stuck in a funk
nowhere to turn
my mind is blank
i see nothing ahead.
with my closed eyes i see
what i want life to be
but when opened it's not
even close.
so to bed i return
close my eyes and submerge
to the beautiful place
where i'm supposed to be
in my destiny.
get me out of this place
i have no time to waste
let me out
set me free
let me live my life free.
cause it's getting late,
and these dreams are fading,
i have no time to waste.
you'll always be my hero
even though you've lost your mind...
and i did.
as i walked into the doctors office two days ago, still aching from the cock-ring that was too tightly wound on my cock, shivering from the ice cold blood in my veins, and the light headed-ness in my head, the first thing i could say to her was "i've done something stupid". i pulled down my sweats and showed her what the metal piece had done to my piece, and she screamed..."you need to go to the emergency room, NOW!"
and i went.
i was given pain killers and something to make me drift off, as they took a chain cutter and snapped the metal ring off, causing me so much pain, and a rush of blood to my brain, that i passed out, cold, for ten hours. when i woke, hooked up to IV, the doctor shook his head and told me how lucky i was. lucky? well, it is possible that when these situations occur, that blood is lost to the penis, creating gangrene, and must be cut off.
so, lucky, i guess, yes.
i came home, and slept two days straight, in pain, on Oxycodone, and thanking the newly born Jesus Christ for sparing me and my penis...
merry fuckin christmas to all!
ho, ho, i'm a stupid HO!
as the winter shortens it's days it brings depression to me, a deep down disturbing depression that makes no sense and causes real emotional anguish. i can't get past it. it leaves me numb and sad, lonely and isolated, trapped by the four empty walls around me. it's my goal to get over it and on with life, but it's grip is so tight and hard, it makes it almost impossible to move.
i hibernate in my head, and become locked inside a small cold room where my thoughts are confined to the many ways i have let myself down. once i was on top of the world, my images flooded the internet, and my spirit flew high. but that was when times were good, the economy was bright, and i was a different person. it was before i let drugs take control of me, and before my career hit rock bottom. i was young, energetic and full of faith in the promise that everything would work out fine. my body was in shape, and my mind was even more sharp. i had the world at my fingertips, and i touched everything i could possibly touch, see everything there was to see, and do everyone i and everything i could do.
i was going to change the world, i thought, and then it all changed.
to take the pictures i take, i had to experience things i had no concept of. i had to dive into a pool of people who had gone their own way, and lived their own lives. as i collected and soaked up their ideas and lifestyles, i found myself moving closer to the dark side, where i was becoming someone else, and living out that other persons life. the energy was intoxicating, and i drank it up.
my mind which was somewhat still innocent, became black, and my heart turned to soot. i was buried by things i couldn't get out of my head, and finally collapsed in a pile of thoughts i couldn't let go of.
i have become someone else, and my journey now is to find myself again.
i have every intention of digging as deep as i must, to recapture the boy i once left in the dust. he still turns inside me, he is certainly not dead, but what's left is his memory, locked away in my head. he screams and he cries, and i hear him and know, for as much as he tries, i just can't let him go.
he is what made me good, what made me tick, and his presence is needed if my mind is to tick. i know he is out there, and somewhere i will find, him cramped in a corner somewhere dark in my mind. when i look back, catch a glimpse, of this magical boy, it brings to my eyes a few tears of joy. he was someone i liked, someone i trusted, his moves and his ways sometimes golden encrusted. he had something i didn't, and that was innocence, with the knowledge he's gained he'd discarded that since.
but his dreams still alive, inside this old man, will be relived and revisited, and that is my plan. to nurture and stroke this boy who once lived, deep down inside, and the promise he'd give. i have one chance yet, to this boy, i will get, back and be good to, it's my goal, that's my bet. he will live and be deemed, in my heart and my mind, he will be set free, no more darkness he'll find. his dreams will relive his old destiny, and be back once again, he shall be set free.
i miss myself sometimes. it may sound narcissistic, but true, i once had a promise, inside, and the promise was so simple, it made me rush out of bed every morning with excitement. this past that i've created, in my mind, and in truth, is someplace i had to go, and so i did, and am now through. i feel like a change is brewing inside, and from this place i perch, it just can't be denied. i must follow my destiny, follow my dreams, and revisit that boy, and the dreams that he dreamed.
