Room for One More, Sir.

Got rolled at the shelter. Took my backpack with my Walkman and my CD's, had a dogeared copy of Junky and Tristessa. What crackhead wants to listen to Tom Jones or Oingo Boingo? The most important possession I guess losing was the notebook - all my writing was in there. Everything else could have been rebought - but it was a damn shame losing that notebook.

On the employment front; work is all right. Front Desk Supervisor and the highest paid job I have ever had in my life - I have already doubts of staying. Fact of the matter is I just want to stop living altogether. I threw away the last vestiges of any type or hope of having a relationship in my life - it is all gone. It is too late for me. I really want to die and death would be a welcome friend.

But! I have a country to conquer - so, I have purchased my passport and will continue down to Costa Rica as planned. However, I will be going the way of the lonesome traveler...Kerouac, Burroughs, Hemingway...I have alienated myself from all human contact, it seems - nary an old friend exists and all I have left is me. Well, even myself is starting to work my last nerve - a ver...

Wow, Bob, Wow.

The veil of black has been lifted and everything is going right as rain - for the moment. Why? Well, sit down and I'll instruct you, silly - I finally landed the position that I had been aiming for and it pulled through as of yesterday...Front Desk Supervisor at 500 West Hotel in downtown San Diego. http://www.500westhotel.com/ Wow. What a break! I can finally have the limited financial freedom that I have dreamed for all these years - if my sanity holds out - troublesome little beast. The place is nice and both the General and Front Desk managers are real cool. I think it will be fine. Yup, happy with girlish glee.

So, to celebrate I roared like a fiery rocket down to Tijuana via trolley and crossed over the carcinogen choked frontera in search of some rest and relaxation. And I found him. Saul was sitting in Cafe Norteno with his five peso shades sipping on a Pepsi light. When he saw me he bounded across the plaza like a lanky gazelle - long time no see was muttered through my dangling Lucky Strike. We sat and I bought tacos carne asadas - talking of things in general. He asked what brought me to TJ today and like magic the surroundings blurred and swirled and were replaced by the stale cracked blue walls of Hotel Belim - smell of old linens and dead insects.

Saul was like a crazy animal - he pushed me onto the bed and lay on top, our tongues probing each others mouths, necks, ears. Fumbling - the clothes were flung all over the room and the boy pushed me back down and as he bit and sucked my nipples, grinding his long uncut penis into my crotch - like a horny bitch my legs wrapped around his brown thin frame, "Cojer mi, Saul!"

A smile spread across those thick lips and he pushed my knees up to my ears, spitting into his hand he lubed his erection and - jeeeeeesssssssuuuuussss!!!! - slid that long fucker in; me hissing through clenched teeth the old bed banging and squeaking as Saul pounded like a fucking porno star talking all nasty in Spanish just the way I like it. I jacked myself off as the moments swirled and closing my eyes seeing sunbursts hot licks of semen splattered my stomach and chest. Thrusting faster eyes glazed over, Saul grunted - "Aqui!" - and I felt his cock thicken and pulse as his hot stream burst inside of me and it was so fucking good. We lay under the blankets, sharing a joint - talking about when I will be moving back to Tijuana. I grabbed his long flaccid cock and grinned, "Soon, baby - soon."

A ver...

Don't do Anything I wouldn't Do.

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Burst into Fire ... Forever.

I hear ya, Laura, I hear ya...

This is pretty much how I feel right now, too.

Ugly Spirit.

Now it's dark.

Numb with Alcohol.

Last day of 2007. Had the bum kicks - so I beat the breakfast at Vinnies and took the red line down to the border. CD Walkman jamming Annie Lennox For the Love of Big Brother and be-bopped to the glittering millennium arch - slashed across that startling blue Mexican sky; the symbol of hope and prosperity and despised and resented by the locals. Slipped into Cafe Nortena - junkies, hustlers, and transgendered freaks sat sipping coffee blinking groggily in the rising sun con el crudo.

Ordered a steaming bowl of menudo and a cup of the best cup of coffee...ever. A young man with an archaic Jewish-Assyrian face approached me and went into a long spiel about how he liked foreigners and how he wanted to buy me a drink or at least pay for my coffee. As he talked it became obvious that he did not like foreigners and had no intention of buying my coffee. I paid for my meal and left.

In another cafe some gambling game like bingo was in progress. A man came in emitting curious yelps of imbecile hostility. Nobody looked up from their bingo.

Meandered through whores and drunk tourists and trash to Bar Kinkle in the chance of running into an old friend - I felt like a disembodied ghost. I saw working behind the bar what looked like an attractive boy of 17 or so (the place was dimly lit owing to a partial power failure). Going over to the bar for a closer look, I saw that his body was swollen with pith and water like a rotten melon.

The rockola wailed a somber Mexican ballad - I took a dented metal table with my caguama and plastic cup and lemon slices with salt packets. An Indian was sitting at the next table fumbling in his pockets, his fingers numb with alcohol. It took him several minutes to pull out some crumpled pesos - what my mother described as 'dirty money' - he caught my eye and smiled a twisted broken smile, "What else can I do?"

In one corner a young Indian was pawing a whore - an ugly woman with a bestial ill-natured face and the dirty light pink dress of the calling. She glanced at me with contempt - I gazed at the hard on poking up from his dirty khakis. Finally she disengaged herself and walked out - the young Indian looked after her in silence without anger. She was gone and that was that. He walked over to the drunk and helped him up and together they staggered out with the sad sweet resignation of the Lost Indian.

