27 April 2020

everything old is new again

I just read a Facebook post from someone who was suddenly appalld that he'd spent 5 minutes watching a livestream of someone cutting his hair.

I immediately rememberd the mid to late '90s. there were some people who set up webcams in their homes which wd come on either from time to time or stayd on almost all day. a whole group of gay men -- including myself -- became addictd to watching what we calld cam boys or cam ops & historically became known as lifecasters.  there were Sean Patrick & Rex & Soren & Puppy & others. what we got in those days were glimpses of a life & not the porn by request which it apparently evolved into.

I became known as Poet Laureate of the Cam Boys because of poems I wrote abt them.  here's the first of a sequence calld "Refreshing Pages."

WATCHING SEAN PATRICK SLEEP

every 30 seconds he flashes on my monitor
like a Muybridge series
or a Warhol film stuck in the projector

guilty as Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window"
I observe a liftd leg
a hand jerk to cover crotch

I examine folds in the blue sheet
that covers him
like an art historian studying Zurbaran

this is hypnotism by design
as I loose sleep
watching a stranger sleep

(aug 1998)

there was an AOL chat room for fans of the cam boys. we'd often alert each other when a particular fave was undressing or whatever.  I met some dandy chaps there -- guys who are still friends. I was even interviewd by filmmaker Ron Pajak in Las Vegas for a documentary which never got made.

so this pandemic has brought us back to a place we were over 20 years ago.  I'm still friends on Facebook with Rex. last I heard & that's been some time Soren was a bartender in San Francisco. I have no idea what's happend to all the other cam boys. wonder if any of them are watching folks livestreaming the ordinary in these extraordinary times.






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