***

This DC’s post is dedicated to my friend Elizabeth ‘Eris’ Aldrich

 

***

James Nulick’s prose in The Moon Down to Earth is extraordinary, once harsh and tender, flaying and consoling, yet also enlivened by wit and erudition. The results are deeply revealing of the body’s incantatory rhythms, the somatic thought-forms. In this manner he delves with his reader to the limit of his characters’ souls.
—Jonathan Lethem

James Nulick is among the best living prose stylists. At the very least, he absolutely destroys every other small press author at writing those labyrinthine heartbreak sentences.
—Christopher Zeischegg, author of The Magician

 

***

A note from James
Of all the books I have written, The Moon Down to Earth is my favorite. I really enjoyed the characters, especially the kids. I hope you do, too. Love, James

 

***

Elizabeth

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ALWAYS GET WHAT THEY WANT

Beautiful people always get what they want. Thin people always get what they want. I am neither thin nor beautiful. My only advan¬tage is my sex, but even my sex is invisible, because when people see me, they only see fat, a fat woman. She is a fat woman. She is a disgusting woman. She is lazy and unattractive, and in the way. The words are always the same, and possess the same intent, to make me invisible. But I am here, with your children, in my small office with your children. I spend time alone with them, likely more time than you do. I listen to them, document their lies, their becoming. The older children, the eleven and twelve year olds, are sexual animals brutally navigating the outer perimeters of the adult world. I hear the cruel jokes, observe the obscene gestures. I watch them twitch in their seats, their bodies hard and muscular, their small breasts cupped by unseen hands, a projector in the dark briefly illuminat¬ing furtive movement.

***

I catalog their desires, their fears. Who hovers over them at night? Who touches this boy, whispers lies to that girl? I gently place my hands on either side of their scalp and split their heads open, like a melon, to see what is inside. I am trusted, a paid professional, I possess the correct pieces of paper, the documents that proclaim I belong, and yet still I walk through the world as if there were not another soul in it, as if I alone survived a great cataclysm. I am here, and because I am invisible, I am free to document its lies, its iniq¬uities. I do this with the carefully scribbled notebooks of the car¬tographer, the human heart a map I have underscored many times yet still do not understand. Those who claim to understand it are liars. I smooth my dress, tamp my collar, put on a human face, and open the door. You do not see me but I am here, with your children.

***

I was born thirty years too late. My time is not my time, and I do not belong here. Mother says I have a 1940s sensibility, and I agree. She should know, she was born during that time, when World War II was winding down. The future had been upended, yet the State prospered, and in that prosperous time, a great many people were born. Mother is one of those people. I arrived in the great hereaf¬ter, a time of cocaine and selfishness. I prefer dresses, hats, modest makeup, a complete covering of the body. Too many are willing to divulge the secrets of the body too quickly. There is no mystery left in the world, just show and tell. Those who show the most get the most stars, the most clicks, the most votes. Some even vote for themselves. What the star-gatherers don’t realize is one becomes very old very quickly when one is chasing emptiness. When I was a teacher, before I became a counselor, I preferred the darkness of a classroom in early summer, when May is in full bloom, when the children have just a few weeks left of classes, and the clock is sitting at 3:15. I prefer solitude, and quiet, and people who do not tell me things upon first meeting them. Mother and I enjoy cards, double solitaire, our packs north and south of each other, across the dining room table, or on nights when mother is restless, thirty-one, though I am not competitive or a gambler by nature. Mother and I also like game shows, and singing contests, where the star-gathering is light¬hearted and artificial, and everyone on screen knows their bound¬aries and respects them.

***

Some would say I am exceedingly plain. Others, ugly. It must be a terrible burden to be beautiful, to have others look at you with only one thing in mind, yet it is what I have always wanted. We always want what we cannot have, at least that is the general consensus. I don’t believe it, though. Mother says if we can visualize it, it can be ours. To be a slab of meat on a hook, to be massaged and brushed and waited on like the special cattle in Japan. Secretly this is what every woman wants, to be waited on, to be a princess in her room, surrounded by beautiful things. I have friends who exist outside my door, real friends, and they all say the same thing. He swept me off my feet. He was so handsome, and he told me I was his princess. I got married in a white dress on the beach… But must a woman define herself by a man? If a younger woman is alone, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, she is suspect, yet when a man in his thirties or forties is alone, he is called a bachelor, or restless, or on the market. It all comes back to being a piece of meat on a hook, which is what we all want, if we are honest with ourselves.

***

I am not a Beth, or a Liz, or the dreaded Lisa. I am Elizabeth. My last name, Salas, is a palindrome. It has a slightly satanic look to it, don’t you agree? I am the same today as I was yesterday, alone. I have mother, but Mother never wanted me. She has told me this on several occasions, usually while we’re arguing over some ridiculous small nothing. You’re just like your father, Elizabeth. I don’t want to watch this program, change it. You are so stubborn, Elizabeth. I’d tell you just wait, just wait until you have children of your own, but of course you won’t, what man in his right mind would have you? What man would want you? Your father was an idiot, he wanted children but he couldn’t even keep a steady job. You’re just like him. You want the child but you have to find a man first, my dear. I told him I didn’t want children but he didn’t believe me, as if not want¬ing children was somehow an ungodly thing. What kind of wom¬an doesn’t want children? She must be the devil! Your father was a fieldworker, and every time I look at you, I see him. You’re both so big and stupid. He’s probably dead now. Mother! Too dumb to stay alive. It’s the truth dear, and the sooner you accept it the better off you’ll be.