This put me in even more of a funk. I finished my beer and strolled through the Central Mercado taking in the heady smells of the exotic spices and screaming monkeys. Faces passed me, no one I knew - all looking hostile and unfriendly. I turned and faced the wall - turned my back against it all. How I wished I was unborn - wish I was unliving here. Sigh - this depression is insidious. (I am in Plaza Tijuana setting pen to paper jotting this - a small dirty boy with no shoes comes up to me with hand outstretched - smiling. I place a folded fifty peso note in his tiny palm. Feliz ano nuevo.)

Tijuana hasn't changed - it is your Reporter, Dear Reader. I cut back across the border stateside and follow blind instinct. I purchase four forty ounce Steel Reserves and march up to Balboa Park. I decide to bring in the New Year alone; albeit shit faced. Found me a nice secluded grassy knoll with a splendid view of downtown to watch the fireworks - the sun had begun to set, giving everything a nice golden luster.

Life is goofy. Popped open a can and like a magical fairy springing from under a mushroom appeared a tall shabby cadaver of a black man, "Hey, brother - can ya spare a smoke?" His crazy yellow tainted eyes rolled around in his skull like the Cookie Monsters. Handed the cat a Lucky - he took it in dirty fingers shiny over the dirt - and between lip smacking mumbles and puffs of cigarette - he cooed, "Ew, yesss - we's have lube...mmmm cockrangs mmmhhmmm yep...dildoes..."

I sat there smiling up at this black Fagin and as the conversation continued I was invited down to his camp to 'kick it' with him and his friends. Sure - why not?

I followed him down the dark trails into the moonlit woods of Balboa Park - in the shadowy camp sprawled on ratty vermin infested blankets was Scott, a youngish tramp with a deep southern drawl - handsome in a rough way with his steel gray eyes and shaggy brown beard, and there was Sim, a bloated mountain of fatty flesh, came to the States from Laos (Does that make him Laosy? Get it? made Sim laugh every time - then again he was loaded on goofballs). Sitting together under a sycamore tree was two dirty black clad flaming self-proclaimed Klub Kids, Octavio and Josh - nuttier than squirrel shit but they knew all there was on the legend of Micheal Alig. The two clung together screeching and giggling on a methamphetamine buzz.

I shared my last three beers but since I didn't have enough for all I sent the black guy on a beer run. With this merry band of hobosexuals dressed in their hobo finest, I had more kicks than I ever would swinging in the New Year at any fag bar or snotty ass queer disco. The night progressed, we became more and more intoxicated - Steel Reserve 211, I swear that shit'll fuck you up!

And the jokes kept flying once Scott confessed he had a vibrator stashed up his ass - holding the controls in his hand he would squirm under those torn pink blankets. Every few minutes you'd hear him purr slowly in his thick southern accent, "Ewww, yup - the wire! There it goes...got it connected 'gain! Damn! Wish I had my soldering gun - no worries then - eeeewweee!!"

As the group smoked crack - I puffed on a stick of weed. The laughter and swapping of transcontinental travel stories continued into the night - I felt so alive with these Desolate Angels - so optimistic - so free...

Time to go -

Drunk and high - I stumbled up the hill out of the woods and the gully to the clearing I had first found - a couple of times falling to my knees in giddy silliness and mumbling witty drunken Hunter S. Thompson remarks to the sex phantoms cruising the park. At the moon drenched grassy knoll I fell onto my back and suddenly the dark navy sky was awash with candy colored fireworks. Poom! Poom! Poom!

I raised my beer can to the stars and bursting lights and said smiling, "Here's to you 2006!

"It's 2007, idiot!" Snipped a voice out of the darkness.

"Whatever - cause it's all good!" I laughed big and free. "Happy New Year!"

Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree.

Chaos is weird.

Jumping through hoops of the myriad Kafkian regulations at St. Vincent's since obtaining employment, one of the requirements was to get a xerox copy of your schedule with a letterhead of your employer to prove you are working there - easier said than done. The unibrowed boss of mine decided to secrete testosterone and flat out refuse giving me a copy. I explained to this degenerate monkey the dire situation but it fell on deaf ears - having a job or a place to stay was the choice. With his curt no the deal was shut and I quit on the hairy bastard. That's what I get for lowering my standards.

Decided it was time to stop screwing around and take matters into my own hands - after these dreary holidays to attain employment more befitting my stature is in order. I came to San Diego for a purpose and I can not and will not deflect from these goals.

Christmas at the shelter was a joke - crazy assortment of lost angels - angels in hell, broken dirty wings. Half cooked meals served by paranoid vindictive Christians to bestial hostile downtrodden. Well, the apple pie was good. Walking around, reek of vomit and piss in the streets - sun blasting down and what the fuck good deed doers would swoop up in cars and pass out coats, blankets, money - I got nothing. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Ate so much at dinner I walked it off - went up to Balboa Park and meandered the dark paths among the creatures of the night. The cool night air and the navy blue sky soothed my loneliness as I slowly strolled along swaying palm trees - dark shadows lurking in the bushes, the nights cruisers. Here and there was the orange flicker of a cigarette cherry or the tip of a crack pipe.

Approached by a small handsome Mexican in a hoodie, obviously living in the streets, "Hey, man, you got a dollar?"

"No - I do not." I state flatly.

He is with friend, who stands quietly. The little guy smiles, "C'mon! You got some change, man - I just want to get a beer."

I look at him and he is really handsome. I sigh, turn to walk away. He grabs my arm and whispers, "Hey, dude, you like to suck cock?"

I smile and pat him on the shoulder, "You do need another beer, my friend." And walk away.

Sat on a cold concrete bench under the stars and under a bought of depression listening to the highway breathing. Thought about Jeff. Oh yes, Dear Readers - you have no idea who he is yet do you? Well, let's just say that is another blog dedicated solely to him. But, I sat and I thought of him never the less - how I feel about him. How much I love him. How important it was for me to get down to Costa Rica - yes, that is where he is. So many mixed feelings about this - so many...