as i sit and i type, alone in my room, i feel something changing, something ready to bloom. there's something i haven't done, one thing left i must try, and that's to be true to myself, and my power inside. it's something i always trusted, many years ago, before i let the darkness spin me out of control.
for the first time in years, i can see, and see clear, what i am meant to be, take control with no fear. for i know that i'm close, i know that i'm not far, from the things i do best, leave behind all my scars. but my scars will then show, what their meanings truly were, and i'll rise above dust, be myself, and endure. i have regained my faith, restored my old trust, and inside i know now, it's because i must.
this is the dawn of a new me, and i think i will be happy, and like what i see. i have no regrets, i don't think i'm obsessed, but instead i feel that the real me's been deeply repressed. there's a fire thats burning, and it's hot to the touch, it's a fire that mine, and it's burned down any crutch that i've used, and wall i once leaned on, it's out of control, and this time it's a fire i won't put out. it's who i am, it's based on all i've seen, felt, lived and experienced, and it will burn straight from my soul.
so, i promise myself, and to you who have witnessed, beware of the man you once dismissed.
one year ago today should have been my last, but i survived. it's taken me a year to say confidently, that i'm back. and i aint going anywhere, ever again.
christmas morning 2011. outside, there is no sunshine, no snow, only rain. a cold, bitter rain that saturates the skin and goes directly to your bones. there is no warmth, no nothing to comfort or console you, the world feels empty, i feel alone.
this day which is supposed to be the most joyous is one, so far, of bitterness. it represents the past twelve months for me, perfectly, as this past year has been one where no flowers bloomed, no sun rose, and no hope was to be seen. and this very day, which represents a year of almost the end of my life, begins with no excuses or promises, and concludes with nothing more than emptiness.
last year, today, should have been my last, as tomorrow is the day i got in my horrible car accident which i barely made it out of. four broken ribs, a brain contusion and complete memory loss was all i had to show for it, that, and a year of working hard to regain myself as i knew it. friends have disappeared, loved ones slipped away, work abandoned me, my career diminished. in one year, time froze, and life stopped. there were no songs that could lift me, no movies that made me smile, for i had reached the bottom, and had no strength to climb up. the spiral downward took years, the slow climb up would take more. i have yet to reach the first level, as my mind plays tricks on me and makes me think i am better. but inside, my heart knows the truth. there's no sunshine in the future, no warmth upon my shoulders, no love in my heart. in a world of seven billion people, i feel all alone.
the four walls i see confine and shelter me from the world outside. a world where people move, speak and love, walk, reach and grow. alas, it's a world i lost sight of, a world i once was a part of, but a world i am not of courage to re-enter. for there is also one thing to fear, myself. i have crossed and burned many bridges, destroyed many contacts and isolated many friends. i have lost my faith in the kindness of others, and emptied my heart of all dreams. there is nothing left, but the sad lonely end of an artist who once felt he had nothing to fear, yet fear is all that's left, in a mind that's now cold, and the winter is back, and there's nothing left for me to hold.
if i close my eyes, i see nothing, a terrible fate for a man who's vision was his passion, his brain was his beauty, and his life was his dreams come true. but they'll be no sunlight, since i lost it, maybe, they'll be no tears from inside anymore, it's just empty i've seen it all, and my vision now is hazy i can't see ahead, i look back and it seems crazy. for someday i wish to look up and see hope, maybe, hope will appear and my life will come back and it will change me. i had a dream once, it was so beautiful. i was on top of the world, surrounded by friends and loved ones, who supported and encouraged me. my destiny had been fulfilled, my visions had been met, my hopes had been more than realized, and i was a great man. that dream has since died, and the nightmares have taken over.
if i dig deep in my soul, i know, somewhere, i'll find a solution to all the despair in my mind. i know what i need that's myself who will save me from all of the years of self abuse i have given all the tears i never shed, all the wrong paths i took instead of the clear open one, ahead, my destiny just bled. like an open wound it will heal, with only love can i feel i have something inside and no more can i hide. it's time to stop my ordeal, confess, and reveal that i'm stepping up and defying all my words made for lying. i have been given this chance to begin and once again, maybe dance in the light of a moon covered night. for this time i now know what the emptiness holds, and i don't want it, anymore.