***

I am a counselor. I counsel children. Certification K-12, though my certificate is Elementary K-8. I hold a Master’s in counseling, spe¬cifically an MEd, a Master of Arts in Education, School Counseling, though for brevity, and to save parents the embarrassment of won¬dering what an MEd is, the North Hill District has placed the words MA, NCC (National Certified Counselor) behind my name on my business cards. I have a nameplate inlaid with my name, gold etched in black, attached by adhesive to a solid block of white marble, the shape of it resembling an expensive, dusty Toblerone, which I pur¬chased from House of Trophies shortly after I earned my Master’s, as a reward to myself for having survived two years of sustained misery. The name on my nameplate is simplified – Elizabeth Salas, MA, NCC. Titles don’t impress me, having earned one. At most they say you’ve spent many years ignoring the people around you. People most interested in titles are often the people who don’t have one.

***

I am a roving counselor, traveling between five schools. It didn’t use to be like this, when I first became a counselor, one could survive on an educator’s salary. That is all gone now, so many educators have second jobs. I have a small office in my primary location. My home school is Greenwood Meadows, nicknamed Ghetto Meadows by the students (and privately, the staff) because it is in an undesirable part of town, on the Northwestern edge of Río Seco, in a Hispanic neighborhood, the green grass of the school yard bleeding onto the cement slab of the veranda, and beyond the six foot tall chain link, which reminds me of a prison yard, the small tract houses of North Hill. The grass is greenest in winter, though it is always summer in my mind. There are also blacks and working-class whites, which is to say poor whites, and there are carports with dusty cars on blocks, their wheels and tires long removed, the fingers of hubs poking the darkness, the undercarriage of the vehicle sticky with spider webs. I live here and feel safe here, in North Hill. I travel to satellite schools during the workweek, to counsel children. I always feel like an intruder at the satellite schools, using an office that isn’t mine, talking with administrative staff who nod at me as if I were not in the room, just a phantom in an oversized dress. The teachers are the worst. They treat professional staff, counselors, speech therapists, as if they are underlings to be spat upon. Oddly, paraprofessionals are treated with more respect than licensed counselors. I’d walk into the teacher’s lounge and the old women would clam up, speaking in tongues about such and such, who was the dumbest child, how awfully young and ignorant Miss _______ was, how many pallets of _______ they bought at Costco the previous evening. How quickly the memory fades. I used to be one of you. Now that I’ve earned an MA in counseling they want nothing to do with me, the old women as cliquish now as they were when they were in high school a hun¬dred years ago.

***

I began in the classroom as a teacher, grade five, taught in the class¬room for seven years, earned a Master’s degree in counseling while teaching, including nights and weekends, which meant I didn’t have the nights or weekends other teachers did. I attended a real universi¬ty, most of my counseling studies performed at a satellite extension of the university here in Río Seco, the university two hours north of the city. It was real work, which took time away from my life, no online diploma mill fakery. I have been an elementary school coun¬selor for eleven years, and here I am, forty-three years old, single, living with Mother, and never having once felt the touch of a man. When I was a teacher I didn’t like a single minute of it. The children are animals, cataloging and giving voice to every fault. You’re so fat, Ms. Salas. Your fingers are so fat, Ms. Salas. Why do you have so many freckles, Ms. Salas –

***

It is during the early teens when children truly begin learning how to lie, holding things back, and always for their own preservation. It comes with the first blood ruining an innocent pair of panties, the first ejaculation in the privacy of a bedroom, hovering over an im¬age on a phone, forgetting how to walk. A girl forgets how to walk and she turns dark, has boys on her mind, and never again will she trust another woman, including her own mother. These are skin¬ny girls, of course. Even tomboys eventually get away with murder once their breasts push through their shirts, loud as Jacaranda in spring. But a fat girl, an ugly girl, a girl with heavy ugly eyeglasses and a wardrobe from Goodwill, they will forever be invisible. And yet women are still evil toward other women. There is no distinctive class, no sense of communalism, not even a reading club. I walk through a school hallway on my way to my small grey office and it’s as if I’m not there. Children scatter, grouped in clans and lost in their cell phones, and adults look to an invisible point on the hori¬zon, their lips pressed tightly against the natural urge to say hello.

***

I have very few friends, and they are only acquaintances, if I am honest with myself. There is Jeffrey at my home school, a wisp of a man who teaches fifth grade, and sometimes we have lunch to¬gether. I watch him as he straightens his tie, his eyes lost on a boy’s behind. He has a partner, an anonymous something lacking any distinctive facial features. He has short hair, I remember that, and talks about Manhattan as if he’s been there, but I know he’s a liar from Minneapolis. Other than Minneapolis and Río Seco, I doubt he’s been anywhere. I’ve met him a few times, have passed a pleas¬ant evening with him, but we sit across the dinner table from each other and commit to nothing. I don’t want another queer in my life, I want a man.

***

Mr. Goldhagen leans across the table, his voice a whisper. He speaks so low he’s difficult to understand. I nod my head in agreement, though his words weave in and out. I once had a student come into the classroom while I was reviewing afternoon lessons, they were at lunch, and in walks Marcus, who is, you know, a dumb sort of hand¬some. Mr. Goldhagen, my zipper’s stuck. I have to be good, I try to be good, but here I am fidgeting with this kid’s zipper, my knuckles brushing against his you know what, and I’m kind of getting excited by it, thinking if someone walks in right now… You’re so silly, Jef¬frey. I see the evil behind it because I am invisible, I do not figure into anyone’s calculations. Queers are no different than straights, some old straights want little girls and some old queers want little boys. Is there a real man out there who can love me?