I got up and walked around to find that hooded Mexican standing on the sidewalk in the shadows with some guy bent over sucking his cock. I stopped a few feet away and watched - wouldn't you? Well the Mystery Man saw me freaked and split leaving little hoody standing there with a glistening erection in the moonlight.

"Didya like the show?" He asked walking up to me sliding said penis back into his well worn baggy jeans. I confided I did and we stood there for a bit and talked. He explained that he really needed a beer but didn't have an I.D. to purchase one. I agreed to buy the booze for him with my identification. After the purchase of two Steel Reserves and two King Cobras, we retired to his spot: a spreading chestnut tree next to an offramp to the 5 freeway.

I guess it was his way of thanking me, but not a second after he popped open a can, he was on his back propped up against the tree with his pants yanked down to his ankles - his long uncut cock pulsating hard. "You know, buddy," He said guzzling the Steel Reserve. "For helping me out, I'm gonna let you go down on me for free."

I looked down onto his hairless copper colored torso - it was thin and muscular. My eyes flickered over his flesh with silent insect lust. I sighed - looking up at the starry sky and focused onto the belt of Orion - wonder if Orion wore panties under that belt?

"Nope." I said. "For two reasons: one - you need a shower and two - there isn't a health clinic nearby."

"Ya sure?" He smiled. "I'm real horny - not asking again."

"Pull your pants up kid." I grinned.

The next hour we sat there under the tree in the dark, lit only by the occasional headlight and drank and talked and laughed. Eventually, I had to leave on account of the shelter's curfew and said goodnight - never even got the boys name. Walking back, I thought how much I have changed this past year - so much. Is it for the good or bad?

A Junky' Christmas.

Merry Christmas - from Interzone.

Night of the Ghouls.

The emotional cancer has been excised from my life - that despicable wormtongue of Raul. He had poisoned my mind and heart and turned me from the One that I love. Poor Raul came to a sticky end - ran into a brick wall in an alleyway; about five times. Queer put up a good fight, though - kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile - but he now lays broken in the hospital licking his wounds.

Love has conquered once again. All has been forgiven and the blackness has been cleared away. I am once more with The One I Love above All Else. And it feels good - so damn good.

And I have attained employment to boot. At a national chain convenience store. I will be working graveyard with all the wacky ghouls that permeate the lower downtown district. Should be a hoot. God the things I can and will write about that job as time crawls on.

Life at Vinnies this whirl around is quite pat - no crazies. Sure there's the loony bitch that looks like Phyllis Diller that screams at the lamp post or the quivering crack junky that drools as the elementary school kids walk by - but not like last time. Maybe it's the meds I'm on - perhaps it has taken the edge offa me? Oh well.

Save the money I will. That is my goal - bank it all. Six months from now I will be in Costa Rica. Funny thing is - what the hell am I gonna do when I get there?

Wings of Icarus.

This Mortal Coil.

How I am right now? I am lost. I feel cold - dislocated. Severed. Cheated. Once again I opened my heart to someone and once again I was deceived. So cold inside - so dark and empty...again I am standing on the edge of that precipice and looking out into a empty insidious void. However, I think it is better that I should travel this world alone. Happy with just a small circle of intercontinental friends - content in my freedom and not locked into someone else's web of deceit.

How Can They Keep Going?

The sun beat down hard as I stood in the chow line - here it is the middle of December and I'm sweatin'. Some black spade - hair a poofy mess, face dirty in the grease, clothes black shiny over the dirt - keeps staring at me with savage yellow eyes - eyes void of life or death or a soul. The sixth tramp bums me for a smoke. Everywhere crowds ragged savage angels.

A dwarf of an Asian woman - her face ravaged by decades of junk howls obscenities to her phantoms - fat Jew hairy and nasty and smelling of decay commands for her to shut up - cigarette swirls in his crusted purple lips. I look up at the sun and I sigh. That is when I hear my name called, makes me cringe. I ignore it. But it is repeated and putting on my Hollywood Mask, I whirl around - big smile.

It is Tim S., an acquaintance of mine from my previous stay at Vinnies before my exile to El Paso. After pleasantries, he confides that he is sleeping in the streets. A month prior he was bunking at Vinnies but lushing pretty hard and one night he came in drunk and violent and was tossed out. He is waiting to get into the Rescue Mission's rehab program. Wow - young and handsome before and now he is falling apart - he looks old and tired.

After lunch, I stand with Raul across from the Neal Good day center. Raul pulls out a joint and shares it with me and then a forty of Bud concealed in his jacket. Guess Raul is taking this street shit serious. We joke and talk among the junkies and crackheads. As a police car drives by with apathy 'Po-po' is muttered by several derelicts.

I walk solo through downtown San Diego and gather my thoughts. Guess it is time to settle down and look for work. Have a few good leads - see where it takes me...

Hobo Be-bop

So it seems fate smiled on me and I had acquired a bed at St. Vincent de Paul's via some old chink working with The Salvation Army. Being processed was a blur - I was in a fugue state from exhaustion. Rounded up into hobo central and packed in among three hundred sour feet, unwashed linens, and rancid reek of feces. The stench was unbearable - but I guess in time you can get used to anything.

Wasn't issued a bunk yet - so had to sleep on a cot in the main television room with one young hipster named Wesley fresh outta the clink. Finally I got some down time and slept long and hard. Woken up at 4am by the hired goons to be told I have a bunk, #23B. Couldn't it wait until morning ferthecrissakes? Gotta get my beauty sleep! Lights switch on at 5:30am and the joint is alive with the bleary eyed zombies racing around getting ready for the day. Young Wes woke with quite the impressive morning wood and wasn't too shy about it. Showered, washed up and clank down four flights of metal stairs into coughs of tuberculosis and morning gloom - air thick with cigarette smoke, the ritual transient standing around in groups with stiff collars turned up hacking in the cold morning dawn. Breakfast a tasteless mess, swig it down with a cup of scolding Victory coffee.

