The Divine Right of Party Boys

"Sometimes there is God so quickly."

Those are the words -- you will recall -- of Blanche Dubois, a faded party girl who traded reality for a magic world where all strangers put away the straight-jackets and instead offered kindly arms to lean on as they escorted her to the mad house.

"No, don't get up" she murmurs to a table of poker players whom her mind fancies are a band of knights. "I'm ... just passing through."

One of the joys of reading the web diaries of party boys is how quickly God shows up in them, sometimes by name, usually unbilled, but always sending hidden signals by means of birds or rain storms or disco lyrics that provide proof of the main character's divine election. My favorite of these online hagiographies is the diary of porn gold-mine Jeff Palmer.

As those of us who are his constant readers know, Jeff was raised by Evangelical Christians in Argentina and read the Bible cover to cover until the age of 17 when he took off to whore around Europe for money, but mostly for fun.

The notion that prostitution was in any way sordid had never blighted his southerly imagination and so with the same open-hearted spirit you see in the smiling website photo of him as a wee sandy-haired tyke, Jeff became adept in the way of handcuffs, fistfucks, and crystal meth, always certain that he was under the personal sanction of "my eternal idol, Jesus Christ."

Polaroids brought his pretty pout and upright dick to the attention of Falcon Studios, where he was made a "Falcon Exclusive" -- contracted to them and them alone. In no time fans were awarding him "Most Seductive Eyes" and "Best Top" at various industry shows. At about this time he put his diary online -- a move that would ultimately end his contract with Falcon. For while Jeff Palmer, the video star, could never play a bottom on camera (a position that would kill what the studio believed was his stud allure), in his diary, Palmer, the real person, proved to be...well...very much a real person.

Next up, the Powers on High made it known -- in the oblique way that is their hallmark (the diary goes on at length about certain patterns pigeons made in a Miami parking lot that seemed to single out Jeff's Ferrari -- though I might have mixed this up with how God reassured him it was okay to speculate on whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene had shared more than parables) -- anyway it was revealed that He of the Most Seductive Eyes was to write the music to his strip shows from now on.

Within months, God's Favorite South American was touring gay bars across the country behind his first CD single, "Conectando" -- to be followed by similar self-regarding titles like "Beautiful", "Easy" and "Why? Porque?" By his own reckoning, the tour was greeted with joy and universal celebration. "Sometimes," he writes -- in that dizzy Desi-Arnaz English we, his readers, have come to adore -- "I feel I'm dreaming -- but I'm awaked!"

What heart of stone could not be exhilarated in the face of such conviction? Here is a marvelous creature who never had one moment of self-doubt. Oh, certainly, there are some glamorous noises about "my confusing life" but the confusion comes from having too many -- rather than too few -- gorgeous choices. More typically we read "the chemistry between us was electrifying all over my body," describing one of those daily encounters that seems to carpet Jeff's rose-petaled path through the world.

While in a lesser diarist such self-promotion would seem suspect, defensive even, as if compensating for a life with a great drafty hole in it, Jeff is so certain of his own goodness that though his web diary sounds as absurd as a porn plot, I'm convinced every word is true. We are talking about a self-love so generous, one that rises in rapturous arcs throughout the writing like so many sparkling fountains, that to Jeff, no lie, no matter how face-saving, could possibly outshine the brilliant facts.

And so by his own hand, we learn how often he irrigates his colon, how much better he feels without his AIDS cocktail (HIV is a hoax, he wants everyone to know), how much "yummy sperm" he drank in the last 24 hours as well as how much of this same "leche" he's currently holding in the contoured fastness of "my warm love hole". Unabashed, he discloses every detail of his divine predestination.

Take, for instance, that moment recently when he realized he had narrowly avoided arrest for a blow-job that just happened to develop when he was wagging his woody during a strip show in New York:

"I really fucking know that God was protecting me," he was moved to write afterward. "Cause the police has been quite few times lately in 'Splash Bar' but normally they do it on the weekends so all of my biggest thanks go to all of the fucking awesome angels that Jesus sent to protect me and give me such amazing first day of turning 26 years old."

Thus are the mysterious ways of the Nazarene, whom Jeff thanks at every turn for things great and small -- for his boyfriend "Papito" (obviously, they have an open relationship), for the existence of pot (which is not a drug, be advised, but "a plant created by God"), for the "fantastico" sales figures on his recent self-produced DVD Jeff Palmer RAW where he displays for the first time what he happily terms his "versatility": he performs as both Best Top and Best Bottom that Ever Was or Ever Will Be.

In fact, he wants his fans to know that he's already at work on a new epic of unconditional sex, affirming with glee that it will be "bareback -- of course!" -- an assertion likely to floor those readers still under the delusion that HIV is, in fact, a fact.

"Oh, how I hate realism!" frets our old friend Blanche Dubois as she hides an exposed lightbulb in the soft, flattering fantasy of a Chinese lantern. "I don't want realism, I want..."

But then who doesn't want -- magic!

John Calendo is a frequent contributor to Nightcharm and our new Pop Critic @ Large. His work has appeared in Playboy, Blueboy and boy oh boy everything in between. 

© 2002 Nightcharm, Inc. and John Calendo.
Plastic male doll: Photography by Shirin Kouladjie © 2002. Opening graphic: David K.