***

I am less than nothing when the day is tallied and forgotten. There are others, a woman who teaches a fourth fifth combination class. We occasionally have lunch together. She is thin and unhappy, mar¬ried to an unpleasant man who is cheating on her. I don’t know what to do, Elizabeth, we’ve been together nine years, and I don’t want to lose Bill. Have you thought of counseling, I suggest. She shakes her head, thinking of the unpleasant drive home. I am se¬cretly happy knowing it is possible for a thin woman to experience unhappiness. I am pleasant, and I smile, knowing she will go home once again to a terrible man and I will go home to nothing, only Mother’s accusations and a cold laptop.

***

The small insults one suffers daily. The hangnails, the knees that no longer work properly, the gradual betrayal of your body, you need to lose weight, my doctor says, or both your knees will need to be replaced, him having said this before they were both replaced, the same soft flat black shoes I buy over and over again, the world’s largest ballerina, wondering just once what a pair of heels might feel like, younger teachers flitting to and fro on heels that betray the laws of physics, a child blatantly calling me fat. Why are you so fat, Ms. Salas? Stubbornly unmoving in his seat, dirty hands tucked under each armpit as a band of heat tightens around my head, a small tyrant in a district chair. Different people have different bod¬ies, Luis, surely you must know that by now? But why are you so fat, a smile pulling across his very white teeth, a blank screen on which girls see their reflection. His teeth nestled in the pink seat of his gums, a small tongue already capable of so much damage. I wonder at the skull beneath the cinnamon skin, so round, perfect, and white. We all have different bodies, Luis. You must learn to respect other people’s bodies. I place a hand on his knee and he pulls back, visibly startled, the fat woman daring to touch him. If you don’t learn how to respect other people’s bodies, you’ll end up alone. No I won’t. Someday someone beautiful will leave you – No they won’t – and I stop there, having moved into territory the Dis¬trict would never approve of, the child is protected by law against such behavior. Someday when you meet that special someone you should remember they deserve respect, just as you do. Maybe, he says, pulling his knee out from under my hand. He is handsome and he knows it, his only gift in a migrant trailer park life, his mother catering to him because of his looks, because he is her favorite, be¬cause of his perfect teeth, and already he is ruined…

 

Jace

MY BLOOD IS A SPIDER

All these people bouncing around, shepherding amoeba. There is a presence in my room. It hangs in the corner, observing everything, even the darkness. I’m usually not afraid. I brush it from the wall, it sticks to my fingers. I’m in a trance. When I move to another room, my blood moves with me, I carry it in my fingers, my legs, my heart. My feet are seventy inches from my head. When I touch a keyboard the blood in my fingertips kisses the plastic and music is made. The plastic rises to greet my fingers, as if it senses the blood below the surface, the music already there. I bend into the keyboards, the keys becoming more human than plastic. The music slowly chang¬es, takes on a less metallic quality. It possesses warmth that can’t be achieved without folding into the machine. Sometimes when I’m on the bed with Choco, my brindle pit, I stare at my toes, my socks off, and wonder how my toes got so far away from my head. Does the head need to be that far from the feet? Do people without legs think faster than people with them? Less travel time? Is the blood in my toes the same blood in my fingertips? Blood touches plastic to bend waves of music across the room. My body, a prison, ware¬housing thoughts best unspoken, emotions unfit for display, and the me-ness rushes into my body when I wake. If we wake someone abruptly in the night, someone sleeping next to us, how long does it take before they become them again? Is it dangerous, the moment they are becoming?

***

Reality is a video game created by your brain. The game is ON from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep. At night the game goes into sleep mode. The cycle continues perpetually un¬til someone or something turns the power OFF. I gently remove my head from my body, bounce it from hand to hand, and pull back the supple Flesh. My thoughts, exposed. I move my head behind my back and slowly let it travel up the spine to the shoulder blades, two great peaks meet in the valley of desire. I see my body as Nicole sees my body, I move over curves known and unknown, seen from this angle, with my floating head, everything appears as delicate and smooth as mountains on Mars, turning over in bed, a nipple becomes Alba Mons, the depression of my sternum between two outcroppings, Tharsis. Choco lifts his head, tilts it at a slight an¬gle, wondering where I have gone, buffing my kneecap with his wet nose. I lay my skull to rest in my Lap, everything looks bigger down here, I conveyer-belt my head between my legs until it rolls to rest at my feet, Emerson’s wandering eyeball, wishing Mama were here with me. I miss Mama and Papa together, the old times. But she is only an exaggeration, a hallucination, yes? Mama wouldn’t recog¬nize me now, with my head off, lying in bed with Choco, Nicole tapping on her iPhone, where are you? Me ignoring the three dots, I’m busy. Enough of this nonsense, where is your head? I soccer-ball my head off a kneecap back onto my neck, where it quietly Ziplocs into place, order restored. My iPhone rests in the smooth valley of my sternum, Nicole’s fingers beating in time to my heartbeat, her heart a quasar in the darkness, a Morse code message only I know how to decode.