Gorilla faced guards shoo everyone offa property at 7am - so I trudge the two blocks over to the Neal Good Center and hob-nob with my fellow hob-nobbers. Crazy wild eyed crack phantoms prowl the sidewalks looking for their next fix - the stench of stale piss and farts is overpowering, the gutter of the world. A dozen shopping carts overloaded with the lives of fallen angels line the yard as old pete men sit basking in the sun chain sucking on stale rollies - whithered fingers yellow from the tobacco.

Met a couple of old friends from the last time around. Made the transition smoother - one was a black cat named RJ, a notorious faggito by the act of congress, used to stomp around Tijuana together. And then Raul - one crazy ass bitch on wheels, no one can get sluttier than that minx. Again, Raul was another pal from the Tijuana days.

Spent my last five bucks and saw Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Mel Gibson obviously has some major demons but maybe that is what makes him such a masterful storyteller. Apocalypto is his latest and in my opinion his greatest film, this film plays out like the bastard freak brother of The Fugitive, it is wildly entertaining and violently sick, it also is an allegory of todays society. The images in this film are breathtaking, shot with the genesis digital cameras this is the best looking digital film out to date, the cinematography is superb, the costumes, make up and art direction are top notch. The acting is a real surprise since Gibson casted actors with no experience at all, yet they are convincing. What Mel Gibson has directed here is like an ultra violent yet very entertaining action/adventure chase film, the best one in years, this is a must see, and for people worrying about subtitles, do not worry, they are simple and brisk. I give this film my highest mark, its one of the best films of 2006 - and after leaving the theater, I had no urge to get drunk harass Jews or call female cops 'Sugartits'.

The last couple of days have been just settling into my environs - walking around town with Raul wasting time. One funny note from yesterday: Raul and I were cruising around centro San Diego on our way to Border's Books when we noticed the back door to the Edward's Movie Theater was ajar. I suggested let's sneak in - in which we did. Climbing up several flights of stairs we entered the top floor of the multiplex only to find it not open yet. So, after using the restroom, Raul and I took the elevator to the lobby where when the doors opened two ushers where standing there, before they could say anything I blurted, "Y'know, your back door is open!" And we started walking towards the entrance to the movie theater - where the manager was standing looking quite perplexed. "Your backdoor is open - you might want to check on that." I said to him as I walked out, Raul sheepishly behind me.

Fade out to Merry Go Round Broke Down.

Midnite Monsters.

No sleep for two days onna counta the bus trip and then losing out on that bunk at Vinnies to that fucking wingnut - I had some time to kill.

First some fattening hobo quisine at Vinnies soup kitchen - puke onna plate goddammit I tell ya but some spade lazy eyed fuck that sat at the table across from me agreed that the fat-back in brown lard was just like momma used to make. Damn.

Off to the Central Library to toss off a few emails to the one I love and to the ones that gives a shit - but the computer nazi running the joint stood over me drumming her fingers and looking at the clock on the wall making sure and proper I was done in an hour.

Trudged up to Balboa Park when the sun went down knowing full well that I must now sleep under the stars tonight and after having dirt clog your snout for a year what an aromatic pleasure to smell all that good greenery again. The night crawling fags were out in legion this night and no cock went unsucked - under the glorious pale full moon, they did thier stylized ballet through the foilage hunting manflesh.

I sat there on that concrete bench sucking on a Lucky Strike so nasty for hours contemplating my delihma. Then it began to get cold and COLDER - unbearably cold. I treked downtown to hobo central - first stopping off at a 7-11 for coffee and a pack of doughnuts, sitting in the Gaslamp District watching the clean white happy kids get drunk and act like assholes. Assholes. Bored with that I headed to Vinnies and my kind of peeps and the tweekers were all aglow - and as any good tramp I stretched out onto the frozen hard concrete. That too - unbearable. My only course of action was to stay awake and walk it out - to wait and see if the next day would grant me shelter from this turmoil.

Dark Shadows on the Wall.

My first night in the mean streets of downtown San Diego.

Only it was colder, drunker, and a wee bit worse.

I, Robot

Was on Yahoo Messenger when popped outta no where my sister Marie. Had not spoken to her in years - decades it seems. I have went out of my way to distance myself from that family of mine - uncaring, viscious, gossipy, backstabbing, brutal vipers. Nothing but bad memories - faded double exposed photographs rather forgotten.

And so it went something like this:
HER: Hello? Hello, Luis, are you online?
ME: What is it?
HER:Hi, little brother, it's been so long! I haven't heard from you, Father said you are in Texas. Is that true?
ME: No.
HER: Well, Scott (Her husband)had a stroke and has retired from the military and we have relocated to Texas. Mother has been worried that she hasn't heard from you in such a while. What are you doing for the holidays?
ME:Sorry to hear about Scott. Uhm...not to be curt, but I need to finish a transaction online and you interrupted.
HER:Well, maybe we can talk another time?
ME: Perhaps. I have to go.
HER: Well, I love you and Merry Christmas.
ME: Good bye.
And I ended the transmission.

I hold no emotions for these people. I don't know them anymore. That person that grew up with them is dead - he does not exist. I have no family. I have come to the final conclusion that I will live on this world alone and die alone. As all old gay men - bitter with resentment.

Moving without Moving.

La Vida es Dolor.

The Old Queer squirm on a lime stone bench in Chapultepec (Indian adolescents walk by, arms around each others' neck and ribs), strain his dying flesh to occupy young ass and thighs, tight balls and hard spurting cocks. A boy turn, grin at him and yell "Que tal, chief?", their boy innocence aching whip across his sagging buttocks and drooping loins. He scream, an enigmatic Sybil with dark glasses and grey face. Piss blood warm on his withered thighs.