this is my time, my moment, my place to shine, take control and regain what i lost all those years that i tossed. i was give life, as a gift and abused most of it. but abuse no more, i will, for i have time left still. and this time the gift is acknowledged, accepted, and thanked. i will change my life. i will become the man i am supposed to be, again.
the opening shot i use on Manhunt...
it never fails.
the trouble with me is,
i never learn...
there are somethings in life that should never be ignored
and yet...
somehow, i do just that.
i don't know if it's just because i'm an idiot,
cause i am...
or if it's because i'm A.D.D.
which i TOTALLY am...
or if it's just i can't possibly do the things i know to be most important.
like say, for example...
the simple fact that i do stupid things
over and over again.
this is now the third time in a year that i
in a rush to get laid,
squeezed on a metal cock ring
that was too small for me, and,
got it stuck.
this one i am dealing with as i type (in agony)
has been on since i hooked up with a big hot hairy daddy
four...count them FOUR days ago.
like the retard i am,
i had to take a cialis also,
which just made my cock swell up even larger than it already is,
and because it's on so tight,
my balls have swelled to at least twice the size they usually are
(and they are already pretty huge)
and they ARE NOT deflating!
FUCK.
i've been in pain for four days,
and i told a friend about this little problem i was having,
and he tells me that he heard i can fuck up my shit forever.
so now, on top of being in stomach cramping pain,
i'm mentally stressing that i'll have to have my cock removed.
something a narcissistic sex fiend like me
fears the most.
i used to make a goddamn living off this cock...
since the age of fourteen,
when one day, at the public swimming pool in my town,
an older guy
(he was probably 40, but i was a baby, so thought he was about 60)
followed me to the urinals, where he promptly pulled out fifty bucks
which he offered to give me if i let him suck me off.
(was he a pedophile or just a man with extremely good taste?)
i mean, i've always looked older than i was...
well, my mama didn't raise no fool...
i saw the fifty bucks and snatched them right outta his hand
and walked over to a stall,
dropped my swimsuit,
and let the old guy slurp out a load.
hello...
anyone who wouldn't have done the same thing is an idiot in my book.
i would see him at the pool at least once a week for the rest of the summer.
i made about five hundred bucks off the guy,
and again, i'll repeat, i was 14.
my hookering career lasted till the bitter age of 40,
when i decided that i just couldn't imagine anyone in their right mind
paying for it anymore...
(not that i'd refuse if offered again).
so now i sit,
alone in my bedroom,
in pain,
with a swollen cock,
and all i can think of is,
how much i want to go get some ass tonight while my cock is still
ridiculously, insanely swollen.
i could probably make good coins off this fucker right now,
JOE!
stop.
i never thought i'd be doing this for two years, i never knew i'd live to tell the story, i never thought.
my story is different because it is one that was not written in the stars. it's a story that was marred by the presence of it's main character, me. i never listened to anyone, never took advice, cannot be taught, and refuse to obey. i am a self created being that learns, or does not, from my own mistakes.
at first glance, people think my presence in my community was natural, as i had been around for years, when in fact, i took all the back roads and winding paths i could, almost avoiding the inevitable. my background is fashion, a career that both launched and abandoned me. i started out of college as a fashion editor for W magazine, low on the totem pole, but with grand ambitions. within months of starting my chosen career, i was vaulted into space by the publishers who saw me as something special. i was, for a few years, the golden child who could do no wrong. my lack of knowledge in what i was doing was the thing that made my approach different, as i just went in, head first, with a certain trust built into my gut. i never questioned my ideas, i never doubted my intuitions, and i never followed tradition. instead, i took the little knowledge i had and morphed it into something i could understand, something that made sense to me, and something that i liked visually. it just made more sense to me that way.
my editors were stunned at how quickly my new approach was in fact tangable and accepted in the industry, an industry that is supposed to be about change, but was secure in it's old school ways. but then here i was, 19 years old, an editor at W, and reaching out and making my statements ones that were accepted and sought after by the old regime, as well as plausable and understandable to my generation. and all i did was take what they had been doing for decades, and twist it. my background being art history and fashion was vaulted by the simple fact that i grew up in the years i had. years of change that had come to fruition by constant change, the deaths of the generations before me of AIDS, and my inner fears and beliefs in experimenting with what was acceptable. i was a child of the me generation, where the only things that mattered were the things i let matter. there were few gay men left in the world from the previous generations, as they had been devoured by a virus that was supposed to have wiped us out, yet, i had survived. somehow, with all of my calloused ways, i had been skipped from the destiny of men only a few years older than me, which made me feel untouchable, yet vulnerable. it should have been me, too, as i was not cautious, was not careful, and not playing by the rules. i set up my own rules because quite honestly, i thought my destiny had been pre-written and i only had a few years of life left in me. i was diagnossed with AIDS at the age of 20, and at that time, there was not a lot of hope in sight. so, i chose to live my life the way i saw fit, have fun, party till i dropped, and touch everything i could. and i did.
