From: joe@spdcc.com (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Letter From Paris
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:41:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Jul21.164151.21458
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

Dear all;
   I must apologize for any and all who have been writing me letters over
the past months for incoherent or missing replies. I was long delayed on
a project deadline, and finally delivered, and all happy, I took a light
break from the office for the first part of July.

   Anyone who works with UNIX can imagine how delightful it is to port
an entire message-passing MACH-type unix into a special-purpose RISC
card, but not without the added fun of not having a manual for the
building of a device driver to handle the card in the host machine,
running extra-wonderful System V/386. In any case, logic triumphed
over reason, and I got the damn thing out the door.

   I have a backlog of around 250 letters, it would be more but for a
vain attempt occasionally to keep up. I have things to send to the US
(those who requested copies of "All Man", containing nudie photos of
moi), there are some missed rendez-vous, lots and lots of things to
catch up on.

   I've had eye surgery, also in the last month or so, and it went
beautifully, though I'm supposed to look "great" in glasses, I won't
be needing them anymore - my doctors are very happy with my progress
(-3.0 to +1 correction, settling down in the next 30 days to around
+-0.5) and no clouding or scarring (I had a special new kind of laser
reshaping of the cornea - Photorefractive Keratotomy).

   Other "bear" projects are going well too, and being launched in
London and Paris this week, and with some external cooperation, in
Amsterdam and Brussels the following week.

   If you have access to "Diseased Pariah News" (DPN, c/o Men's
Support Center, P.O. Box 30564, Oakland, CA 94604) I have an article
("Candy Pink", a thinly, or perhaps thickly veiled discussion of
racism and homophobia), and several photos of "porno-bear puppet"
Nicholas, all in this month's "Issue 6", a remarkably good issue
all around.

   I've also had a couple more friends die of AIDS over the last two
months, the most recent this Monday (who was surprised Tuesday when I
told him to take off his shirt so I could give him a better back
massage and pounding to loosen phlegm in his lungs even though he was
literally covered with KS lesions, I had to point out only the ones on
his arms were suppurating, and I'm a big boy.)  I suppose the only
thing that shocks me anymore is that HIV infection is so widespread in
the under-30 crowd. I have developed a habit of feeling nauseated
whenever I see unsafe sex now, like two weekends ago when a San
Francisco bartender visiting Paris was fucking all comers blithely in
a Paris backroom. Young French men are very bad about using condoms
even when they are free, and well-advertised to prevent HIV infection.
The UK and Amsterdam are much better, but the UK has always been good
about rubber things.

   A foreskin freak showed me highly interesting things to do with
condoms in Amsterdam. Met one MOTSSer from Oxford for drinks wearing a
well-oiled rubber singlet two sizes too small and other black
garments, and was followed across the gay section of Paris by
sophisticates yelling "dominatrix", and received a letter from a
delicious Persian on-again off-again trick saying he saw me in the
street and I looked so evil, soulless, oppressive, and menacing that
he could never have sex with me again without feeling that I was
secretly a sadistic monster about to victimize him. I took it as a
compliment.

  Contemplated having my bellybutton double-pierced by Mr. Ronald in
Amsterdam so I could wear a gold ring, but couldn't get an appointment.
I'm still fantasizing about getting an armband tattoo, but can't figure
out exactly what the pattern should be.

  So, I should be back again, a bit stronger than the first half
of the year, and more responsive in correspondance. I'm sorry if anyone
has felt slighted, or ignored. It wasn't intentional. I've a pile of
comic books to send to a certain someone in a Northern California city
for 6 months. 18-hour days will do that to you...





-- 
US Jojo; damp, slighly soiled, but tasty nonetheless.
Newsgroups: soc.motss,soc.bi