I set my pen down on my notebook and look at the clock on the cafe wall. There was a vato at the counter giving me the eye and I delineated a vague good impression like something half seen from a bus window - back from the screaming, shuddering sickness, everything so sharp and clear it hurts, suddenly smeared with grey smoke - the clock had jumped ahead like the time will after 4pm even for a sick junky - and I don't want to know about him or anybody...

"Pepe." I mouth the name silently finish my coffee and cigarette - cross the frontera; take a late train to downtown San Diego and catch a screening of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel.

Review: This movie is definitely a thinker. It'll twist your mind - scare your mind - truly wake your mind in such deep ways. Definitely a smartly made movie and refreshing. Some scenes may seem long but all intentional. You delve into each character's thoughts during these detailed scenes. Babel will expose the many differences in these modern day civilizations and display one gigantic uniformity that each has always had. The story is one artistically woven masterpiece that you will definitely be talking about on the way back home. Detailed was this movie. Inspiring for sure. Walked out knowing it will be remembered and will be worthy of Oscar winning for best picture, director, and screen play. It will walk away with all.

Outside the cinema counted the feria and put the plan in motion - long wait in Vinnies - pain and suffering for that Central American venture - now in la-la-land all is feasible. Attain some sort of employment and into regiment - keep vigilant, stay focused. If and only with the hopes that my guardian angel would get up offa his fat an lazy ass...cause bad times ahead.

interzone

A bus was boarded and after a year of numbing comfort - El Paso has become a double exposed memory. Transfixed on the monochrome landscape of New Mexico it saddened me to think I was leaving a place that I would be missing no one. A year of my life has been wasted. And yet, I traveled to a destination with high anxiety - my mind has been altered. Will I be able to cope? Have I changed so much that that lifestyle I gave up a year ago will spit me out and I am doomed to live in mental institutions?

A brief stop in the gray frozen waste of Demming - desolate and colorless - a lone Mexican sat huddled in his meager coat in a futile attempt outside the McDonalds to brave the biting winds - nibbled stale fries - wonder if he shared the same consternations that I did. He looked so sad and forlorn. Several hours later - I had to share a seat with a smelly drunk named Lloyd who went into explicit detail of all his girlfriends in Montany...nearly passed out from his halitosis - was relieved when he disembarked on our four hour layover in Phoenix.

And I hate Phoenix. Every time I traveled there I have experienced bad luck. Psycho was filmed there - twice. This time I was cruised by a blond strung out teen aged speed freak in the men's room - he dropped out when an old codger came in and the coot decided to pick up where the speed freak left off.

Long hours later - had watery eyes of relief as San Diego crept into view. Salty clear air of the sea assailed my nostrils. Clean modern streets - skyline pleasing to the eye! I immediately left the Greyhound station and took the trolley to the border. clikclakclikclakclikclak. My heart was in my throat. The millennium arch rose in the distant - I got that feeling like when you meet an old lover you haven't seen in a long time and you know you are going to have sex again.

Cross the border. You are past the frontier where all the Aztec pitchmen and Mayan street peddlers, chilango quick con artists of the world spread out their goods. Old pushers, embittered by years of failure, mutter through the endless grey lanes of junk amok with a joint (i.e., a syringe), shooting the passerby. The tourist is torn to pieces by Short-Change hypes fight over pieces. Candy Colored Neon tubes glow in the blood of the world. Everyone clear on the shit house wall stand out in white flames of a burning city.

Find a taxi libre and to Hotel Balem - $15 a night joint. Old lesbian shows me to my third floor trap - cockroaches scatter as she cliks on the light and I say gracias - take the keys throw my gear on the red tiled floor. I lay down on the hard bed and sigh. Too excited to sleep, I hit the streets and head to the Plaza. I am looking for a certain rent boy - my favorite rent boy at that. If Saul is working tonight - Plaza Santa Cecilia will be his lurking grounds. When the actor John Leguizamo was young and if he was a hustler - Saul and him would've been twins.

Standing with hip hooked under the lamppost by the McDonald's and sucking on a Baby Ruth so nasty I find said Saul - skinny and tall with big shiny shades and yellow scarf - he sees me and bounds to me like a gazelle flinging arms and legs around me. Laughter, kisses, hugs. I see Saul and the sparks deep in his eyes - he is on.

“Where you been?”

“El Paso".

"Tejas? Por Que?"(Why?)

I shrugged. He grabs me and pinches my stomach.

“And you got a little fat. But we fix that quick."

We walk over and take a seat at cafe El Norteno and have a couple of hot coco's. As foreign and local faggotry whips past us to the various clubs, bars and bath houses - the nights evil sodomy begins to blossom, we update each other on what ever happened to so and so and Saul really know what happened to so and so and I can't take it no more with his little pencil moustache and short black curly hair and amber eyes and slim frame and I close my eyes and when I open them we are on my hotel bed fucking like hyperactive porn stars. Sweaty. Breathless. Painful. Beautiful. Hot. And hour passes, we lay there, covered in each others semen and sweat - he goes limp inside of me. Cleaning up, we share a Lucky and Saul asks if I wanta come to a party. Yeah. Wouldn't you? - and we go out into the clear brisk night with the big orange moon...

All the streets of the city slope down between deepening canyons to a vast, triangle-shaped plaza full of darkness. Walls of street and plaza are perforated by crumbling dwelling cubicles and cafes, some a few feet deep, others extending out of sight in a network of rooms and corridors, hidden by mist and steam - smells of beans, seared meat, mota, and shit. Catatonic emaciated whores stand gray and whithered in the doorless diseased cubicles of Death – beckoning with flashes of silver teeth. Salsa music wails – cops stand with ominous sneer and truckload of them rumbles by kicking up dust with the screams of the prey wail in anguish – drunk loud Americans stumble groped by transsexual deviants of all sorts - Americans need it special. Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon.

