'Zaziel Lite, A Shorter History

Special Feature -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

These be the selected autobiographical adventures of 'Zaziel, a lithe and lusty homo seeking (and finding) love, sex, joy, and sardonic whimsy in the postmodern wilderness of Western civilization. I chose these entries according to one or more of three criteria: biographical significance, salient writing, or steamy sexual content. While I was picking them out, I was undoubtedly too much impressed with myself (and a half-bottle of Two Buck Chuck* mixed with a can of diet black cherry soda probably didn't help) but that shouldn't hinder your fun.

Apr. 1, 2002 - Le Mat
From the Sphagnum Catafalque Tarot: Le Mat. The Fool. The flesh before Eden. The flesh without sin. The flesh without fear.

Apr. 2, 2002 - Options
When I kicked loose from the covers and rolled out of bed, the Fiend stirred, and murmured, and dozed, as he usually does every morning when he sleeps with me. The Moondoggie, already awake and waiting, snuffled my knees, my hands, my cock, and asked to go out.

Apr. 9, 2002 - Steve Canyon was a witness
His stomach is a wall of taut muscle sheathed in warm flesh covered in a worn-out Steve Canyon (by Milton Caniff) t-shirt.

Apr. 10, 2002 - The Mystery
The Zazfanz Gazette, Official Journal for NAZEPI, the North American 'Zaziel Ephemera Preservation Institute

Apr. 11, 2002 - Strawberries And Cream
It was a good excuse to get the Fiend naked, although any excuse to get the Fiend naked is a good excuse.

Apr. 22, 2002 - Seventeen
Jer is a bud. Jer is the freshest, dewiest, bonniest bud of May, unfurling his soft, cool petals in the dawn of his manhood.

Apr. 29, 2002 - The Chinese Ivory Desk
And the Fiend wanted to paint it the color of my ass.

May 4, 2002 - James
James died when he was fifteen years old.

May 5, 2002 - Jack
"You want to watch me jerk off?" asked the Fiend, doubtful and a bit querulous. "Is that all?"

May 6, 2002 - Jack, Part 2
When aroused, the colors in his cock become more sullen, more dusky. . . heavy and potent with blood. The color is impressive and alarming. Makes you wonder if you can get an aneurysm in your dick.

May 8, 2002 - Ghost
Two Thousand Pages Of Raw Genius And No Plot

May 16, 2002 - Faustina Zulfer reads this diary
Dear 'Zaziel. . . Why do you want to name your son after opera-singing eunuchs?

May 24, 2002 - Catechism
And there, hanging between the carved ebony of his most magnificently shaped thighs, is one of The Most Resplendent Dongs In All Creation.

May 26, 2002 - The Mirror
The Fiend caught me studying the reflection of my body mass in the full length mirror in the bedroom wardrobe. My reflection was wearing socks and nothing but the socks, and (unsurprisingly) so was I.

Aug. 2, 2002 - My Fair Lady
Call me an over-civilized wuss, if you will, but I prefer not to be personally acquainted with my meat before it's butchered.

Aug. 25, 2002 - Dog and Pony Show
The Percherons were a perfectly matched team of four dappled grays, huge, burly fellows, weighing a ton each, with big bony faces, and hooves 'bout as big as my skull.

Sept. 2, 2002 - Warm and Fuzzy, Part 2
We're lounging on the veranda (Jer, the Fiend, and I) in the "cool spot", which is a corner of the veranda situated, by either accident or cleverness, at the perfect place to maximize the eddies of air that flow through and around this house.

Sept. 29, 2002 - No Apologies
And we did sleep that night, a light sleep, a tender, drifting shoal of sleep, too shallow for dreams, waking often, waking each other, without apology, to touch and be touched.

Oct. 27, 2002 - Fire
Before our eyes, crude matter transmutes into radiant light, into ethereal smoke, into the invisible force of heat, into silver drifts of downy ash, into the fulgent gold of ephemeral coals.

Oct. 29, 2002 - Fall
boy breath blood

Dec. 7, 2002 - Fine Driving Machines
A few days after my father died the mater drove the 280 SL home and parked it in her garage, where it has remained since, immovable (unless you believe the rumors of ghostly midnight runs to Calabasas for Sen-Sen and cheesecake).

