Altimexis

I’d have to draw exception to the notion that earning well over $75k is enough to make one wealthy, even in the 1990s in Cleveland or Chicago. Both cities have renowned symphonies though, with a succession of some of the best conductors in the world. An assembly line worker in Detroit could make more than that, even then. I’m curious about the demand for soloist horn players. People pay good money for a live performance by a renowned pianist, cellist or violinist. The same can be said for trumpet, trombone and saxophone players if you include the realm of jazz. I can name several top players for all of those, and have seen several myself. However, I couldn’t name a single renowned horn player if my life depended on it. Getting back to the issue of money, $75k in 1990s Chicago might be enough to afford a condo in a high rise with a partial view of the lake on the North Loop, but nothing extravagant. That’s barely affluent and certainly not wealthy. In NYC, that was barely enough to be considered middle class and not nearly enough to live in Manhattan. From what I’ve heard, Boston isn’t much better. Having a husband who’s an attorney in a top law firm, on the other hand, is another story.

Perhaps young, but there’s a sophistication to his writing style that I find appealing. I’m looking forward to reading more.

Oh no! I feel like crap for saying that. I don’t remember exactly what Mike posted but I was under the impression that he was feeding several neighborhood cats, against the will of others in the neighborhood. Obviously, I drew the wrong conclusion and feel awful for posting that. Thanks, John, for clearing that up.

I never tried playing a wind instrument. I had enough trouble trying my hand at strings - piano, viola and guitar. Ultimately I decided that the musical instrument I played the best was the stereo.

Feral cats, I’m afraid. Mike loved the cats in his neighborhood and named them. He also fed them and I dared not share my opinion of that. Don’t get me wrong - I love cats. My family adopted several when I was a kid, including a couple from the neighborhood. Unfortunately, feeding feral cats ends up doing them no favors and it decimates the bird population. Unless coupled with sterilization, feeding the cats results in an explosion in their numbers, leading to even more starvation and suffering. Mike, God love him, saw things differently, so I didn’t ever bring it up. He alluded to hearing from some of his neighbors who didn’t approve. If I’d said anything, it would have only gotten me kicked off the site. Sorry to go off topic, but I can finally say that this is one aspect of Mike’s generosity that shouldn’t be emulated.

Oops, I should have noted that. Thanks very much, John aka @Alien Son, for all that you've done!

Thanks R. It looks great. I took the opportunity to update the two stories I have posted on that page. No major changes, but I've now been married not 25 years, but 38 years, or as I put it, close to four decades.

When He Was Five brings me to tears every damn time I read it. I first read it on Nifty and I think that was the first time I ever wrote to Cole. I insisted that it deserved to be posted on a better site.

I blame that on autocorrect, i.e. artificial untelligence.

If you're going to move, I can think of hundreds of places that would be better than Texas. I'm partial to NYC, but it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. Boulder was recently featured as the most livable city in America, and I'd wager it's gay-friendly.

I'm married to one!

That was one of the earlier stories I read, and it remains one of my all-time favorites.

And how about aiding and abetting the spread of measles in Florida? It's insane! It's hard to counter fundamentalism when logic and science are seen as nothing more than sorcery. How do you counter such idiocy when politicians are more than willing to indulge such nonsense for personal gain? I'd like to counter with, "There are some 7000 religions on earth. How many of them did you explore before you decided that the one you were born into was indeed better than all the rest?" The trouble is that people have to be willing to listen, and that willingness isn't something that can be forced.

Actually, I think Distorted Perspectives is even better, but then it came later. 😃

I grew up in Indiana, which has open primaries, and when I came of age, voted in the Republican primaries because they represented the real election. I’ve since lived in California, briefly in Texas, in the Maryland suburbs of DC, in Detroit (yes, in the city itself) and in Upstate and Downstate New York. I used to work in New Jersey, where my colleagues thought I was a radical leftist. Here in NYC, I’ve been accused of being a closet Republican. What ever happened to the political center? Some New Yorkers fantasize about succeeding from the US and joining with Canada, but of course that will never happen. As you can imagine, most of us are petrified by Trump’s rhetoric and the rise of Christian nationalism. For those of us who are Jewish, Netanyahu has only fanned the flames of antisemitism with his actions in Gaza. New York won’t go down without a fight, but Trump has made it clear how he’ll handle the massive protests that will erupt in major cities. He’ll send in the National Guard. Of course none of that will matter when the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland suddenly slide into the sea, causing a several meter rise of ocean levels. My apartment building will be one of the first to flood. Then again, perhaps I’m being optimistic.

