Well, as is sometimes the case, I was almost finished doing something (in this case, writing a rather lengthy book review on amazon) when an unexpected event occurred (a sudden power outage), causing several hours worth of work to be lost in space, if not to the ages. It was a good review, if I do say so myself, but amazon does not allow reviewers to save their material as they write and, while I had a premonition that it would be just my luck for a power outage to occur at just the wrong time today, I still didn't bother to save my work in Word. My misfortune, but that's the way it goes. The world will have to wait to read my brilliant and incisive review of the very late James Robert Baker's posthumously-published, transgressively savage, darkly comic, AIDS-era noir, Testosterone. My brilliance and incisiveness occurs in fits and starts and doesn't, as a rule, translate well to the page, so well, now you know. It could be awhile before the Muse pays a return visit. 

At any rate, if you're a prude, squeamish, sensitive to scenes of ultraviolence, require closure to your fiction, or just generally need a decent, uplifting read to keep you turning those pages, then Testosterone probably isn't the book for you. Which reminds me, there was a movie made a few years ago (in 2003, actually), allegedly based on the book, but the only real things they have in common are the title and the VERY general gist of the story. David Sutcliffe, from The Gilmore Girls, smokes and smirks insufferably as the gay anti-hero, while Antonio Sabato Jr. shows up as the nemesis/ex-lover he wants to kill. Sabato can't act, although to hear him tell it, it's Hollywood's CANCEL CULTURE preventing him from getting good movie roles, not any actual lack of acting talent. Both Sutcliffe and Sabato offer some fleetingly-glimpsed nudity but the glimpses are all too fleeting to save this movie. It's really, really bad. Giving Jennifer Coolidge and Sonia Braga more screen time might have helped but I doubt it. Coolidge utters the one funny line in the movie but you really have to watch the entire scene to appreciate it, and I don't want to put you through that. Truly, it's not that funny. 

I had an interesting dream the other night, the kind that stays with you for days afterwards. I was walking in some neighborhood--it may have been in Oklahoma City--and ended up in a narrow townhouse with a view out to the street. The streets seemed like they were in the early stages of being created, like in a new housing development, although the houses themselves weren't new. Two guys I used to know, Jay and Trevor, were living there, and neither they nor I had aged in the 20 years since I'd last seen them. In fact, I may even have been a little younger than them in the dream (in actual fact, I had at least a decade on them). There was a young woman there, too, and she, Jay and I were engaged in some sort of profound conversation while Trevor sprawled on a loveseat looking at a dirty magazine. Which is strange, because in real life, I would expect Jay to be the one looking at porn, not Trevor. So, anyway, we're talking very serious stuff and I'm simultaneously trying to sneak a peak at Trevor's zine. In the dream, I knew this girl but I have no idea who she actually is and, in fact, no longer remember what she looked like in the dream. I wind up walking down the street again and when I turn around, there's the old Mayflower Congregational Church way off in the east. I've never been within 100 feet of this building so I don't know how I know that this is that particular church but somehow I do, so I must be in Oklahoma City. Right? Then I go over a few blocks and walk up somebody's driveway and start snooping around in the open garage. Why, look, here's Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones. Don't know what they're doing in my dream but they're probably wondering why I'm putzing around in their garage Well, their presence here elevates the dream to a big-budget production so I'm not sure why the studio didn't at least spring for trees and fake grass. Might I suggest astro-turf next time? There's a duffel bag setting open on some stuff in the garage and I look inside, and I'm like, "Oh, my shoes!" because there's this pair of raggedy-ass sneakers, old Keds or something, in the bag. "We're glad you came back for your duffel bag," Ruby Dee says, and I think she may have asked me if I wanted to stay for supper but I'm not sure. I noticed something underneath the shoes when I was pulling them out and suddenly there was my old Boston Terrier, King, who was murdered by a piece of shit neighbor kid back in 1974. Wow, it was great seeing King again and we loved on each other for awhile, and I think I might have cried because I figured I was in a dream and we wouldn't have long to be together. Also, his death had been unexpected and vicious, and I hadn't been in town when it happened. So, after all this time, I got to hold him again for one last time. Then Ruby and James Earl walked me and King down the driveway and waved goodbye as we walked east towards the Mayflower Congregational Church in the distance. Well, I doubt if we were going to the church since I'm no fan of organized religion (nor it of me) but we headed off in that direction anyway, while the sun was busy setting in the western sky behind us, just a boy and his dog. 

THE END. 

(There was lots more to the dream, of course, but my subconscious did a good job of editing it down to an audience-friendly length before I got around to posting about it. Who knows, maybe the blu-ray will feature the complete version).