Fleshbot and Dancin', Dancin'

This week, my Sex Blog Roundup at Fleshbot visits the market for those who prefer their meat fresh. Seems like a lot of the sex bloggers are getting lucky.

But really, how can we not feel lucky, having survived another Friday the thirteenth without calamity?

True, the Yankees crashed—at least one, literally—but it’s autumn, the sun is shining, and damned if the Scissor Sisters didn’t pop out a new album coincident with the release of James Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus.

I’ve got the video for "I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’" at my MySpace profile. Try not to feel like dancin’ when you’re listenin’.

I’ve got the kids moving to it—well, not so much with my youngest son. He dances the Hustle, as I taught him, but somehow, the Scissor Sisters don’t remove the lead from his Heelies.

“Come on!” I hector him. “Dance with me, son!”

My daughter and I sing as we muster up a little soft shoe gentle sway:

Cities come and cities go just like the old empires
When all you do is change your clothes and call that versatile

“Collie’s not dancing!” Lillie laughs.

“It’s fun!” I say, picking her up and twirling.

I’ll just pretend that I know which way to bend
I’m going to tell the whole world that you’re mine

“Now!” I say, as Lillie sings along.

I don’t feel like dancin’ dancin’
Doo doo doo doo doo doo poop
Don’t feel like dancin’ dancin’
Doo doo doo doo doo doo poop
Don’t feel like dancin’ dancin’
Doo doo doo doo doo doo poo-oo-ooop

Collie looks at us, deadpan. “You’re weird,” he says, walking away.

Remember that I related the tale of how I wound up on a dream date with Jake Shears, singer for the band, on the night I signed my divorce papers? The same day that Viviane started having sex again?

It was a portentous time.

But did I tell you how I was almost in a Scissor Sisters’ video? All because I fuck so good?

(Though, evidently not well enough to make the final edit.)

See, at the time, I was fucking a very cute guy now and then. One day, he told me he was working on a video for the Scissor Sisters, and asked if I wanted to be an extra.

“Heck yeah!” I said, though I had never heard a song by the group. I agreed because I liked the guy, and because he mentioned that the video’s director was John Cameron Mitchell.

That’s all I needed to know. I thought Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch was all that.

“Great,” my friend told me. “You just have to wear a suit and look sleazy. You’ll be a john in a trannie bar.”

I nodded, because that’s what one does when so instructed. I’m no actor, but I can totally pull off a sleazy john in a trannie bar.

As instructed, I showed up at a west side theatre early one Sunday morning in my best black suit, my hair greased back, and proceeded to wait for the shoot to commence.

Hours passed.

I hung out with my friend as he introduced me to his friends—the hard-working drag king Murray Hill, the much-too-gorgeous World Famous BOB, and the gyrating wonder Dirty Martini.

I was hanging out with legends, and sugar, could these tramps vamp. I sat in awe of their banter, trying not to giggle too terribly as they passed the time by dishing the dirt.

Mitchell would come to us now and then, explaining the sequence of shots and introducing us to the band.

As we sat, we heard occasional bursts of “Filthy/Gorgeous” as Mitchell organized his takes. It was the first I had heard the band’s music.

“Oh, I like this,” I said.

“Just wait until midnight, honey,” World Famous BOB smirked. “A day of this and we’re never going to want to hear this song again.”

This is my new life after divorce, I thought. Man, is it fabulous.

Finally, we were called to the set. Dry ice and colored lights provided what further atmosphere was needed in a room full of drag queens, trannies, and half-naked hustlers.

We were put in places, only to wait a bit longer as Mitchell waited on someone. I stood at a bar with a flue of ginger ale and a nineteen-year-old hottie named Harry. She was famed among the downtown set as a club dancer moving along the surgical transformation from boy to girl.

I got to know her a bit as we killed time waiting for the shoot to commence. She stood next to me, bored as I kept up a one-sided conversation. Harry was a head taller than me and wore a sheer black nightie and a string thong.

Her perfect tits were perfectly visible and her skin so smooth. Her long, luxurious blonde hair was pulled up and back in a style that has not existed on this planet since Dusty Springfield and Nancy Sinatra retired their coifs.