2003

Jan. 8, 2003 - More Hospitality
Continuing with our Xmas leitmotif, I spent last Thursday night in the hospital, and this time I got the role of the unimaginary invalid.

Jan. 29, 2003 - Fine Driving Machines, Part 2
How I Almost Killed the Mater, Part Two, In Which the Mater Eases On Down the Road and is Surprised

Mar. 20, 2003 - Equinox
It's a big bed. Custom-made. The lady who sold it to me said it had belonged to Bert Convy, as if that should impress.

Mar. 22, 2003 - Absolutely Nuthin'
Even in the unlikeliest worst-case scenario, which would have been the re-establishment of the draft during a war, the armed forces of the United States would never have allowed a faggot ex-con to serve his country.

Mar. 30, 2003 - Indication
A ghost from my past has returned to haunt me. Haunted may be too strong a word, but if I said "a ghost from my past has returned to hang out with me" it wouldn't sound as snappy, would it?

Apr. 8, 2003 - Tender
I feel sorry, I really do, for straight men in American society. They can't give each other flowers without seeming fey. (Except at the Olympics, but then again, the Olympics are rife with feyness, aren't they?)

Apr. 12, 2003 - Sandwich
The Big Squeeze's nom de guerre is no misnomer; he's a thick and meaty specimen, yet eminently huggable. He's a lug and a luv and a reformed homophobic breeder, and we're tight, partly because we went through Asshole Anonymous together, but mostly because we are united in our love for the lost boy named James.

Apr. 15, 2003 - Vagary, Vagrancy, Vanity
We are gossamer creatures, aren't we?

May 4, 2003 - Silken Hell
I didn't know what the heck a Kingston valance was (I doffed my Christopher Lowell hat for a moment and felt a manly surge of pride when I told her I didn't know what the heck a Kingston valance was�manly men know fuck all 'bout valances, curtains, swags, jabots, and flouncy things like that) but I was confident there wasn't a valance alive I couldn't whip together in a night's work and still get at least six hours of sleep.

May 9, 2003 - Sulky
The men in my life are a wee bit pissed at me.

May 19, 2003 - Protean Cake
I often make the mistake of telling people I write in circles, like a spider making a web, but that conveys a more orderly image than the messy reality. It might be more accurate to say I write in big hairy blobs.

Sept. 3, 2003 - Ramblin' Men, Part 1
Walking out of the restaurant, she was parked on the street before us, an archaic 2-door Rambler station wagon named Lucy, with a For Sale sign taped to the rear window.

Sept. 8, 2003 - Giving Good Post
This didn't seem adequate for my father's situation�yes, he was retired, but that hardly tells half the story. So I drew in a fourth little box and next to it I wrote "I am dead."

Sept. 20, 2003 - Small Damages
Jer is more than a hundred miles away, Irving F. Brefeldia Maxima is back, and right now I'm feeling precarious.

Oct. 12, 2003 - Vanity Shrugs
I had to rely on the feeble protest that I felt "oogie" about standing as a grown and naked man in front of my mother. The mater gave that excuse the succinct shrift it deserved, and not too many days later I found myself in front of her lens, totally unclad.

Oct. 28, 2003 - Respite
I didn't do anything heroic.

Nov. 9, 2003 - Residue
He squealed with delight when he resurrected the flamenco jacket. Hearing the bleat of my mate, I flew to his side and squealed too. Hey, you would've squealed if you saw it. It's that kind of jacket.

Nov. 18, 2003 - Quicksilver
The directions include roads not on my map and I'm hoping, praying, the directions are complete, and don't guide me onto unpaved roads. I do not want to be hauling a 24-foot trailer packed with five or six horses down a rutted dirt road.

Nov. 21, 2003 - Cherishing the Inner Bitch
The New Guy asked me if it would be okay for him to bring his iPod to work. My new slave wants to wear his $300 digital music system while we're shoveling decomposing cow shit.

2004

Jan. 8, 2004 - Limbo
I am sitting in my car in a parking lot, watching gold gingko leaves skitter along the black asphalt. Gusts of wind enliven them intermittently, the puddles are thick with them, and the imitation of butterfly life is almost exact.