***

My blood is a spider, see it move from room to room? The beating in my ears is the ocean. Our blood contains the same elements as the ocean, we are tied, the moon, the ocean, the stars, my feet in my Vans, on this sidewalk, my butt on this seat, my shoes, on concrete, on the linoleum of the restaurant, connected with other people, my feet connected to the floor through one inch soles, and other peo¬ple, the floor, what if everyone had their shoes off? We didn’t used to be like this, everyone with their shoes on. I have a tattoo, a black spider, on the crook of my arm, the soft inside, and the spider be¬comes visible when my arm is down, not too big, maybe the size of a quarter, and some people have said why get a tattoo, no one can see it. People are ignorant, and I could live a thousand years and it wouldn’t change, we are not yet ready to flow freely into the imagination, Terence says, at least not as a group. We’re still too fo¬cused on sex and skin color, that’s what Andrés* says, and he’s right, humans still bickering over land, land that can’t be owned, yet we plant stakes in it. Only the individual can flow into the imagination, when it’s time, but have we learned anything when the time comes? What if we are unprepared? I also have a tattoo of a dagger on my left calf, a dagger that looks like an upside-down cross. Are you a Satanist? Javier asked. What of it? I said, which scared him. Or is it my hair he’s afraid of? I like BMX, and Death Cab, and Kendrick, and it throws him off. He doesn’t know how to classify me. When I look down on it, on the dagger, I see it right-side up, my eyes turn it upside down in my brain, and what we’re seeing isn’t real anyway, nothing beyond the skull is real. We’re always producing our own reality. People don’t like it when you don’t do what you’re supposed to. The world is a big place, and there isn’t enough love in it…

*Andrés – pronounced ON drace

 

 

Jace Tunes

1). U2 – Zooropa

2). N.E.R.D. – Lapdance

3). CLIPSE – Grinding

4). RADIOHEAD – Idioteque

5). DON CHERRY – Brown Rice

6). TALKING HEADS – Crosseyed and Painless

7). TOM TOM CLUB – Genius of Love

This song is for my homeslice BABY

8). SPYMOB – Half-Steering

 

JACE TV

These selections are {{{ stroboscopic }}} so please be careful

9). MARK BURNETT – Subrosa Griffin Line

10). THE NEPTUNES – The Eighth Planet

 

 

Death is not a frightful thing, it is freedom. Our death empties us into the imagination of the universe.

I LOVE YOU

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Today the blog again puts on its red carpet drag in order to form the groundwork leading up to a dawning book, in this case the fine scribe James Nulick’s newborn novel ‘The Moon Down to Earth’, which enters the realm of availability as of today. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to explore the related introduction put together by Mr. Nulick himself, and then, yeah, get your hands, etc. on the thing itself. Sound good? Thank you for entrusting your bells and whistles to this platform, James. ** _Black_Acrylic, I hope you’re still feeling right as rain this morning. ‘The Ripper’, eh? I don’t have Netflix, but there must be another way in. ** David Ehrenstein, I did look for stuff on LA’s Basic Plumbing, and there was nothing, zip. There doesn’t seem to be any big nostalgia about it which surprised me since everyone I knew who went to such places went there. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Thanks, pal. I’m very glad you liked ‘Modern’ and ‘Berg’. Two highlights for sure. My pleasure re: the introductions. Yeah, I see that North America is pretty snowed in and frozen out atm. Or the eastern part at least. No such luck here. Do you not have any pals whose eyes you would entrust to check out the current state of your story and give you an objective read? Maybe you just need to turn away from it for a short time and refresh yourself somehow? I know I can get to points where I’m almost too locked into something I’m working on and get kind of too clogged up to see it straight. Be patient, man, you’ll get there, no doubt about it. ** Sypha, Ha ha, I can see you liking that sex club art. That’s interesting. That blue lion is very you. Somehow. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. It’s true. How great it would be if one could walk by buildings and see what they’d been. Just recently I happened to look more closely at the facade of an outlet of The Gap that I walk by all the time only to finally notice a plaque indicating that what is now The Gap was once the place where the very first ever movie (by the Melies maybe?) was publicly screened for the very first time. ** Misanthrope, I have been to sex clubs, yes. Not for a long time and not as frequently as people probably assume I have. And I never had sex in them. Wait, unless brothels count. I did have sex in brothels in Amsterdam way back. But otherwise I never found them sexy. Or I didn’t find public sex sexy. I used to go mostly to observe and take notes. Mental notes. Yeah, I mean $600 is a ridiculous fucking pittance for what people have had to go through. I mean wtf. So the CT scan was like trying on a hat. Glad that’s now forgettable history. ** Steve Erickson, My mom used to go to Plato’s Retreat after, and I think during, my parents’ divorce. Mm, your snow storm. Saw pix. I’m holding out a very shy hope that we get at least one of them before winter exits. ** Brian O’Connell, Howdy Brian. Thanks. Yeah, I think few sex clubs will survive the pandemic. It took years for them to re-arise after the most hellish period of the AIDS crisis only to be smitten down by another enemy of the libidinous. In school I was fine with Math until it turned into Algebra and Geometry and worse even stuff. I would have to say French must be one of my tough spots too since I’ve lived here for ages and still only have a barely rudimentary understanding of it. It’s a wrap! Congratulations, sir! This calls for champagne or whatever your preferred inebriant may be. The miniature Buche turned out to be extremely disappointing in the looks department but it tasted swell. On to the next candidate. Happy Xmas-y Friday to you! ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. I used to see that ad on TV, and, yes, I think it was either extremely late at night or on a Public Access channel. Excellent that the excellent company made the excellent decision. Stability is no small help towards one’s creative aspect, so big up in theory. Well, I wrote the first draft of ‘TAP’ in one draft. I did fiddle with a lot though maybe less than I usually do. Thanks about it. If there’s ever a ‘Best of Dennis Cooper’ book ‘TAP’ should definitely be in it. It sounds like the best idea for you is to get back to Tel Aviv under the circumstances, yes, as internally complicated as that departure will surely be. Um, I’ve always felt I was a pretty picky reader. I do think whatever tolerance I may have once had for conventional, ‘literary’ fiction is completely gone. SciFi is one my hugest weak spots as a reader. Barely read any and never have felt a lot of inclination to for reasons unknown. I only really know the really obvious stuff: K. Dick, Gibson, Delany, Ballard, some of the Cyberpunk 80s stuff, … ** Right. Give yourselves over to Mr. Nulick’s novel’s pre-show please. Thanks. See you tomorrow.

