MOSCOW, July 19, 2005 – I felt a little like an icon, sitting with Tarp Honniker and his attractive Russian wife Rita at the sidewalk café across Tverskaya Street from Moscow’s main telegraph building in which Tarp has his Moscow consulting office.
I first encountered Tarp on the Internet back in March when he posted a message on the EnergyResources forum site about preparing for post-peak, the time when dwindling oil supply will no longer meet growing demand. When I realized he was writing from Moscow, I immediately started attempting to contact him.
Finally on April 26, I had a response from him noting that he was putting together a “survival” site and that he would be happy to get together “any weekday except Friday at 7:00 PM for an hour.”
Because my teaching schedule makes evening meetings virtually impossible, I sent him my questions, which he answered and then turned into an “interview” format to be placed on various Internet sites. (Chapt. 143).
He then decided that there were some things that we still needed to talk about, and maybe we could meet in person. The upshot was that I cancelled my Monday night class with Masha; and Tarp, Rita, and I at last sat down together.
They’re an attractive couple. He has an apparently successful consulting business here advising Western companies.
He repeatedly praised the book and me for my insight “before any of the rest of us even had any idea what was going to happen.” He was so deferential that I was almost embarrassed, but not quite. In truth, of course, it was Wilson, rather than I, who was responsible for the “insight.” But I never got any credit from Wilson beyond an autographed copy and mention as a researcher, so I don’t mind taking some of his credit now.
He thinks the U.S. economic collapse will be within the next year. In anticipation of that, they’re moving toward selling the business and getting set up for survival in New Zealand before the bottom drops out.
It was a delightful evening, and we downed five Belgian beers apiece before pouring ourselves into a cab with the cry that “kindred spirits” had met and must meet again.
I told them truthfully that it was the first good bull session I had been involved in since I came to Russia.
He was generally supportive of my Stavropol plan, which is now dependent on what the twins do over the next two weeks. If they stiff me, no Stavrapol. Maybe back to Dennis’s solar home on Ellison Ridge instead? Or maybe something else.
Twin Andrei finally called me today and said Zhorik is coming tomorrow. I will know a lot more then. I’m afraid to let my fantasies about Zhorik take over, because I want to remain objective about them all.
But it will be nice to see him again.
“Seduction Serenade” testifies to how successful I was in not thinking or fantasizing too much about him – specifically about the night we had sex apart together but not quite (#120). It’s to the tune of a song I can’t remember, but I’ve written my best buddy, M-Pact singer and musician Marco Cassone, to help me try to identify it.
In the meantime, here’s what was occuping my thoughts today – sans music:
Would I,
Could I,
Even if you’re sleeping soundly,
Should I
Explore that growing bulge
That’s in his crotch?
Just keep erecting, dear,
I think it’s
Up a notch!
Stroking,
Smoking,
I’m so breathless now
I’m nearly choking.
And as it swells within my loving grasp
Can I believe that this will ever
Come to pass?
Funny,
Honey,
How my life’s at 2 a.m. so
Sunny!
Is this a dream or was it really fate?
Do you still think you’re straight?
If I’m lucky, he’ll never see it. Even if he knew this site existed, he doesn’t read a word of English -- yet.
He wants me to teach him.
On his and the twins’ absence over the past couple of weeks can be blamed the general dearth (except for Little Seryozh last week) of orgasms, which I read somewhere are an important factor in preventing prostate cancer.
Far be it from me to neglect my health! So yesterday I prevented some more prostate CA – without benefit of my favorite gay porn video tape, or even pictures. So who did I fantasize about? Well, first of all, Zhorik’s dancing dick the morning he had his wet dream in my hand, which is what “Seduction Serenade” is all about; and memory-of-memories Shurik, with his exquisite alabaster body and eager piska; and Little Seryosh’s tanned, beautiful, sexy torso. The trio were enough to keep my prostate safe for another few days – at least until Zhorik gets here.
So I am pleased to once again take official note that one’s 72nd birthday is definitely not the cut-off point – even without the assistance of live throbbing, bobbing enticements to lure you over the precipice of ejaculation.
Those enticements are causing increasing problems for the Russian military. Earlier this year one of the Army’s top medical officers announced that the number of recruits rejected because of the HIV virus had risen by 27 times over the past five years!
Although the Army generally won’t talk about it because of “a series of factors,” according to the Moscow Times, two non-Russian reports released yesterday join a rising chorus of voices warning that Russia is in deep keem-chi over the AIDS problem.
Both reports are based on the work of U.S. demographer Murray Feshbach, who has been studying the problem almost from its inception in the early ‘80s. Whereas in America and Europe, more than 70% of the HIV/AIDS cases involve people over 30, “In Russia, 83% are 15- to 29-year-olds, which of course “constitutes the core group of potential conscriptees.
“In 10 to 11 years, when they die,” Feshbach continued, “they’ll be at the prime military age, prime working age, prime family formation age.”