Yes, WBMS was one of my editors and a rather opinionated one at that. He was a bit strange and didn’t want me to call him Wibby, for some reason. He was a very private person and didn’t hesitate to say things with shock value. The first time I sent him a chapter of LiaC to edit, he replied to me with my real name and pointed out that that and more could be gleaned from opening the MS Word file in a text editor. Subsequently, Microsoft caught a lot of flak over their inclusion of random pieces of one’s hard drive in Word files. I was a regular reader and contributor to The Raccoon’s Den. I remember that he thought that Driver was the best gay author on the Net, and that Cole Parker’s story Duck Duck Goose was the best story on AD. WBMS had major health problems and was in constant pain. He often threatened to simply disappear and when I asked if by that he meant suicide, he assured me he didn’t mean that. Then one day he really did disappear without a trace. His entire presence was removed from AD, including his forum, and he didn’t respond to my emails. Mike undoubtedly played a role in removing all of the content, but the rest of us will never know what happened or of WBMS is even still alive. WBMS undoubtedly had his reasons for ghosting us. My vote would be to honor his wishes by leaving his residual content alone.

I remember reading Some Day Out of the Blue many years ago, but I read it at GayAuthors.org, where he was the equivalent of what they call a Signature Author today. He's now a Classic Author at GA, as am I, but he hasn't contributed any content since 2011. It seems he last visited the site in 2014. Like many of the best authors from the early days of gay fiction on the Internet, he just disappeared. It's a shame that so many talented authors stopped writing. Perhaps for them, it was a phase of discovering themselves at a time when being gay was just gaining acceptance. As is becoming more obvious by the day, however, we can't take anything for granted. We need to stick together as a community. I'm so glad you've taken this on, R. It's nice to see old content being resurrected.

I have a link to the CW subdirectory at AD in the header and footer of many of my stories, but it still works. Should I globally change the links to the new CW domain?

In New York, the cutoff for beginning the school year at a given age is January 1. If the twins lived here, that would mean that one twin could start kindergarten at the age of four whereas the younger twin would have to wait a year to start it at the age of five. I assume the parents would hold the older kid back so that they'd both be in the same grade level, but it would be an interesting experiment to see which twin had the better outcome if one started a year earlier. Would any parents be that cruel? I know of some that would!

2024 opened with a literal shake, rattle and roll in Japan. My wife and I have a good friend who lives in the adjacent prefecture and was well within the quake zone. We texted him right away and were relieved to hear that he and his family are okay. His two cats are still hiding, though. Let us hope we've seen the last of nature's worst for the year, although with climate change, I seriously doubt it. Let us hope we'll soon see the end of humankind's worst, although the prospects seem pretty grim. Still, I'm an optimist at heart. Steve (aka Altimexis)

I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope she lived a long and happy life.

Mike had been in poor health for a number of years and in spite of failing vision, he managed to maintain the site, to vet our stories and to make AD a beacon of hope on the internet. There are a number of gay-themed story sites that began around the turn of the current century, but none could match the quality nor the sense of community that Mike nurtured here. For that I will always be grateful. We should probably wait a few days before beginning a frank discussion of the future of the site, and under a different thread. I would like to see the site continue, but there is much to consider before that could happen. At the least, the stories must be preserved for all to enjoy.

Glad to hear you're back in business. I was really worried about you for a while. I've cared for a number of people with hip fractures, including my wife, and am all too aware of how serious they can be. In the meantime, I've been very busy writing new stories and will have another one ready to post shortly. I look forward to reading more of your picks.

Wait a minute - did you say you'd like a skilled boy to play with your duff?

Nice sequence in Yellowstone National Park. Although I don't doubt that incidents like the bear encounter in the story don't happen in Yellowstone, they're thankfully uncommon. Since 1979 there have been 44 bear attacks, only two of which were in developed areas of the park. Since 1872, there have been eight bear-related fatalities, which is only slightly higher than the number killed by falling trees (7), avalanches (6), or lightning (5). These statistics come from the National Park Service website. Bear encounters declined dramatically with the installation of bear-resistant trash containers in campgrounds and picnic areas. Visitors are constantly reminded about the rules of bear safety, including the need to stay at least 100 yards away and to never feed the bears. Indeed, bears that become habituated to human food often lack the fat stores necessary to hibernate through the winter, and they sometimes have to be killed to prevent further risks to humans. Still, as per the story, there are some very stupid people who'll ignore just about everything else in the name of getting a great photo. However, in that regard, the geysers and hot springs are far more dangerous than the bears!