they turn their partner into a stranger. Such a mind set can be crucial to more role play based fantasies and in those cases, it is important to come back out of roles. But for Tony and I, play is different and is a way to connect. Even when we've done play that is explicitly role based - like puppy play - we are still essentially playing ourselves, just through a filter that allows us to express different aspects of our personalities. So while I might need to come out of puppy space, that isn't the same as coming back to re-establish that the person torturing and raping you isn't a Grand Inquisitor, but is rather your partner.

In other news, XXX is out. I have a doozy of a cum shot in it. It's like.... wow. And shot against a black background. XXX is an important career turning point for me in that I play a top role - something I mostly stopped doing when I met Tony - and in that the DVD edit is just sex, no fetish or BDSM content. While I'm not sure how often I'll do pure sex vids (though if Chi Chi La Rue cast me as a hot daddy I'd be there in a heartbeat), it's definitely great to be establishing the next phase of my career and fans of my better topping roles in videos like Knots will be happy, I'm sure.

Right now I'm busy recording vocals for a metal influenced record. I forget how comfortable I've gotten with production. I've tuned my ears to the point that I can hear problems and fix them rather quickly, and I've found ways to make bands very happy by hearing things in their music that they didn't realize were there and helping them bring out new points of interest. It's a subtle kind of creativity, and one that gets little credit, but somehow I love it. There is something awesome about doing just that little bit of extra that a pure audio engineer wouldn't.

Not much else is new. Getting ready to celebrate my 13th anniversary with Doug on May 5th. It's also our 10th anniversary of moving in together. Gay anniversaries are odd things since we all pick our own events to commemorate. Mother's day weekend will be my 2nd year anniversary of being collared by Tony. It's anniversary month!

Right now I'm just happy that tonight I have a night for Doug and I to lift weights, watch TV and get back to routine for a few weeks. Having house guests is fun, especially ones like Tony Buff and Midori. But right now I need a little less chaos for a few weeks!!

26 April 2009 - Back from CLAW

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:28:00 GMT

Just a quick update. Tony and I did a new class at CLAW that went over quiet well. It's our 1-2-3 class and the color handouts are in the Education Section. And we passed out 75 safer sex hankies at CLAW. Our flight was delayed, so we ended up getting to spend a few hours getting to know Chuck Renslow - one of the true legends in the leather scene. It was really great talking with him, and I'm thinking I need to be at the IML contest this year to hear his speech!

Tonight I'm off to see Throbbing Gristle with my boy J.C. It should be interesting as I've long loved this band, but never seen them live. With any luck I'll also meet Peter Christopherson. His work in Coil was especially important to me in my teens.

Tony is mostly recovered from his concussion (see his journal for a funny entry on the dangers of watersports). But I think he'll be in pain from his bruised rib for sometime. As we say, "It's a contact sport."

The weather is so nice it's freaky, but in the midwest the rule is "if you don't like the weather wait a bit and it'll change." Sadly that goes both ways.

Anyhow I've got a show to get to...

22 April 2009 - a double recording session

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Last weekend I recorded the base tracks for 2 albums from two different bands, one all day Saturday, the other all day Sunday.

While it was pretty grueling, it still turned out to be far easier than I thought. Because the bands had very similar setups and because they shared by drum kit, the setup/tear down time was like what it would have taken for one band. And having my boy J.C. helping out was really great - we spent Thursday night cleaning up, Friday night setting up and by the time Saturday came around we were able to hit the ground running.

I get lots of boys that want to help me (and I love serving Tony so I get the reward in serving your Sir), but really with J.C. it's the first time a boy has had skills where I've went, yeah, I could really use another set of skilled hands. While often he was just running around doing errands I'd normally do myself, the fact that he knows his way around the equipment really made setup and teardown a lot easier. And hopefully he learned a few things watching me run the sessions - he works with audio himself doing soundtrack work, so working a live recording session brings in some complementary skills.

Shifting musical genres between days was interesting - the first band was very metal influenced, the second very glam rock with cleaner guitar sounds. But given how it all went I would probably do this again for other projects. I don't get a lot of free time to record, but my last few releases have been well received and are giving me a decent rep around town as a good producer/engineer/mixer (just don't ask me to do the mastering). And if I get time, I hope to expand that reputation to that of a good director of music videos - but right now getting time to complete the Vee Dee video is rather challenging.

With the time constraints of doing BDSM education, adult vids, and keeping several relationships strong, finding time is hard and being able to double up on the loudest and most difficult day of recording really will make it easier for me to get more recording done moving forward.

Tony gets in tomorrow night, as does Midori. Tony and I will be at CLAW this weekend, teaching a class on bondage, doing demos, teaching scene etiquette and Tony will be on a panel about living in a leather family. Midori is teaching classes in Chicago and will be here a whole week which will be fun. My long time partner Doug hits it off really great with her - they'll probably be up all night gaming.

Sunday night J.C. and I will both be at the Throbbing Gristle show. JC is a huge fan and is seeing all four shows, but I just barely get in town quickly enough to catch the late show on Sunday. It should be cool, and I'm hoping to finally meet Peter Christopherson. As a teen I was a massive fan of Coil - they were a really important voice for me to hear since they expressed a queer identity that was much more in keeping with my outlook on life.

XXX is coming out next week - and Taken, my Channel One video, should be out shortly thereafter. So life is pretty exciting right now...

12 April 2009 - XXX "Flame" preview is out

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:10:00 GMT

Check out the scene on MustangStudios.com - the online version is pretty over the top (and the fire scene was too crazy for the DVD edit that is out April 28th, so online is the way to see it!)