Jan. 10, 2004 A Better Explanation, Part 1
It's been a rather interesting winter, so far.

Jan. 13, 2004 - Cheerful Beasts
Spook is past the worst of his ordeal and is now strong enough to take two or three brief gambols through the yard every day.

Feb. 14, 2004 - The Food of Love
I made the mistake of serving a cup of this cocoa I have named Chocolate Californication (otherwise know as High Blood Sugar Sex Magick) to She-Ra, the Princess of Power.

Mar. 26, 2004 - When did I become a Feiffer cartoon?
Yes, Faustina, I do indeed have epilepsy.

Mar. 30, 2004 - Human kindness is overflowing
Oh, Zaziel! You make it all sound so grand, even exciting! I'd like to have a seizure too.

Mar. 31, 2004 - The Weekend That Was, Part 1
Either way, limned by light or tattooed by shadows, I found myself studying the Fiend's hands on the wheel: the undelicate muscles, the square knuckles, the flat oblate fingertips with closely-trimmed nails, filed smooth. The shapes of his hands always please me. . .

Apr. 6, 2004 - My Favorite Conjunction
King of the Gay Vagabond Ghouls

Apr. 8, 2004 - The Weekend That Was, Part 2
Can you imagine doors for a post-apocalyptic chapel as designed by a mutated Louise Nevelson?

Apr. 8, 2004 - The Weekend That Was, fragment
From a distance, the running water sounds like the buzzing of bees, but as you approach, the sound soon grows into the hoarse, gravel-throated utterances of this fugitive stream in its rocky bed.

Apr. 15, 2004 - Hard-Boiled
If gay marriage was legal in the state of California (but it's not) and if the definition of gay marriage was broadened to include relationships like a male-threesome-(triple? triad?)-sharing-fucking-privileges-with-a-close-knit-group-of-friends (it could happen�maybe someday�like when pigs fly across the frozen landscape of Hell), I would be able to say we had a houseful of in-laws for Easter.

Apr. 23, 2004 - Sandpaper Fancy
The thick fecund smell of aftersex. . .

June 23, 2004 - How Lovely To Be A Eunuch
I try to do at least one feminine thing a day, even if its only peeing while sitting down, but oddly enough, I never felt particularly girlish while wearing drag.

July 14, 2004 - Fourteen Factoids
When we had cable-tv and access to the Food Channel, I loved watching Tony Bourdain wander all over the world feasting on the meat and organs of weird critters, with an obvious pleasure that verged on orgasmic.

July 18, 2004 - Algae Blues
At the moment, I'm feeling rather astringent about the subject of marriage. A little bit vinegary, a little bit rancid, despite the recent victory over conservative legislators who want to limit the Bill of Rights to only humans who breed.

Aug. 15, 2004 - Short But Sweet Nudity
People would love to see the world's athletes compete in the original Olympian costumes. Just a laurel wreath and a smile.

Aug. 18, 2004 - Nearly Round and Chocolate Brown
I'm sharing a Google page with the Gay Speedos Fantasy Board. What can I say? It's a dream come true.

Sept. 1, 2004 - His Name is Meat; First Name's Dead
But at least the Invisible Girl didn't disappear with my truck and my favorite lawn mower.

Sept. 4, 2004 - Carroll Todd For President
I've long suspected the simple tongue-tied Christian cowboy is just an act Bush uses to endear himself to simple Christian Americans, who vote with some kind schmaltzified illogic they believe is heartfelt.

Sept. 29, 2004 - La Graciosa
This is where we'll be moving, come midwinter:

Saturday, Oct. 2, 2004 - The Pope in Our Kitchen
"Does a bear shit in the kitchen?"

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005 - Things Too Innumerable To Mention
I lost my writing space.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - Domestic Obsessions
"If you sing that song one more time," Jimmy told me, "I'm gonna throw this chainsaw at your ugly white gringo face."

Friday, June 17, 2005 - Arts and Letters
The Rather Famous Author (RFA to her friends) is driving me crazy.

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005 - Resurrection
Jer and the Fiend have been vacationing in Spain for nearly six weeks.

~

* A Syrah from Charles Shaw for $1.99 at Trader Joe's.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

last eleven: