The Porn Files

Yesterday I picked up the recent issue of Marie Claire India Edition. It was the cover story “The X-Files- Porn Films in India” that caught my attention. I was with my friend Ankit at Select Citywalk at the time and when I showed him he merely said “There is no porn in India!” I reminded him of my Palika experiences, walking through the DVD section being offered TV shows, movies and porn where the man and the woman make very nice the hanky panky. But there it was, one of my favorite words on the cover of a magazine.

I jumped into the back of my car and ripped open the magazine wrapping freeing the smooth, milky white cover from its binds. I began to breathe deeper and faster as my fingers gingerly swept across the silver letters sending shivers of anticipation racing through my body. I could wait no longer, I had to go in. I opened the magazine up like a cheap tabloid and to the casual observer, I perhaps looked like it was my first time. But it wasn’t. I had done that before, with countless magazines spanning a wide variety of topics and target audiences, but this was the first one since the Madonna covered Vanity Fair from last month, so you ca imagine the built up tension. Finally I found what I was looking for and let my eyes linger before devouring the article in reckless abandon.

It was like rewinding to the early 70’s. It was focused mostly on a woman named Shakeela, a “vacuous buxom woman” who performed extreme fellatio. What, I asked myself, is extreme fellatio? A blow-job with teeth? A Lorena Bobbit? Reading the rest of the article was a bit bland with all the usual clichés one uses when writing about porn.

Now this may come as a surprise, but I have danced with the idea of doing porn and on several occasions have actually been approached. The first time I was 18. I was desperate to be an actor and so answered an ad in a local LA paper looking for young men. Undaunted I drove up to LA and found myself on the lot of Paramount Pictures. I had hit the big time. The guard could not find my name on the list, but let me onto the lot and pointed me to a place for further directions. It was my first time on a major film studio. Any film studio for that matter, but this was Paramount, home to Indiana Jones and there I was wandering around just knowing that a director was going to pop out and promise to make me a star.

However, my dreams were soon to be smashed on the cold hard reality that is Hollywood. I was at the wrong studio. I need the dodgy looking building down the street. I hung my head my shame and drove off the lot, pausing for just a few minutes so anyone driving by would get a good view of me leaving the lot. I was scared that perhaps my 15 minutes of fame had happened without me. I arrived at the other studio, had a very nice interview with the nicest man who was full of smiles and compliments. Then he asked me to take off my clothes. There I was, virgin me (2 years before that status would change) being asked to shuck the shorts. I was just over the trauma of displaying my belly button on the beach. I turned seventy five shades of red and left.

Fast forward to several years later, a more confident me in my mid 30’s. I had been working out hard at the gym for about 2 years, just had my braces off and there I was in Palm Springs sunning it by the pool. I had decided to let Sparky and the boys out for a little fresh air and some local color. A few minutes later and I was talking to a guy from Falcon. Then there was the man representing Titan and Hot House. They each asked if I would be interested in a screen test and then most likely a movie. A movie. Me! I was already casting the other parts in my mind and videos from porn movies past looped through my head. Pictures and names swirling around. I had no idea where I would start, but I didn’t really care. I was as excited as a boy with a new bike "look ma, no hands!"

I got back home to the Hague and got in touch with another studio that wanted me to go to Berlin. It was too much. I was in demand. Then I decided I was going to do it. I made the arrangements to go to Berlin and also made an appointment back in California with one of the previous studios. I was ready and willing to be objectified. I wasn’t looking for a career, I was interested in the experience. I just wanted to experience it once. I wanted to know what it would be like to do such a thing. Of course I decided that the experience would be at least one chapter in the book I will one-day author.

But soon the attraction wore off. It was enough for me that they were interested. It was confirmation that I was indeed a little hottie they thought could melt some celluloid. And believe me, I would have. However I decided that some fantasies are better left just as they are.

Missing Music

What has happened to me? What have I become? I try to be good, I try to follow the handbook and live by the rules and regulations. But now I fear I may have committed the most unforgivable sin of my people. This goes beyond not having a six-pack or visiting the salon at least once a week. This is bigger than a missed botox appointment. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

While I have been living my life, trying to get from A to B while doing a bit of shopping in between, I completely neglected to pick up the new Madonna album. It was released two days ago. Two whole days! I am so far out of the groove. Where is the man I used to be? The one who would go to a record store when the pre-launch shipment arrived to bride a sales person for an advance copy? What happened to the guy that managed to get a CD of Erotica almost a week before everyone else? I was the guy that bought “Breathless” and dared to like it. I am the one that put hundreds of miles on my car just to get the video of “Justify my Love”. I have stood out in the wind and rain and made pilgrimages to far off cities to see HER onstage. I was there when she simulated masturbation in Los Angeles. When she told me to express myself, I did. And how! I even taught myself to Vogue. I was desperate to find Susan and decided that if anything should ever happen to me, I was keeping my baby. I was living in a material world and I was a material boy. It wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always pretty, but I did it. And gladly. It was my destiny. The expectation placed upon all my people when our Moses called forth to us and commanded “everybody, come on, dance and sing!” Those were the days when I was not only like a virgin, I was a virgin. Unfortunately for me, I had no idea at the time that I would remain so for years and years to come. In a dog’s life, it would have equated to decades, but no need to get overly dramatic. That is so not my thing.

So today I have a mission. A goal. A destiny. A date with a diva followed by an iPod to sync.

Fire!

Like Kevin McCallister before him, Manuel should never be home alone.

I learned this the hard way. Manuel arrived back in Delhi one week before me and that seven days proved just to be a tad too long for him to go unsupervised. When we were in Amsterdam, we stopped by the Iittala store where we got 2 temperature resistant glasses for coffee, tea or other very hot beverages. As Manuel had a higher luggage allowance than I did (thanks Swiss Air!) he brought the glasses back. Once back, he decided to make himself a nice hot cup of coffee. But, does he use the heat resistant glasses? No. Does he use the bone china coffee cups? No. Does he use the stone carved cups? No. We have this really nice set of thick purple glasses. Four of them to be exact. The purple glasses are amazing and usually kept in the freezer, waiting to be pulled out and filled with beer. Manuel had other ideas for one of them. Manuel decided to shun the coffee designated dishes for something a bit more colorful. He boiled his milk (he hates coffee made with water) and added the coffee and poured the whole thing into the purple glass. That made the glass very unhappy and so it exploded, sending purple glass and coffee all over the kitchen.

After cleaning that up, he decided to do a bit of redecorating with the speakers from the cinema surround-sound system we have. Keep in mind that we are in a rented flat with rented furniture and have no idea what the place will look like in a month or two, or where anything in the flat will be. Manuel decided that certain speakers should be mounted to the wall. So, he takes some instrument designed to make a hole in the wall (I am a bit to scared to ask what he used) and realizes we do not have a hammer. Does he use a brick? No. Does he use the sole of a shoe? No. He decides to use one of the stone carved mugs we have. A nice set of four bought about 6 months ago at a craft market here in Delhi. We were told it was made from stone and virtually unbreakable. 2 weeks later the handle just popped off the teapot. So we were down one teapot, but had four large mugs, four smaller mugs and a little serving dish in the even we ever felt like serving anything in a civilized and Bree van de Kamp like manner. Manuel, unable to find a hammer or any substitute for a hammer instead grabs one of the large stone mugs and uses that to beat the screw or nail into the wall. About three or four millimeters into the wall, the bigger hole appears in the mug itself which then has to be tossed in the trash. The mission to redecorate abandoned and all we have left to show for it are stone fragments and a small grey hole in a white wall. It almost looks like it would be a peephole in some tit-flashing teen flick. He told me all of this in a low voice on my way from the airport to the house last week.

Last Friday evening on the way home from work, I noticed a huge cloud of smoke rising over the buildings of Lajpat Nagar, the area just across from Defence Colony, where I live. However, as I got closer to the house, I was more able to pinpoint where the fire was. It was not coming from Lajpat Nagar, but from Defence Colony. And then panic hit. The fire wasn’t just anywhere in Defence Colony, it was coming from the area where I live. I phoned Manuel who had just left the house and asked him where the fire was. “What fire?” was all he had to say and so I told him to look up. Then he screamed into the phone “Oh my God, it’s our house!!! Our house is on fire!!!” I screamed back into the phone and then he started laughing.

I didn’t see the humor then and I don’t see it as of yet. Perhaps later in the week.