Does Flavored Meth...

Rot your teeth faster?

CNN's expose on the rise of flavored meth failed to address that point. Just something to consider on this beautiful spring Wednesday.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind cards and letters of concern. I have not tossed my plump form from the highest of bridges into the turbulent upswell of a murky New York river...

Nor have I lain myself across a thundering subway rail, eager to finally be the damsel in distress instead of the moustached villain time and time again...

Truth is, the warm sunshine, the budding leaves, the annual return of the dirty Hipsters to the rooftop across from our (soon-to-be-former) apartment has summoned a certain amount of cheer to my demeanor. Also, my clown class did indeed begin.

Will check in with you in April, with renewed job hunting vigor, with new apartment joy, with cute as pie boyfriend love, with clown class hilarity (week one featured a Brazilian talk show hostess named Gigi who was there filming a video segment about clowns, seriously!) and more happy stuff from your's sincerely, Gayest Neil.

Til then my loves,
xoxoxo

Aids Oneself

I dreamt I died of AIDS. It was a startling dream, not really a nightmare however. It was my funeral and everyone from my life was in attendance. It was surprisingly peaceful.

People gave eulogies. Fink said some charitable words about my writing style. Later on I’m certain he put out a cigarette in my ashes. I’d be honored. The most touching, and the image I remember most distinctly, was my dear little brother weeping. It’s the kind of dream image that lingers with you.

Was my mind telling me something?

My crazy uncle Michael has lived with HIV for close to 15 years now. He’s my only gay relative that I’m aware of. I’ve only met him once.

It was at an AIDS hospice in a run down south DC neighborhood. I got off the subway and the African Americans who passed me on the street gave me nervous looks as if to warn me I shouldn’t be where I was.

The hospice was actually a run down house. The living room, the kitchen, several bedrooms all contained hospital gurneys upon which men - all black - lay prone. These men were skeletons. So thin, all of them. Some of the men watched daytime soaps on a giant wood encased television. Some of them just stared at the ceiling, as if waiting. These men were to die in a humid, cramped urban hospice with “Guiding Light” playing in the background, even worse with my crazy Uncle Michael changing their diapers.

My uncle Michael was there, giving a sponge bath to a young man when I entered. It turned out the patient was 24, my age at the time. He looked like he was 60. The young man was too weak to speak. We made eye contact. And I felt ashamed of my foolish sexual encounters. I wanted to be apologetic. I wanted to vomit. Uncle Michael led me outside into the barren concrete backyard and we sat at a black wire table.

I was amazed at how similar to my mom he looked. I recognized her eyes, her nose. I definitely heard her voice when he spoke about these needy bitches and how they’re always whining about this and complaining about that. His candor made me laugh. Another emaciated black man passed by and said, “Don’t believe anything this guys says. It’s all lies.”

The two of them laughed and slapped at each other like schoolgirls.

AIDS is that elephant in the room that the gays don’t want to talk about. When writing about AIDS, I feel like I need to paraphrase with “Oh, I’m negative.” Hell, do I even know? No. It’s been over two years since I’ve been tested.

I asked Uncle Mike if he was afraid of dying. He said why should he be afraid of dying from AIDS? He could walk into the street and get hit by a car. “AIDS wasn’t driving that car, maybe a crackhead, but not AIDS.”

Why do I keep dancing in traffic?

Puzzling Friendship

Puzzle-master, Will Shortz, was on NPR Sunday morning quizzing this inept New Jersey woman about Beatles’ song titles. The Jersey broad was stumped, she didn’t know “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, from “Eleanor Rigby”. Mr. Shortz passively mocked her ignorance and shoved his didactic dagger deeper, letting her final on-air puzzle cover a harder more eclectic subject: zoo animals. His Machiavellian scheme had an unplanned effect however, as it didn’t humble the poor lady, only proved how very, very stupid she was.

You don’t deserve refined society if you can’t guess a zoo animal
that starts with “o”.

Call me elitist; do I care? It’s one thing to puzzle, it’s an absolute abomination to puzzle poorly. As a child I was an ardent reader of Games Magazine. My well-read readers - not you poseurs who browse my column for celebrity gossip - know that Games Magazine is the place for puzzles and queries of all sorts: Picture Puzzles, Word Games, Fill In The ____’s and more!