by the time i was 21, i had been exposed to the grand excess of high couture, had lunch with Dolce and Gabbana and Romeo Gigle, been coddled by it's headliners, had worked my way into the hearts of the industry by being the very thing it didn't understand. that was, being a child of street culture. clubs, music and street fashion were boiling with life. there was something happening underground that i was at the right place and time to be a part of and also report on. i could be accesable to the new trend as i fit in with at it's people, yet i was smart enough to know when to step back and document it. my intuitions of trends was highlighted by my use of cocaine and ecstasy, clubs and the movement music was about to make. house music was in it's glory, washing away a decade of bad music, and it touched us children who had no guidance and made us feel like we belonged, finally, we had something of our own. that very something was the same something that at that moment, had the world in it's hands. it was the birth of a new thinking. a carefree attitude that had been banned years ago when AIDS was destroying the very people it needed. and for a brief moment, there wasn't a care in the world.
house music and club kids ruled the earth, as well as the catwalks of Paris. they infused their insanity to the backbone of society, made every outcast a celebrity, and won the hearts of the world with their modern no holds barred imagination. the usual idea that designers dictated fashion was shaken by the fact that now, fashion was born in the clubs and on the streets by people who couldn't afford to buy it, and so, they created it.
drag queens and club kids who were considered unacceptable because of their very beliefs were being flown to Milan and Paris to represent the new look. people dropped the high priced clothing that kept them safe and secure, and began wearing their underwear as outer wear. bras were worn as tops, and men dropped their drawers and let their underwear show off their newly chiseled bodies underneath. these bodies were there and flaunted because they represented the end of an era that had been, for a decade, covered and hidden by shame. AIDS drugs were keeping men alive, and so, the dying, wasting away look of the gay community was reinvented as a hyper masculine and untouchable. men started going to the gym, showing off their muscles, exposing and promoting the idea that AIDS was now the thing that was dead, and not the people it had effected. we were alive, and had been repressed, so it was time to take back what we had lost. the very same people who had, five years ago been given a death sentence, were now living life in excess, and enjoying every second of it. marky mark was the way we all wanted to look, and his bad-boy band image, something we all aspired to. i was in the right place, with the right look, at the right time.
by the time i was 24, i had racked up a list of achievements that i would never in my wildest dreams imagined, including becoming a fashion editor for L'uomo Vogue, and styling for clients like Vanity Fair and Vogue, celebrities such as Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera, and i was completely unstoppable and untouchable...i had reached my goal in less than ten years, so, what could i possibly do, or where could i possibly go, next?
i can't sleep,
i guess the three cups of espresso i drank at midnight
made the idea of a good nights sleep
just something that
other people do.
other people.
hmmm,
other people are funny.
they like to speak lies and paint pictures of themselves that
make them seem pretty.
pretty to whom, i don't know,
but pretty in their minds
as opposed to the sick fuckers they really are inside.
one of the sickest fuckers i've come across in recent years is my last ex.
this kid was one of the top 10 psychos
as well as one of the top 3 bottoms
i ever met.
he would swallow my cock in his ass faster than he'd tell me he loved me.
but tell me he loved me he did,
all too often,
and with just as much disdain in his face as he could muster.
the thing that finally ended it between us was him getting caught
in one of his typical lies,
and me,
after smoking two eight balls of crystal,
having had enough of it.
his asshole was great,
but his lies weren't.
he had told me that he wanted to be monogomous.
i think his idea of monogomy is that he gets fucked by only
one man at a time,
while the line of other men wraps around the block.
i had bought him a train ticket to come visit me while i was living upstate.
he called me a half hour before the train departed to say he was stuck in traffic,
so i told him to wait for the next train, or take a bus.
two legitimate options.
instead, i heard nothing more from him for three days.
his mother called me crying saying she hadn't heard from him in three days,
for a second, i got worried.
then, like clockwork,
three days later,
the phone rings.
