Laid Bare: Essays and Observations (8 page)

But, still no word from Italy. Where were my pearls of wisdom; my words of encouragement? Where was the quote for my webpage?

After a second round of e-mail campaigning I received a note from a stranger saying, “I don’t know how you are as an actor, but you’re a helluva campaigner.”

Things were looking good.

As it happened, the day the ballots were counted I was on location north of San Francisco shooting a video. Someone from Equity would be calling with the results and I imagined being borne shoulder-high around the set after receiving the good news while Chi Chi playfully squirted me with lube and my costars presented me with a bouquet of condoms.

It was a tough B-Roll shoot that day, and I had forgotten about the election when, during a break, I checked my messages.

“Hello, this is Actor’s Equity calling with the election results…”

“Sshhhh! Quiet everybody. I think this is it!”, I hissed.

The voice continued: “We’re sorry to inform you that you did not…”

I gently closed my phone and stuck it in my bag.

I finished the day sporting a stiff upper lip (among other things) and rode silently back to the motel in the back of the van. After a shower I logged on to check my e-mail and, at last , there it was in my inbox:

“
Caro Gus,

I hope you yet visitation my beautiful official site where you can find and buy my beautiful book "Memorie" a colours of 192 pg. (photographer a colours) where you find any response for your many questions...

Big Kisses”

That was it? “Big kisses” and a pitch for her book? She didn’t even sign her name.

Later I learned that the meager 20% of the union membership who voted simply re-instated incumbent members. I came in 4
^th
out of seven; Kate one from the bottom (I guess Atlantic City just ain’t Broadway.) It’s a shame, because she’s well-spoken and committed.

Since the election, I’ve made a bunch of dirty movies, Kate’s playing Sally Bowles somewhere in Westchester County, and Cicciolina? Well, she’s selling her beautiful book online.

Losing my bid for Equity Council, combined with my twin losses at the GayVNs and Grabbys, proved to be discouraging, although it didn’t shake my conviction that I can lick butt better than any of those damned incumbents.

But you can be sure that next time I run for something, it’ll be a bus.

COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE

A little-reported subplot in the recent resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey is that persistent rumors regarding his homosexuality had been circulating since he assumed office. In other words, everyone already knew.

This is my case—inspired by several moving e-mails I have received from visitors to this site--for proudly stating (as Jim McGreevey did) that “I am a gay American.” As he said, coming out to the world will, “keep me from the pitfalls of a divided self or secret truths.”

Those “secret truths” are usually very open secrets; they’re the proverbial elephant in the room that goes unmentioned. But, by leaving things undefined, by not being clear about one’s relationship to the world vis-á-vis one’s sexuality, not only are those who would oppress us free to do so with impunity, those who love us are unable to fully share in our lives.

Dick Cheney supports gay marriage.

The one and only reason he arrived at that position is because his daughter is a lesbian. Polls have continuously shown that people who know homosexuals personally are more supportive of gay rights. Here’s a news flash for you:
everyone
knows a homosexual. They may not know they do, but I believe it’s more likely they’ve never had to deal with the obvious fact because the person in question has let them off the hook by remaining in the closet.

Therefore, by extrapolation, coming out helps not only the person making the announcement, but the gay population at large. Social policy is formed slowly, over time, as mores and beliefs evolve. Each man and woman who tells their loved ones “I’m gay” is helping to change the minds of six, eight, 10 other people directly and scores of others down the line. It’s not too farfetched to say that someone who comes out tomorrow is directly responsible for increasing the likelihood that gay marriage will be fully accepted in the future.

Your friends and family will appreciate it.

When a friend or relative or coworker is still in the closet, there tends to be a lot of acrobatic conversational skills in play. So much has to be talked around or ignored.

I’m not blind to the fact that some circumstances might make this task more challenging than others. In some parts of the country it is still pretty tough—if not outright dangerous—to be openly gay. Discretion and subtlety might be more suitable in these situations: why don’t you give your best girlfriend at the office an opening (and you know you have a best a girlfriend at the office) and casually mention that you can’t wait to see “Ocean’s Twelve” because you “think George Clooney is
so
handsome.” She’ll probably sigh and think to herself, “at last!”

People are fairly intuitive when it comes to those they love. The denial comes into play on the part of the closeted person. A friend of mine lived with his “roommate” in a beautifully decorated house with three Jack Russell Terriers and thought no one had a clue he was gay. I’ll wager even the dogs knew.

Because everyone already knows.

Your sister knows. Your father knows (although he’s running a close second in the denial department.) Brandy, the checkout girl down at the Piggly Wiggly knows. (Mike the bag boy
hopes
you’re gay, but, at 15, he’s not yet quite sure why he hopes that.)

Your business associates know.

A producer friend who came out late in life made a big production of taking his colleagues out to dinner—one at a time—to tell them what they had known for years. One actress breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Is
that
all? I was terrified you were going to ask me to do the revival of
Annie 2
!”

In my own case, my mother finally got fed up and said to me, “Tell me, because I know.” (Mom also confessed she knew I was gay when I was a baby. If she had any lingering doubts they were fully dispelled when, at age 13, I created a six-foot-long facsimile of Barbra Streisand’s signature—resplendent with silver glitter—on the wall of my bedroom.) We were then able to have a conversation without having to think about every word we said and were free to indulge in our normal Presbyterian hang-ups.

But, there’s one overwhelming, foudroyant reason for coming out, and it doesn’t involve your family and friends. It’s not about taking a political stance or moving the gay agenda forward. The best reason for coming out is this:
it is going to make you happy
. You will suddenly find that you’ve been unknowingly carrying an onerous and debilitating burden. This weight has been keeping your shoulders hunched and your arms at your sides when they could be spread wide as wings, allowing you to soar through your life, concealing nothing, no longer Earth-bound by “secret truths”.