I once so loved puzzles. That was before Mrs. Ramona Kringlsy.

Every month Games Magazine would arrive at my childhood home. I’d sort through piles of brown wrapped journals to find it hidden at the bottom of our post box. I’d dash to my room and spend hours completing the entire magazine. I’d start from the front puzzle and work to the rear, answering everyone along the way. I entered dozens of national puzzles with the childhood dream of winning a Games Magazine limited edition logo tote bag. Sadly, the tote bag never arrived. No brainteaser status symbol to carry my G.I. Joe Trapper Keeper.

Happily my spirits were raised in sixth grade when Games Magazine hosted Find a Pen- Puzzle-Pal. You would send a letter about yourself and a sample puzzle, and the puzzle experts at Games Magazine, maybe Will Shortz, would match you to a Pen-Puzzle-Pal of similar interests and puzzle proficiency.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Nowadays if I wanted to trade letters and play mind games, I’d date online, but at the time, I desperately needed validation of my acumen:

Dear Games Magazine,

Greetings Games Magazine! I’m Gay Neil. I’m twelve years old and I LOVE Puzzle. Please review my puzzle and pair me with a perfect pal! Thank you Games Magazine!

My puzzle: Billy and Eric both live in Chelsea, New York. Billy notices Eric at the club and thinks Eric is a hottie. Sizzling hot! But Eric doesn’t own his own condo. He rents his. Tres gauche! Billy’s boyfriend (some say sugar-daddy), Guy, wanting to appease Billy’s ravenous sexual appetite, invites Eric over for a hot three-way. They fuck in the rooftop jacuzzi. It was Eric’s first time as bottom and he absolutely loved it! Unbeknownst to Guy, his fag-hag Margarite, works at the same Banana Republic with Eric. She also buys cocaine from him! Will sugar-daddy Guy end up buying home wrecker Eric his condo?

You can see I was a very metropolitan sixth grader. Well in two weeks I got my first Pen-Puzzle-Pal envelope from a Mrs. Ramona Kringsly in Pattuski, Wisconsin. She addressed me as Mr. Gay Neil, and used Renaissance artist stamps. Inside was a meticulously scripted letter:

Dear Mr. Gay Neil,

I’m so alone. My husband of sixty-two years, my cherished Ernie died 23 years ago, this week. An utter stranger shot him in the face. They never found who did it. It was such a traumatic injury we had to hold a closed casket funeral. But, I had to see my cherished Ernie one last time. I asked the coroner to see him. His face looked like ground beef. I can’t remember what my cherished Ernie really looked like. I see him dead in my dreams every night.

My two children, Rebecca and Jules, refuse to speak to me. I haven’t heard from my darling Jules in sixteen years. Rebecca hasn’t called for nineteen. I don’t go outside. A lady comes in and cleans on Thursdays. I think she’s a black lady. I have crippling arthritis and at times life seems too hard to bear.

Yours respectably, Mrs. Ramona Kringsly

Mrs. Kringsly and I shared a Pen-Puzzle-Pal friendship for close to 7 months. I continued to write puzzles and she continued to rehash her drama. I simply couldn’t bear witness to her misery any further:

Dearest Ramona,

I simply can’t bear witness to your misery any further. I am here to play puzzler not psychiatrist!

A puzzle: An old lady has one friend who writes her wonderful puzzles, but she refuses to answer them. When her only friend ceases to acknowledge her, how many days will it take for her to kill herself?

Love and kisses, Gay Neil

Well, the final letter I received from Ramona featured the flags of Africa as the stamp. It was a short letter:

Dear Mr. Gay Neil.

By the time you read this letter, I am already dead.

Kindest Regards, Mrs. Ramona Kringsly.

Indeed, Ramona was dead. Her horrible children tried to sue me for causing her suicide with my macabre letter. I was found innocent as the letter in question referred to an unnamed lady, not Ramona directly.

Fuck you Will Shortz! I should be the puzzle-master!

Today, I rarely do puzzles. The whole incident soured the taste the sweet anagrams once left in my mouth. Nonetheless, I still expect quality ability from those who call themselves puzzlers. It’s why I’ve emailed NPR for the ignorant zoo lady’s address in New Jersey. I have a new Pen-Puzzle-Pal in mind.

