Prejudice, wrote a blog about it, want to hear it? Here it goes...

Now, I don't want to seem heterophobic, but I don't think I like straight people very much, well other than my family. I have lived in a gay bubble for most of my adult life, rarely dealing with the straights, but with my new career that is something I have had to get used to. Making small talk with giggly girls, and laid back dudes, it has truly been harder for me to do that, than to figure out a color formula. I can do some light general guy talk with the girls, and as far as the guys if they aren't into Metallica, Ultimate Fighting, or football I got nothin'!

There have been some exceptions to this general feeling of mine, first there is my friend Pat who I met in boarding school, but he is bi and is gayer than I am so he shouldn't really count; it has only been recently that I have started forging friendships with a couple of straight guys. The first being one of my classmates at hair school, a guy I totally had a crush on, but who I have grown to love for the sweet teddy bear of a man that he is, he knows EVERYTHING about me, and I can speak honestly with him about guys and any tricky situations I may find myself in, and he is there for me without judgment and just a kind word, and a loving ear. The newest addition to my straight menagerie was one of my housemates at sober living. First I must go on a small prejudice bigoted rant, I am in a gay rehab, and it really has gotten on my nerves when “straight” guys have been let in. I have been told that this is a rehab like any others, but if that is true then why is the 1800 number, 1800-DialGay!!?? Some of the straight guys that have been in here, have probably not been so straight, and therefor belong in a gay rehab, but there have been a couple who come into our safe haven, where we should be free to go around saying “girl” and calling each other “she” and “lady”; and have tried to tear us down for doing so. If you have such a problem with this behavior, the door is that way, and there are plenty and I mean PLENTY of other rehabs for people like you, rehabs where if we were to act like ourselves we would be humiliated, beat down, and forced back into that dark closet, but I digress. My latest addition to my straight friends has not been one of these guys, he is one of the coolest, smartest, laid back, and open minded guys I have ever met. We have spent many nights just hanging out, watching TV talking shit to each other, just being ourselves without any judgments. I am grateful for guys like this, who have broken my stupid preconceived notions about straight guys, and who are there for me whenever I need them. I need more friends like this, and I was saddened to see him go today, I am hoping that our friendship will not end after his moving out, but only time will tell, and I hope that he gets to expand my mind and heart to others like him.

So to bring out the straight guy in me, here is one of my favorite rock songs of all time, which to gay it up I should let you know that I used to masturbate to this video a lot during high school , before I found porn! :-) Here is Danzig with “Mother”

Come out come out wherever you are, part 3

So, the year was still 1994 and my parents had found out I was gay in January, we had already signed me up for musical theater camp in the Catskills months earlier (as if THAT shouldn't have been warning enough about my gayness) , I remember my dad giving me a whole speech about being worried that “those theater gays” being a corruptive bunch...little did he know I was the one going around corrupting everyone else.

Anyway right before going to camp, my mom and I flew into NYC to catch some Broadway shows, and explore the city. My mom is such a trouper , she indulged me and walked around the Village with me, and she did the coolest thing: she bought me a pride necklace and my first copy of Out magazine (with Sandra Bernhard on the cover). After a couple of fabulous days enjoying the city, she dropped me off at the bus station and on I got on my bus up to the Catskills to enjoy my three weeks of musical theater heaven. I got off the bus, and got picked up, and when I was driving up to the property, I pulled out my pride necklace out of my bag and put it on. I fell in love with the place instantly, I had arrived at Stagedoor Manor (which is the camp that the movie CAMP is based on and shot in). Most kids were oblivious to what my necklace meant, they just thought it was cute. It took me a couple of days to acclimate, but I quickly got into groove of things, and became comfortable enough to shout it out from the rooftops, “I AM A BIG HOMO”. I had no shame whatsoever, I was finally free and able to be who I was without worrying about any repercussions.

So for the next two summers I would ecstatically await my departure to the gayest place on earth to be who I truly was, and come back home, to machismo-filled Puerto Rico, back to my closeted high school life. I mean, my best friend knew, and my family, but that was about the extent of it. Then my junior year came along, I was 100% sure that musical theater was what I wanted to do with my life, and so I convinced my parents to send me to a performing arts boarding school for my senior year. Midway through my junior year, I had already been accepted into boarding school, and I guess knowing that I would be away next year gave me a set of balls I didn't know I would grow. Well thats not true, I had been growing them little by little. I was the first full time male cheerleader in ALL of Puerto Rico, and when I came in 2nd and 3rd during my fictional writing competitions they were both about gay runaways, but I finally grew a pair and decided to come out in school.