______________

Everard Baths (NYC)
‘No one knows exactly how many men were inside the Everard Baths in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 25, 1977. Maybe there were 80 to 100, as the building owner estimated later. Maybe there were more. Tuesday night was a big night at the baths, and many of the men would have rented one of the 135 tiny cubicles for $7 for 12 hours, or just a locker for $5. They would have been hanging out in the steam room or the sauna, grabbing something to eat from the snack shop in the lobby, swimming laps in the heavily chlorinated pool in the basement, getting a massage, smoking a joint, buying drugs from the attendant on the third floor, or having sex on a bed in one of the private cubicles or the big, communal L-shaped dormitory, also known as the orgy room. But by the time the fire engines came wailing down 28th Street around 7 a.m., nine men — trapped inside a building with blocked-up windows and no fire escapes — would not make it out alive.

‘In his memoir City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and 1970s, Edmund White remembers the Everard as “filthy … It didn’t have the proper exits or fire extinguishers, just a deep, foul-smelling pool in the basement that looked infected.” And Rumaker describes seeing a naked man who looked uncomfortable lying in his cubicle: “In spite of his display of nudity and the knuckle-whitened hand clenched at his crotch, he appeared, from the tension in his face, in no way to be awaiting some delightful erotic occurrence. If anything, he looked afraid of getting beaten up, or murdered — not uncommon fears in the backs of the minds of most gay males. But here that seemed, though not impossible, at least less likely to occur than elsewhere.”‘

 

______________

Club Echangiste Louis Poirson (France)
‘Another libertine club victim of too severe administrative rules. After several warnings and hefty fines, the manager had no other solution than to close his establishment in 2008. You are certainly not aware of it, but these places, with light mores, are subject to several rules that must be observed.

‘The rule that this club too often neglected and which ultimately sentenced it to death was a failure to comply with the maximum quota of people allowed in orgy. Indeed, since 1998, the state has limited this practice to 8 people. In the past, several cases of fatal suffocation prompted the administration to respond. Too many people in an orgy can lead to a lack of oxygen and breathing.’

 

______________

Sewers of Paris (Hollywood)
1969-1976

 

______________

Plato’s Retreat (NYC)
‘Opened in 1977, Plato’s Retreat held court in the basement of the then-crumbling Beaux Arts Ansonia Hotel on Broadway and West 74th Street.

‘Management laid out strict rules: No gay men, couples only (though women could have sex with each other), no drugs, no booze.

‘Celebrities indulged in orgies with regular joes and janes from the suburbs. A “mat room” was for exhibitionist sex. Clothes were optional. Guests could bump uglies in the disco, the Jacuzzi, and the huge swimming pool.

‘Of course, it wouldn’t last long. In 1980, Plato’s Retreat moved out of the Ansonia to a much bigger space at 509 West 34th Street. Owner Larry Levenson went to prison for tax evasion in 1981.

‘And then AIDS hit the city. Mayor Koch ordered the health department to shut down gay bathhouses as well as straight sex clubs like Plato’s Retreat. By 1985, it was over.’

 

______________

Unknown (Wales)
‘Due to the nature of the place the history of it is a bit hard to come by as it was shrouded in secrecy. Even the members weren’t allowed to talk about what went on here.’

 

______________

Tweedland Gentlemen’s Club (London)
‘The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London, was discovered by police. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and the brothel’s clients faced possible prosecution and certain social ostracism if discovered. It was rumoured that one client was Prince Albert Victor, who was the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and second-in-line to the British throne, though this rumour has never been substantiated. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of any aristocratic patrons.

‘Another client was said to be Lord Arthur Somerset, an equerry to the Prince of Wales. Both he and the brothel keeper, Charles Hammond, managed to flee abroad before a prosecution could be brought. The male prostitutes, who also worked as telegraph messenger boys for the Post Office, were given light sentences and no clients were prosecuted. After Henry James FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, was named in the press as a client, he successfully sued for libel. The British press never named Prince Albert Victor, and there is no evidence he ever visited the brothel, but his inclusion in the rumours has coloured biographers’ perceptions of him since.

‘The scandal fuelled the attitude that male homosexuality was an aristocratic vice that corrupted lower-class youths. Such perceptions were still prevalent in 1895 when the Marquess of Queensberry accused Oscar Wilde of being an active homosexual.

‘HISTORICAL NOTES: In 1889, the year in which this scandal takes place, it is legal for girls aged 12 and boys aged 14 to marry (with parental consent). Most people started work at the age of 6 (or younger) to help support their families and men had a life expectancy of just 40-45 years of age. Male homosexuality was illegal and punishable, if convicted of buggery, to penal servitude for life or for any term of not less than ten years. The death penalty for buggery had only recently been abolished in 1861.’

 

______________

Bolero (Switzerland)
‘Bolero club is a sauna/swingers club. We provide a private atmosphere where you can mix and mingle with other swingers from all around the world. Come and be adventurous.’

 

______________

Basic Plumbing (Seattle)
‘David Meinert, the indefatigable restaurant and music impresario behind the 5 Point Cafe in Belltown and Big Mario’s on E. Pike, is teaming up with the similarly indefatigable Jason Lajeunesse (Capitol Hill Block Party and a partner in Big Mario’s) on a new 24-hour diner for Capitol Hill.