Locks of Love

Enrique, my stylist, has a severe cocaine problem. I know because he constantly tweaks and rubs his nose. Also, he disappears to the bathroom every five seconds, leaving me there exposed in his torture chair with (God-forbid) my mid-coif melon exposed to the world.

I honestly do not know why I spend thousands of dollars on hair styling, scalp massage, eyebrow waxing, coloring and organic avocuava facials only so this little Puerto Rican princess can snort my cash up his goddamned nose!

You’re asking what’s avocuava, aren’t you? Well, one afternoon, little Enrique comes flitting back to the chair as chatty as a chihuahua, “Oh Meester Gayest Neil. In my island country of Puerto Rico my grand mami-Gorda teach me a wahnderful facial scrup made from exotic guava and wahnderful avocado. You like to try, si?”

“Stop snorting and start scrubbing!” I declared. That little Mexican mixed an amazing facial scrub. What? Puerto Rico? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Brown is Black is White is Red. Puerto Rico? Mexico? Canada? Holland? China? We’re all global citizens. We’re the world’s children. Back to my story, I asked Enrique what he calls his facial scrub and he replied, “This is my Mami Gorda’s Guava and Avocado Facial Scrub.”

I CAN’T FIT A CHIMICHANGA IN MY MOUTH... MUCH LESS THAT!

“You’ll never sell it with a name that long, my dear. You need something catchy. You need something fresh. Let’s see. I GOT IT! Avocuava. Call it Avocuava Facial Scrub.”

“But Meester Gayest Neil? What of me grand-Mami Gorda?”

“You love her but drop her, Enrique. Your scrub needs something nouveau, something the hipsters will snag right up. And slap ‘organic’ on that name! Organic sells.”

And right there, Enrique’s Organic Avocuava Facial Scrub was born. Bless little Enrique’s heart. The little fucker cannot say the word avocuava, but he sells the shit out of it.

Enough discussion of Enrique’s business acumen. This morning he still hadn’t returned from the bathroom.

“Enrique!” I screamed once, twice, three times and finally he comes spinning into the room. And he’s been crying.

“Oh Meester Gayest Neil. I do not know English to say theese.” He begins crying again. “But my dear seester and my in-law brother and my bambino nephew Enrique Junior were in a cahr crash and have died!!” At this point Enrique collapsed into a heap on the floor.

I didn’t know what to do. My haircut wasn’t finished. Should I get up? Should I say something? Well, he continued to wail on the floor and after what must have been ten minutes of this awkwardness, I finally left the chair, took the plastic sheet off and moved towards poor, sobbing Enrique.

His face was contorted in an expression of grief, anger and bewilderment. I carefully reached out to him. His shaking hand stretched towards mine.

“Enrique, you didn’t finish my hair, but I’ll pay you anyways. And here’s an extra something.” I slipped him cash for my haircut and stood. He dropped the money and convulsed, wailing louder than before.

“Now don’t you get used to those big tips!” I joked, but he only cried more profusely. I quietly showed myself out and, a newspaper over my head, made my way to the nearest Great Clips where a barbarian maiden with the nametag “Jackie” mangled my head and nearly cut my ear off. The entire time, I couldn’t get Enrique out of my mind.

On the walk home, I held my head high. I imagined Enrique’s pain. I related on some level as my shorn locks were much like Enrique’s dead family. I too had experienced loss. What if his sister had spent a little more time pounding homemade tortillas or little Enrique Junior had spent a little more time writing back to his Christian Children’s Fund sponsor here in America? Fate too crippled my stylist, which in turn sent me to Great Clips. Who knows what happened to “Jackie”.

It’s the butterfly effect. Ah…maybe butterflect? Fectutter?

Regardless, Enrique Santiago Martinez is in my thoughts tonight. This afternoon, when I returned to my 2800-square foot loft in Chelsea, I opened the salon window. It was magic hour; the golden sunlight was shining in a beautiful shaft cutting through a cloud.

I drew my hand back through my shorn scalp, brought it in front of me and blew towards the sunshine. A shimmering cloud of miniscule shaved hairs sparkled like pixies, floated and danced to the street below. I squinted into the light. I saw Enrique’s family.

And they were safe.