Oh there’s tequila and vomiting in the streets and the groans under heaven, spattered angel wings covered with pale blue dirt of heaven – angels in hell we, our wings huge in the dark. Entering an apartment building dark and sinister like you don't know, we travel down feces ranked hallways - the green walls flake like sclerosis. We come into a garden in the middle of the building with an opening to the sky. Then I see ten, maybe eight other people all milling around the corners with spoons and matches – all of them junkies, that rugged tenderness, those rough and suffering features covered gray sick slick – the eyes alert, the mouth alert, hat, suit, watch, spoon, heroin, working swiftly at shots. Everybody is shooting up.

Saul grabs two beers and introduces me to faces I don't wanna know but he does and then to

Tonoch - the head of this debauchery. Short, obviously queer and in his mid-forties - though junkies always hide their age. There was no mistaking the neurotic hostility in his eyes, the fear and hate of life. He sat there in his black uniform nakedly revealed as the advocate of death. A business man without the motivation of avarice, cancerous activity sterile and blighting. Fanaticism without fire or energy exuding a musty odor of spiritual decay. Tenoch looked sick and dirty - though I guess he was clean enough actually - with a suggestion of yellow teeth, unwashed underwear and psychosomatic liver trouble. I wonder what his sex life would be.

Tenoch is blind from shooting in the eyeball, his nose and palate eaten away sniffing heroin, his body a mass of scar tissue hard and dry as wood. He can only eat the shit now with that mouth, Tenoch surrounded himself with pretty junky boys - they prowl him like aroused Tom Cats. Tenoch had the expression of a masturbating idiot. The man wants to touch these kids – young faces in the blue alcohol flame, invaded, possessed by the Substance…Tenoch sits eating the young blood, his face in the blue flicker cruel and sated and sexless, Aztec Earth Mother, Priest and Agent of Junk…

Life is a dream in which the same person may appear at various times in various roles. Saul approaches with two syringes and a spoon. Trace a line of goose pimples up a thin young arm. Slide the needle in and push the bulb watching the junk hit him all over. Move right in with that shit and suck junk through all the hungry young cells. Sauls eyes go slack. I roll up my sleeve. It goes in so sweet and clean. I fall back and sit onto a milk crate. And I gave them all a sleepy benediction…and snuggled down into my junk and went on the nod…last thing I remember was feeling Saul's hot breath on my ear, seeing not seeing behind fucked up eyelids his Aztec face in mine and him whispering, "Welcome back, guero - this is where you belong. This is where you've always belonged."

The Absence of Self.

Tomorrow I return to Tijuana - back to what I left.

Hustlers of the world,
There is one mark you cannot beat --
The mark inside.




And of course I will file a full report strung out on a syringe of lost hope and bring downs. I won't worry though, The Zone takes care of it's own...

Bargain Basement Traveler.

MHMR - that nuttiest of nuthouses, has went and pulled a wild card out of the proverbial Madhatter's hat. The high muckitty mucks have graced me, deeming it in my best interest and continuing sanity, to purchase me a one way bus ticket back to San Diego. I think it is just to shut me the hell up. I leave December 9th.

Man - what a relief. To finally wipe away the stink of this desolate desert. I have accomplished what I came out here to find - to conquer my inner demons; but I had stayed too long and I yearn for the sweet sweet calling of Tijuana and all that it offers. Of all my journeys that is the only port that I ever feel homesick for - the only place I ever feel safe and secure. Screwy ain't it? It will be so good to be home. I realize it will be hard at first and my plan? You faithful readers know the routine, I will attain refuge at St. Vincents, acquire employment and then settle into Tijuana and pick up where I left off - only this time with a more level head.

Recently, I have attained an online romance with someone via my arch nemesis MySpace. This person is sweet and bring out emotions I have not felt in years and that is because we all know online you can be yourself without those barriers you usually uphold when you are with live people - especially fags. Yeah, this guy makes me feel good - down deep, he makes me feel alive again. Ever changing me. May Desolation Angel forever rest in peace.

Went to the Porno Theater for some kicks. The weather was nasty - horrid dirt storm. If you never experience an El Paso dirt storm - go outside and have a friend throw dirt in your face by spinning out the back wheels of his car all on you. Anyhoo - went to the Porn Theater and must've had an AARP discount because it was wall to wall geriatrics, man! I hate old people - so squishy!! One Mexican guy came in and he was cute so we did the old suckaroo with each other but that was it - to old for me so I split.

Just went home and prepared a Cesar salad with a nice glass of Merlot - slice of Muenster cheese (my favorite cheese. Cheese is made from milk.) and hunkered down to a quiet night of telly. Thought of all the positive thoughts of leaving...all good.

All good.

Hollywoodland.

Was lounging around my trap sipping green tea and thumbing through old photo albums. Especially my pictures of when I lived in Hollywood, California a million lifetimes ago. It seemed a different life - a different person. Nowadays and for the past ten years I never talk of my life in Hollywood because when I do relate any brush with the famous it is usually responded with a raised eyebrow of disbelief to a downright, "Stop lying." So, I never speak of it anymore.

However, of you Dear Readers that live in Hollywood and the Los Angeles area know as a fact that it is all that the outsider has heard about - movies and television production are going on all over the place and at all hours of the day or night and the locals; you just become jaded to it. Like the time I was walking home late and was upset that I had to detour because of the filming of Barry Levinson's Bugsy with Warren Beatty at the main post office on Wicox Avenue; had it all dressed as some 30's government building - only some tourists were thrilled to see Beatty and Harvey Keitel who were present, but a local elderly woman shared my annoyance, we stood there and bitched long and hard. Or the time I was walking to work at Macy's in Beverly Hill's and Nicholas Cage drove up to the curb and asked directions - directions were given as if he were a average citizen. No big whoop. Or like eating at a Sizzler steak house on Highland Ave. and seeing gay porn star Jeff Stryker there - okay, that was something. Your steak did seem a little tastier.