I first came out to my fellow juniors during a class retreat, I sat in the middle of the whole class and said “I know most of you have guessed it already, but I want you all to know officially that I am gay”...silence, silence...and then...RIOTOUS applause! Which was followed by classmate after classmate sharing their admiration in my honesty, and bravery; that choked me up of course. I made them all promise to keep it a secret till I found the right way to come out to the whole school. I had remembered we had learned about acronyms in English class, so I wrote a poem for the school paper called “My dirty little acronym”, and the first letter of every stanza spelled out “ I A M G A Y”, I remember before it went out to print, I sat down with some of the teachers and the school guidance counselor to help them prepare for the onslaught of possible backlash, as I was the first person in my school to come out while they were still in school. Surprisingly enough there wasn't much backlash, I was a little bummed out to be honest, as being a little gay boy, having watched documentary after documentary about Stonewall, and coming out stories, I wanted to have a vivid discussion about sexuality, but it wasn't really that big of a deal. I am very happy that I was able to live my last 6 months or so of high school in homophobic Puerto Rico, as an out and proud young man. I have, as Madonna says at the end of her Human Nature video ,“absolutely no regrets”.

Come out , come out, wherever you are...part 2

So a couple of days ago I ranted about celebrities coming out, and it made me think back to my three major coming out instances in my life, I will share one of them with you right now.

The year was 1994, and I have known I was gay since I can remember. Mid way through 1993 I had started writing back and fourth with this pen pal I met from a pen pal service that I found in the back of Rolling Stone magazine, I was 13 and he was in his early 20s. I lived in Puerto Rico, and he lived in Florida, I forget where. He was always very graphic in describing his sexcapades, which I LOVED...he as a matter of fact gave me my first gay porn, and also my first straight porn (which made me extremely popular with all my classmates) . I digress, so I would always hide his letters under my bed (typical, I know!) anyway, I went out with my friends or my sister, I don't remember which to go see “What's Eating Gilbert Grape” and when I get home, my parents have this serious and concerned look on their faces. They sit me down in their bed and my mom proceeds to pull out one of my letters...I knew what was coming. First of all, they ruined my whole plan of telling them at college, but oh well. My dad began asking “are you...?” , “gay?” I finished...he nodded and I very quickly said, “yes”. Instantly came the waterworks, from my DAD...which was very strange for me to see. I had only seen him cry once before when his mother died. I understand now what he must have been going through, I guess some parents, no matter how cool and open they are, still feel a sense of loss when the life they had for their child wont happen the way they imagined it. Anyway, we had a long conversation about different things. Safe sex, discrimination, were some of the topics brought up. The weirdest question I got from my dad was...”are you like Michael Jackson?” referring to the very fresh (at the time) scandal of Michael and the little boys. “NO!!!” I hollered immediately, “HELL NO!” Quite the opposite, I thought to myself as I had always been attracted to older men, probably no thanks to him...THANKS DADDY ISSUES! Anyway, my mother of course knew, as most mothers know.

I remember a couple of months later, my dad and I were watching TV in his room, and some sort of wedding was showing, and I said “That's the kind of wedding I would like to have...” (It was big, gorgeous and dramatic of course!!) and he said “with a woman?” with this tone of hope for a change of heart from me. “No” I replied, “ with another man...”. I think that was the last time he ever questioned my sexuality. The man has grown immensely over the years, and I love him to death. Now we have a whole new batch of issues, mostly involving my drug use and lack of independence...but now it's my turn to grow, and his patience with my has grown exponentially. I am very lucky to have such great parents.

On a lighter note of things, I told my sister about a year later on New Years Eve, she dropped me off at home, and I handed her a letter as I shut the car door, and ran in the pouring rain. It merely said “Happy New Year, by the way I'm gay...oh and mom and dad know already!”...she of course knew I was gay since I was a zygote, but she was pissed at me because I told my parents before I told her. She has always been the shinning example of being an open and loving human being, she introduced me to all of her gay friends since I can remember, and she is the main reason why I am so comfortable in my own skin, as far as the gay thing goes.

Anyway, that's enough for one day, I will share my other two stories soon.

Come out, come out, wherever you are...