"daddy?" he said"i fell asleep on the train, and when i woke up, i was in Baltimore"
i laughed hysterically because i think i actually made up that very lie
twenty years earlier.
(mind you, this boy was only 25 at the time)
i asked why he didn't call when he realized he was in Baltimore,
and the lie got deeper.
apparently, he went to call me, and take a picture of the Baltimore train station
as proof...BUT, his camera, which was on his phone,
fell out of his hand into a puddle,
rendering it useless.
whatever actually, by that time i was so through with this boy that it didn't even matter,
except that he cried and begged me to believe him, and so,
out of the goodness of my heart, and the hardon in my jeans,
i forgave him.
until, as fate would have it, i was walking up 8th avenue one week later,
and ran into one of my crystal dealers who,
out of nowhere,
told me he did me a favor last week, and took care of my boy.
what?! was my response, assuming he meant my ex i knew him through.
but alas, no...it was indeed the boy i had just forgiven,
the same boy who after he called me with the story about being stuck in traffic,
called this dealer, crying, saying we had gotten in a bad fight,
and so, he went to the dealers house,
got fucked up, and gang fucked,
by a bunch of guys at the dealers house.
i thanked my dealer, not letting him know this was the first time i was hearing about this,
and went on my way, but as soon as i turned the corner, i called chris (raucci, btw)
and told him i was well aware of his game,
it was finished,
and he was tossed out of any good grace he had with me.
and all for what?
to make me not know he was a whore?
did he think i was stupid?
or was it just that my cock was so big, it blocked any thought process to my brain.
or his asshole was so stretched,
it made the sound of his lies echo into something that sounded pretty.
either way, any good feelings i ever had about him were completely shot,
and i still continue to tell people the cautionary story of him
as a reminder to myself that sometimes even i can be fooled.
fool me once, i'm an idiot, fool me twice, i doubt it.
funny thing is, i ran into chris last week, maybe why he and his story are on my mind.
i saw him waking up 8th avenue as i was walking down, we crossed paths,
but he didn't see me...
when i saw his face wisk by me, i laughed, and turned around and followed him
grabbed his hoodie, which choked him and made him fall backwards.
it was poetic justice to see him fall almost exactly in the same spot where i saw the dealer
two years earlier...and i laughed as he shuffled to get himself off the pavement,
it was then that he started screaming at me,
saying i was an asshole.
and how i ruined his life.
funny, it was that all the things i had said or written about him
had all gotten back to him,
and he was now considered a leper in the gay community.
funny wasn't it?
but the greatest revenge i got from that night was seeing him sitting in a restaurant two hours later, crying to somebody...so i did the right thing, made sure he saw me one more time, laughing.
not with him, but at him.
the pretty ones never look as pretty in bright lights,
their luster fades
and they dim into oblivion.
remember that next time you find yourself getting deceived by someone and their pretty stories
about how wonderful they are.
pretty fades, but disgusting lasts forever.
chris raucci,
at his parents house,
in leonia new jersey
the first day i met him,
i gave him a haircut before we started shooting,
and he, withing minutes of us meeting,
was grabbing my crotch and begging me to fuck him...
i shoulda known, huh?
here's some background.
i've been a mess for years,
as many as i can remember.
those i can't remember i don't remember because i was a mess during them.
i was a hugely successful fashion editor at 20,
worked dressing Ricky Martin on tour by the time i was 29,
had a nervous breakdown at 30,
picked up a camera
started shooting,
had my first billboard campaign 6 months later,
my first book, Testosterone (one of the biggest selling gay erotic books of all time)
by the time i was 36,
my second book, Uncensored at 40,
and was a crystal meth addict the entire time.
how?
i don't know,
but am now kinda clean,
am working on my third book (titled j/o) as i type,
and am starting my own production company and porn studio
which will also be called j/o
now.
it's been a rollercoaster,
but i don't want to get off.
i hope you enjoy the stories, visuals, and the soundtrack.
it's all me,
it's all real,
and it's all over the top.
but then again,
that's me.
i hide nothing
because i don't care what you think...
except to wonder why you don't respect me more
for being the person i always said i was,