And working at that Beverly Hills Macy's had it's perks. I was in the women's accessories department - had a wacky time selling a leopard print hat to Roseanne Arnold and chic sunglasses to Terri Garr which jazzed me to see her wear to some comedy awards she attended on television that very night.

At one point I was a volunteer at the Teen Canteen on Hollywood Blvd. and Vine. Back in it's heyday, the Canteen was a nightspot of entertainment for G.I.'s of WWII by the Hollywood Stars, such legends as Bob Hope and May West performed there and many more. Now it was a day shelter for runaway teenagers - a safehouse for all the youth that flocked across the country to become stars but wound up junkies or prostitutes on the boulevard of broken balls.

Famous actress Shelley Winters, star of The Poseidon Adventure and A Place in the Sun - found it in her heart to teach afternoon acting classes. I remember the few short weeks that took place was a hoot - she brought with her once the legendary Don Knotts and the whole day was improvised hilarity. And obviously I am not alone - here is another blogger I found writing about his time at the Teen Canteen with Ms. Winter's:http://maxsparber.blogspot.com/2006/01/shelley-winters.html

Shelley Winters and I hit it off well and when she complained of the drive from her home to Hollywood I stepped up to bat and offered my free services as chauffeur. This lasted only a period of three weeks because she turned out to be a tyrannical dotting old weirdo.

Case in point - driving down Hollywood Blvd. and I mention I'm hungry cause I been dragging the cow all over town on errands, right? So, she bleats in her famous whine, "Let's pull into Musso and Frank's for a salad." So, we pull into this famous restaurant of the stars and she orders a small side salad. One. And we both share it. Ugh. Cheap ham.

But, it was all done for networking. I was a young filmstudent and I saw her as my key to hobbnobbing with some Hollywood hopefuls. Around this time, cable television was young and for $30 you could air a thirty minute show of almost anything on public access. The Edison Diego Show was born. My bizarre brainchild - a cross between PeeWee's Playhouse and The Tonight Show. A talk Show far before it's time - highlighting Hollywood's seedy underbelly - on Tuesday nights at 10:30pm on channel 3, Los Angeles was treated to Edison Diego, a slick talking greaseball with pencil mustache in a Beetlejuice suite, his wacky black transvestite co-host Velveeta Jones, and Duane Thomas and his all Asian orchestra decked out in black shades, berets and turtlenecks. Formula was simple, Edison opened the show with jokes and schtick, followed by a guest star, a comedy act and then a local rock band - peppered by real strange "about town" spots. Lasted five episodes - the first guest was Shelley Winters, followed by Don Knotts, Joyce DeWitt, Robert Culp, and then Oscar Dela Hoya.

Oscar Dela Hoya was the cause of cancellation. After some sweet talking to his agent, he agreed to be on the show. This was right after he had won the Olympic gold medal and would tub thump on anything - I told him it was a project for kids to stay off drugs of some stupid lie. I was shut down for accusing him of being homosexual...in so many words. It went like this -

ME - So, Oscar, there are many of our female fans that would like to know is you have a girlfriend?
HIM - No. Not right now. I am on the road a lot...I have the support and love of my trainer and agent to keep me occupied.
ME - Oh, so...you prefer the company of older men? Hmm...Sugar Daddy's are en vogue these days.

Next Morning after that aired his agent called the cable company and said if they ever run The Edison Diego Show again they will sue for slander. Goddam faggot! Hmmm, years later Jay Leno made similar quips when Oscar was a guest and Leno was never cancelled. I hate Dela Hoya to this day. This show was getting a good following and it was nipped in its infancy - I still wonder what would ever happened if it continued. Really must contact Mother, she has the only copy of those episodes on tape...

Speaking of hate. I landed a gig for Miss Kitty's Koncessions, dressing as a Bellboy and serving cigarettes, candy, water, and dope from a box slung around my neck at the underground clubs to those crazy club kids. Our group was asked to be at the opening of Club Arena on Santa Monica Blvd. It was a hip star studded event. I was working the crowd - selling cigarettes from my box when has been 80's pop star Madonna purchased a smoke from me. It is customary to light ones cigarette, hoping for a tip - but as I reached out with my lighter a dozen fag hands slapped my hand away and a black queen screeched, "Ms. Madonna don't need no light!" And the lackey lit her cigarette. Not to be upstaged, I retorted, "How about a tip?" She began to walk away. "C'mon, Bitch, you can buy Disneyland but you can't give me a tip?!" Can't stand that cunt even now.

Another bitch that worked me was Molly Ringwald. I was at a party in the Hollywood hills and got pretty toasted and decided to lay down on the couch. Next thing I know this red headed tart is snatching my beer out of my hand and yelling, "You had enough! You're making a fool out of yourself!" I pointed straight into her face and slurred, "I got two words, bitch "Space Hunter". Her boyfriend pushed me back into the couch and they just walked out. Lucky for them! Not so lucky for Kevin Dillon, brother of Matt. At another party weeks later, a gay one at that, I had made a pass at him and instead of saying no the fucker smacks me in the jaw with his fist. It was on like Donkey Kong, baby! We thrashed around the room knocking blows and smashing furniture and smashing priceless faggy artifacts until the host broke us up - cross eyed bitch left with Robert Downey, Jr. - probably to do dope and then to fuck him in the ass.