‘The location is the building that currently houses Basic Plumbing, a gay bathhouse on 10th Avenue, around the corner from The Comet tavern and next to Elliott Bay Cafe. “The layout will be very similar to the 5-Point,” Meinert tells Eater. “The menu will be the same: big portions, stiff drinks.”

‘Basic Plumbing wasn’t like other bathhouses where you disrobed and walked around in a towel or nothing at all. Quite the contrary, you just walked around and around and around and around in semi-darkness wearing the clothes you came in with.

‘The labyrinth-like rooms and pathways were all situated on one floor. Along one corridor are a series of short stalls; I’m assuming this area was perfect for gay midgets or men who simply wanted to have a seat on their knees. I seem to remember a lounge area where you can surf the web or purchase a soft drink.’

 

_______________

Swingers Tiki Palace (Chattanooga)
‘Tiki Palace in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hosted hundreds of seedy sex parties after it was built in the 1970s but it was abandoned after the owner Billy Hull was jailed for murder.’

 

_______________

Club Sex Alcatraz (Prague)
‘Alcatraz was actually two venues: a typical Czech pub (but with a gay clientele) and underneath a gay sex club, particularly popular with the leather and uniform crowd. Although to some eyes the place could seem a bit rough, it was well liked due to its lack of attitude and overall friendliness. The sex club was well equipped with dark rooms, video cabins and various other speciality rooms. Many locally produced porn movies were shot in its location. They had naked parties every Sunday. There was a modest entrance fee.’

 

_______________

Utopia (Staffordshire)
‘Dom Jennings, 29, from Stoke-on-Trent, has visited dozens of old buildings, including Utopia – an old swingers club in Staffordshire – and began taking pictures of the sites as a hobby during lockdown. While exploring the venue he came across a salt bath, caged rooms, membership forms of those who visited the club, stilettos, wigs and BDSM apparatus.

Utopia was closed in 2007, and boasted a swimming pool, jacuzzi and sauna room along with a host of private rooms for guests to enjoy each others company in. ‘It was really creepy to walk around, the whole place was falling down and I could see all these different X-rated rooms, god knows what went on here.

”I stumbled across wigs, and what I think were sex dungeons, they were little rooms with caged entrances and they looked like jails. I did some research and found the name out, it closed a while ago and at one point caught fire and has been left alone since. I came across a BDSM table which I opted not to touch because of who had probably touched it in the past, the whole place was like a museum to its former self.’

 

_______________

Caligula (Astoria, Queens)
‘An illegal swingers’ club violating health and liquor laws with more than 80 attendees was shut down Sunday by the New York City’s Sheriff’s Office, authorities said. Two organizers and a club patron of Caligula were charged with multiple demeanors, the sheriff’s office said. The location did not have a liquor license or special permit to sell or store alcohol, according to the sheriff’s office. Deputies said they arrived shortly after midnight on Sunday at the “sex club” in Astoria, Queens, where they allegedly observed 3 couples engaging in sexual intercourse in one small room. The bust comes days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo expanded the city’s Covid-19 micro-cluster plan last Wednesday to include Astoria under the “yellow zone,” which caps mass gatherings at 25 people.’

 

_______________

The Meat Market (Gardena, CA)

 

______________

Kino-Labyrinth (Vienna)
‘As the name might already indicate, it was a labyrinth where you dove into the mysterious world of erotic: separées, cosy cabins, artificial landscapes and much more. Although most popular among gay men, it was open to heterosexuals, bis, queers, the transgendered, and everything in between. Ten different programmes were displayed on monitors and cinemas. It closed permanently in July 2020 during the COVID pandemic.’

 

_______________

The Mineshaft (NYC)
‘Upon arrival the Mineshaft’s nondescript street-level door opened to a stairway which led up to the doorkeeper, sitting on a barstool. If you could pass muster you were let in.

‘The Mineshaft had rules of entrance, denim and leather only, no shirts with little alligators, no sneakers, and absolutely no cologne. But once inside everything was fair game. The Mineshaft existed for one reason and one reasons alone.. SEX. Pure hedonistic no-limits sex.

‘Just inside the door was the big bar area with its low lights and pool tables. Behind a partition was the “action” part of the club on two floors. There was an entire wall of glory holes with people kneeling in front of crotch-high holes and servicing disembodied erections.

‘A whole rabbit warren of small rooms was downstairs, a re-creation of a jailcell, the back of a truck, dungeons and the most infamous room talked about in NYC at the time. A room where there was a bathtub in which men so inclined would would take turns being pissed on. But there were glimpses of romance at the Mineshaft: in the basement two stoned men are kissing passionately under black light.unaware of everyone around them, while feet away another man was blindfolded sitting in a sling while a group of men took turns fucking him.

‘The Mineshaft was closed by the New York City Department of Health on November 7, 1985.’

 

______________

Private Eyes Club (Niagara Falls)
‘I spent my share of time here with friends over the years, whether it was a fun filled lunch while attending Niagara College, or during some crazy nights while I served in the Army reserves in St Catherines, Private Eyes was always a dump but provided a few nights of entertainment.

‘Looking back at my exploration of this abandoned strip club, it was DISGUSTING, there were three areas for private dances and in every one of them I found multiple open condom packages, used and unused condoms and other various and equally disgusting things scattered about the floor, the tables and on the couches themselves.

‘Upstairs in the change-rooms, lockers still had locks on them some were opened and full of high heels, make up, bras, underwear and more condoms. I was very careful to touch nothing and only film and take photos.’

 

______________

Club Latex (Louisville, Kentucky)
‘Construction workers made an unusual discovery while they were excavating below a historic area of Louisville, Kentucky. Unnerving oil paintings and a decrepit bondage bed with a rusted chain pulled by a handle at one end give hints to what may have been a sado-masochistic swingers club of years past. The erotic discovery was made beneath a buildings on the city’s historic Whiskey Row when a demolition team went in as part of a restoration project that is expected to cost $7 million.

