Koan: If You Wear Leather Alone In The Woods, Are You Still Wearing Leather?

Convalescence breeds prolix, or so it seems.

'Edge' is posting a lot lately, giving me much food for though. Particularly his riffs on the Future of Leather Culture, and how he just is a leatherman in small ways (wearing boots, keeping his head buzzed or shaved, facial hair, handcuff keys on the keyring).

Interesting interesting.

Here's where my thoughts run.

So am I. A leatherman, I mean. After all the items he ennumerated, I can place a check. I guess I also have what 'Edge describes as Presence, although maybe not, since it's something I've always had. I think it's endemic among Scorpios. Long before... well, no, I was going to say "long before I was wearing boots,' but I bought my first pair of combat boots when I was a punk rock boy in high school and I've worn them ever since, but let's say long before I darkened the door of my first leatherbar, I had people telling me about 'my Eyes' or something.

Anyway.

So I'm a leatherman.

To the point where I've sat at the Starbucks in Doylestown in leather breeches (is that 'breaches?') and my bar vest sipping my latte.

Whoop-di-doo.

As was driven home with me when all of my fellow Sandinistas at the sanding table at work assumed that the chain padlocked around my neck indicated I was In Solidarity With The Bruthas In Lockup, I could wear just about whatever I want, and nobody gets it. They don't know the language. It's as if I went around with my sexual predilections on a sandwich board sign in Serbo-Croation.

Ya lechtyet Pesstchos! (That's really not Serbo-Croation for 'I like piss.' I don't speak Serbo-Croation, so it's kinda the Bad World War II Movie Japanese version of Serbo-Croation.)

When did I last do a scene? When was I last in space that could accurately be described as a dungeon?

Okay. Not that long ago. It would be when the Sir in North Jersey who gave me the little thing to recite upon entering his Domain (i.e., suburban tract house) put me in a sleep sack. Which was fun, though rushed. And the weather was warm, so it couldn't have been that long ago. And I've done two presentations since then, and although softball has kept me pretty busy, managed to visit a few leatherbars.

And I've got a Sir and I wear his collar, for Pete's sake.

But overall, my life (and, ipso facto, this blog) tends to be more about gardening, woodworking, figuring out novel things to make for dinner that my dad will eat, Woofing at men at the supermarket, Starbucks, and reading books. Not so much of the Whipping Men Till They Bleed lately.

So here's what occurs to me. Y'know the place where I very much am a leatherman? On the Internet. Specificallly, on WorldLeathermen. I chat. I flirt. I hoot derisively. I mentor. I let myself be mentored. In the pics that I have posted, nobody has any doubt about the chain around my neck, the whip in my hand, or how I got that black eye.

But here's where I think I might depart from 'Edge. It's not real!!!

The Internet is not real. It's the Greenworld from Shakespear. But it all vanishes with the dawn. Or, when you close out the window. Poof! Gone. And there I am, sitting in the naugahide recliner in the livingroom, or out here on the porch (the astilbe are gorgeous!). Wearing my boots.

It's insubstantial, and I choose that word with care. It's jejeune. It doesn't provide nourishment or sustenance. It feels like it should, it feels like it should be about 'Community,' but it's no more so than you come to think of the characters on your favorite television show as your friends.

(Speaking of 'insubstantial,' the frozen dinner I heated up for myself for dinner three hours ago is gone. I'm starving. Problem: How to have a bowl of cereal on the porch when you're on crutches? Solution: First you bring out the box of cereal, then you bring out the milk, then you bring out the bowl with the spoon in your pocket.)

That lack of substance is a Monster Problem for me. Because more than anything else, what I want out of SM is for it to be Real. Really Real. Real Pain. Real Blood. Real Steel. Real Intimacy. Real Connection. Real Fear. Real Bliss. Real Tears. Real Laughter. The antidote to contemporary culture where we're programmed to be passive observers and consumers.

If it ain't that, then I say t' hell with it.

So maybe, it's not the Internet that's the future (or 'present') or leather, it's me who's the future/present of leather. Way out here in this howling wilderness. Nominally a member of a few clubs. Occasional visitor to a leatherbar mostly to animadvert. Going to runs and events and such. But mostly it's about woodworking, gardening, cooking, Starbucks, and the supermarket. "Community" is that Brigadoon like thing, springing up once a year at MAL or Inferno, then vanishing into the mists.

Wait a minute...

Hey now...

Imagine it's 1947. I've just been decommissioned from the army. The marine whose ass I used to whip when both of us were stationed at Pearl Harbor has gone back to his high school sweetheart in Topeka. I got off the carrier at Los Angeles, and figure I might as well stay here. I go crusing in the parks at night getting blow jobs. Visit the bars where homosexual men congregate until the police force them on to a new bar, but don't find much I like there. Nothing to replace my marine buddy, who liked it when I called him my bitch when I was fucking him. And then, one night, at a bar or in a park, a guy wearing a motorcycle cap and boots--and looking really out of place because of it--chats me up. He invites me to a party and offers to take me there on his Indian motorcycle. I go. I can't not go. At the party there are a bunch of men wearing jeans and boots and motorcycle leathers. A few times, I see them standing in small groups, looking in my direction, and talking among themselves.

That's how it starts. Little by little I'm initiated into their circle. Taught their folkways. I hear that in the other large cities that saw decommissioning of service men in large numbers other groups have sprung up. Motor cycle clubs, mostly. Sometimes taking over one of the local fag bars the first Saturday of the month. it's underground. It's not for outsiders. You don't talk about it to anyone. There are little signals by which we recognize each other. Like Lodge brothers.

Huh.

Same circumstances, as you think about it. This Existential Thrownness. This isolaton. This haunted feeling. Here and there are leathermen, seeking each other, but not finding each other.

Could a re-birth be possible? Something small scale, underground, clandestine?

How long, O Lord, how long, before we again are go up to the gates of your Jerusalem?

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