There are many other occurrences - after the Northridge earthquake (I was housesitting for a friend and his 50 pound metal framed portrait of Madonna hanging over the master bed would have smashed my brains in if I was over just a couple of inches - I swear that bitch is out for me!) Anyway, Northridge Quake - L.L. Cool J and I serving breakfast in the hotel adjacent to the apartment I was sitting. (He was attending the premier of House Party 2 and staying at the hotel.)

Yeah, so many more...do I miss it. Nope. Memories are sweet. Candy colored memories. I don't mind if people don't believe me nowadays. I know these things happened - like the bulk of this blog - I have been ridiculed about it's validity. Fuck those faithless philistines - it's not my fault they live boring dreary lives. I have lived these incidents firsthand - I know they happened. I can't control my life - it controls me.

And it continues.

Doe-me-Doe Duds.

With any luck, this will be me in my Golden Years.

Red Skies at Night.

I am doomed to live a life of repetitiveness. It may be my depressive sickness - it may be the curse of the fates, but whatever it maybe I am damned to it.

Roberto never arrived from Idaho to transfer to San Diego - I text him and his response was that his father had fallen ill and he was now asking for another week. Muddled, I text him back asking if he was dicking me around - I had already waited three weeks for this boy, he assured me that he really wanted to move to San Diego so I am giving the little schister his week. Why? I am having my doubts. My logical rational side is saying to stay here in El Paso and take advantage of the two year free rent I am getting from MHMR. Get a job, bank my feria and figure out what to do the rest of my life. But on the flipside, Desolation Angel, that swaggering wacky bitch - wants to sell all my shit, race to San Diego to suck cock in that homeless shelter Vinnies again only to wind up moving back to Tijuana getting banged by every Mexican hustler he comes across. Sigh. I will let things take their course. As Major Grubert says, "What is meant to happen will happen."

Last night walked over to Juarez City with Hector to extraordinary Arab restaurant that looked like a remodeled bus station. Bare, galvanized iron roof. A huge banana palm growing in the barn-like or hangar-like room with bamboo tables scattered here and there. Served by a snotty Arab queen who was barely courteous when we ordered two plates and one order of cous-cous. An Arab stew of chicken, nuts, raisins, and corn meal. Delicious. I was high offa mota and never got such taste kicks. We had just been in Bar Buen Tiempo, where I encountered a barrage of hostility. Oscar P. was there and wanted to cut me, but I am learning the practices of this dreary tribe. I never saw him, he never had the chance to cut me. Bruno - the owner, wanted not to serve me, rolling his eyes in disapproval, but there was Hector, a good customer. (Bruno has heard that I am a dope fiend. More than that, he instinctively feels me a danger, far out, an ill omen.) So I sat there, loaded on mota. Savoring their impotent disapproval, rolling it on my tongue with a glass of good, dry martini.

Two drunken faggots as faggots can be drunk - Hector decided he wanted some tacos and then some coke in that order. Ditching those lifeless bitches through dark cobblestone streets of the Old Market - whores, fat and nasty, stand and wait forever sucking on a silver tooth. Black phantoms lurk in the alleys between closed shops - reek of stale urine and vomit - house the quivering junky. We stop for chicken tacos, slop on a plate, down two glass bottled Pepsi - then jet down Avenue Mariscal - furtive glances from pimps as we dodge buses belching air so dirty that it clogs your pores.

Up to Burrito Row. Angelic Beto is working his stall - his fine ass smiles and greets us, Hector and I make small chit-chat. Some of the doormen of the titty bar across the street - Erma's - catches glimpse of my gringo ass and starts the hustle:
"Hey buddy - no cover!"
"Over here! Big pussy!
"Nice lady! Nice lady! Pussy women!"

I wave them on with a poker face, cause I mean business and they sulk away only to pounce on three other American assholes.

Heated conversation between Beto and Hector en Espanola that ends with Hector handing Beto some crumpled pesos, which were placed under the till - a small white packet of wax paper was placed in Hector's hand and we walked out the door - both saying, "Gracias!"

"Orale." Said back.

We cut across Juarez Avenue, past loud and drunk college touristas in hip-hop garb, past taxi drivers on the hustle under the glaring ugly neon of teeny bopper discos catering to the El Paso University crowd. Down the dead end street paved in beer bottle caps to Hotel Bombin - $20 a night trap, pay the haggish lady behind the grill, up the white tiled stairwell, unlock the deadbolt.

A snort or two of the coke offa the dresser - wheeee! - clothes are flung off fall onto the bed naked, clinging to each other, kissing passionately. Fingers, tongues, and cocks are sucked - lying on our sides in the position of 69, giving each other the best of the best. Rolled onto my stomach and lube is applied, Hector slides himself in so long and nasty. Shiiiiiiit! With quick jabs the Mexican pounds my ass for a good haffa hour more or less - bed springs boinging and I squeal and moan like the loud puta I am. His thin muscular brown hips smacking against my smooth and tenders, grinding that cock up into my ass hot and savage he grunts into my ear, "I'm almost there - let me cum in your ass!"

"No!" I groan,"Cum on my face!

He yanks himself outa me and flips me on to my back - my ass hurt and throbbing. Hector sat on my chest, masturbating wildly, "GODAMGODAM!!"

Creamy! Eyes closed, I feel the hot squirts splatter across my face and chest - hear Hector gasping. He rubs his erection across my lips, my tongue licks the thick tan head. I look up at him - that silly look on his face. Pause. Laughter. "Let me get a towel, guero." Hector retrieves a ragged towel from the bathroom, long skinny cock still hard and glistening - swinging free.

After I clean up, we lay side by side and share a joint. Hector takes it from his mouth and places it in my lips. As a mariachi band plays ghostlike down a dark street, I stare up at the ceiling fan whirling slowly - maybe I should stay off leaving. Rolling stones gather no moss - so they say...