‘According to local station WHAS-11, the club was found two floors below 119 East Main Street. The area was originally known for its connection to the city’s bourbon whiskey production, and in keeping with that tradition, they found 1,000 discarded whiskey bottles. While that was fitting with the area’s industry, the torture chamber was obviously less expected.

‘A wooden rack with a rusted chain at one end that could be cranked by an operator shows how an element of pain was certainly involved with the basement’s former use. The eerie oil paintings of ghouls in outstretched sado-masichistic positions give a very clear picture of what the intended use of the club was. WHAS reports that the club opened in the 1970s and remained operational until the 1990s.’

 

______________

Paresis Hall (NYC)
‘The good looking teen age boys in the photographs were a famous cyclist and an artisocrat’s son, and both were “workers” at the infamous “Paresis Hall” male brothel that was located in New York City. Situated on Fifth & Bowery, off of Coopers Square. Paresis was one of 3 male to male clubs that existed in NYC beginning in 1890. The number of clubs increased to no fewer than 6 by the early 1900’s, which leaves one to wonder in Victorian Society, when this sort of behavior… simply did not exist… business was brisk! Male bonding was practiced to the extreme in every possible way.’

 

______________

Man’s Country (Chicago)
‘During its 44 years in Chicago, Man’s Country evolved into a complex of repeatedly changing spaces. Local gay historian Owen Keehnen, who co-wrote with Reader publisher Tracy Baim a biography of Chuck Renslow, says Man’s Country at one point boasted a leather shop and a shop selling western wear, alongside its gym, whirlpool, glory holes, and music hall.

‘“I think one of the things that [Renslow] really focused on was that it was much more than a place to go just for sex; it was also a communal area,” Keehnen says. “It was very important to him to have the music hall, and that the music hall, you know, would have entertainment. And it could be a place to socialize.”

‘In an essay on his website, “Brotherhood of the White Towel,” Keehnen also described how Man’s Country brought in popular performers with a gay cult following, including Boy George, the Village People, and Divine.

‘And as a testament to the love for Man’s Country, a 13-hour New Year’s Eve party closed the storied space, with some patrons taking a literal piece of it with them. Adam and Skye Rust, the owners of Andersonville’s Woolly Mammoth Antiques & Oddities, removed a handful of the glory holes in the days after the space closed, selling all but one. The remaining glory hole now hangs proudly in their shop.’

 

_______________

Maison le prostituée (Netherlands)
‘My name’s Takiany and I am 28 years old! In company with my friends I’d like to travel across Europe exploring abandoned places!’

 

_______________

Les Bains Douches (Paris)
‘Before it became an icon of Parisian nightlife, it was Marcel Proust’s favourite bath house a century earlier. In 1978, it became Paris’ answer to Studio 54, overflowing with famous faces; a cultural institution fuelled by sex, drugs, disco … and midnight swimming.

‘“Magnifique, Magique, Mythique”, writes one former patron describing Les Bains Douches, reminiscing over the photo gallery of the former nightclub’s resident photographer, Foc Kan. We’re looking at his raw photographs of the years he spent snapping the debaucherous goings on at the legendary night spot. The ‘Belle Époque’ of clubbing, if you will, he claims was around 1985, “when we didn’t know all about AIDs. Everyone was having sex with everyone, anytime, anywhere, we were free.”’

 

_______________

Dragon Club (Singapore)
‘Mixed sauna with steam room, private cabins, maze, and TV lounge. Massage service and free WiFi. Hosted weekly themed events including Skin Nite on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Drinks and instant noodles were available for purchase, and there was a smoking area located within the rooftop garden. It had a relaxed atmosphere with a welcoming policy that “never rejects anyone in Singapore”. No membership fee. Located on Pagoda Street (above a Thai restaurant). Closed permanently April 2020’

Weilun –
“Went there on the 4th day of chinese new year. Totally turned off, major turn off moment in there!! Freaking CNY music playing with bunches of old women!
HELLO DJ! You expect your patron sing along with your cny song while looking women? Please choose your song list wisely… its a sauna, not cny bazaar…“

CNY –
“Hello!! It is Chinese New Year. You shouldn’t go out looking women if you dislike Chinese new year song.“

Jonathan –
“Lots of old women! When I say old I really mean it, it’s like grandmas age Chinese old women…
Spend nearly 2 hours and hardly see young women.“

Timmy –
“After paying full amount to get in, I find the place empty and dirty, I go back to the niceguy at the reception, he starts getting aggressive and shouts at me: “leave now leave now ” and he insults me. Do not go there.“

Kong –
“Dragon Club supposedly occupied from a former abandoned club, inherited almost all of the premise property and space. Some shower nozzles are already ripped off, paint work of the walls peeling off, stench smell almost all over, rooms are dirty, etc. They should have done some renovation before taking over the place. Look from this angle, no chill section, steam room notorious dark, movement between 2 separate sets of rooms can be horrific with those flimsy staircase, no sauna, rooms just disgusting when you lie down…all for 12 bucks.”

 

_______________

Vivente (Sunderland, UK)
‘A sadomasochist swingers club complete with its own dungeon was run as a deathtrap, a court heard. Vivente private members club, in Sunderland, was closed down following an inspection which ruled lives of customers were placed in danger. The court heard the club was littered with candles, while walls were coated with a flammable plastic material and escape routes were strewn with combustible objects.