Harry was drop-dead gorgeous. As we passed the time, I began to wonder if maybe I had been too hasty in thinking I might never marry again. I silently calculated how much income I would need to keep Harry in the style to which she aspired. I could never earn enough, I decided, but surely the difficulty of robbing banks has been greatly exaggerated.

The “someone” that Mitchell awaited happened to be Charlotte Rae, Mrs. Garrett from Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life.

Don’t you know she was received like royalty. That television mother hen had practically raised half the club kids in the room.

Charlotte Rae was placed on a divan and given ginger-ale champagne and six hustlers as props. With his star in place, Mitchell was ready to shoot.

I stood with Harry just to Rae’s right. As Mitchell surveyed the scene, he glanced at Harry. “You need to be over here,” he told her, moving my glamorous companion to recline on a stool at Rae’s feet.

“Hey,” I whispered to a production assistant. “I lost my trannie.”

“Let’s get you a new one,” he said. He tugged another extra to stand at my side. She wore goth make up, teased jet black hair, and a corset on her flat chest.

“Hi,” I said, offering my hand. “I’m Jefferson. I’m a john.”

“Tori Suppository,” she said in a rich baritone. “I’m a whore. Just in from San Francisco.”

I laughed. “Welcome to the city.”

“It’s practically my home,” she said wearily. “Can I kiss you?”

“Now?” I nearly blushed.

“No, dear, during the shoot. I’ll plant lipstick kisses all over your cute face.”

“Oh, I’d like that.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Let’s rehearse.”

I closed my eyes as the San Francisco trannie mapped my face with her lips.

We would repeat this choreography again and again as Mitchell tracked a camera through the set in take after take, following the beckoning finger of Ana Matronic. The song played over and over.

When Tori Suppository saw the camera coming, she began to kiss me like a long-lost uncle. When the shoot ended, we shook hands and said good-bye.

That’s theatre, you know.

I hung out well past midnight, as World Famous BOB had predicted. I hadn’t grown weary of “Filthy/Gorgeous,” but I did tire of waiting for the last shot that required extras, so I headed home.

My friend sent me a link to the final edit. “Thanks for joining us that day,” he said. “It was really fun to hang out with you. He didn’t use you in the video, but that happens. Wanna fuck this week?”

My cute friend soon went monogamous with another man, but that happens.

“Filthy/Gorgeous” remains a favorite song, not least because of the video and my memory of a day as a fabulous creature.



I just wish I could show it to the grandkids one day as evidence of how Gramps spent the years after Granny dumped him. I know I will show them Hedwig and Shortbus as optimistic films about the origin of love.

Shortbus follow a few people, primarily two couples—one gay, one straight—as they sort out problems in their relationships. A sex therapist (she prefers “couples counselor”) is unable to orgasm with her husband, or even alone. A former hustler realizes he has never been happy, not even with his adoring partner.

They all find what they seek at a private sex party where all manner of proclivities are welcome. I suppose such things really do exist in New York.

Where you might find me as host at my parties—or Frank N. Furter or Joel Grey at theirs—here we find “Justin Bond,” aka Justin Bond, aka Kiki of Kiki and Herb, as an orgy-wise, nurturing and camp-as-fuck den mother of perversity.

Search the faces at the sex party, and you’ll recognize a few "sextras" from “Filthy/Gorgeous”: Murray Hill reprising Evelyn Nesbit on a swing, Dirty Martini reprising Sally Rand in a fan dance, and World Famous BOB smiling prettily in group therapy with a closeted former mayor. Why, even Tristan Taormino bends over at the orgy.

Apparently, I failed to impress Mitchell during my brief stint among the fabulous. Alas, your humble sex blogger was never summoned to board the Shortbus.

I guess I’ll just have to forge ahead on my own.

Movie star fame may elude me, but here’s what you can do to keep me in good cheer. A friend has been making mix CDs for me, and this makes me very happy. Take a moment to send me your favorite songs; I’ll listen to them on iTunes as I work on upcoming posts.

Because now and then, I feel like dancin’, dancin'.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, sex camp!

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