When the Munchkins came out from wherever they were they discovered they had been liberated from a life of hiding and fear. Do yourself a favor: take Glinda’s advice. It got Dorothy home safe and it can get you there, too.

NORMAN RAE

Shouldn’t there be a union for guys in porn? I’m asked that question often. I understand the logic behind this and, as an insider, appreciate it even more than the porn-buying public at large. What’s more, I
am
a union man: I’m a dues-paying member of Actors’ Equity Association, the professional actors’ union. I’ve been active in union politics and served as a self appointed bur-under-the-saddle of the producers of the National Tour of “42
^nd
Street” a few years back when we were hampered with a sub-standard contract.

Bear all that in mind when I repeat my answer to the above-mentioned query: It ain’t gonna fly.

Labor is organized for two main purposes: to achieve fair wages for members’ efforts and to promote healthy and safe working conditions. Let’s address the second point first. Just what constitutes safe working conditions in an industry that is based around men having sex with other men? Mandatory condom usage? That’s already in place at all the mainstream studios. The barebacking fringe companies obviously would never agree to such demands. Guys that appear in bareback videos are pretty much blacklisted from the big studios. Let’s face it; the only foolproof way to ensure safe conditions on a porn set is to prohibit the sex. In the theater the actual performing surface is an issue in all contracts. Do you even want to think about the “performing surface” at the end of a video shoot? I don’t think so.

But it’s wages most people mean when they bring up the idea of a union. I wouldn’t know where to begin to set a fair
per scene
rate for a video shoot. (That’s how we’re paid in porn, incidentally; per scene.) What if the performer appears in a solo jackoff scene? Or is in the background in a large orgy? How about if a two-way evolves into a larger group after the initial cumshots? Should the first couple get paid for one or for two scenes? And what if a guy is unable to cum? Should there be a penalty? Or is there a bonus if he comes twice? What about minimum erection duration? Is a bottom more valuable than a top or vice versa? And what about workhorses like me who get saddled with lots of dialogue (“B-roll”, as it’s quaintly referred to in the industry) for no additional compensation? Should I go on strike? All by myself?

Which artfully brings us to the next point: A union of less than all possible talent is toothless. Collective bargaining can only work if the entire workforce is committed to the idea and willing to forego employment knowing that it will strengthen the union. Forming a Porn Actors’ Guild, like any other union, would entail initial drawbacks and monetary loss. Corporations don’t like unions. (Perhaps you’ve heard the name Wal-Mart?) They have to be wrassled to the ground to agree to an organized workforce. That means all of the guys making porn, and all the guys who are
thinking
about making porn, would have to decline movie gigs in the short-term until the studios had no choice but to hire union performers.

And here we have the crux of the matter. In porn, “short-term” is the only term there is. Men going into porn don’t think about it as a lifelong career. There are a very few cases where performers’ careers have lasted a decade or more, but you can count them on one hand. Most young men (and they
are
mostly young) aren’t thinking past the end of the day, much less 5 or 6 years down the road. Will they be willing to part with $500 of their $1000 fee for union initiation if they think this movie will be their first and last?

In 1913 New York actors shut down Broadway with a strike and forced the producers to the bargaining table. In 2003 one of the major issues confronting the 90-year-old union was the willingness of young performers to accept non-union employment. And that’s a business in which people hope to spend their entire lives. One afternoon on a porn set—as a lark—doesn’t engender commitment to “the cause.”

I’m no apologist for the porn industry. Do I think we performers are treated fairly by the production companies? No. Do I think the studios are making profits way out of proportion to what we’re paid? Yes, I do. Do I think we should earn residuals on the units sold? You bet. But there is no single performer in the business that could not be replaced with someone equally as popular, so holding out for a cut would be meaningless. When I was working regularly in porn was there anyone holding a gun to my head? Not that I ever noticed.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe the biggest dilemma facing the heads of the various production companies—several of whom are friends, I hasten to add--is how to spend their excess profits. And I do feel that the naïvete of vulnerable young men is exploited by those same companies. (If I were in charge of this hypothetical union, 30 would be the minimum age to be eligible to work.) But since I am congenitally unable to hold a job for any length of time I have work experience in many disparate fields and can say without hesitation that there is virtually nothing unique about the porn business.

Except that it can’t be organized.

THE HOUSE PAINTER

Climbing the sidewalk up the hill from the train, Clive Simmons managed to convey a sense of dignity despite the circumstances in which he found himself. The elbows and knees of his tweed suit were worn, but the suit itself was clean. With his thin, elegant moustache and slight British accent he managed to present a picture of someone who had not been as deeply affected by the Depression as, in fact, he had. Prosperity might be around the corner, as the last President had said, but Clive had never had a good sense of direction. So, he was glad to have the address--engraved just beneath “Mrs. Marion Giles, Rooms”--on the card he held in his hand.

Six months in New York after returning from his studies in France had left him near penniless. Evenings in his sweltering flat were spent anointing canvas after canvas with oil paints—tubes of color that were becoming more precious in direct proportion to his decreasing funds. His
maitre
in Paris had encouraged him in his visual experiment; Clive was trying to perfect the technique of seamlessly blending colors from opposite sides of the spectrum into one another. He hoped to reach the point where the viewer’s eye would discern cobalt blue, then cadmium orange then manganese violet before realizing the hue had completely changed. His work progressed through autumn and continued even now when the early winter cold made his fingers stiff as he stood at his easel. But, the matter of rent was quickly overriding artistic pursuit.