‘Loss of life in the event of a blaze was said to be a “significant possibility”. Vivente, which boasted on its website that it was equipped with “stocks, sex-swing and plenty of implements to inflict pain”, could accommodate as many as 60 punters and had a dungeon. The club had been operating for around 12 months when fire inspectors descended on the property in April 2015 following a tip-off. Prosecutor David Claxton said the “physical restraints, including stocks, would, self-evidently, increase the risk to life in the event of a fire”.’

 

_______________

The New St. Marks Baths (NYC)
‘The New St. Marks Baths was the premiere gay bathhouse in New York City and was located at 6 St. Marks Place in the East Village of Manhattan from 1979 to 1985. It claimed to be the worlds largest gay bathhouse with 230 lockers, 162 cubicles/rooms, a pool, several lounges, a roof deck, a steam room with portholes in the wall like the ones you would see on a cruise ship and a 24 hour cafe.

‘The first floor contained locker rooms, showers and the cafe. The basement contained a swimming pool, more showers, an enormous Jacuzzi, and a large, darkened room with a vinyl-covered mattress that must’ve been 40′ x 40′ where all manner of groping was going on. The upstairs three floors contained seemingly miles of hallway and hundreds of rooms.. Doors ajar with men waiting within.

‘But that began to change in 1981 when the AIDS epidemic began. The Saint Marks and other bathhouses attempted to do what they could. They passed out condoms and placed posters and literature on safe sex throughout the establishments but some gay activists such as Larry Kramer became so “sex panic” obsessed that they wanted ALL the bathrouses’ closed.. And seizing the opportunity (and in some cases the land) the city of New York was glad to oblige.

‘In October 1985 New York State Sanitary Code (10 NYCRR) § 24.2, authorized the New York City Department of Health to close any facilities “in which high risk sexual activity takes place. This code would eventually lead to the clean-up of 42nd street and 8th Avenue. And so on December 9, 1985 the City began the process of targeting and closing and and all gay bathhouses and backrooms and the St. Marks Baths was the first one on it’s list.

‘As the story goes when health officials came to close the place down the staff could not find the front door key. The New York City Department of Health had to purchase and install a lock on the building, because in its 72 years that the St. Marks had been in existence it had never closed. Shortly after its closure graffiti covered the outside walls of the building saying, “Finally!” and “Fuck Fags!”’

 

_______________

Unknown (Honshu Island, Japan)
‘In July 2019, Bob found what he claims is the biggest and most high-end love motel he has ever seen, on Honshu island, Japan. The motel, whose precise location Bob did not reveal for fear of vandalism, is a maze of rooms containing colourful furniture, moving beds, clusters of mirrors to watch your partner from different angles and even a bondage room with a rotating wheel. You accessed your room through a garage door, communicate with the reception via telephone and put your money in a tube which would deliver it to them. You didn’t have to see anyone other than your partner for your whole stay.

‘There was the ‘Action Room’ where couples could have a boxing match before a bonking session. One room had Merry-go-round beds for those wanting a bit of horse play. There was a casino themed Playboy room with a roulette wheel above the bed. One room had Spaceship beds which moved along tracks as couples romped.

‘Bob said: “This place had the craziest rooms I’ve ever seen, including moving UFO beds, a rotating merry-go-round bed, a bondage room and many more. “In Japan you often get multiple generations living in the same house, so people used to come here to have some privacy and fun and get a break from their busy life. You can only find love motels like this one in Latin America and Asia.” According to Bob, the motel he visited was active during the Showa era, when similar facilities were much more common than today.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Brautigan’s work’s charm is strangely resilient. Thanks for the Gaddis link. ** Misanthrope, Me either. I used to see him pop up on Facebook very occasionally to share this or that, but I’m not sure if he’s still active there. Was there any pleasure whatsoever in the CT scan? It sounds like whatever stimulus they pass for the masses themselves is going to be very teeny weeny. ** Milk, Oh, cool, I hope you like them! ** Bill, Hi, B. Like I said to Misa, L@rstonivich aka Larry was on Facebook, but … well, let me check. Hold on. No, he appears to have bailed on that platform. Ideally I will be re-hooked up with sound via little plug dealies by this evening. I didn’t know Joel had died. That’s sad news. Interesting guy, very nice. I remember really liking ‘From Black to Blue’, which I think was one of his Serpents Tail books. ST has let pretty much all of their books from that era, including mine, and all the High Risk titles, go totally out of print, the bastards. ** Brian O’Connell, Hey Brian. Fiction is definitely running rampant in the escort trolling community. I’m very picky in what I borrow, but the commenting section has become little more than a kind of social media for sexual fantasists. Well, yeah, from what you say it sounds like the worst that could happen in your ‘Salo’ viewing would be a lot of laughter and declarations of ‘Oh shit’ and the like. Ha ha, oh your poor dad, but he does sound like a good dad. Anyway, yes, fill me in please. Nice, you’re so lucky about the snow. As I’ve often said, climate change has robbed Paris of snowfall except for a few totally freakish 10 or 20 minute long outpourings if we’re very lucky. Math … do you like math, or are you good at it? It and I were kind of a disastrous couple. The Buche … well, it’s the one at the top of the list that looks like pottery, but it apparently sold out within minutes, so now the hotel that offered it is instead selling individual versions, so presumably the same thing but the size of a goblet or something. So we’ll be devouring three of those. I’ll probably score one more different Buche next week for the actual holiday. Today’s eating ceremony is because Zac and Michael are going away for Xmas. Bonnest of the possibly bon Thursdays to you! ** Okay. Today the blog offers you the latest in its series of occasional posts featuring defunct things of a building-housed nature, in this case … well, the title says it all. See you tomorrow.