So I got my copy of Entertainment Weekly last Friday with the lovely Adam whats his name from American Idol...I have not been watching American Idol this season, actually not since the second or third season have I invested any time or caring for anyone on this show; but this article brought up something that really gets on my last gay nerve. Famous gay people, who I know are gay, who aren't out of the closet. They seem to be everywhere I look right now. I turn on CNN and there is Mr. Closet himself Anderson Cooper...who I believe has no real reason to stay in the closet, I remember seeing him every Saturday night at The Roxy in NYC, shaking his groove thing with all the other gay boys to Victor and Peter. I mean this is nothing new, for stars to be in the closet, of course...I mean way back to Rock Hudson gays have had to stay in the closet, but I imagined in the day of Melissa, Ellen, Elton, and the likes younger artists would feel more comfortable coming out. I remember when I was doing my party in NYC called Pop Rocks! and Lance Bass would not come to it because he didn't want people to know he was gay, and yet the very straight and comfortable Joey Fatone came by to check us out, I love him immensely by the way! GRRRRRR I'd like me some of that hot cub action! ANYWHOO I digress...there's of course my compatriot Ricky Martin, who should fucking get his ass out of that closet already, nobody gives a shit! And then there is the lovely world of Star Trek where we have already had Mr. Zulu (George Takai) come out of the closet, why can't the new Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) come out? I used to see him all the time hanging out at MJ's when I worked there, I just wished these Hollywood people didn't feel the need to stay in the closet, and while were on the sci fi note, can I just express my grievance of there being no gay characters in science fiction TV or film? I was very happy at first when I saw two guys kiss on a Battlestar Galactica webisode, but then it pissed me off that it wasn't included in the show itself. It was just frustrating to me as a huge Sci Fi geek that in these worlds were robots come to life and kill us, and alien men can have babies, there can't be two happy normal men or women who are in love and in a relationship!

You Better Work, BITCH!

Alright, so I hate to be a Johnny come lately, but I have just started watching Rupaul's Drag Race on logo, but I've been watching it on my Zune since we don't get Logo at my sober living. First of all I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE drag, I think it can be such an underrated art form if done correctly. I have so many connections to it, it's not funny! First of all, I used to be neighbors with Larry T who wrote “Supermodel (You better work) For RuPaul. I also have this fierce painting of Rupaul that I used to have hanging in my apartment that I found at a dumpster in my building in NYC! I've seen Tammie Brown a gazillion times here in West Hollywood, during Jackie Beat's hilarious show at Here Lounge, and let me tell you that was a gazillion too many. I personally don't like her very much, she is such a one note drag queen, she does the exact same faces, choreography and attitude for EVERY song she does, me and my friend Eric (KnuckleCrack) totally loved making fun of her when we saw her perform. In fact I used to tell him that she totally reminded me of a horrible copy of my favorite girl in the show Nina Flowers.
I know OF Nina Flowers from my days back in Puerto Rico. She used to perform at our main gay club Krash/Eros. I had been going to this club since I was 12 or 13 thanks to my sister. My sister who is a fierce dancer, used to choreograph for this fierce drag queen named Alex Soto. They used to put on these amazing epic numbers, and she and her husband would choreograph and dance for Ms. Soto. Now before you start accusing my sister of child endangerment, I used to only go to rehearsals during the day, so I was never there at night till I was of age. Anyway, she is a HUGE part of why I am so open and loving of my self, and rarely let anyone tell me what to do, how to feel. But I digress back to Nina Flowers, I remember seeing a video of her doing Zombie and just being BLOWN AWAY immensely, she was doing things that no other drag queen had ever done in PR. She was being totally rock and roll and anti-establishment in her own way. I remember just falling to PIECES watching her perform. The only other time I have been blown away by a drag performer like this was with Ms. Kevin Aviance in NYC, who used to call me her little Pop Tart, because of my Pop Rocks! Fame! I think I might have met Nina once out of drag at one of my most vivid and favorite movie experiences in my life.

The year was 1994, I was 13 and quite the gay history aficionado, at that age I knew all about Stonewall, and the Matachine society, how did I learn so much? I honestly don't remember. Anyway, my whole family and some of my friends already knew I was gay, and my sister said that she and all her gay friends were going to the film festival to watch this new gay comedy called The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but here I was in a theater full of all of San Juan's gay population. I was sitting next to my sister and her husband, and next to them were all the dragas from Krash (or had it become Eros by that point?) which might have included Nina. Anyway the movie starts and every time a new fierce outfit would come on screen the whole theater would resound with “ESO NENA” (You go girl), snaps galore, and hooting and hollering for days. I totally ate this up of course, being this little 13 year old gay boy in training. It is still embedded in my brain, even after ten years of frying my brains out on meth, which should tell you something. So ANYWAY I will continue to download Rupaul's Drag Race and root for my girl Nina Flowers! I hope you do too!

I will leave you with a clip of her doing what she does best to one of my favorite songs right now, Here Comes The Rain Again by the Eurythmics!

What you find-ah, what you feel now, what you know-a, to be real...

Boy is this TV junkie in 7th heaven right now, first of all I fucking LOVED the first new episode of Battlestar Galactica, it's still one of, if not THE best show on television today. Anyway, Saturday is usually my day to catch up on my Tivo, and I have a new old favorite show. Let me explain, I used to watch the Real World RELIGIOUSLY, in fact Pedro Zamora was one of my role models as a young gay latino man, it got a little too repetitive after a while tho. I believe the last season I watched completely was probably Chicago. Anyway, I was intrigued to watch this season for two reasons, one its in Brooklyn (and I figured they would be in Manhattan half the time), but more importantly they have their first trans gendered person. It was nice to see the Real World kinda get back to a Pedro Zamora kind of mindset, in educating “the kids” about taboo subjects.
I have been pleasantly surprised at how for the most part it is a non-issue with the housemates. I think they picked a great cast this year, first of all they have 8 housemates instead of 7. There is studly bodybuilder Scott, tattooed hipster Sarah, frat boy Ryan, hip hopper wanna be Baya, black beauty pageant queen Devyn, Mormon closet case Chet, pretty boy south beach queen JD and Katelynn the aforementioned trans. They are only on the second episode, and most of each episode has revolved around Katelynn's little secret. Anyway its one of my new guilty pleasures along with Celine Dion, and the Fairly Oddparents. I'm sure the drama will ensue this season and I will share if necessary.
So as a DJ/VJ with no musical outlet at the moment, I have decided that every Saturday I will share one of my favorite videos with y'all, all three of you...and hopefully I will remind you of some little gem that you hadn't thought of or seen recently. Enjoy this week's choice: Shakespeare's Sister "Stay", which goes out to me best girl Chad!

Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know...

I am a 29 year old gay (hence the Chorus Line reference above) jewish (hence the OY) puertorican (hence the PAPI) living in Los Angeles, CA. I am also HIV and HEP C positive, and a crystal meth addict in recovery.
A little history about me, I was technically born in Bogota, Colombia (South America) I was immediately adopted by Alan and Marilu Rapoport of San Juan, Puerto Rico; so even though I was born in Colombia I consider myself puertorican because that is where I was raised. My childhood was great, I was the youngest of three ( I have one sister Millie, and one brother Willie) , the baby of the family, and therefor quite the spoiled boy. My parents have always been supporting of everything, my artistic tendencies and then the gay thing when they found out. I went to an arts boarding school in Natick, MA to study musical theater; after graduating high school I tried a year of college at Wagner in Staten Island, NY; that didn't last for long. I tried a conservatory in Manhattan as well, but nothing seemed to stick with me.
I then fell into the club world by mistake, I started handing out fliers for a party called 1984 in the East Village, from there I became assistant to Chip Duckett (the promoter) in his PR firm; at some point after that we came up with this idea for a party where straight out pop of the day was played, NO REMIXES EVER! We called this little idea Pop Rocks! , I being the most knowledgeable in current pop music was delegated to DJ, after a couple of months in the basement at the Pyramid Club, we moved to Flamingo East where the party grew and grew and soon became THE it party for college boys and their fag hags, we got written up in all kinds of magazines, we were even mentioned on VH1 and Rolling Stone. Anyway while my life looked fabulous to anyone who looked at me, I had been exposed to cocaine by my friends and co-workers; which one infamous night in 1999 led me to being introduced to cyrstal meth at a bathhouse in NYC. I quickly fell in love with it, and was able to handle it quite well for a good couple of years. Then September 11th happened, I grew weary of the world we were living in and began using more heavily, also I had moved in with my boyfriend of the time Michael, who I felt was my soul mate to the point where I proposed to him, which he sort of accepted. Looking back on it we didn't know much about each other to have made such a big step, which I guess maybe he figured out because he decided to move back to New Jersey. After he left, my drug use escalated immensely, to the point where I had start shooting up; and let me tell you after I did so...all bets were off, my life quickly began to crumble.
NYC was kicking my ass, and I pulled what they call in AA/CMA a geographic, I moved to LA in September 2004 where I did my first stint at rehab. I managed to weasel my way out of there (since my parents were paying for my whole life at this point) and began using again for almost 3 years. I came back to sobriety in January 15th of 2007. I managed to stay crystal meth free for one year one month and one week, somewhere in the middle of this sobriety I decided I wasn't an alcoholic and started to drink again, this worked for a while but soon caught up with me in the form of two DUI's. Anyway so in February of 2008 I decided to go ahead and start tweeking again, I was out this time till August 29th.
My new life began when I heard a knock on the door to my trashy west hollywood apartment, and finding my sister and brother in law at my door, telling me that I needed to do something about my problem, their love and support was my moment of clarity and I thank God for them and my parents every day, without them I wouldn't be where I am today. I threw away all my drugs and paraphernalia on August 30th, and I checked into rehab on September 2nd ,the same one I had attended previously, and after graduating 2 months later, I moved into their sober living. On December 1st I began attending The Aveda Institute to work towards getting my cosmetology license . So what the hell will my blog be about? Well it'll be my diary, where I will try to keep as honest as possible. I will blog about recovery, life in sober living, school, friends, family, music, dance, theater,politics, TV, my struggles in finding a man, in finding a job, in dealing with bitches in the program...ANYTHING that comes to my mind that particular day I am blogging, it may be trivial or it may be insightful, who the hell knows? As you can tell I am not the best writer in the world, but i'm working with what I got, and if ONE person gets something out of it then it will be worth it.