The problem for the military is exacerbated by the fact that they don’t automatically screen for the HIV virus. Young soldiers are typically tested only if they are suspected of using drugs. To make it worse, the quality of testing “is so poor that the detection rate is less than one-third.”
The Defense Department has publicly acknowledged that it is grossly unequipped to screen for AIDS. Maj. Gen. Valery Kulikov told a May press conference that the military medical department needed million to screen recruits for HIV, drug use, and hepatitis. But of course they haven’t gotten it – and won’t.
According to the MT, “the military does not even possess a single CD4 counter – the machine that measures the progress if HIV/AIDS – even though the U.S. Army recently offered to provide it with one….”
The Federal AIDS Center here believes that about 1 million Russians, 1.5% of its 143 million population, are infected, the Times reported.
Because Russia’s coming up against the AIDS problem a decade later than most countries, an AIDS Center spokesman said, there have been fewer deaths so far, which has led to widespread complacency. That will all change soon, she predicted.
With the age of the AIDS target group the same as my own target group, it would behoove me to be careful. I think I am. The only contact that I know of who has/had HIV/AIDS is Tioufline, the obnoxious little scumbag who stole my apartment, which merely strengthens my faith in karma. We never had sex.
Besides, as far as I’m concerned, the anus is not a multi-purpose tool. It is for elimination, not acquisition. If god had intended it to be fucked, he would have made it…ugh, er, well, anyway, it’s not for me. Which has probably enabled me to live long enough to verify that one’s 72nd birthday is not the cut-off point.
Derek Juhl just made my day! Who’s Derek Juhl? Derek was a sweet young unrequited fantasy of mine when I lived in Seattle. He was a skinny, shy, withdrawn university student who collected live reptiles and used to come to parties at the “House of Beatrice,” the nickname Marco Cassone gave “Dane’s Dormitory” in Seattle. If he was aware of my leering attentions, he was kind enough not to let on.
Derek has studied Russian and has dreams of visiting Moscow to practice his language and his seduction arts. In the meantime, he is an active member of a Balkan Folk Dance group in Seattle and has sent me many pix of his performances as a rather handsome young man – especially in his folk costume.
Because he is gay and because he is a Russophile, I sent Derek my redqueen website address. This morning I got his response:
Sordid! Scandalous! FANTASTIC!!! ;-) I read all the columns in one sitting. I'm looking forward to the others. Love, Derek
So he’s not only gay, not only a Russophile, not only handsome, but is also a literary critic par excellence!
There are some teaching openings in the British Forum (BF), Bill Skyrme told me last week, so I dropped in last Thursday and left an application. Somebody named Sean Fitzgerald called me today, and I will come in Thursday and observe a class from 1 to 2, then will prepare a lesson for the same class next Monday, which Sean will observe.
They pay 25 bucksi per academic hour; and given my fears of what’s going to happen come August 1, I’m going to need all the extra I can get. The problem is again, scheduling; but I think that can be worked out, and it would add at least 0 a week for one class and 0 for two. So it’s worth the effort.
It will only continue through August, unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how well I like BF – because on September 1, my IB classes resume again, and my Institute of Diplomacy classes shortly afterward.
Of course, BF pays more than either of them. But I do have a commitment to both, so I’ll most likely stay. “I’m not the sheriff or the sheriff’s son,” to paraphrase an old Army marching “song,” but my word is, after all, my bond.
Bruce Harris sent me an excerpt from a Gore Vidal interview discussing whether or not writers need to be involved in current affairs.
D. H. Lawrence wrote something very interesting about the young Hemingway. Called him a brilliant writer. But he added he’s essentially a photographer and it will be interesting to see how he ages because the photographer can only keep on taking pictures from the outside. One of the reasons that the gifted Hemingway never wrote a good novel was that nothing interested him except a few sensuous experiences like killing things and fucking -- interesting things to do but not all that interesting to write about.
This sort of artist runs into trouble very early on because all he can really write about is himself; and after youth, that self -- unengaged in the world -- is of declining interest. Admittedly, Hemingway chased after wars, but he never had much of anything to say about war -- unlike Tolstoy or even Malraux. I think that the more you know the world and the wider the net you cast in your society, the more interesting your books will be, certainly the more interested you will be.
And, I would add, the more interesting you will be.
Vidal is an incredibly brilliant and insightful essayist – a better essayist than author, in my opinion. Bruce agrees, but thinks Myra Breckenridge – which I’ve never read – is a masterpiece. And I found it interesting that at last someone else agrees with me that Hemingway never wrote a good novel. There, again, Bruce thinks The Sun Also Rises¸ which I’ve also never read, is an exception.
And then my confession to Bruce:
But I think two things save me from Hemingway’s curse (if being one of the world’s most idolized writers can be considered a curse):
First is that I'm not unengaged in the world
And second, “after youth” has not yet arrived.
